Unearthed

Today I tried to log into my office internet laptop and failed to do so initially as I had remembered the wrong password. I checked a note taking app where I thought I had stored it and it wasn't updated.  Anyway the important thing was I managed to remember what I had changed the password to.  I decided there and then to stop using the app and went through all the old notes I had made on it (to see what was worth keeping) and came across this one.  It must have been a draft for maybe a FB post.  Or maybe I decided it would be my autobiography.  The opening lines suggest it was written in March of 2017. 

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Cheers. My father, who loved his beer, passed away 19 years ago today, just as I began to fully appreciate what he meant to me.  Over the years, I have also slowly come to realise how that had shaped my relationship with my own kids. He was a man of few words, to me at least, being the quintessential Asian father. His reticence, as a parent, is something that I am conscious of with my own children.  Besides trying to to talk to them more, I guess subconsciously I started posting on social media to give them a better sense of who I am and I hope that they will come to understand a bit more of me when they read my posts (if they read my posts!). Well, it's out there and they can search for it when I am gone. (Note to self: remove any embarrassing posts or pictures. Actually, when I'm gone, why would it even matter?!😂)

That is something i can leave them with.  As well as my collection of books and movies ( many of which are still unread, or unwatched) but at least they would have a sense of how impeccable my tastes were. Are. Just saying.  I'm proud to have at least introduced them to great music from my era. 

 My father only had a primary school education and taught himself English, and whatever other dialects or languages he needed for his work, as was common among his generation. Later after his passing, when i was going through his stuff, I would come across his little scraps of paper where he wrote down English words, with the Chinese translation next to them.  I guessed that was how he learned the language and it made me proud that he was a life-long learner. I am definitely not as proficient as he was.  

I was only ever comfortable in English and we did not speak that much as my Cantonese was, and still is, passable at best. I do not really recall any harsh words from him, except for a hazy recollection of him sternly warning me to get my recitation of the multiplication tables right... in Cantonese. It's hard wired in my brain now and I still multiply things in my head in Cantonese to this day.

He never complained, I hardly ever saw him sick, or maybe he didn't let on that he was. He doted on my mother in his own way and indulged her whims and soothed her insecurities, to the extent that he did not travel for holidays because she didn't like travel as she had a weak disposition.  Maybe he had seen enough of the world in his younger days as a seaman and willingly put aside any remnants of wanderlust that he might still have. 

I respected him deeply as a father, and as a person but only came to love him fully later when I understood more.  That respect created a little distance and I was also caught in a generation gap.  

He didn't really interfere with what I did or the choices I made and I respected him for that. The only time I recall him intervening was when he banned me from playing soccer after I broke my arm playing in school.  Even then, he didn't really enforce it anyway. I think he understood how much I loved playing. My childhood was a pretty carefree one and soccer was a big part of it.

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That was as far as I got to in my draft.  I will probably continue it in another post.