After I got off the phone with my Dad I was a little confused. He didn't sound very convinced, a little hesitant, about my invitation for him to come over, to stay over next week. He didn't refuse, but I wasn't sure if that was because he didn't know at that point what the best way was to refuse or he just had to think more about it. It would be his first time staying overnight at my place, first time in a long time to be away from his home, the place he had slept in the past 24 years of his life except when he went on a brief business trip to San Francisco and when he went back to the old country for two weeks.
When we leave the place we call home, even just for a night, even if we have mixed feelings about the place, there's this hesitation in our head or heart or both. The unfamiliar. It's my house; he has been here a few times already. He has taken naps here. But I guess it's not the same thing to sleep here, to spend more than the three hours he usually spends here when he visits. I can understand because I've traveled many times; I've been in unfamiliar places and even after so many years of traveling, every time going into a hotel was accompanied by a bit of dread, even if it's the best hotel in town, most famous, has the best descriptions in the guide book. Like many human beings, I just have some dread of the unfamiliar. There are no voices, even irrational ones, just an irrational fear.
So even though he would be coming to his son's house, the sense of unfamiliarity probably had dawned on him when the invitation was offered. His only question was what help did I want from him. His reason to live has always been to help his children. To come to my house and do something different was itself very unfamiliar. I told him with a very awkward tone that I wanted to interview him about his past travels, especially during the Cultural Revolution. But my faltering words betrayed my hesitation to reveal my objective. I realized then that the invitation was becoming scarier. I changed my mind and told him that I just wanted to spend time with him, more than the usual three hours. At least I felt better saying that; I wasn't sure if his worries and concerns were allayed.
My father's silence is a constant reminder of his enigma. When he got quiet on the phone, or any other time, I would hear bells in my heart, ringing the question of what he must be thinking then. Feeling. Although I've never spent more time in my life with anyone than with him, I still don't quite get him. He exemplifies the stereotype of the enigmatic, quiet, invisible Asian. He's soft-spoken, never looks you in the eye except when he is very happy to see you for the first time in a while. He would tell me he missed me without looking at me. But that's when he was talking. He is not the quiet kind that, given some attention and time, would start blabbering about everything from heaven to hell. He would remain silent, and if you give him the space by being silent, then we would have some sort of silence contest.
And for that reason I am not sure how to interview him. My sister did it, so it should not be a problem. Nonetheless, I have my own barriers that my sister doesn't bear; barriers built specifically for my Dad. He had been an authority figure until he became a disappointment, and at some point he became human. Who is he now but an old man waiting for an assignment to help his children, still, until the days have past and his time to departure comes; and each day he counts the next more and more, and perhaps his children count less and less. I don't know. That's not part of the interview. The interview is about a time long before he was an authority in my life, a time when he was like me, before he was my age, a time which casts in me an impression that he was free and loved life, a life without children to have to beg for help from to feel useful, a life without a wife to have to take care of even though she apparently had taken care of herself in the most bitter part of her life. A life free to roam, to be among camaraderie of other young people of similar interest in a vast land going through upheaval. I want to know who that young man was, who went everywhere, but now, about forty years later, the same man is hesitant about spending the night at his son's house, a son who also roams the world, albeit a bigger part of the world. But it's not merely a curiosity of that young man who now has all these wrinkles and little of the hair left, but a comparison. I have this image of a carefree man talking about revolution and chatting about ideologies with comrades, while I feel now my world is so desolate, so lonesome, and it is for this loneliness I often travel, often leave any place I start growing roots in. A different perspective. After all, whatever I am feeling now, whoever I have become, is very much influenced by who my Dad is, therefore, his travels in the more limited parts of the world has some connection with my travel around the world. And so it is not only he who felt the hesitation at my invitation, but I myself wasn't so sure about offering that invitation that could open up many strange portals to parts of my life I hadn't known before.
