For the second half of my first decade of life, I had a reputation as a liar.
I was in my teens the first time a friend (irritated to realize that I’d been nodding along with no idea what she was talking about) pointed out that I should ask when I didn’t understand something. What a novel idea! I was in my twenties before I grew comfortable asking…and even now, I wonder if I truly am always able to ask for clarification when I should.
It doesn’t take much to imagine why this might cause problems.
On some level, in my own childish way, I was always aware that this was a problem. In later years (by which I mean ages 8 through my early teens), I would blame it on language barriers, the moves and culture shock. I even relished the feel of believing this claim from time to time. Yet I know that that isn’t really the case. I have one particular, distinct memory that has never left me, and it contradicts that notion.
When I was five years old, before we moved to Japan, my newborn sisters and I lived with our mother at her parents’ place while we waited for our visas. The visa process took far longer than we expected (months: nearly half a year in all). I had one friend and a group of kids that I remember spending time with simply because they never said I couldn’t. I seized any new potential friends. On one occasion, I went to one new potential friend’s house (with my mother’s knowledge, as I hadn’t gone rogue quite yet). It must have been my first time there. His mother was Chinese*. I can’t recall her name, but I need a name for this story, so I’ll call her Fiona. Fiona began asking me questions.
I have to emphasize that I have no recollection of why I couldn’t understand the questions. Perhaps she had an accent (to this day, some accents can render me completely incapable of comprehending English that is, I am told, perfectly comprehensible to others). Perhaps I didn’t understand the way that the questions were phrased. Perhaps I was willfully refusing to listen. Or perhaps I was so confused about what was happening that I understood the words of the question but had no idea how they configured into something comprehensible within the framework of my recently uprooted life.
Fiona’s question that began my spiral of lies, for the record, was “Are you staring school in September?”
I was four years old when my father and I visited Japan for his job interview. I went with him because my mother, whose pregnancy had recently been found to be twins, had been prescribed a certain amount of bedrest and couldn’t look after me during his trip. I was sat in the corner during his interview, but it was absolutely necessary to inform him every time my crayon broke. (Nothing is more important when you don’t have the dexterity to peel the paper off the crayon to keep coloring. Ask anyone.) My father was mad at me as a result, but I didn’t understand the cause and effect, since he waited until later to scold me for my behavior. This and a fire alarm that went off in the hotel in the middle of the night were the highlights of my first trip to Japan. It was not a good first impression.
It had been explained to me that we were moving there. My parents seemed excited enough. I was excited at first. Then my school year ended at the preschool I attended. My mother and I went to see a play that we went to see every year, performed by a local Kindergarten. I had always expected to attend that Kindergarten. I asked my mother excitedly if I would now be going there next year.
“No,” she said to me in a way that I registered as absent and irritated (not an unusual state when I asked repetitive questions shortly after my sisters were born). “We’re moving to Japan.”
That was the first time that I understood that moving to Japan meant that we wouldn’t be living in Acton anymore. The realizations came one-by-one: no more friends, no more room of my own, no more English. I learned to by myself that summer. I staged my own mini rebellion when my parents put me into private Japanese lessons: whenever the teacher asked a question I would take a sip of my drink. All this got me was a suspension of my mid-lesson drink privileges. (I abandoned my rebellion of my own volition when I discovered that there were hand games in the book. I pointed one out to the teacher and she smiled and taught me that instead.)
Despite my rebellion, I was still in the process of working out what it all meant. It wasn’t only the move: the addition of twin sisters only a few months prior had also utterly upended the family dynamics I’d grown used to. My sense of reality was utterly compromised.
So, was I going to school in September? Well, my mother was always gushing about school and learning. I didn’t know. Could I go to school in September? Maybe. I said yes.
Fiona followed up with the question, “Are you going to Maple West?” Maple West was the local elementary school. I didn’t know this. I heard a jumble of sounds that I didn’t understand.
Maybe I was tired from my crisis over the previous question and a long day of playing. Maybe I was so confused that anything seemed possible. Maybe I didn’t care as long as I could stop answering questions.
I said yes again.
Later, at home, I wasn’t hungry at dinner. (I’d just had an existential crisis over whether or not I’d be going to school. It’s exhausting, but not in a way that works up an appetite.) I told my mother and grandmother that I’d eaten at Fiona’s house. (I had. It was a packet of peanuts like you’d get in a plane. I didn’t mention that, but I assumed they knew by telepathy, as mothers always do.)
“Oh,” said my grandmother. “Was it Chinese?”
Was it Chinese? What was Chinese? Well, Fiona was Chinese, so maybe it was. I said yes.
There were a few follow-up questions (“Was there rice?”) during which I realized I’d made a mistake. But how did I explain something so shameful as misunderstanding a question? Besides, I realized, if I told them, they would make me eat. I didn’t want to eat. So I nodded along to all their questions until they let me leave the table.
The next day, my mother and Fiona spoke. I received a thorough scolding about how I shouldn’t go around telling lies. I was ashamed, but even more confused. How was I supposed to answer these questions? I didn’t know. I was already a liar. My mother was always telling me how smart I was: better a liar, I thought, than to let on that I really wasn’t smart at all.
And this was all before language and culture got thrown into the mix.
*I honestly don’t remember if she was Chinese. It could have been Taiwanese, or some completely different Asian country. My memory of geography from the age of five is questionable.