Rinse, rise and repeat

After defeat, try again.

At my first wedding, out in the open at a park, my dad took over the mike to sing something I now cannot recall. But I remember watching from across the lake and seeing out of the corner of my eyes that he raised his fist in the air to end his song.

Perhaps something in his time and in the water. Certainly he was not to hail the reign of some monarch in particular.

I grew up with and into his image give and take various strains of rebelliousness e.g. one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, or like Alan Parker’s Midnight Express protagonist who walks in circle around an abandoned fountain yet in opposite direction of the Turk’s “to the right”. To know yourself means to know God. The road less traveled, slow journey with a dad who raised his fist at the end of his song.

Our new Year of the Horse saw his absence (also Jesse Jackson’s and Robert Duvall’s) and long shadow. My dad always seemingly took his time in things like nursing his beer, combing his hair or singing slow-rock songs. Robert Duvall in A Civil Action, plays “Theme from a Summer place” from his transistor pocket radio in wait of a jury verdict (he, however, uses a bullhorn in Apocalypse Now with choppers and mortars all around, to show off his “brief-shining-lie moment”).

Men of my dad’s times with cinematic good looks (using brilliantine, those hair puck).

Here we go again.

I feel proud when my institutions of higher learning show archive photos of students in suits and not shorts attending school. My mom’s teacher’s college certainly observed that conservative code (tien hoc le, hau hoc van) during French Colonial regime.

Respect before rhetoric. Formal they were and conducted themselves above board. S’il vous plait. Merci beaucoup. On tip of their tongues. By reflex. Civility, courtesy and compassion.

Stop. There is someone in need (of our pocket change). Mieng khi doi = goi khi no. Beggar cannot be choosy. Someone’s trash = your treasure. I will remember as long as I live Bac Be, Mom’s colleague/friend, who graced us with her New Year visit, then the “li xi” (new year’s lucky money). Hers was unconventional: not folded paper in red envelope as 99 per cent of other people. She had me open both hands before placing and filling them with shining pennies until I could no longer hold.

Groomed and coached, I hence grew up into a life of code of conduct, of courtesy and civility.

I try, God knows. Even in face of bullies, of unjust, unluck and happenstance. As long as I could still hold “shinning” core values at trial moment, when others disregard and dilute the common good, common cause (of rainbow, of hope).

My hope for the year of the Horse is to press re-set, pause to thank previous generation before distinguishing ourselves from animals and AI. The later needs a lot of handholding and handling.

We’re people of proud heritage, facing headwind, yet not face down. Rinse, rise and repeat. Defeat? Rise again. And again, and again. As long as our blood still flows our fist will raise.