As soon as I was old enough to sit down for several hours in a row without fidgeting, my mother would take me aside and tell me long stories about growing up in South Korea, her relationship with her sisters and her father, and stories her mother had told her. She always did this when my father was out of the house. He systematically isolated her from her family, discouraging her from visiting her sisters or going back to Seoul. He did not accompany her to my grandmother's funeral and wouldn't let me go either. Nor did my mother have many friends. So when I got older I deduced that I was the only outlet for her feelings of isolation. I was, and continue to be, the recipient of all of her family's history.
When I finally escaped the small southern community where I grew up (sorry, South; I love you and I hate you in varying measure), I was able to compare my experiences with other first generation Asian-American women. To my surprise, they had never had these long mother-daughter talks. Guilt trips, to be sure, but never an outpouring of familial history.
This disconnect begs the question in my mind: is there an oral tradition of passing on stories, wives' tales, lineage, etc. between mothers and daughters specific to Asian cultures? Was this a unique condition created by the pressures of loneliness and isolation? Is this a normal mother-daughter thing? I can't help but feel that my mother is telling me all of this so that I can pass them to any daughters I might have. It's a disconcerting thought.
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Late at night when everyone else was in bed, my mother would light a cigarette and sit smoking in the moonlight and tell me things she didn't have an outlet for: family history, and the way the world was. That my cousin was being shipped off to her estranged biological mother's for some nafarious reason, probably pregnant by one of her father's friends (it later turned out that she was molested by her stepmother's father and was being silenced. She and her sister sued and won the house). My evangelical, anti-choice protester cousin terminating a pregnancy for the second time, in an emotionally abusive relationship with a married state trooper who refused to wear condoms. How my aunt left home at 15 because her stepfather was molesting her. All the ugly truths that she needed me to know to understand how the world really was: scary and unfair. Unfair to women, to poor folks, to people of color.
I have a sister, but she was tempermentally closed to those conversations. My mother herself was isolated, in a bad marriage, and she could talk to me.
I often wondered if there was a cultural component, as well. My father's side are Scots, my mothers' Scottish-Americans from rural New England.
(A joke about the Scots: two brothers lived together in a two-room cottage. One day, one decided to see the world. He got up, walked out, and enlisted. He served in the military for twelve years, saw the world. One day he returned to the tiny cottage. His brother said, "where you been?" He replied, "Oot.")
Late at night when everyone else was in bed, my mother would light a cigarette and sit smoking in the moonlight and tell me things she didn't have an outlet for: family history, and the way the world was. That my cousin was being shipped off to her estranged biological mother's for some nafarious reason, probably pregnant by one of her father's friends (it later turned out that she was molested by her stepmother's father and was being silenced. She and her sister sued and won the house). My evangelical, anti-choice protester cousin terminating a pregnancy for the second time, in an emotionally abusive relationship with a married state trooper who refused to wear condoms. How my aunt left home at 15 because her stepfather was molesting her. All the ugly truths that she needed me to know to understand how the world really was: scary and unfair. Unfair to women, to poor folks, to people of color.
I have a sister, but she was tempermentally closed to those conversations. My mother herself was isolated, in a bad marriage, and she could talk to me.
I often wondered if there was a cultural component, as well. My father's side are Scots, my mothers' Scottish-Americans from rural New England.
(A joke about the Scots: two brothers lived together in a two-room cottage. One day, one decided to see the world. He got up, walked out, and enlisted. He served in the military for twelve years, saw the world. One day he returned to the tiny cottage. His brother said, "where you been?" He replied, "Oot.")
All cultures have a tradition for oral narratives. And surprisingly to many misogynists: the oral tradition was usually carried on by women. They were the ones who sat together to sew, knit etc. Boys listened when they were small and still in their mothers' care, of course, but when they grew older they would go with their fathers into the fields (in rural areas at least) thus, the oral narratives also known as the popular narratives and folk narratives are actually a mother/daughter tradition in many cultures.
I studied popular narratives and their modern develoments at university, and it was quite interesting to see how this was a similar trait in rural/agricultural areas in Europe, Asia as well as Africa. Even the themes of the stories were/are often the same.
As communities have grown larger, and the media have expanded the individuals' communication options, the oral narratives are no longer a fixed cultural phenomenon. In some places, families and communities they persist, but they have become a rarity nowadays - at least in the traditional form they had two hundred years and more ago.
It is no wonder, though, that it still resurfaces sometimes out of the blue like you describe. I experienced it with my grandmother - I don't see her often enough, but when I do, it always entails bits of family history or tales of how society worked back then, and how they managed during WWII under German occupation etc etc.
Passing on stories is like passing on any other heritage or legacy. It is a form of bonding ritual. It makes people feel at home, like they belong. It enforces the family/community bonds and connections. It fosters unity.
Your mother might not have a specific goal in mind with relating the stories. Most likely she talks because she feels like it.
I have to wonder: why do you find it disconcerting? It's a gift to know your origins and background.