June 21, 2007

  • circling back to father's day... i've since read two essays
    written by two different korean american men reflecting on the topic of their now
    deceased fathers (seattle times,

    nytimes).  since reading the nytimes piece in particular, something has lingered
    with me     and
    it's this notion
    of whether we, or maybe just me in particular, really even
    knows who these men, our fathers, are or were. i've thought about this
    before- like if i were asked to describe my father, i'm not sure where
    i would start because how much do i really know? so like michael ko did
    in the seattle times piece, i decided to take an inventory of the
    things i know for sure about my father.

    he was good at math.

    he loved music- italian opera in particular. and he was also musically talented- a pretty decent singer.

    he
    was passionate- which was both positive and negative... at times, he
    was capable of letting his anger and rage show. but on the flip side,
    he was also compassionate and warm.

    he made a damn good cup of lemon-honey tea.

    he made some really good home-made dduk gook.

    he was a smoker for a period of years but i recall that he said he quit when i was very young.

    he wasn't a drinker. he had the classic asian-red-in-the-face problem.

    he liked fishing, towards the latter years at least.

    but
    that's all i seem to be able to come up with. i've wracked my brain
    trying to remember more about him, but the list of what i do not know
    seems to be even longer. there are a few reasons to attribute this
    somewhat unsettling realization to- i mean, i know from a cultural
    standpoint that he and other men were/are to be the strong, silent
    types. he didn't share a lot, and maybe that's the case with other
    people's fathers as well... and i didn't ask a lot which perhaps also
    is a cultural issue; you are seen but not heard. you do as you are
    told, and you don't ask many questions. we didn't exactly have a lot of
    conversations necessarily. but the other thing is, i was rebellious as
    a teen... and so the years i could have gotten to know him well,
    especially the years where it was just him and me living together, i
    bolted from the house at just about every moment possible and steered
    as far away as i possibly could. some of that is natural teenage
    behavior- no one ever expects that one of their parents will pass when
    they are younger, so why bother to "get to know them"?

    regardless of the explanations or reasons, what i do know is that the result is this: the
    picture i am able to paint of who my father was just doesn't seem quite
    complete. there are missing pieces, and i wish i knew more.     the things i recall seem to be mere facts and observations... but does this really make a man? these can't be the things that define him.

    something's gotta change.