Soulmate Gem
Soulmate Gem
Photo: cottonbro studio
Traditionally, older Chinese and Vietnamese women wear jade around their wrists to protect and heal the body, and to ward off bad spirits.
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Read More »Mum was surprised when I first expressed interest in wearing a jade bangle. “You know they’re for old ladies, right?” My mother and uncle had me cornered, each grabbing my arm. He started pouring sunflower oil over my hand. Mum hovered to my right clutching a green jade bangle, ready to push it onto my wrist once it was slippery enough. She had been surprised when I first expressed interest in wearing one. “You know they’re for old ladies, right?” But I was more surprised when she pulled one out from a dusty jewellery box. “I bought it six months after you were born. Haven’t worn it yet,” she’d said as she placed it in my hands. It had lain dormant, wrapped in velvet and secrecy for 29 years, until she’d offered it to me. Honestly, I didn’t know why I wanted to wear one, either. The “old lady” thing was true. Traditionally, older Chinese and Vietnamese women wear jade around their wrists to protect and heal the body, and to ward off bad spirits. I wasn’t sure why I wanted something that was so obviously Asian jammed onto myself, when I’d spent a lifetime avoiding anything that shouted ‘Vietnamese!’ too loudly. My parents had migrated after the Vietnam War and had me, a child who grew up on a diet of Happy Meals and Disney. I thrived on groaning at their otherness. The way they ate spaghetti with chopsticks. Belted out tragic Viet songs at karaoke. Slathered their cheeseburgers with sriracha sauce. These cultural faux pas felt like a suffocating grit I couldn’t wash off, no matter how much I tried to bathe myself in conformity. Traditionally, older Chinese and Vietnamese women wear jade around their wrists to protect and heal the body As a kid, I’d watch the women in my family with anthropological remove, fascinated and mortified in equal measure. A gaggle of clucking aunties, grandmothers and cousins, I’d cringe as they loudly spat Vietnamese animatedly at one another, on the bus or at the mall. Their jade bangles would slip around next to their garish pearly pink nails as they chatted, gesturing wildly. I could feel people looking at them, my skin prickling with embarrassment. The action in my childhood kitchen didn’t happen at the breakfast bar, like they did on cereal ads and sitcoms, but on the linoleum floor. It was where fish were cleaved and cabbages shredded. On particular Saturday afternoons, the women of the house would gather in the kitchen while beers cooled in the fridge, and get to work on the evening’s feast. They would perch on stout plastic stools, their green bangles tinkling against gold bracelets as they chopped lemongrass, washed fresh herbs and mixed nước mắm pha. Historically, jade bangles indicated social status. But the only status I saw in them was ‘outsider’. Growing up, I did my best to not disturb the air around me, and instead tried to disappear into the day-glow colours of the books, magazines and music videos I voraciously consumed. I begged Mum for Air Jordans (she got me imitations) and adorned my hair in cheap, shimmery hair barrettes I’d seen the girls on TV wear.
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Read More »My uncle struggled with the bracelet, carefully pushing the hard stone over my hand whilst trying not to hurt me. Mum took over, exasperated. With a last push and a grunt, the bangle was on my wrist. Bruises were already forming on the sides of my hand, but the pain was over. The three of us stared at it in silence. “Well, that’s not coming off. You’re stuck with it now,” Mum said wryly.
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