Life Stories #77: Elaine Lui

Some people will read Listen to the Squawking Chicken and decide that Elaine Lui's mother is not just emotionally manipulative but outright abusive, but Lui has a nuanced perspective on her upbringing and her mother's insistence of filial piety. Sure, she's not happy about how often her mother chased away her childhood and adolescent friends lest they turn out to be good influences, but she can also see how all the shaming -- and pre-shaming -- prepared her for adulthood. We talk about that... and about why, at 40, she's still doing what her mother tells her to do every day.