Da Curious

tomorrow is august 8th. or ba ba in chinese. the day us chinese folks celebrate father's day. the reason why is because father is also pronounced ba ba in mandarin so it's all very fitting. for some reason, i was never aware of this fact until maybe a year or two ago at which point the date became pretty useless to me but my mom reminded me of it a couple of days ago. i'm currently in san diego for the weekend and it just so happens that i will be here for ba ba day. however that translates. lovely.

i've been finding myself quite reminiscent the past week or so but i usually tend to go through one of these mood swings from time to time and then will snap out of it and be the usual cheery self that i am. it all started with a luncheon last sunday. my father was the president of the chinese golf association and for their annual father/son golf tournament (which was started by my dad...another fact i never knew until recently either), all these uncles and aunts i've grown up with made the eight hour commute on a tour bus to san jose to compete with the golf association started by jack and eming. as i was sitting at the table explaining that yes i'm a family friend and no i did not play in the golf tournament i could hear uncles charles announce to everyone "...as our ex president could not be here with us today, we are very fortunate to have his daughter here to represent for him" (in chinese of course). everyone's heads turned towards me and lots of clapping followed and for some reason or other i could feel tears welling up behind my eyes.

then last night was the first night i stayed at the house my mom and i purchased and it felt nice to wake up to her old school chinese music in the background and the sounds of the gardener in the backyard and knowing that yes she has a fresh plate of cantaloupe waiting for me in the kitchen. we then embarked on a mother/daughter day and it felt nice to be able to buy her lunch and gossip about who's doing what these days and hear that yes once again i'm not to casually date anymore or that i need to take care of my skin but what surprised me the most was that she asked me a couple of questions about my dad. perhaps it's not all that surprising to you but we've never really talked about it before and we still didn't really talk about it today and i'm not sure i'll ever want to talk about it but just the fact that his name was brought up threw me for a loop. and all the while all i could think about was what if.

lots of what ifs i won't even go into but all these feelings of nostalgia lately is actually doing me some good i think. these days it's so easy to just move on and look to the future that at times it's good to look back and remember the past which is exactly what this weekend so far has been for me and i'm quite grateful for it.