Saturday, May 24, 2008

Showing Affection




My dad never said he loved me or hugged me while he was alive. I know he loved me very much, but it was very difficult for him to express his sentiment verbally or physically. Being a traditional male, he was taught to keep his emotions deep within and, if necessary, express it subtly. A lot of Chinese males have bottled up their feelings deep within their hearts all their lives and some of them seem to be fuming like walking volcanoes, ready to explode anytime.

I may have inherited some of my father’s awkwardness at expressing affection and have found it hard to show my children love physically. We are not a family of hugging and kissing at all. I remember we used to kiss our boys when they were very small, but they would always wipe it off with their hands afterwards. I don’t think my children would let me do that now for a million dollars, nor do I have any desire to. in fact, the closest that Kathy gets to doing that is kissing their heads. “Let me kiss your head.” That’s the only way Kathy is allowed to show her love to her boys.

How does a household full of men show affection to one another? I ask you. Well, we do a lot of punching on the arm. It works just fine for us, except for Michael, who, not knowing how strong he has become after years of pumping iron, always hits too hard. I guess his punches might have something to do with my shoulder injury, which I originally blamed on my tennis playing. Michael might actually have been the culprit. Rob seems to know how frail his father is, so he started hitting me with his elbow instead. That softened the blow somewhat when he used his body language to say: “I love you dad.”

I hope my boys don’t do the same when they express their affection to their girl friends. I suggest you pad your shoulders a little if you intend to date one of my sons.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Parenting




“Parenting is not for cowards,” I quoted Jim Dobson in one of my previous posts, speaking about the trials and tribulations of being parents. Not only is this the case for us humans, it is so for the birds as well.

“Parenting is not for the birds,” I concluded after witnessing an unfortunate incident in our backyard this evening.

“There must be a bluejay couple in our yard. They seem to be having a good time together,” I said to Kathy as we were sipping tea on our swing.

“They sound pretty excited about something,” replied my wife.

“A happy bird couple. How sweet,” I said. As I was about to drift into some sort of deeper discussion on marriage, Kathy interrupted: “Look, there is a baby bird over there!”

Yes, there was a baby bluejay standing still a few steps from us.

“It must have fallen from its nest,” Kathy suggested.

“Perhaps.” I looked up and at the top of our giant pecan tree there seemed to be a nest.

“That must be it,” I said to my wife.

“How are the birds going to take the baby back to the nest,” I asked.

“They can’t,” Kathy answered.

I wish I could do something for them. The bird family appeared to be in a grave crisis. For a short while I even thought about putting the bird back into its nest myself, but gave up the idea rather quickly, for I have never been a good climber and I am afraid of heights.

“We need to keep Melvin away,” Kathy said, referring to a hateful cat in our neighborhood who is constantly lurking under our tree, looking for birds to devour. So William and I moved an old wooden gate to block the opening of our short fence. That was the least I could do for the bird family, I suppose.

I know the first thing I will do tomorrow is to check on the bird to see if it survives the night without its mother. There is no doubt in my mind the bluejay parents will lay awake all night, worrying about their lost baby. I have done that myself many a night, even though my children have never been lost or in grave danger such as this.

“Parenting is really for the birds,” I sighed.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Sour Grapes

Being an underdog my whole life I have leaned different ways to cope with losses and defeats and, from my personal experience, the best way is to convince yourself that you don’t really care and therefore minimize the pain of not getting what you really want.

The girl that got away really wasn’t your type after all; the college that turned you down really wasn’t your first choice; the accolades you failed to achieve really weren’t that big of a deal - the list goes on. A sour grapes mentality is one of the most effective weapons in our arsenal of defensive mechanisms by which we keep ourselves from becoming overly depressed or dejected over our losses.

That’s exactly the mentality that some people from tu had after they lost the Lone Star Showdown for the first time in four years. Instead of taking the loss graciously and congratulating the winner, they acted like they had bigger fish to fry and couldn’t care less about the loss. Responding to a reporter’s inquiry, their athletic director even acted like he had no idea where the trophy was being displayed. What a joke! If they keep on behaving like that, I am afraid it’s going to take a while for them to get the trophy back.

Winning like a big boy is easy to do, but losing like one takes real character. The way some tu people responded to the LSS loss reveals who they really are. I am so glad I chose to be an Aggie t-shirt fan.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Random Thoughts

Bouquet for Mom from Cornelia's jewels--------->


“I want to have a lot of kids,” William said to me the other day. I commended his desire to make me a grandpa someday, but he had absolutely no idea what it was going to be like and how much it was going to cost him to have children. I don’t think I have slept through the night a single time after Rob was born. “Parenting is not for cowards,” wrote Jim Dobson in his book on raising children. Are you brave enough to do it?

Rescuers found a hand sticking out from a pile of rubble in one of the cities that was devastated by the recent earthquake in China. Rescue workers felt the hand a little and thought the lady was dead. As they were walking away, sensed something strange and decided to take a second look. After they dug a little bit, they found a woman in a crouching position who was apparently dead, but in her arms they found a four-month-old baby sleeping soundly in his mother’s arms, totally unharmed. Next to the body they found the lady’s cell phone with a message on the screen that, translated into English, said: “Dear baby, if you survive this quake, please remember your mother loved you very much.”

The lady may have died, but her love for her child remained. One can imagine she still managed to nurse her baby and shelter him from harm in her dying hour, and still prayed for her baby’s safety with her last breath. That was something every mother would have done for her baby and I believe that was something you will surely do for your children if, God forbid, a situation such as that arises.

Hey, give your mother a call and tell her how much you love her, will you?

Thursday, May 15, 2008

On Spying




William reminded me yesterday that I have neglected posting about my eldest in my blog. “Rob would get hurt. He is very sensitive, you know,” he said. Being a busy Wall Street banker I don’t think Rob has any time or energy to care about what his father does in his spare time. Nonetheless, for the sake of fairness I will make a brief post about Rob.

One of my favorite things to do when the boys were growing up was to spy on my children’s courtship of girls. One can hardly blame a daughterless father for doing that, really. Blame Cornelia’s inability to deliver, I had been waiting far too long to have a daughter and, as years went by, this longing turned into some sort of neuroses that made me spy on my children’s dating life. I remember vividly what happened when Rob asked a girl to the prom. It took place right before tennis practice. I rarely missed the boys’ practice for fear of missing a Kodak moment such as that. I saw Rob sheepishly approach a girl and mumble something to her. The girl’s face lit up and she could not stop smiling throughout the entire practice. I knew something had happened. Unfortunately, Rob couldn’t stay awake through prom night and the relationship failed to blossom. It was nonetheless an exciting experience for me. I was, in fact, preparing to be the father of a blonde daughter then.

Since Rob has been dating a wonderful girl for a while now, my attention has turned to my other two sons. Knowing my idiosyncratic habit of spying on them, Michael has learned to guard his communication with the opposite sex, or the lack thereof, very tightly and it has become impossible for me to get any inkling of his dating possibilities. I even enlisted someone to help me spy on him, but Michael was alerted somehow and cut off the important source of my information for good. I tried to spy on William as well, but things are going pretty slow with him these days. William started to read out all the names of his female contacts from his cell phone after I mocked him for not having any trace of female voice-traffic on his telephone for the longest time. “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,” I said to myself.

Now you know what a pathetic dad I am! By the way, I am willing to pay for any “juicy news” about my sons (Michael and William) and the amount of the payment will depend on the degree of juiciness of the news and the difficulty of acquiring the information. E-mail me if you have any news and we will discuss the terms.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Peanut-picking Contest



It’s hard to have a son who is not very similar to you either in looks or status. William may have inherited my poetic temperament and writing ability but, except one of his thumbs, he looks very different from me. Well, it doesn’t really bother me, for after twenty-two years of working on it, I have finally accepted the fact; but not so with William. For some odd reason, he’s been into being Chinese these days and is easily offended by people not recognizing his proud heritage. Recently we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch and he took offense because the waitress gave me a pair of chopsticks but handed William a spoon and fork instead. “How could she do that? Didn’t she know that I am a Chinese?” “Half Chinese,” I corrected him. I guess it really bothered him, because he is still grumbling about it a week or two later.

I commend his desire for wanting to be like his father and over family supper tonight I offered him an opportunity to prove that he is really his father’s equal - I challenged him to a peanut-picking competition. William, as you and I know, doesn’t lack confidence as far as competitions are concerned. “Who is better than me?” he burst out, singing his favorite line. “I am!” I bellowed back. The contest went like this: each of us was to transfer fifteen peanuts from one plate to another with chopsticks and the first one to finish the task would win. The results: 15 peanuts to 7. The real Chinese won.

I guess there is at least one thing I can do better than my son. Surprisingly, the victory gave me quite a thrill, considering how small the win was. But a win is a win, and I will take it with pride. By the way, I challenge any one of you to a chopstick-peanut-picking competition if you consider yourself good at the ancient art of chopsticking. “Who is better than me?”

Thursday, May 1, 2008

A Love Story

Priscilla and Aquila
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila…they risked their lives for me.”
Ro 16:3

Priscilla and Aquila could have made a comfortable home in the city of Corinth and supported themselves through tent making. But things changed completely when they met Paul.

They were aliens in this Grecian town and might have found it difficult to adjust to the new city. They might have been overtaken by homesickness for the sunny Italy where they had grown up. But being so young, they were hopeful about carving a niche for themselves in this booming metropolis where people came from all over to trade and to do sightseeing. Life wasn’t all that hopeless, really.

“We will work hard and maybe someday we can build ourselves a house and raise a large family,” Aquila said to his wife tenderly.

“I am beginning to like this place. The weather is pretty good and people are nice. Not a bad place to make a home,” replied Priscilla, her brown eyes gleaming with hope and joy as she looked toward their future. For a young couple fortified by their passionate love for each other, nothing was too hard to conquer.

Then a fellow Jew appeared in their lives that made all the difference. Through Paul’s message, the couple’s lives were transformed and their aspirations for their future changed completely as well.

“How about building a home in Corinth?” “How about starting a family?” they asked themselves. Did they ever go through any struggles easing out their old life and entering into the new? Perhaps. But it was a lot easier for them to start off their new life when two hearts which were once united in romantic love were now becoming one in their love for Christ. Aquila couldn’t have done this alone, neither could have Priscilla. It’s such a beautiful thing to see when a couple is united in their love and service for Christ.

It is awfully difficult for a servant of God to fly solo in his spiritual journey. Paul was one of those rare breeds who could do it, and do it so gracefully. I don’t think many people have the ability to do what the apostle did. With special endowment from the Lord, Paul was able to accomplish great things that ordinarily would have required two people to achieve. I would have been overcome by loneliness and vexed by self-pity had I been called to do what Paul did alone.

Marriage, although it has made me strong in many ways, also has made me timid. Having children is one of the greatest blessings in life, but it may also take away your courage and romantic spirit and make you too pragmatic to make any attempt to venture into the unknown for the sake of the kingdom.

Priscilla and Aquila might not have had such a problem, though. They didn’t seem to have any worries for their children, if they had any, and with hearts fortified by their love for Christ and for each other they risked their lives for Paul and for the church. Theirs was truly a great romance, but is rarely mentioned as a love story as we understand it. With the love of the Lord in their marriage, their love for each other was transcended and superceded by love for Him, which made it so much more beautiful than what it was.