How To Succeed at Being an Asian Daughter, While Really, Really Trying: Why It Is Impossible for Me to Buy Gifts For My Parents Part 1

It is nearly impossible to buy gifts for my parents.

Part 1:  For my parents, cash is a gift.  For me, it is not.

Background:  I am, despite my inclination towards the sarcastic, actually kind of a romantic idealist.  The evidence:

• The spines of my Jane Austen books are broken from multiple reads, and yes, I have watched all the BBC adaptations AND love them.  
• Christmas, to me, involves powdery snow and toboggans in an icy chill outside, while Christmas trees with lights and fireplaces and hot cider beckon warmly within.  
• There is that perfect man--"the ONE"--out there for me somewhere, a carefully concocted mixture of Mr. Darcy, Aragorn, and Michael-Fassbender-as-Mr-Rochester, and, yes, he will profess his love for me in a rainstorm, dammit!           
• OBGYN, as I waxed oh so eloquently in my application essay, was a perfect field in its combination of involvement in clinic and surgery and medicine.  And what could be more satisfying than delivering a baby and being part of such an intimate, special moment in a woman's life?
• As far as presents, they should be wrapped, and it's the thought that counts.

Clearly, when these lofty ambitions I have for life are incompatible with actual reality, it hits me quite hard.

• Christmases in the last few years have been disappointing not only for the fact that I have been working through them, but thanks to global warming and a dearth of floor space and energy, grossly lacking in cold, green and red decorations, lights, and pines.
• If there does live some mutant Darcy/Aragorn/Fassbender, he clearly doesn't exist outside of books, movie screen, or TV set.
• Never in my imagination did medicine involve so much disorderly ER and clinic rooms, unreasonably screaming patients, disgruntled nurses, massive fights with the laboratory, and useless paperwork, and so little actual surgery and helping of patients. 

• I find it completely incompatible with my very identity to give my parents something as thoughtless as cash as a Christmas gift.

The concept of giving cash or gift cards to my parents twists my mind in a Mobius tangle.  Is it just me, or don't cash/gift cards just scream, "THIS IS LAST MINUTE! I DON'T KNOW OR CARE FOR YOU AT ALL!"  At the minimum, it seems like a lack of effort.  If you know someone likes a certain store, couldn't you get something they might like (based on your knowledge of their personality and needs) and give them a gift receipt in case you thought wrong?  But then, if it's the thought that counts, and despite asking multiple times, all your parents say they want is cash moneys, then does cash show thoughtfulness and respect towards their request?  

The second problem I have with giving my parents cash is that they are Chinese, and they are frugal, and for all I know, they are spending the money on groceries or something completely practical and unromantic.  Am I a horrible daughter for wanting to treat them to something they probably would not buy for themselves, because it costs more than 15 dollars?  I kid, but for Asian parents who have worked hard and made major sacrifices to help their children succeed, is it not also respect to treat them to something lovely and extravagant that they may not have considered otherwise?  

The other problem to the "treat yo'self" gifts I try to press upon my wonderful, decent, but thrifty Asian parents:  their first comment is to question the price, and their second, to immediately dislike it for its cost, even if they liked it before knowing.  This is also known as Chinese restaurant syndrome:

Me:  How do you like [insert some non Chinese restaurant name here]?
Mom:  Well, it tasted good...but for the price of one of the entrees, we could have ordered three plates AND we could have taken  leftovers at Ruby Palace!

 Now is she right?  A tad bit exaggerated, but essentially, yes.  But it wasn't the point.  It was to share something I enjoyed, to enjoy a new experience together, to treat them to something nice.
(Until they scaled this back recently, it nearly ruined restaurants for me.  When they came to visit, I would only take them out to Chinese restaurants [and the rare Japanese one] so that I wouldn't be chastised at the end of the meal.)    

And really, is there a classy way to give cash?  Clearly making dollar bills rain is out of the question, and handing over a random wad of cash from your back pocket just looks like you're some low-level thug in a New Jersey mob, just trying to make it from day to day without anything that could possibly identify you, like credit cards.  Don't kid yourself:  tucking bills into paper cards or envelopes or 3D plastic mazes doesn't disguise the fact that you must be a distant relative sending in your vaguely cliched congratulations.






No, I've come to believe that the only truly classy way to give money is in fine Italian leather, like this:

Unfortunately, it'll be a long time before I have enough money to fill one of those babies.  Mom, Dad, you're going to have to wait.

interesting link on briefcases and money:  "Thank you, Fat Tony. However, in the future I would prefer a nondescript briefcase to the sack with a dollar sign on it." — Mayor "Diamond" Joe Quimby, The Simpsons

Coming soon:  Part 2:  What to Get Your Parents When They Have No Hobbies