My Brain Versus Yours Edit2

8/14/2019 My Brain Versus Yours Edit2

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My Brain Versus Yours

by Candice Chu


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I watched my dad pace back and forth in the study room with the telephone pressed

against his ear. Every time he walked more than five steps, the springy telephone cord would jerk

him back around, and hed pace the other way.

Calm down, he said in Vietnamese. I already talked to Siu. Shes going to take the

drafts to Kinkos tomorrow. He was trying to control his voice, but his eyebrows were

scrunching up and his face was getting all red. I quickly turned back to my blank computer

screen (I was supposed to be writing about nuclear transparency in Asia) and tried to ignore the

potentially explosive situation right behind me.

If you ask someone for a favor, dont yell at him while he tries to do it! my dad

bellowed into the receiver. If you

There was a pregnant pause. My pinky finger froze just over the return key.

OH? OH? THEN I GUESS YOU CAN JUST DO IT YOURSELF. My dad slammed

the phone down so hard that it popped right back out of the cradle.

My fucking mother! I heard him swear as he stormed down the hall. I gingerly picked

up the phone and put it back into place.

Later that day, my dad came and sat next to me at the kitchen table. I raised my copy of

The Roadin front of my face, while inattentively reading the same lines 20 times over:He lay

listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. My dad sighed loudly. I reluctantly looked

up.

Can, you know, youre a lot like Ba, he said. Can is my familys abridged version of

Candice. Ba is what we call my grandmother. I glanced sideways at my dad and wondered

what on Earth he could be getting at.


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Call it stereotypical Asian patriarchy, but my dad has always been the domineering,

money-making Head of Household, and never very touchy-feely. He did not feed me endless

stories about his childhood or try to compare my hardships with the ones he faced as a young

man living in Viet Nam. He did tell occasional stories, but they were far from tragic. The one he

always used to tell was about how he accidentally burned off one of his eyebrows as a child, and

thats why, according to his humorous perception of genetics, my sisters right eyebrow is a little

more sparse than her left one.

So I guess I was a little alarmed that he was attempting to sit me down for a heart-to-heart

about my family. In fact, the only thing I really knew about my grandma was that she was

demanding, and a poet.

You mean, were the same because we both write poems? I ventured.

Yes, he answered, like Id just said something profound. Youve got the poet mindset.

Youre so creativeartistic. You have really got a gift.

I shrugged, but smiled. On some level, I had always been proud of my dad for even being

able to accept that I was an artistically inclined person. A lot of my friends, especially the Asian-

American ones, were very talented, artsy kids whose parents were all but forcing them to go

off to medical or law school some day. My dad and I didnt really talk about the future very

much, but my sister was currently off at Stanford studying human biology, and although I knew

he would never force me to, I think my dad hoped that I would follow her lead.

But, he added ominously, there is such thing as being too artistic. You let your

emotions control your actions and youre in big trouble. I knew he was talking about my

grandmother then. Some artists are so passionate about their work that they risk their

relationships, their welfare, even theirlivesjust to get that, I dont know, sense of fulfillment.


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But Can. Its all in the brain. Take me for example. I slouched in my seat, knowing that this

conversation wasnt about to end as quickly or blithely as I had hoped. Im left brained. I am

logical and rational. I always think everything through. But you are very right brained. You tend

to be impulsive and overly sensitive.

Dad, I interrupted, trying not to let this conversation get any more awkward then it

already was.

Let me finish. You need to look out for yourself, because if you are too sensitive, then

you will get hurt more than anybody else. Its not good to be too touchy, too right-brained. Youll

always end up disappointed and upset.

I stared. You want me to go do a Rubiks Cube or something?

Think about it, Can, he said seriously.

Last week in my dorm room, I wondered what my classmates would think of all the

weird art sculptures that I had lying around my room at home: the much-larger-than-life

McDonalds French Fries, the fluffy electrical outlet, the gigantic waffle-on-top-of-a-doghouse,

and my personal favorite: the pillow/ravioli, with cardboard trim and foam-paper pasta sauce.

My obsession with 3D art started in middle school, when I discovered the Swedish-

American sculptor Claes Oldenburg. Oldenburg specialized in pop art sculptures; he made super-

sized models of everyday objects and foods. The first time I saw one of Oldenburgs works (a

gigantic upturned ice cream cone on the roof of a building in Europe), I laughed out loud.

Nobody else did, but I found it hilarious. All of Oldenburgs sculptures are a gross reversal of

expectations. Why is that ice cream cone so big? Why is it 50 stories off the ground, on the

corner of an office building? Why?? All I knew was that every time I laid eyes on one of those


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ridiculous giant figures, I felt a sense of wonder so great, it left me laughing. In 2004, I came

across one of the most beautiful pieces of art I have ever seen, in the sculpture garden of the

Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art: a typewriter eraser. A plain red typewriter eraser, with its

round bottom resting on the grass. But it was gargantuan, and shiny, and flawless, and familiar,

and yetalien. As I stared at the sculpture, mouth agape, I felt the oddest sense of awe, of

inspirationone that was usually reserved for poetry. It was goddamn beautiful. I went home

that day and made a 6 foot fork to go with my pillow ravioli.

Thinking about all this made me wish that I had brought one of my goofy creations with

me to college, just so I could have some vestige of my weird life back. I was feeling out of place,

trapped in a world of athletes and engineers. Do engineers enjoy art? I wondered. Or are they so

left-brained that instead of seeing the beauty of sculpture, all they can see when looking at a

giant ice cream cone are angle measurements and volume calculations? These thoughts

depressed me. I couldnt help but wish I were somewhere else, and, cruelly enough, I couldnt

help but remember something my dad had said to me a few months back:

See? Your essay was too art-oriented. William and Mary probably didnt like that artsy-

fartsy stuff. Next time, write something more standard.

Two days before I left home for college, my best friend and I talked on the phone about

what we were packing for school. Clothes, toiletries, books, writing utensils, plastic cutlery,

bedding, shoes.

Do you think Ill have room in my dorm for my guitar? Tiffany asked.

Which? Electric or acoustic?

Both.


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Maybe I said dubiously. Im just going to bring my ukulele. And my egg shaker.

And the Box, of course. The box was a hollow, percussive instrument used for drumming, but to

us it was just The Box. Id bought it so I could bring it to college with me.

Later that night, Tiffany showed up at my house with Tam Le, and we lay around in the

room of my basement that we call the band room, even though we dont really have a band,

and just saying band room makes me feel immature and silly. But we had christened it in 8th

grade, and calling it anything else just felt wrong.

We spread ourselves out on the floor, among a mass of instruments. My head was

propped up on a trumpet case and my feet were resting on one of my old bass guitars. We were

doing what we always did: listening to our mp3 players through one of my huge amplifiers. That

night was a Decemberists night.

I havent really listened to the newer album yet, Tam said, scrolling his thumb over the

wheel of my iPod. Tiffany and I alternated making squeaky noises of outrage until he swatted at

us and told us to shut up. We listened to The Crane Wife and talked and joked about things only

we understood and laughed obnoxiously and leaned against each other like children and Ive

never felt more like myself than I did right then. The atmosphere was peaceful, but there was an

underlying sense of anxiety that couldnt be avoided. We were all thinking so hard. There was a

crescendo. I felt the bodies next to me become tense, felt them hold their breath, absorbing

everything. All the voices joined in to urge the song home.

Ohhh noooo, Tam grunted, kicking my ankle. I kicked him back in agreement. We all

felt it. That incredible pull towards...There was that feeling like wed just found something so

unbelievably rare, so tremendous, that we had to rush out and tell everyone we knew, but also

that feeling that we had to protect it, because it was too valuable to just give away like candy. It


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occurred to me then, for one tiny, fleeting second, that I was doing one of the things that my

father had always warned me about. I was giving in to my emotions in a big way, letting them

take hold of me and control every inch of me.

I leaned my head on my friends shoulder and felt like I was about to be pulled into some

vast explosion that would complete me, that would obliterate me.

When I listen to this, Tam said, it makes me want to call you guys and be like, You

know what guys? This is it. I love you guys. We all laughed so hard then, we couldnt stop. We

laughed too hard, for too long.

Why do we, when faced with something so astounding, lose control of ourselves? We

laugh and we cant stop. We cry and we cant stop. We grasp and we cant let go. Its that

wondrous pull. That pull towards poetry, towards art, towards music, towards friends, towards

leaving.

I know that my father believes in logic and independence and rationality. I also know that

the reason he always ends a conversation with my grandmother by hanging up on her is because

he doesn't understand her need to focus on every little detail of her poetry. I can see the

disapproval in his face when she tries to explain to him that everything matters. This is only

going to drive you crazy, he thinks. But what he doesnt understand is that for my grandmother,

this attachment to poetry is something that is worth going crazy about.

So, if my father prefers that I dont get attached to my art, or my music, or my friends and

family, then I feel very sad for him. I wish he could see things the way that I see themthe way

that my grandmother sees them. The truth is, I love to love. And experiencing pain (the backlash

of all this attachment and love) isnt just worthbeing able to feel so many other emotions, it isnt

just the price you pay for happiness; its half of the experience of life, half of the phenomenon of


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existing. If life were a war over our very humanity, the right brain would be raging and crying

and fighting,passionately, while the left brain would be sitting in the corner with a Rubiks cube.

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My Brain Versus Yours Edit2