Mom puts note to remind daughter not to lock door.
Dare we laugh at the antics of Serena and Teresa Wu? The blog creators of mymomisafob.com poke fun at Asian mothers who are, to quote them, “painfully nosy, unintentionally hilarious, and endearingly fobby.”
In their site bio, Serena and Teresa Wu claim they are students at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, respectively, are underground geeks and not sisters. Started in October 2008, Serena designs and maintains the site, while Teresa mostly laughs hysterically….”
Like them, second-gen Asians I know find humor, wickedly good, tongue-in-cheek humor in Asian elders’ English grammar slip-ups. What makes the site effective is the bite-size presentation of stories and the flair for the auspicious set-up before one hilarious unraveling after another. Jokes can be racy, too. Sample below:
“Mom: I don’t feel like going to work today. I want to play hooker.
Me: You mean, HOOKEY?!”
What we would like to know, though, is if their real mothers are a) the source of inspiration; b) they are just exaggerating, or c) they are making it up as they go along? If it’s the latter, I tip my hat off to them. But would first and 1.5 gen Asians find this just as funny? Or would your mother tip you off the ship for finding humor in it?
Note. Just in case you don’t know, FOB means Fresh Off the Boat
I don’t know if the people on the website are exaggerating, but I have had conversations like that with my mom – sometimes things come out awkward and/or funny when you don’t know English! I’m pretty sure I’ve said lots of awkward and funny things when I try to speak Chinese so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a website poking fun at 2nd generation Asian Americans! I wouldn’t be offended by that, but I think first generation Asians are a bit more touchy and easy to offend than the 2nd generation!
Thanks for the post. Let me know if you find a website that pokes fun specifically at second-generation Asians. Because most of the time, the joke is on the first-generation Asian.