Nothing like a visit with my father to make me appreciate my mother.

If I were only this lucky...

She may be mean, but at least she's rational.

Dad, on the other hand, is not. And so begins again the agonizing self-scrutiny of my unfortunate genetic stock.

I hadn't seen my father in five years, since my college graduation, which was only the second time he had come out east to see me, the first being my high school graduation four years prior. While my grandparents were still in California, I went with my mother to visit them every winter break, and my dad would drive down to pick me up. But once I graduated and started banking, I had no time to see anyone. And, as my mom said, my father had no interest in coming to see me. But I guess I was too young, stupid, and resentful to really grasp that at the time.

So, I thought, before starting work again, and since my father did so generously provide the bridge loan which is financing my tuition before my signing bonus hits, I would go to California for a week, to see him and my stepmother. From what I remember, they live like they are poor, eat crap for food, and constantly degrade other people's money (out of envy, I now understand), but I can endure that for seven days, right? Seven days is very short, right?

Or not.

My mom was right. Everything she said was right. Fuck!

The living room is now 50% books. There are books on the floor, the sofa, blocking the stereo, and concealing half the TV. Not like, lovely classic novels in the grand tradition of Anna Karenina or War and Peace. I mean books like, Forecasting Interest Rates and Mortgages for Dummies and More Beauty of Mathematics (this one is particularly horrifying as it indicates that the "beauty" of mathematics cannot be contained in just one burnt-toast-dry, heavy, insufferable volume). Dad thinks knowledge comes from books. As long as it's in print, it's gospel. During the week, he offers me Forecasting Interest Rates. I tell him that 1) I have zero interest in it, and 2) interest rates, similar to stock prices, cannot be accurately forecasted. He begins to argue, of course they can, this book says so. Well, what if I found you a book that said otherwise? Which one would you believe? But he bought this book at the Stanford bookstore, he says. Well, I tell him, I learned at school that they can't be accurately forecasted. And if the ivy league says so, then it must be true.

To my shock and awe, this silences him. My mother would have squashed me like an ant under a hiking boot.

To explain, my father prizes education - as in collection of degrees, not in true mental enlightenment, though he equates the two. He regularly mentions his PhD in conversation, relevant or not. When I was younger, I believed what he said. What else was I to believe? I lived with my mother, we had problems, and so here was this other parent that said something different. Slowly as I aged and started to hear more of that hell-formed union, I started to understand. But I have never understood as fully as I do now, after the total utter disastrous chaos that was my seven days in California. It's fucking California for crying out loud, palm trees and sun and shit. Yet all I wanted to do was return home sweet home and walk, alone, around my cold, wet, loveable New York. It's really a mammoth task to explain all of this with any sort of coherence to you, as I've been trying to give birth to this entry for the last five days. But since you are all clamoring for it, and unashamedly beseeching me to end my unwitting silence strike (you know who you are), I thought it only decent to try to provide you with something. So while I cannot detail for you everything that went wrong, as this entry would undoubtedly grow to unconscionable length, I will attempt to convey to you the deafening resonance of the major discordant notes in this requiem for a dream.

Capo, Ostinato, Agitato
Upon retrieving my suitcase at LAX (stupid liquid regulations made me check a carry-on size suitcase), my father goes to take it. I say, no, it's alright, I've got it. The man is 64, after all. He says, in all seriousness, "No, women are weak and are not strong enough for these kinds of things. These are things for men."

Alright then, Man, you carry the fucking thing.

Dissonante, Crescendo
On Day 2, my father begins talking about my mother and grandfather. I despise this. I fucking abhor when either side of the family trashes the other, and I very forcefully put forth this opinion to both sides while in high school. You may never want to open diplomatic relations, but I don't need to hear that shit. It is unfortunate enough that I am the demilitarized zone in between. I carry both of your war wounds. Don't make it fucking worse.

Anyway, my father has no self-restraint and continues to speak badly of my mother and grandfather, I don't understand how your mother can be so shortsighted, your grandfather acts uneducated, neither of them have any manners, they are not smart, they don't think. Why would your mother leave, she totally destroyed the marriage. She's selfish.

Excuse me? She's selfish because she got fucking tired of being beaten to a bloody pulp and having her life threatened at knifepoint, during and after her pregnancy?

I say nothing. He doesn't seem to understand that when the person you are talking to is sitting far back in their chair, arms crossed, saying nothing, looking defensive, that you should stop.

Fortissimo, Staccato, Feroce
Day 3. I really cannot even begin to relate this day to you as I have not fully digested it myself. This was a full day of mismash of cultural norms, poor manners, etc....basically we delivered some groceries to family friends who own a hotel, and do better than my father and stepmother. Had I known we were going there I would have dressed a little nicer. Also, no one told me how to address any of these people, and I was morbidly horrified when I could not properly address the grandparents (if you are Asian, you understand). We all looked uneducated. My father and stepmother kept talking about the family friends' money. My father belittles my stepmother numerous times in conversation. Dad offends the elders by repeatedly using a derogatory term in one of his nonsensical stories, blissfully oblivious to the averted eye contact and sideways glances. My stepmother attemps at least three times to get him to stop talking and leave the house, before he accepts their invitation to dinner.

Lost cause. We go. When the check comes, normally you have alot of fighting over who pays, in typical Chinese style. This time, both my father and stepmother look down. Silence. You could hear subatomic particles being split. The family friend takes the check without incident. After a few more seconds of this peace-shattering silence, I nervously thank the family friend. Because my father did not attempt to pay, and neither he nor my stepmother said even a word of thanks. I was completely ashamed. My first immediate thought was, I hope they don't think I am like that. My second thought was, I hope they don't think my mother is like that.

It was like, let's just say this - it was like Kenny McCormick's family going to the Brovlovski's for dinner. If you want the full play-by-play/six ways dissection, then you'll just have to ask me offline, or take me out drinking. Because fuck, did I need a drink. My brain is bleeding just trying to type this out.

Incalzando, Irato
Day 5, Monday. (Sunday, Day 4, was spent in my room watching the Travel Channel and a "Dog: The Bounty Hunter" marathon on A&E.) Luckily for my stepmother, she is still working while my father is on vacation, so she is not witness to any of this chaos. However, I am sure the events are twisted and replayed for her ad infinitum, with the stories becoming more and more deformed with each repeated telling. All these years...before she married him, did she know she would be living in a funhouse hall of mirrors?

Dad and I go to the harbor. While walking around, the conversation turns to game theory, which is a personal interest of mine, and which my father says he intends to study post-retirement.

Dad: But game theory cannot be applied to anything, like when people are not rational and follow their emotions. Then it is useless.
CB: Game theory is based on identification of preferences, regardless of whether you find someone's preferences rational. You can still use it if you have a sense of how the person would react emotionally, this helps you choose what decision to make in response. If it were useless in cases where people are emotional, which I believe is the overwhelming majority of cases, then it wouldn't be so prominent.
Dad: No, when people are emotional, then they are irrational and game theory is useless. For example, people always talk about how parents sacrifice everything, even their lives, for their children. This is obviously irrational.
CB: Um...how is this irrational? This is totally rational.
Dad: No, that is not rational because that is emotional and only humans have emotions. You do not see this in nature.
CB: Actually, parental sacrifice is one of the most documented phenomena in nature, in the animal kingdom. For example, with hippos, the mother hippo will place her body between her baby and the crocodile to shield the baby hippo from harm.
Dad: I have never heard of that before. Hippos and crocodiles live together in harmony.
CB: What? Crocodiles eat hippos. It's well documented. I saw it last week on animal planet. Also, the mother octopus chooses to shield her eggs instead of going out to find food, which drains her energy and makes her very weak. After the eggs are hatched and the babies leave, the predator fish come and attack the mother, and in many cases the mother octopus dies.

I could not believe I was really talking about this, and bringing up random facts about hippos and octopi as support for my argument.

Dad: Oh really, is that so.
CB: Also, if you want a male example, the father penguin shields the egg from the elements while the mother goes back to the edge of the ice shelf to hunt for food. Father penguins can freeze to death if they don't have enough energy stores, but they don't abandon the egg because the baby will die if they do.
Dad: Well, it's still irrational. My life is most important, it's number one. To give your life for your kid? That's irrational. I would never do that.

Well, thanks for letting me know. Just like when I was 16 and you told me you never wanted me. But then hey, knowledge is power, right?

Allegro con Fuoco, Furioso
Day 6. Day before departure. I am excited that I will be leaving soon, but sad that once I leave my father will probably lash out at my stepmother in some form. She shows no physical signs of battery. I figure that is because she is weaker than my mother, and would likely seek to avoid confrontation rather than fight. But what do I know. Mental torture, my mother called it. Well, I understand.

We go to the mall, my father keeps talking about some burrito place. I would have been crying tears of joy if it was a Chipotle, or anything reminiscent of my normal life, but it's not. Sadness. Anyway, we sit down, start eating, and he starts yapping about my grandfather again. Apparently, shortly after my mother and I vacated California for my grandparents' house in Taipei, my father called the house looking to talk to her or me, or something. My grandfather (very dominant patriarch, at the time my mother had already apprised him of the situation) picked up the phone and refused to let my father talk to either of us.

Dramatization of actual events to which I was not party:
Dad: I can speak to them, I have rights!
Grandpa: You have no rights. This isn't America. (Hangs up.)

I laughed out loud. That is totally like Grandpa to say that. But Dad is not amused.

Dad: Your grandfather is so uneducated. That is no way to treat people.
CB: That sounds alot like him.
Dad: But I was so surprised, when I saw him at your [high school] graduation, he shook my hand!
CB: Why wouldn't he, he has to....?
Dad: It means he admits he was wrong. (Breaks into wide smile)
CB: What?!

At this point I am nearly knocked out of my chair from sensory overload. It was like I downloaded all my mother's experiences into my neural-net and shared into her consciousness. This is how he interprets things? This is how he draws conclusions? He spends most of his waking hours talking about how logical he is, as evidenced by his PhD, that he's a man of science, that he is rational and not emotional...and here he is, making the most flimsy, tenuous of connections between two events 15 years apart...

Dad: He shook my hand, it means he admits he was wrong!
CB: (Sputtering) How is he admitting anything! That's just common custom! He had to shake your hand! It was MY graduation! He can't refuse!

Later, when recounting this conversation to my mother over dim sum in New Jersey, between her tears of laughter she says in Chinese, "You poured cold water on him." But I digress...

CB: Moreover, at the time, the man was over 80 years old, and his memory was already starting to go! Do you think he remembered that particular incident from 15 years prior when he saw you? You're lucky if he even remembered who you were!
Dad: But he shook my hand, he could refuse to shake my hand.
CB: NO, HE CAN'T. It's MY graduation. Everything ANYONE does at MY graduation reflects upon ME! It was only common courtesy and manners for him to shake your hand, he can't refuse because then it makes him, me, you, EVERYONE look uneducated. It would be poor. TOTALLY POOR.
Dad: No, you're just being too sensitive and reading into it too much. No one thinks like that. If I wanted to refuse to shake his hand I would do that.

DUDE, WHAT?!??! Are you FUCKING kidding me?

CB: (Incredulously) Would you do that? Would you really do that at MY graduation?
Dad: (Agitated) Why not? I can do whatever I want.
CB: But it's MY graduation. You are MY father. It would reflect poorly on the ENTIRE family. It would be poor. Really really poor.
Dad: Gee, you young generation are so selfish and arrogant. All you think about is yourself. You don't think about anybody else but yourself.

Am I really hearing this correctly? Quick, someone stab me with a spork and rouse me out of this nightmare.

CB: How is this selfish? I would do the same for you or anyone. If I went to a friend's wedding, and recently had a fight with another mutual friend, I can't refuse to shake hands! It would reflect poorly on everyone! If you had an awards ceremony and I didn't like one of your friend's kids, I can't refuse to shake hands, because it's YOUR ceremony and I would cause a scene! It would reflect poorly on you! I cannot believe that you would really refuse to shake hands with Grandpa at my graduation. That is really unfortunate.
Dad: What is between me and your grandpa has nothing to do with you, don't you agree?
CB: No. You can do that anywhere else, if you see him at a store, run into him on the street. But at my graduation it is totally, completely...uneducated.
Dad: I consider myself a pretty smart guy, I have a PhD, I'm not uneducated, your Grandpa is! This is only one very small example of how uneducated your Grandpa is, I don't care about this small stuff, your Grandpa and your Mom care about this kind of stuff.
CB: If you didn't care why have you carried it around with you for the past 25 years?
Dad: I can do whatever I want. If I refuse to shake hands, I refuse to shake hands. I can do whatever I want. You are so selfish. I can do whatever I want. I would have no regrets.

At that moment, I tried to will myself back to New York. I wanted to call my mother and apologize for everything I ever said to her in the heat of all those arguments when I was growing up. If she hadn't gotten me out of there, I would have been completely fucked up. If not beaten or knifed to death. What a complete fucking ingrate I have been. She is honest, brutally brutally honest, but even that is infinitely preferable to this.

When we get home, I go directly to my room. My stepmother gets home from work and I hear my father start to complain to her. I'd bet money that she'll be hearing about this for years to come. I only hope I have not caused her too much trouble.

Coda, Doloroso, transitioning to Andante, Legato, Lacrimoso
He does not speak to me for the whole night and even the whole 1.5 hour ride to the airport the next morning. I had never been so happy to see an airport. After checking my bag and passing through security (I would never put a bomb in my Pumas, mind you), I head into the first Starbucks I see, despite the snaking line. I sit down at the gate with my coffee and begin to reflect on the trip. At some point, while staring off into space, I sigh, "Holy shit." The guy next to me folds down his newspaper and says, "Rough business trip?" I laugh, and respond, "You can say that."

The plane ride was fantastic. I was all by myself in my row. They played a movie I actually wanted to watch. And we got to JFK early. When the captain announced that we were beginning our descent, I actually started sweating in anticipation, only the second time this has happened (the first being my last return from Texas, in a series of horrendous due diligence trips at my old job). Even though the baggage takes infinity plus one day to hit the carousel, I'm happy.

I gladly go back to New Jersey to see my mom, and over the course of a day tell her what I have just told you, and more. She laughs quite a bit, but she does turn very very sad when she speaks about my stepmother.

She did say to me in the car home from dinner, "you know, no one would have ever imagined this future for me. In school they called me the 'flower in the greenhouse'...everyone expected me to be sheltered, taken care of, that I'd find a husband with a good family, with money, with manners...it wasn't meant to be. But I left him and now I made out so good. I'm so happy. And I'm so happy you're normal."

Now I admit it was nice to hear that from my mom, though I consider myself quite abnormal. She has said many times in the past, a person both reflects and is reflected by their family. And after this experience, I thought, my god, even if I wanted to, I can't have children. I can't in good conscience pass this on. I have a responsibility to society to stop this in its tracks. And then I thought, well even before that, who would marry me? Would would in their right mind would ever marry into this?

And this was particularly sad, because just the existence of this thought in my brain indicates that I harbor some deep-hidden hope for it to happen.

A friend of mine recently called me and I did not recount this story in complete detail, but he gathered enough that my family troubles were worse than previously assumed. And he said that perhaps I was ascribing too much credit to nature, while he believed that the majority of a person is created by nurture. And then he said, maybe you should do that. Do what, I asked. Go have a bunch of babies, he says.

Reality check. Head yanked out of the clouds, feet back on the ground. Dude, what? Are you fucking kidding me!

Well, maybe he's right, about the nature vs. nurture part. I hope to god he is, because it would mean...that I'm not my father...and that whatever children I have won't be either... But still, this is all conjecture, and given my defective genetic stock, it might be playing with fire. Would it be prudent to risk it? Dunno, my biological time bomb hasn't started ticking yet. I'll keep you guys informed.

So, all in all, as summarized by my mother between spurts of laughter: "Sounds like you had a good trip."