Our Stories

Wan Bao -- The Environmentalist

In Brief: Parents and children don't often see eye to eye, especially when they grow up in different cultures. Marketing Manager Ray Wan recalls his mother's reaction when he decided to major in environmental science.

Despite being fluent in Chinese all my life, I didn't learn the Chinese word for "environmentalism" until I was 19. Wan bao — which means "to protect your surroundings" — came up the day I decided to break the news that I was majoring in environmental science.

This was no easy task. My mother — like most Chinese immigrant mothers of her generation — had already laid out every minute detail of my life for me, only she never bothered to consult me about her plans. In her grand scheme, I was to become either a doctor or an engineer. Preferably both. With lots of children. Wan bao was certainly not part of the plan. As I stood there in the kitchen, biting my lip, I tried to come up with a well-packaged, easy-to-swallow explanation that would spare me an inquisition during dinner.

"So, Mom… I've got some really great news," I said, remembering to grin ear to ear.

"Really?" she asked, her hands whittling away at the carrots. "What kind of news?"

"Well, you know how you like spending time in the garden because of all the trees and fresh air?" She nodded. "And you know how you're always telling us not to waste things like water or paper?" Another nod. I held my breath.

"Well, isn't it great that I'm majoring in environmental science!?"

Silence. The peeler froze in mid-stroke. The carrot pieces stopped flying. All I heard was the soft whistling of steam from the rice cooker.

"What is that?" she asked suspiciously. By this time, my mother had already figured out that this great news was not really great, nor was it remotely related to the fields of medicine or engineering.

"It's... like studying… science… only it's science related to protecting nature and... animals… and… you know… stuff." Boy, was I sinking fast.

"Aiiiyaah!" She suddenly cried. Aiiyaah is the Chinese equivalent of "oh no!" and "what the hell!?" mixed together. "You're majoring in recycling? What kind of major is that!?"

At that moment, I knew there was only one thing that could possibly save this dire situation: the Chinese-English dictionary. I ran to the bedroom and began furiously flipping through the pages. I found the closest entry: environmentalism.

"Wan bao?" My mom asked incredulously, after reading over the entry three times. "Yes," I nodded, "I'm majoring in wan bao."

The realization that I would not become a doctor or an engineer took my mother a full two months to accept. She brought it up at every occasion she could. "Aiiyaah…" she sighed dramatically one evening, rubbing her lower back. "My bones are killing me…. If only one of my children were a doctor..." She tossed a pitiful glance at me. I rolled my eyes. When the washing machine broke down and I finally figured out what was wrong with it, my mom grabbed me by the shoulder and beamed "You see how smart you are? You would make a great engineer some day." I had to explain to her that an engineer and a washing machine repairman were two very different things.

During those two months, as my mother was doing her thinking, I found myself doing my own. I realized that despite her misgivings about my college major, she had a deep appreciation for nature and had stronger ties to the land than any college-educated conservationist I knew.

As a young girl growing up in rural China, she would help feed the family by constructing little mud traps in the fields to catch frogs, eels, and mud skippers. She would follow my grandmother up the mountains to collect firewood to sell, remembering her mother's instructions to leave the living branches alone and gather only the ones that fell to the ground. And she would tell me stories of how beautiful and clean her village was despite the hardships of everyday life. Every New Year's Festival, the villagers would sweep the ornate wooden eaves that adorned the houses and collect clean, white sand from the stream banks to cover the dirt roads and walkways. The sand was so clean and warm, she would say, and the water so cold and clear, you could see the dark pebbles glistening at the bottom of the stream.

My mother later found out from relatives visiting China that the ornate wooden eaves and the white sandy stream banks are no longer there. The eaves — a symbol of the country's imperial past — were hacked to pieces by zealous Red Guards during China's disastrous Cultural Revolution, and the white sandy stream banks have been paved over to accommodate the country's booming industrial revolution.

My mother eventually grew to accept my decision and even surprised herself one day, hobnobbing with top environmental academics from my university. I had graduated from the environmental science program with high honors and my family was invited to attend an honorary luncheon at the faculty club. My mom smiled and nodded graciously at my professors, trying her best to understand what they were saying to her. You could tell she felt a bit overwhelmed by all the attention she was getting. During the middle of the luncheon, I turned to ask how she was enjoying the soup, when I noticed that she was sitting with her head down and her hands folded on her lap, not saying a word. She was crying.

"Mom… are you all right?" I asked.

Without looking at me, she nodded her head, and reached for a napkin to blow her nose. With her head still down and her hands still folded, she whispered, "I am so proud of you."

Years later, when I landed my first job at Earthjustice, my mother made sure to tell all her friends that I was working at an environmental law firm. She even insisted on wearing the sporty Earthjustice cap I gave her when she went out for walks. One evening as I came home from work, I heard a strange snip-snip sound coming from the kitchen where my mother was cooking dinner.

"Mom, what are you doing?" I asked, peering into the doorway.

She was humming and snipping away at what turned out to be the plastic rings from a six-pack of soda we had bought. I couldn't help grinning when I realized what she was doing.

"Wouldn't want any sea creatures getting caught in this," she said as I stood there watching her. Then she added with a smile, "You're not the only environmentalist around here."

And she never asked me about being a doctor or engineer since.