Family

About three years ago a co-worker asked me to give a talk with him on our experience as foreigners working in China. The talk was delayed for various reasons including indifference until last week. During the delays it was never far from my mind about the message I wanted to share. Certainly not the CCTV happy foreigner. Did I dare share the unvarnished brutal truth as ugly as it might be? No, can’t do that. For one, it’s not that ugly even if there has been moments that felt that way. Second, as the minority there is a bit Stockholm’s syndrome and I am careful not to overstep and put the majority on the defensive. ...

About a year ago I was scrolling through Twitter and saw that Duane Kuiper’s wife had died and decided it was time to talk to Sabrina about having a child. By talking, I mean texting. I texted that I was now open to having a child. I had a condition. I wanted to really take care of this one and be a Mr. Mom and quit my job meaning she’s needed to go back to work. ...

I’m at the last Friday of the month team lunch. Something I schedule since I don’t do lunch. Someone suggests each person share the craziest thing they’ve ever done. This would be interesting except it’s not because people won’t be that open around coworkers. And the fact is, it isn’t that crazy of a bunch. I have a few stories, but I settle on a safe one. Yang and I moved to Beijing with two small children, jobless, homeless, and our belongings limited to checked in luggage. ...

I’m in Sabrina’s hometown apartment, sitting in the corner of the couch, reading the book Chaos. Sabrina is on my left and on her left are her parents. The TV is on, and I look up when I hear some English dialog. It is a scene from the oval office of the 1950s. Someone who doesn’t look much like Eisenhower is asking a naive question about the Soviet / China relationship. The advisor angles towards Eisenhower and the camera and in a knowing way says not to underestimate Mao - that he’s in in total control. The flash to another scene with Mao sitting at a desk, reading papers when his daughters come in and share some playful banter before Mao returns to his work. ...

It is maybe January 3rd, 1989 and the next day I will move out of my parents home and into my own apartment. I have a box of kitchenware, not exactly out of the Crate and Barrel catalog, more like from the lost and forgotten catalog. My dad tells me the closet is ready to paint. Having me paint my parents’ bedroom closet has been a mild obsession with for my father over the past month. Now was the moment. I was ambivalent to the whole thing, so I just went upstairs, took his direction, and started while he left the room. ...

I’m watching an episode of Winning Time when Lydia calls me. She’s about to have the final exam for her pre-calculus class and she’s feeling anxious. I leave my apartment and go down a flight of stairs into her mom’s apartment and find her petting their cat, Saisai. She describes her anxiety and I say I will hang out. I really don’t like hanging out in that apartment that used to be my apartment. I sit in living room then decide I want water. While in the kitchen I eat a couple cold dumplings from the fridge. Aidan is in the den playing a video game; I call out to him. ...

I’m scrolling through twitter and a global times opinion piece with headline “US pullout of Shanghai consulate staff reveals who the world’s biggest Karen is”. I don’t read he post but take a screen shot and send to a friend. I send it to point out how divisive media in China is getting and also comment that US media (Fox anyway) is also divisive. Then I realize I am falling into the no classic social media trick – reacting to the reactionary. And I admit that there are times when I look at Twitter just to find the tweets I can take offense at; like checking CNN during the Trump presidency. My nature, however, embraces diverse opinions. ...

It is Saturday afternoon and I’m walking unremarkably alone to a supermarket that specializes in foreign goods. A voice from in front of me gets past my headphones “Vince..Vince..”. I look up and it’s an old colleague. He looks fit and strong and energetic. We catch up. Still working at the same place, I say. At a startup, he says. We exchange some small talk and take a selfie. I smile and try to stand tall. I’m having a very inward day. ...

Elisa wanted to play basketball this weekend. She’s been getting into it recently; playing it after school and maybe she has a crush on a boy. We decide to play on Sunday, 10am. We walk 10 minutes to where they have some courts under a tent but the courts are being used by some organized practice until noon. We come back at noon and pay the equivalent of $20 USD for two hours on the court. On the way over I had told Elisa that at her age we could play school courts for as long we wanted but the school courts are locked in Beijing and I guess even now in the US. ...

Am I the creative type? What does that even mean? For what it’s worth I do consider myself creative. Not in the sense that I create art. In the sense of how my mind works. Where it takes me and I take it. The open mindedness of it. The emotion of it. In college I took a creative writing class during the summer. It was a small group; eclectic in age and backgrounds. The teacher had her own writings which she read. An older man seemed genuinely interested in what I wrote. A young man who wrote astonishing well but faced harsh criticism from the teacher for being naive and wrong about society. For my part, I struggled with plot; less so on characters. I wrote historical fiction short stories generating ideas by walking through the campus library. The teacher dismissed me as a writer since I was a computer science major. Also, my writing wasn’t very good. A bit creative, but technically not so good. ...