How to Turn a Negative Into a Positive
Another Thanksgiving is approaching. Considering I am no longer closely involved with American Thanksgiving in the years ahead, I’d like to solemnly reflect on this topic, from the perspective of someone who sought to immigrate.
Besides the annual Canadian Thanksgiving dinner with my awesome lab mates from 2012 to 2013, and the annual banquet hosted by the Graduate School Council of Ohio State, my buddy Karl invited me to his big family’s Thanksgiving dinner every year during my stay in Ohio. I was grateful for the generosity of his entire family. I only made it to his grandpa’s home once, due to some prior engagements in subsequent years, but Karl never forgot me on Thanksgiving. A spot was always reserved for me regardless of my circumstances. (Similarly, when I was in Davis, CA, a professor once told me that I should consider a seat reserved for me whenever his lab organized some interesting academic events related to the psychology of music.)
In 2013, my classmate from my Complex Analysis course invited me to her home for Thanksgiving. The invitation happened in August, and she reiterated it in October. She was a 1.5-generation immigrant from Vietnam, and her husband was a physicist from a European country. I also met some of her friends, including one Taiwanese girl and an African-American dude. It was a lively gathering outside the city of Columbus. That fall semester, I was still living with Jeremy and Jessica, two important characters in my book The Snowy Battlefield of Ohio.
That October, I asked Jeremy if I could join his family in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Having previously met his parents at our “Shining” House, I wanted to experience the Thanksgiving culture in Pennsylvania. To my surprise, he was amused that I wanted to insert myself into some American family for that holiday. (In contrast, Karl almost assumed that it was natural for a potential immigrant like me to want such experiences.) Later, Jeremy informed me that his family was going to visit his cousin’s family for Thanksgiving that year, so it wouldn’t work out. In theory, had I gotten the opportunity to share a bit of positive experience with him and his extended family, that could be beneficial for our tricky relationship. Yet that kind of experience was simply not meant to exist. In retrospect, he and I never had dinner together even as housemates, let alone Thanksgiving dinner — a deeply familial occasion for many people. I wouldn’t be accepted into his circle whatsoever. People like Karl and his family weren’t the norm in America.
In 2014, I flew back to China on Thanksgiving Day. The air ticket was the lowest on that day, making it an easy decision. By then, I had attended Karl and Lindsay’s wedding. On one of the domestic flights toward the West Coast, an African-American air attendant asked us passengers to imagine how we each would contribute a dish to a virtual Thanksgiving dinner. When she asked what I would bring, I said “sushi”, and she got enthusiastic. “Oh my god, did you guys hear that? He says he’s going to bring us some sushi!” This is how I interpreted it: authentic Japanese food was very exotic in the Midwest, unlike in California.
In 2015, my first year in Davis, CA, I was lucky to be invited by my new buddy from Cleveland for a potluck-styled Thanksgiving dinner. The attendees were grad students or junior employees associated with the Department of Psychology — all White except me, and I was used to that. While UC Davis had lots of Asian students, most of them were California natives, who would go home for the holiday. The potluck attendees were mostly from out of state. I remember ordering three bottles of mead on Amazon to be delivered to their house in advance. We had joy, we had fun, and I loved these psych & neuro colleagues. Right before dinner, as we went around the table sharing thoughts, I, the last person in the circle, uttered the following sentence, “Let’s make America great again…without Donald Trump!” My half-joke was well received among this group of intellectuals. Somehow, Trump did get elected in the following year.
Unfortunately, that was the last time for this annual Friendsgiving event. In 2016, many people I knew moved to Sacramento, with no regret. Others still in Davis told me they didn’t know how to tackle Thanksgiving either.
So what happened to me in 2016?
Eventually, I wasn’t able to find any host after a moderate amount of effort, and I didn’t seem to have many close connections outside my department. My boss and my only co-worker were gone to reunite with their families. The few Chinese folks I knew didn’t want assimilation. I couldn’t ask anybody explicitly because Julian, the buddy who I went skydiving with in Ohio, told me it was shameful to invite oneself to someone’s Thanksgiving dinner. I couldn’t expose my loneliness on social media either: the last time I did, it backfired, leading to miserable consequences (see my book The Snowy Battlefield of Ohio for details) against the background of the snowstorm. It served as an instant punishment as in operant conditioning. Although I later realized that the person who chose to “punish” me exhibited the dark triad in personality psychology on a subclinical level, it didn’t erase the fundamental problem that as a person studying or working on a visa, I had no real family to spend Thanksgiving with. The hollowness was objective. Yes, I did feel isolated, but nobody owed me anything by not including me in their Thanksgiving dinner or party.
My only housemate at that time was my landlord, and he flew to San Diego to spend Thanksgiving with his family, after leaving a mess for me to deal with. What kind of mess? The week before Thanksgiving Day, I noticed rodent poop in the kitchen drawers. The landlord blamed me for not keeping the door closed when I entered the backyard, but he had never told me there could be rodents coming into the house from the yard, let alone the big possum that would steal food from his cat. I was simply overwhelmed and wasn’t able to transcend that situation and defend my rights. “Macho American guys like to put the blame on others, just like Jeremy did,” I told myself at that time. The landlord was pretty much this type of personality, and it’s irrational to generalize it to all Americans.
Now as I re-examine this case, I understand that landlords certainly would not tell the potential tenants about the potential hazards, for fear of scaring people away from the deal; just like most employers, such as Mr. Osman, would not inform the employees of the occupational hazards in the job tasks, unless mandated by law, for fear of scaring people away from the job. By the way, the possum in the courtyard indicated Davis was “a big farm,” as therapist Layla finally acknowledged in 2017.
I spent the entire Thanksgiving weekend washing all the vessels and culinary tools in the dishwasher, one load per day. I felt like a maltreated child laborer or a male version of Cinderella. A bit exaggerated, of course, yet something similar.
That lonely Thanksgiving was a bit less lonely than in the snowstorm season of Ohio, and what kept me up and sane was the book written by Mark Manson, in which he said (as I paraphrase), “Even if it’s not your fault, it’s your responsibility to get your life fixed.” On lucky days, I had friends to share the burden, but most of the time I had to process the negative emotions myself.
By the time the landlord returned, everything was nice and clean. He praised me, “Good man. Good job.” But I didn’t feel good. The same person once poured blue-colored powder into my bathtub for me to rub it clean on a Friday night, when I was already exhausted after a week’s work. However, as I cared about the long-term relationship with my landlord, a moral, quirky, and non-hypocritical person in general, I thanked him for teaching me how to clean the bathtub during our argument over texting. It became a turning point for our relationship then. However, I was mindful of the boundary as well as the primarily transactional nature of this relationship. As an immigrant, in order to survive, you have to transcend the dimensions and become disillusioned earlier than your peers.
You know, in history, a couple of young Asian friends of mine told me directly or indirectly, “You’re weird.” An acquaintance of mine expressed a similar idea in a politically correct way, such as “neurodivergent.” What they didn’t know is, how I developed into that “weird” person after being in an inferior position in so many relationships, as a stranger in a strange land. Every time I felt like collapsing, I pulled myself up and turned on my TuneIn app to listen to Third Rock radio or some comedy.
I didn’t do anything related to Thanksgiving that year, but at least I enjoyed some Californian sunshine, and I noticed some local non-Chinese diners were still open that day. After I accepted the fact that this Thanksgiving thing was too much of a hassle, I began to do something meaningful: I spent that weekend planning a trip to Arizona for the Christmas season that year. I booked my flights, and the hostel, and studied the recommendations on Google Trips carefully. For me, traveling without a plan is way too luxurious.
In December 2016, I met old and new friends on that trip, and saw the red rocks of Sedona as well as the snow-dusted Grand Canyon, led by our amazing tour guide, who was also functioning as the driver. One day I saw the huge cacti as tall as human beings in the Botanic Garden; the next day I saw a mind-blowing variety of musical instruments in a museum. One day I had birthday lunch with my favorite Objectivist from New Hampshire; the next day I climbed to the top of a mountain with 3 nice and smart Asian ladies. Not sure why, I said “no” when the man dressed as Santa Claus asked me to have a high-five with him. I forgot it was a Christimas vacation!
The lodging I had in the hostel really “bugged” me with its hygiene issue, though the Southern hospitality was impeccable. After several nights’ struggle, I finally caught the bugs on my pillow at night and showed them to the manager the next morning, who was convinced of the severity of the problem and switched me and the other dudes into a better room. (In contrast, female guests were accommodated in the better rooms from the beginning.) I asked for a partial refund after the trip. Yes, I did. I also believe I did something beneficial for mankind by investigating the case instead of running away.
At the end of 2016, all you could see on my Facebook timeline were those happy pictures taken on this trip, but only I knew the frustration behind the pictures ( my German roommate in the hostel would echo that), as well as the poignant Thanksgiving weekend which was “sacrificed” to lay the foundation for this meaningful and fruitful Christmas vacation. Can I replace the lonely memories with the happy ones? Of course not, according to psychology. One can only reveal the truth after so many years, when totally out of that situation, with no fear to piss anyone off. This is why the genre of memoir exists.
I refuse to rationalize that Thanksgiving meant nothing to me. However, I sometimes have no control over my interaction with these country-specific or culture-specific holidays. I did not have a biological or legal family that honored Thanksgiving Day. No coping method could work well year after year. When a holiday becomes something one has to cope with, it’s probably a good idea to just neutralize it. Whenever you’re celebrating some special day, don’t forget that some people might struggle with the perceived alienation on that day. For example, Father’s Day or Mother’s Day for people growing up in a toxic family, or people with an estranged family. Veteran’s Day, for someone whose beloved was shot by a veteran with PTSD. Teachers’ Day, for someone humiliated, harassed, or assaulted by their teacher. Columbus Day, for the indigenous people. World Mental Health Day, for people locked up in the psychiatric ward. To name but a few.
Till today, I am still thankful to those who included me, particularly when the inclusion was not because I looked exotic to them. I am not genuinely thankful to those who hurt me without repentance, even if some song lyrics say we should. Americans, please, if you can, treat the foreigners and immigrants with some respect and courtesy, or at least don’t assume everybody already has things sorted out for themselves. Minority immigrants in general have a high rate of adjustment issues and mental disorders. People also suffer from intermittent loneliness wherever they go. No one deserves to be neglected. However, being neglected doesn’t mean the end of the world. As I often say, even if nobody else in this world loves you, you should still love yourself. Plus, real life is always better than that bottom line.
Ultimately, how do you turn a negative into a positive, when you’re helpless like I was? You choose objectivity and reallocate resources with a strategy. You give up on things that don’t belong to you conceptually, and focus on things that you deserve regardless of who you are. You’re not supposed to have something just because others around you all have it. It’s an undeniable fact. Similarly, you can personally celebrate things others don’t. When I was a grad student, I was lucky to have a taste of Thanksgiving due to others’ courtesy, but it wasn’t part of my life by default. Neither is Halloween. I’m at peace and don’t feel miserable at all. By the way, I refuse to participate in any traditional Chinese holidays at this age because I simply don’t identify with their traditional culture. I don’t feel isolated either. On the contrary, if I am forced to observe those, they are violating my free will (although this concept doesn’t really exist in Chinese culture).
So, Happy Thanksgiving, if it matters to you. If not… Do you notice that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas? You don’t need a family gathering to celebrate Christmas, but a hopeful attitude toward life. Of course, if someone you like invites you to their Thanksgiving dinner, why not join them? My whole point is: don’t try too hard to find a host.
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