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COURTESY STEVEN MARK
Steven Mark and his mother, Lindy Li Mark, on a trip to Xian, China, in 2002. Behind them is a photo of members of the Academia of Sinica, a Chinese research organization that Steven’s grandfather, a linguistics professor, belonged to. The photo was part of a museum exhibit.
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When my grandparents would come to visit us when I was young, they and my mother, Lindy Li Mark, would often get together to sing Chinese opera. We all came to refer to that screechy, piercing sound as “cats in heat.”
My mother got the joke but continued to do it because she loved it, and after all these years, I’ve come to appreciate it as well, especially when performed to the lovely sound of the Chinese flute. It’s one of many things about my Chinese ancestry that my mother has tried to instill in me — though I’m never going to like bitter melon.
My mother, meanwhile, has gone on, after retiring from her position as an anthropology professor, to become somewhat of an authority on Chinese opera, doing a translation for a major production and traveling the world with it. She also gets interviewed by various professors and students writing scholarly studies on the subject.
We all learn a lot from our mothers when we are young, and as we get older, we come to treasure those lessons. I’ve been lucky enough to learn things from my mother as an adult as well, in particular, the value of persistence in the pursuit of something you believe has value.
As I meander through middle age, I can only hope that I can continue to grow in the interests that I have, as well as develop some new ones.
