Family History

The past 24 hours have been revelatory. Last night my mom was chatting in my room, so I was stuck in the living room with my dad. I watched him for a few minutes, just…observing. Trying to see the man for who he is, rather than the caricature I have in my mind.

I wondered what his goals were in life, what he defined as success. I thought about my own definition, and started thinking about how I emulate my role models. Hmm, role models… “Dad, who are your role models?”

“Li Ka-shing”

I felt a tinge of revulsion. Of course, the richest Asian man in the world. Focusing on the truth, I asked, “Why?”

Dad started talking about how he was smart, successful, and a humanitarian. Hmm, humanitarian. Okay, I focused on that. I asked about the humanitarian things Li Ka-shing has done, and what humanitarian acts Dad would like to do. His answers were vague (“help hospitals”); I guess he hasn’t thought much about it. He did want to help family first, though. That was his first priority.

Our conversation ceased for a minute. The ice was broken, though. We started talking about other stuff. We started talking about his dad, how he had started a few companies on his own, but all our wealth was taken by the communists. We talked about growing up in China, how food, clothing, etc. were required not only money, but tickets, so that even if you had money you couldn’t buy enough. At first each person had one bowl of rice; then half; then a quarter; then that quarter was watered down. People were starving to death.

Dad told me about how there was no future. It explains so much about his attitude toward education, toward making money, toward being successful and ensuring the family would survive. He wants the Lai family to thrive because when he was a kid, it was slowly being snuffed out. He wants his children to be educated because people weren’t allowed to become educated (and become a threat to the government). He wants us to make money because all the money his dad made was stolen.

I asked if he felt this situation could happen again. He said there was a possibility, talking about Hitler, Saddam, and Castro. My goal was to get him to realize that people in America only die from being overweight, not starvation, but at least he thought about it.

It was getting late. He wrapped up our talk with some lecturing about how we’re on the same side, etc. I tried to listen without dismissing it as bullshit.

Today my dad was gone. I was left with my mom. She was complaining about her mom, about how she’s always mean and yelling at people and rude. So I told her to tell me some of her good qualities.

Mom started talking about grandma’s hard life, raising eight kids. She told me how her dad drank a lot, gave all his wages to his mom and brother rather than his wife and kids. Grandma was a hard worker all her life, always too quiet and nice to stand up to Grandpa. Now, hardened by life, she’s always speaking her mind.

This was the first time I’ve heard so much about my grandparents. Especially my grandfathers, who had both died before I had a chance to meet them.

More importantly, I got my parents to talk about something other than the mundane. They opened up; I listened.

I realized that I’ve been connecting really well with Jessica, or Wendy, or anyone else I could get together with alone. Applying this technique to my parents worked too. It feels good to be closer to my family.

All this meditation and connection work has given pretty good results. I talked to my cousin Jenny and got her riled up to have dim sum with grandma. I connected with my parents. Harmony is contagious!