19 March, 2020: Sherry Zhang

Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand

It’s been a month since I moved out. My mother says she’s feeling better now. Yesterday we went to Kmart, and it terrifies me seeing her stand there with her cake tins. She spends 10minutes justifying why it’s a necessary purchase. The ones she usually makes the bacon-egg pie at the coffee shop leaks and so- I tell her she doesn’t need to justify it to me. It’s her own money. People are panic buying, crowding around the self-check out machines. And it breaks my heart seeing my supermum so small, frail and confused. It makes me feel angry, protective. She tells me it’s fine she doesn’t really need the cake tins. I barge in to pay for it, and she starts yells in mandarin for me to just leave it, hold our Chinese bodies far away. It’s been one month since my grandmother passed away, and I wasn’t there for my mother. Tradition dictates that my mother should have gone home to send her mother off. She can’t because of the travel restrictions. My grandmother had a small funeral… no mass gatherings. And it’s unlikely she will make it back to pray before the 7 week funeral ends. My mother cannot go home. I also haven’t been able to go home. I came out to my brother and the homophobia is too much. Our parents do not know yet. I punched a bus stop. I think about my parents at the coffee shop. All the people and dishes they will clean. I hope they are okay. Guilt. 


Sherry Zhang is based in tāmaki makaurau and is the features editor of Oscen, lifestyle editor of Craccum, and producer at 95bFM.