The Dishwasher

The dishwasher remains a good litmus test for relationships and communications. It embodies and connects so many signifiers. It is a salvation and a contradiction. It costs, yet it saves. It serves, yet we must also serve it. How do you stack the dishes? How do you direct the cutlery? How often do you start a cycle? Should we splurge on expensive tablets? Is it environmentally friendly? What time of the day should it start? Who empties the dishwasher? Is it a chore? Or is it a liberating machine? Does that make hand washing redundant? What must remain unwashed? Who gets to determine the way we use the machine? Whose rules, expectations, or fears get to dictate our interactions?

The dishwasher was the spark, but the fire lay elsewhere. Here, it erupted and revealed our disagreements. With Mama at the ICU, the two men were now in the kitchen after these long days. They’ve always been afraid of the dishwasher. It is not popular in their generation, and no one has shown them how it works. A few years ago, I sent him a YouTube video explaining the function of the rinse aid and that it’s not a waste of money. It’s usually here where I slowly lose my patience after intense, long days of being together. But is it just about patience?

Like a holiday, a dishwasher is a revealing place to observe the subtle power dynamics at play. Whose habits must be enforced? Who gets to voice discoveries, observations, and changes, and who doesn’t?

One must pick one’s battles. But what happens when you can’t? Nelson Mandela visited Gaza in 1999 and said, “Choose peace rather than confrontation.” This is where the west finds urgency to make cuts, but he continues, “…except in caes where we cannot move forward. Then, if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.”

My father and I are far from needing to opt for violence. However, between peace and physical violence, there are so many steps in which negotiations might go wrong. Growing up, migration and linguistic complications due to the process of colonialism are a daily challenge. The violence of forced assimilation and the different stages we are at cause immense strain. For most of my life, with my parents, different viewpoints and disagreements have made me mostly choose the muted way. This would result in the eventual decision to exit. To take a different path. The high road, as they say. To not engage. Go where they treat you better. But the truth is, you can never run away from some things. Some things haunt you forever.

I noticed at certain moments of rupture with Baba, the frustration, the anger. How does it map out with my relationship? But I noticed one aspect remained distinctly different: I did not feel the urgency to run away. Perhaps I feel a certain confidence. I know what I am talking about with regard to the stupid dishwasher. I also know the distress Baba is experiencing. I know the trauma that he has endured in his childhood and in his lifetime as my father. As a man. I know the reasons behind his penny-pinching, his inability to enjoy things, and his inconsistent logic. I also notice his lack of aggression outwards. He is not mad at me; he directs no accusation, no resentment towards me. He is purely frustrated, panicked, and overwhelmed.

The mornings are better for me here due to the jetlag. I wake up at around 2:30 AM each day. I lie in bed, scrolling until around 3, sometimes ashamedly, until around 3:30 AM. I ask myself what precisely I am waiting for, the sunrise? Pretending to live an office life? I finally get up and head to Mama’s study. I write under a framed poem, written for her by her master.

春有百花秋有月，
夏有涼風冬有雪。
若無閒事掛心頭，
便是人間好時節。

春蓮女棠清賞
己丑年秋下鄭
王亨光

In spring, there are a hundred flowers; in autumn, the bright moon.
In summer, the cool breeze; in winter, the snow.
If you have no worries weighing down your heart and mind,
That, then, is the finest time in the realm of the living.

Dedicated to Chunlian (the name of my mother, which means Spring Lotus), appreciating beauty, and a date reference to 2009, the Autumn year of Jǐchǒu. It refers to the sexagenary cycle, a traditional Chinese system that cycles every 60 years.¹

Signed by Wang Hengguang, her master.