Shared by Marie Chan 🌷
My father grew up poor in the backwaters of a rural Chinese village, where dinners meant rice with slab brown sugar (or soy sauce for variety), and snacks came from scavenging discarded lotus root tidbits in the community pond. These early hardships in no small measure prompted his relentless drive for financial security. By dint of hard work, he eventually succeeded in creating a comfortable life for him and his family. Travelling with my parents in their later years gave me the chance to hear many of my dad’s life stories. I’ll take this opportunity to share some of them here while adding others of my own.
Even as a teenager my father understood the importance of education: while working full time as an apprentice at my grandfather’s tailor shop in the Philippines, he attended night school to graduate salutatorian of his class. Looking for new opportunities, he went to work at a grocery store. My father was given a choice of bagging the store-roasted coffee, or delivering groceries, a much more physically demanding job. He determined that bagging coffee was easy but offered few learning opportunities. Instead, he opted for the latter to broaden his horizons. He took every opportunity to study labels on the canned goods when pulling inventory, as he hoped to eventually advance into sales. His zest for knowledge continued throughout life: he loved books, newspapers, and virtually almost anything in print. At one time, our family had 4 newspapers: an English daily, Chinese morning and evening papers, and a Sunday weekly.
During his tenure as manager for a multi-national corporation, my father increased the bottom line for his department every year by delivering impeccable service with integrity. His customers so valued and trusted my father that they offered him partnership in their businesses on more than one occasion. In fact my dad recalled a total stranger from the US incredibly came to him with a business proposition once, just on strength of recommendations from a friend!
My father eventually started his own business manufacturing watches and carved a niche in custom designed promotionals. Every summer he would fly to Switzerland, the mecca of the watch industry, to see the latest designs and source new parts before heading to the US for a trade show. He brought us stamps, sea shells, Swiss chocolates – whatever his children asked for. I wanted Golden Nature Guides, a collection of 160-page books on stars, fishes, birds, insects etc. which we, as siblings, still recall fondly. Innocuous enough request except for the weight they added to his luggage. But dad never complained.
My mom had often joked our dad was a 二十四孝老豆. Roughly translated, a father who indulged his children with reverse filial piety. He was unstinting in his support for our higher education in whatever field we chose to pursue. From a generation where it was common for a father to dictate the future of his children in career and marriage, he did neither. A Chinese family’s eldest son was often drafted to run the family business but my dad had no such expectations, and my brother was free to forge his own path. Likewise, he and my mother never attempted to influence our choice of spouses, regardless of their personal preferences.
On a lighter note, my dad for some reason, seemed to be a magnet for all kinds of pickpockets and shenanigans in his extensive travels. During one of his early business trips to New York City, a thief got into my dad’s locked hotel room and incredibly stole from the wallet that was tucked under his pillow for 2 consecutive nights. But with apparently a wicked sense of humor, the cat burglar didn’t clean him out totally on the second night and left a couple dollars in his wallet. On the other hand, my dad rarely loses out to pick pockets in broad daylight. Another time while travelling in Italy, he was crossing the street when he noticed the locals looking on with amusement – and suddenly felt someone reaching into his back pocket. He nonchalantly slapped the hand of the gypsy woman behind him and continued walking… After he retired, my dad was visiting San Francisco with my mom when he fell prey to the ‘ice cream accident’ trick. However while alone in the restroom, before the pickpocket and his accomplice could take off, my dad wised up to their scheme and demanded that they give him back his wallet. They feigned ignorance but my dad was adamant. And lo and behold, they ‘found’ his wallet on the bathroom floor! It was certainly pretty gutsy for an 80 year old man to confront 2 thieves alone in a foreign land.
My dad was an unordinary man because he overcame childhood adversity to build a successful business with my mother: despite repeated early failures, he never gave up. He was an unordinary man because he was willing to help those in need without expecting a return, and reaped unexpected riches because of it. He was an unordinary man because he remained passionately engaged in his business up to the day he retired at 72. Not too many can claim that…