I consider myself pretty much Americanized in the respect that I’ve lost almost all memories of my maternal and paternal language and culture.  It’s pretty embarrassing at times when I’m around my peers and they realize that I cannot fulfill that cultural expectation.  The only Chinese aspect left in me is my skin tone and physical features.  Even then they have been altered in the past such that my own parents thought I was black at one point.  Have you ever had to disarm your mother because she came at you with a knife thinking you are a black thug who broke into her house? 

 

I did…  but that’s another story.

 

I’ve noticed that as my generation gets older, they tend to take a tighter grasp onto their own respective cultures.  My Christian friends become more Christian, my Chinese friends, more Chinese, and my Korean friends… more Korean and Christian.  We’ve all hit the point where it dawns on us that our identity is slowly slipping away and must take an active role in recovering whatever we can.  Our culture is our identity and it is something we must give to the next generation. 

 

Is this a social responsibility that we must all partake in?  Is it our mission to pass our knowledge of tradition and language to the next generation so that it may live on?  As an American, the adaptation and tolerance of many difference cultures into one melting pot tosses this notion of a singularity.  As a Chinese person, I find the urge to break away from this bandwagon and recover what 20 plus years of neglect took away from me.  As an old man, it’s the fear of not having something personal to pass onto my kids that drives me to learn.  I feel strongly that knowing yourself and where your family comes from makes you a well rounded person. 

Is there anything more embarrassing than walking up behind a chick you think is cute with the intent on working your mojo only to realize that its one of your friends from middle school? 

 

Soldier:  Sir, We will be upgrading to Portajohns next week.

Me:  You can Upgrade to Portajohns?!?!

...........................

I paid a visit to one teams that’s situated in one of the more remote sites we work in.  It is so far out there that they were still tasking privates to burn shit with kerosene.  My guys were living in tents that had gravel floors up till a week before my arrival.  There was no menu for chow, and you eat what you get.  MREs were still the standard lunch meal. 

 

This location that we were at, took incoming fire almost everyday and although there is never a serious threat of a breach, it was still daunting that there are only dirt filled barriers that separated us from the outside.  At night you were shaken awake by outgoing artillery fire, after which you would wonder if that shot hit its intended target or it would be another tragic story you see on CNN.    

 

The thing is, in lieu of the awful situation we were in, I expected to be bombarded with a list of complaints.  Contrary to this, I was greeted with open arms, smiling faces, and the usual pleasantries of seeing a familiar face.  I brought them up to date on the current events of the world and offered them the opportunity to rotate out to another site.  To my surprise, no one accepted.  As unbelievable as it seemed, my soldiers were…. happy? 

 

How can this be?  There was not indoor plumbing, no privacy and no entertainment whatsoever. 

 

I have soldiers at sites with more amenities that bitched and groaned about things that seemed trivial compared to this.

 

Over the next couple of days, I observe them work and live together.  Its inspiring how quickly this group of soldiers were able to band together even with their huge differences in background.  Black, white, Hispanic, male, female or other, nothing mattered except for the survival of the collective.  They shared food, living space, stories and genuine laughs.   It was a testament to the human spirit.  

 

Before I took off for the next base, I commended my soldier for the family they’ve fostered in lieu of the families they left behind.  I departed with a heavy heart as I leave their world of simple pleasures back to the consortium of emails, meetings, and convoys I will return to. 

 

I got to thinking that day on the return trip.  Perhaps they have the answer right there.  Perhaps the answers we seek is not as complicated as we imagined it to be.  Maybe when we are stripped of all the luxuries to life and forced to band together and recognize that we are all just another vulnerable animal in this world could we learn to cherish each other and achieve world peace.

Happy Holidays Folks!

I was in the dining hall today and this note caught my eye and brought a smile to my face.

 

It was the neatest written note with no pictures of guns of bombs drawn on it.  Granted this kid still needed to learn proper punctuation usage, but it reminded me of something I hold very dear to my soul which I will share with you later on down the line.  So thank you Chandler, for the fond memories that this note brought back and bringing me back to reality for that brief moment of time. 

Always a good day when you're not shot at or blown up.

-Man

I think I was in 3^rd grade when my mom handed my brother and I the multiplication table.  It was a piece of paper which was carefully folded into 8 equal sections on it which were the numbers 2 to 9 multiplied to the 9^th power neatly handwritten into their individual columns.  Her guidance was direct and clear, study it, memorize it and we will be tested.  “Piece of cake” I thought, and we pounced onto the challenge. 

Like any kid at that age, I gave it a go and quickly grew bored of it.  However I was cocky enough to think I had it down.  I foolishly thought I was ready when my mom turned off the TV the following day to test my knowledge.  So I began reciting the multiplication table. 

The 2’s were easy, anyone can double a number, 3’s were a breeze, 4’s were tricky but I was looking forward to 5 because that was where I shined. 

“ 4x6=24, 4x7=28, 4x8=31, 4x9=…”

“Stop.  What is 4x8 again?”

“4x8=31”

WHAP WHAP WHAP

My ass was on fire.  In addition to the beating, I received the triumvirate of speeches that defines a Chinese immigrant kids life. The childhood story speech, the hard work speech, and last but not least, the “its imperative that I succeed” speech. 

With renewed dedication, I studied the table for the next two weeks with my brother during our free time.  It became a contest over time, to see who can get further ahead. 

It became a chant, a song almost.  It made all those number so much easier to swallow.  My biggest breakthrough came from discovering that if you increase one number while decreasing the other, the 9^th multiplication table was easy to spit out.  Pretty soon, I had that entire sheet down to heart.  By that time, the piece of paper was pretty worn out from being constant abuse and was held together by several strategically placed pieces of scotch tape.  The paper eventually fell apart, but by that time we had no need for it.  It was committed to our memory. 

When I do math in my head today, it is always in Chinese.   Those tables my parents enforced on us still resound clearly in my mind.  It’s gotten me through many years of school and I’ll probably end up running around the nursing home naked and chanting it when I’m old and senile.

My point for jotting down this memory is that all too often, I see parents blame the schools when their sons or daughters are not up to par with their education.  They will take all the credit for their childs success and dump the failures on the school.  It is forcing teachers to teach material that caters specifically to a certain tests and takes away from the fun of actual learning. 

Learning begins at home and the parents are the ones responsible for their children’s willingness to learn.   I once told a parent to buy her son a book when she was contemplating what video game to get him.  She freaked out on me and unleashed an obscene tirade which I shrugged it off.  It is that willingness to provide distracters to the child that gets us policies like “No children left behind”.   

Bottom line, if we place the blame where it rightfully belongs, at home, we will maybe one day move back to when learning was fun and less dictated towards developmental testing.