It's not a new place. It opened up a year ago, if I remember correctly. It used to be the biggest and most popular Chinese grocery store in town, and that store got even bigger, moved next store, and converted the old place to a restaurant. And the restaurant itself has steadily been changing, improving its decor as well as its menu. It's the closest thing to a Chinatown here. The staff are sometimes even friendly!
Still, we were skeptical. We never had good Chinese food outside Chinatown (or China, of course). But the Vietnamese place we usually go to when my Dad comes here is closed today. Bummer. It was going through "repairs" until 5PM. So I decided that we could take a risk. And it was a worthwhile risk. We not only got decent Chinese food, but also a nice talk.
"I am sorry I beat you both when you were young," he said, solemnly. "You were only children. How could you understand things, and how could I beat you for not understanding."
I was surprised at how composed I was. That was always a difficult subject. I've forgiven him long ago, but it was still hard. Yet, at this moment, I was calm.
"And I threw your little sister out the street twice for stealing money. She didn't deserve it."
He, too, seemed composed. At least his emotionless face didn't flinch. But his voice was full of sorrow. "Every time I look back, I feel so much regret."
I knew what I wanted to tell him, but it would get lost in the translation. I didn't have a big enough vocabulary to tell him precisely this, "That was how you grew up learning. Punishment was the best way to deal with unruly children."
But the point got across. He confessed that he was beaten up until he left junior high school.
I was still calm. But I hoped he understood that I had already forgiven him. And I knew now that also the emotion has made a permanent stay in the past as well. I told him one of the hardest thing I always found myself confessing, and when I said it, there wasn't a hard rock in my throat, there wasn't an unbearable pain of holding back tears, there wasn't a herculean effort to maintain a natural tone in my voice; I said, "The worst thing wasn't that you beat me. It was your apologies. I wished you just beat me, and let me be angry with you, hate you. But you always apologized and that hurt more than the beating."
There was, I don't know when, at some point, a feeling of liberation. Perhaps it was just enough times of chanting to myself, "It's not your fault, little boy." And now, I sat here with a better than expected plate of white rice, fried eggplants, fried beans, and friend mushrooms, on very uncomfortable diner seats, over Mongolian hotpot tables, telling my father the hardest thing he had made me do. It didn't come out as an accusation. It was in the context of how good a father he was, what he had done right, in spite of his regrets over what he felt he had done wrong. I tried and failed to find the words for the simple phrase, "You did your best, and that was enough." These are simple words but crossing the culture and language it would sound bland, at best, and nonsensical, most likely.
Then he said something that surprised me. He said my mother defended us, reprimanded him for beating us. I don't remember that. I was probably in too much pain to remember. There's a place to forgive, too, but that place is harder. Forgiving a mother for her estrangement despite her best efforts. I looked at him, after unconsciously staring at the nobs and other controls on table for the hotpot, and I saw a small, tiny drop of tear on a man whose face is for most of my life made of stone. At what point did that tear come out? Then I noticed the eye had a shiny, shallow brook glittering from the late winter sunlight from outside. He gently wiped them away, without any hurry, without any drama, as if they were just something formed from the air, like some bug that had fallen on his face. How much this man had suffered, and from that same suffering he now has to spend the rest of his life in regrets.
The food was getting cold, but we were happy to be here. He was happy to be here. He was happy we took a risk and sat among tacky Chinese decorations. He was happy to have been able to order and pay for both our food in his language (Vietnamese place speaks English to him). He didn't say he was happy to hear me tell him this. He didn't say anything either, no response, no evaluation, when I told him in surprisingly succinct manner, what I thought about his regrets as a failed father.
"You may not have taught us how to make a lot of money and lead a materialistic life of comfort. But you taught us how to be good human beings. It's in Chinese tradition to strive to be a good human being. When I become a father, I can only hope that my greatest inheritance to my children is helping them be good human beings."
He said nothing. But he smiled. Humbled. And then he looked around, searching for the clock, saying he had better get going so he didn't interfere with my work day. I let him feel anxious. I let him feel whatever he felt he needed to feel. And me, I felt relieved. Even liberated, somehow. By telling him all this, I took a step forward leaving behind some of the poor demons he had inadvertently inculcated in me. So we got up, threw out the rest of our food, got our coats, and returned to the street where the sun seemed to be smiling just a little bit warmer.
