TIME'S ASHES

Tradition runs deep in Chinese blood. They are etched into rituals, meals, family roles, even the silences between generations. My family, proud of its heritage, kept those traditions like heirlooms: polished on the outside, quietly rusting underneath.

But as a historian, or at least, one in the making, I can’t help but question the purpose of preserving something just because it’s old.

We study the past to understand the present, not to be shackled by it. And yet, so many customs survive not out of wisdom, but out of fear. Fear of dishonoring the dead, of inviting shame, of becoming “less Chinese.”

Even when a tradition is clearly harmful—when it bruises more than it binds—it’s defended with one infuriating phrase: “It’s how our ancestors did it.”

It’s not that I don’t love my heritage. I do. But sometimes, I wonder if love is supposed to come with this much silence.

Then again… maybe I only think this way because I’m only half: half American, half Chinese-Filipino. Is that why these traditions feel like they don’t quite fit?

Does that make me less of a Chinese-Filipino?

Or not quite American enough, either?

Sometimes, I wonder if my discomfort with all this started long before I could name it.

I still remember the way A-ma looked at my mother—like she was a crack in porcelain, something that ruined the whole piece just by existing. In her eyes, my dad marrying an American woman was more than rebellion. It was betrayal.

“You dilute the blood,” A-ma once spat at him, the words like vinegar. “You throw away generations for a woman who will never understand us. Outsiders bring disasters. Don’t come crying to the family when that woman abandons you.”

She never called my mom by her name—only that woman—and treated her like an outsider even inside our own home. My dad tried, for years, to be the bridge. But A-ma only believed in walls.

Tradition, she would say, must stay pure. That meant marrying Chinese, raising obedient children, keeping the family business within “real” family lines. No outsiders, no exceptions.

But that kind of purity always came with a cost. For my father, it was his peace. For my mother, her dignity. For me, it was watching the people I loved turn cold and silent in the name of “what’s proper.”

The last time we saw A-ma was after the final fight. Loud voices behind a closed door, shattered Hokkien bleeding through the walls, my father yelling for the first time in my life. He walked out red-faced and silent, carrying only a small suitcase in one hand and my mother’s hand in the other. I was fourteen.

By the time our plane left Manila, I didn’t know if we were running away or just finally letting go.

We started over in California. New schools, new routines, and a silence around my father’s family that hung heavier than anything we’d packed in our luggage. He never talked about what happened. Not really. Just said, “It’s better this way,” like that was enough to explain a lifetime of unspoken things.

But over the years, bits and pieces started to reach me: whispers from my aunties, reluctant confessions over long-distance calls, or quiet side-comments during weddings or reunions I’d attend alone when I got older.

My father was the eldest of four. The “responsible one,” as they always said. One younger brother and two younger sisters, all of whom adored him. But even they admitted something was off about how A-ma treated him.

“She was always hot and cold,” Auntie Mei once told me, stirring a bowl of halo-halo like it might cool the memory down. “One day she’d be doting on him like he was her little emperor. Next day, she’d slap his hand away for breathing too loud.”

They used to think it was just pressure—the eldest son always carries the weight in a Chinese family. But as they grew older, they began to suspect it was something else. Something deeper.

“She looked at him… different,” Auntie Lei whispered once, almost afraid of saying it out loud. “Sometimes with love. But not the usual mother-son kind. Like longing. Regret.”

I remember that word longing sticking with me. Like a stone dropped in water. A-ma had never struck me as capable of longing. Only control.

There were moments, my aunties said, when they’d catch her gazing at him from across the room—soft-eyed, wistful—until she realized she was being watched. Then she’d blink, stiffen, and snap at him over nothing. His shirt wasn’t tucked in. He was chewing too fast. He wasn’t respectful enough. The list changed. The coldness remained.

As the years passed, her anger grew more pointed. And my father, once proud and stubborn, just started shrinking around her. Not physically—he was still the tallest in the family—but in spirit. Like he was trying to make himself smaller, quieter, less noticeable for her.

A-pa never stepped in. Not once. He was always working, always somewhere else—physically present, but emotionally absent. The family business came from A-ma’s side, passed down through the Ong lineage with tight, ancestral pride. A-pa had married in, an outsider who spent most of his life trying to earn their trust, to prove he was worthy of the Ong name.

There was no space in his world for softness, no time for doting on children. And certainly no room to protect the eldest son from emotional whiplash. It had always been A-ma’s kingdom. Maternal, exacting, unyielding—from the beginning, all the way to the day A-pa died.

And in that kingdom, love was selective.

A-ma seemed to have no love for anyone, not really. She could be gentle with her other children—Auntie Mei, Uncle Jun, even Auntie Lei sometimes—but it was a cold sort of affection, the kind that expected loyalty in return. With A-pa, there was no warmth at all. Just quiet disdain, like she’d married a man beneath her and never forgave him for it.

But it was my father who bore the brunt of it. The eldest. The one who sinned just by being born.

No one ever figured out what really happened between them. Maybe no one wanted to. It’s easier, sometimes, to blame culture. To say that’s just how Chinese mothers are, that Chinese culture dictates that eldest children must be strong. But I’ve studied history long enough to know that people often hide behind culture when the truth is too personal to face.

That’s why it shocked me so much when, after eleven years of silence, my phone lit up with a call from Auntie Mei.

“A-ma’s been asking for your father,” she said quietly, like the words were fragile and could break if spoken too loud. “She’s been calling him… over and over.”

I felt my breath catch. After all those years, after all that distance, the woman who had pushed him away was reaching out.

“Dementia has gotten the best of her. It’s been a tough 2 years. But now the doctors say it’s only going to get worse,” Auntie Mei continued. “Sometimes she remembers us. Sometimes she doesn’t. But lately… she keeps asking for him. Wants to see him again before it’s too late.”

The idea of reconciliation, after all the years of cold silence and hurt, felt both impossible and inevitable.

My aunties are hoping my father will go back. To close the gap, to heal the wounds before the door closes for good.

But will it really be that simple?

After everything he’s been through, can he really face A-ma again? The years of heartache, the silence, and the sharp edges between them. It’s more than just distance.

I still remember how no one in the family came to my mother’s wake because A-ma forbade it. Except for Uncle Jun, who quietly showed up, carrying the weight of a broken family all by himself, offering the flowers secretly sent by Aunties Mei and Lei.

No one was there when my family was grieving. From that time on, it was always just my dad and I. Will he be able to forgive just because somebody asks of it? I’m sure it’s not that simple.

There are things left unsaid—things no apology could fix. And the question that’s been with me since I was a child lingers now more than ever:

Why does A-ma hate dad so much?

And why is she asking for him now?