Last month, I bought an expensive scarf and paid $60 to ship it my mom in Korea. Partially this was because I had to do something about the gifts arms race with my mom.
I see my mom maybe every other year, and each time she gives me jewelry and makeup and clothes (ignoring my pleas for her to stop buying them – I throw away most of what she gets me, feeling actual wrenching desolation as I put perfectly good-for-someone-else makeup and clothes in the trash). Here is a jacket she got me that I wear regularly.
Some points about this jacket.
One. It’s not hideous. I try to keep what I like a little bit. So I’ll keep it, and it will compete for closet space with something I actually like. The irrationality of this act will weigh on me, but I feel so sad when I throw away gifts she gave me.
Two. It costs $1100. I googled the jacket to get the photo above and found out it’s on sale for $170 on some sites. Maybe only suckers actually buy it for $1000. Or maybe the version I found was a knockoff. But the price tag is important to my mom. I find this horrifying and alien and have begged her not to buy me Veblen goods, but she tunes me out as much as I tune her out.
Three. There’s a subtle metal bead trim on the sleeves that I don’t like. I find it a bit tacky. Looking at it, I’m suddenly aware of how parallel the fashion games being played by Asians, first generation Asian Americans, and assimilated Asian Americans are. Here’s a $300 thing I chose for myself:
When I see well-dressed Asian college students in Berkeley or Seattle, I can guess before I can hear them whether they are assimilated or recent immigrants. The two jackets pictured above fall on opposite sides of the relevant fashion boundary. When I put on the lavender jacket, I sense I’m dressing for a social game I’m not playing.
I tried to explain this to my mom, too, because she cares about social games. But she’s unable to understand that parallel fashion games could be happening. A good coat is a good coat anywhere, surely…
I don’t think I lose any points by wearing the lavender jacket among my Americanized friends – I doubt they notice. (Except Jenn.) But I’m losing the opportunity to win a hundredth of a point by showing my tastes, which exist in the ecosystem comprised of theirs…
I go shopping with my mom every visit. We have so little in common, and shopping is less bad than most other activities. Our closets fill up with things we bought each other. We throw a lot of money into an inefficient engine to yield a little bit of expressed love. When we try other channels of communication, it becomes clear our souls disgust each other. So we trade textiles.
I used to feel angry she kept buying me these things even though I always asked her to stop. But as I packed up the scarf for her1, I thought of her opening it up and seeing physical evidence that I loved her. It made me happy. She must feel the same. Given that she doesn’t (?) have the capacity to understand my tastes and constraints, but does have money, what else is she supposed to do?
Footnotes
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1. I feel obliged to clarify that I sent her a photo in advance and asked if she wanted it.