02-11-2021, Thursday, Chinese New Year Eve

The global pandemic of year of Gengzi (the first year of starting sexagenary cycle in Chinese lunar calendar) not only shutdown the world, but also canceled many of our trips to visit families and friends. Such isolation cultivated more lingering feelings towards family than normal, especially during the Chinese New Year’s Eve and New Year.

My Chinese New Year’s Eve in the East Coast of US is the morning of Chinese New Year’s Day in my hometown Zigong. I called my father and others to wish them happy New Year.

Over the phone, my father said his taste buds are fine, but his sense of smell is weaker now; he reads books, uses the computer, and writes articles well with glasses, but his hearing is not as good now. My aunt had to repeat what I said over the phone to my father. My father was in a good mood. He still enjoys reading books, reading newspapers, thinking, and writing.

I told him: “The article you posted yesterday on your blog was blocked already.”

My father was not bothered by it, and he said: “I wrote a doggerel poem of eight sentences for Lichuan recently.”

My father happily explained to me the doggerel he wrote for my brother: “Kind and soft, with too big dreams and too easily deceived. Expanded too large, difficulty to downsize. Officials have long hands, private enterprises are stripped. COVID-19 canceled and stopped many things, endure and overcome the hardship.”

When I talk to my father, our topics were always shifted to my brother, because my father has lots to say about his son: blaming, caring, and feeling powerless to help. I used to think my father cared more about my bother than about me. Gradually, I understood my over 90 year old father’s pain, because my brother is the head of our family now; the great devotion of parents never end!

I asked my aunt: “Are you gathering during the New Year?”

My aunt said: “No, but we are planning to gather in March to celebrate your father’s birthday.”

I was touched and said: “Thank you aunt!”

My uncle said: “We worshiped your mother in New Year, burnt paper money, prepared food, wine, and meat for her. We wish she will bless you.”

I said: “I hope she will bless all of us with health. Uncle, you should reduce your drinking.”

After that, my brother called me. We chatted about our father, our late mother, our childhood memories, and our youthful dreams. My brother encouraged me to write daily.

I said: “When the writing isn’t good, I don’t share it.”

My brother said: “Your story about ‘The Screw of Joy and Frustration’ is very funny!”

I was very happy to hear his praise and immediately sang the complete version of “A screw on the side of the road”. Unfortunately, my brother and my sister-in-law don’t remember this song.

I also told my brother: “Recently, I read my college dairies and noticed that you had big dreams in college and liked to go out to meet people. My dream in college was become a good teacher who also wrote dairies.”

2021 Chinese New Year’s Eve, I enjoyed the familial love across Pacific Ocean, chatted about little things and grew excited over trivia.

“Unforgettable Tonight”, came from Chinese ChunWan (CCTV Spring Festival Gala Evening), on 2021′s Chinese New Year’s Eve that ChunWan already became so faraway and so vague.

On Mother’s Day, many friends happily shared the photos of the Mother’s Day gifts they received from their “tie xin xiao mian ao”. I saw many pretty flowers, artistic balloons, lively plants, wines, cakes, and brunches…

“Tie xin xiao mian ao” is a very popular and sweet nickname for daughters in China. This nickname uses an ordinary cotton jacket to express a daughter’s meticulous care for their parents, its direct translation into English would be “little cotton jacket close to the heart”.

I seemed never heard a similar English expression for daughters. Therefore I wondered about the cause for the lack of a similar English nickname for daughters. Could the cause be the cultural differences between the East and the West in terms of familial affections?

Then I remembered a story told by a young professor in the chemistry department in CUA where I did my graduate studies in the early 1990s.

In the early 1990s, when I was a graduate student in the chemistry department in CUA, our department had a few married female graduate students who had no children yet. At that time, we had a young professor Cindy, who was a mother of two toddler boys.

Cindy was the youngest faculty member in our department. Because of this, she often chatted with us, a group of female graduate students during our breaks.

One year, after Cindy came back from Virginia for her father’s funeral, we, a few female graduate students, went to see her in her office to express our condolences for her loss.

We chatted a bit, then Cindy said to us: “If you have a chance, try to have a daughter. When I went back for my father’s funeral, my mother said to me: ‘Your brothers really did not know how to help me. I am so lucky you came back to help me.’”

Cindy’s story let me know that there are no cultural differences in terms of familial affection between the West and the East. The Lack of a similar English nickname for daughters probably showed that the Chinese language is more down to the earth than English is in cases like this.

06-25-2019

While discussing the change of personalities that come with age, my son recommended to me a book called “The Little Prince”, which is often a required reading in high school (originally written in French).

“The Little Prince” described a few adults who appeared very strange from a boy’s point of view. From those adults, I felt some familiar adult behaviors: in the process of growing up, the hardworking adults who lost their dreams and weakened their desires slowly became inflexible and devoted workers.

The lamplighter in the book tirelessly light and put out the lamp every minute also moved me.

Recently, while reading my father’s blog, I suddenly realized my over 90 year old father is the adult who didn’t lose his dreams, as mentioned in the story: “All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it.”

My father’s path is as follows:as In 1950, my father dropped out of college (ChongQing University) to join the air force in the new China. After he became a member of the Communist Party, he was chosen as a golden boy and became a young instructor to study and teach the theory and history of newly established Chinese Communist Party in the Air Force Academy, in Changchun.

My father had his dream and was very precise. In a series of political reforms in China in 1950s and 1960s, my father didn’t go along with the mainstream, but instead voiced out his criticism and suggestions to some events which he thought were not right, this negatively affected my father’s career, thus losing his golden boy rank.

A few decades hardship in his career did not destroy my father’s dream which motivated him to drop out of college to join the army when he was young. Nowadays, some of my father’s daily pleasures are: reading books, reading newspapers, writing articles to discuss common questions and thoughts related to Chinese social development.

I felt my father’s articles come alive with his patriotic blood and full of his dreams for a better society.

May my father be a role model to guide me to be enjoy reading and writing.

Little Episodes

[Father's Day] My father, once handsome, is very modern now. After his article was published on his official website, my father read his work for the first time from a mobile phone, a advanced enjoyment. My dad is a good role model who never stops learning. (Today, my brother published my daddy’s article and captured dad’s appreciation his work.)

Screenshot from ：50 classics from (almost) everyone’s high school reading list: “In ‘The Little Prince’, a pilot whose plane has crashed in the Sahara desert meets a young boy from outer space. The boy is traveling from planet to planet in search of friendship. On the boy’s home—an asteroid—he lived alone, accompanied only by a solitary rose. Once on Earth, the boy meets a wise fox who tells him he can only see clearly with his heart.”