“Been Chinese All My Life” is slowing evolving,…. evolving may be too robust a term.  My last e-mail received 2 responses, one was from Lauren who suggested that e-mail may be the wrong medium and that I should consider a blog. Well, that sounds like a good idea, however, how do you create a blog?

Anyway, I have come to the realization that writing a book may not be my primary interest, what I do have a passion for is the want to understand myself; who am I, what am I and why do I do the things that I do? The questions of adolescence that I have failed to answer at the age of 60. One thing I do know is that the older I get the less I know. Obviously, our parents have a great deal to do with all of this for all of us. However, the problem is they are no longer physically with us to provide a direct response. Even if they were still with us the result may have been the same. Dad because he was not the most direct person and Mom because of the language issue.

At the family reunion in San Rafael I was struck by how much interest we had in f understanding some of lore about  Dad as conveyed from Aunt Henrietta’s perspective.
It probably made all of us aware that there are different takes on the story depending on the perspective  of the story teller. We will probably never know the truth about our parents in this lifetime and it may be futile to try to know.

What I am hoping to do start creating a greater understanding of  our parents by sharing our own experiences with them as their children. What do we believe about them? What did they believe? Their philosophies, idiosyncrasies, attitudes, etc. For example, with Dad I will remember his telling me that his purpose, as a parent, was to smooth out the ups and downs of life for his children. In my mind, his message was that he wanted to make our loves easy. This seems in contradiction to what popular parenting methods are all about.  Dad also once told me that life was backwards when it came to money. His reasoning, in my mind,  was that young should have money in order to enjoy the benefits for a longer time? Actually, I am not sure what he meant. Mom’s message to me was to be a good boy and if things got too hard then quit.  

What about growing up in the store, what was that  like for you? I have found that frequently my mind will flash back to the store over the craziest things. Such as avocadoes. It seems that whenever I buy an avocado I think of Cruz Valdez taking an overripe avocado and spreading it on a piece bread for a snack. Or whenever I clean house, which is rare, I think of Bill Pruitt mopping the floor at night. I spent a lot of nights with Bill and his kids following them around as they were doing their work after the store had closed. Why was I there, where was Sue? I also spent a lot of time in the backroom of the meat market talking to Tom McConkey, George Schaub’s main butcher. In retrospect I have become aware how much of what he said was racist in nature, but I liked Tom and he was from Oklahoma so what did I expect.

There are many other themes I am interested in hearing from you about. Growing up Chinese American in what was then a small town in Oklahoma. How was our experience different or the same as the experiences of our friends in various walks of life?  
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This project could be important for our posterity. However, it could also be scary. So we should probably have some ground rules:

1. Only share our own experiences,  not our interpretation of another sibling’s experience.

2. With respect to family member’s, share thoughts regarding our parents only. Not thoughts regarding each other.

3. Express thoughts which are non-judgmental.

Coming from a large family has many benefits and I miss being able to sit around casually with you all and just share our lives. Maybe this is a means to do so.