李振羽 先生 30 週年紀念日

25th Death Anniversary of Mr. Li Chun Yue

"Tragedy of the Asian Son"

My father Li Chun Yue, known to many as "C.Y. Li," exuded masculinity in a way that was easily misconstrued by others who didn't know him, to be brusque or even callous. It was in his very nature to be the man's man, and in such a way, also the lady's man. He was a natural alpha male in every way––exceedingly charming, generous, aristocratic, eloquent, and coveted. It was no wonder he had to mask it with such a rough veneer; heavy beard, and possibly one of the largest privately owned collections of weaponry in Asia––one that he would make known to every male person who visited his abode. 

I was only fifteen when he left this world, but I still remember every iota of his person even to this day. He had a wry sense of humor to match his gruff exterior, but a delicate heart filled with noble ambition and kindness. Few understood the bipolarity of his personality, exactly because he was not actually bipolar in the clinical sense of the word. He was simply a grown man needing to be understood, accepted, and trusted with the responsibilities of a grown man by none other than his own father, the one person in the world who could give him that. Yet, having lost his mother at a young age, he would forever have to bear the insufferable overprotection of paternal love.   

Now that I am the same age as when my father passed away, I am beginning to understand him much more than ever before. At forty, you are squarely in the middle of your life. You look back at forty years past, and reflect upon the foolishness of your first twenty odd years before you are finally thrust into the throes of reality that brandish you into the adult you will become for the latter half of your life. You look at the forty years ahead, and you realize that those forty aren't very much time at all, given that most retire by their mid-sixties. You want to give it your all, show your full hand, push yourself beyond all conceivable boundaries, in order to derive at the definition of your own success. And that is exactly what my father was doing at forty. He was giving it all he's got and pushing himself beyond his own humanly limits with caffeine, sugar, nicotine, anything that could keep him going for another day, another hour, through yet another meeting, another work trip. 

He wasn't perfect, just like anyone else, but he sure as hell tried. When he begrudgingly first returned to Asia in the early eighties to carry on the family business after completing his business degree at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, California, he found himself back in the same position that he had tried so hard to escape from when he left Asia for America––having to prove his worth to his father and the judgmental lot on his father's payroll; waiting for any chance to take him down, with a subtle criticism here and a passive-aggressive remark there. 

This perhaps, is the greatest demise of most Asian sons, having to live in the perpetual limbo of societal scrutiny until their parents have finally passed on. The fact is, you will never be good enough in the eyes of your creators. This is because of the very irony in the fact that they see themselves as your creators. They do not see themselves as the proxies of the Creator above, proxies who have been entrusted with the task of introducing an autonomous life with self-will to this world. Rather, your Asian parents regard themselves as your owners to whom you owe your life to, and to whom you are obliged to repay with unquestioned loyalty and obedience, regardless of your own will. In their world view, there is no one above them other than their own parents. Hence, your Asian parents will spend their entire lives justifying their superiority to you in every way possible, despite consciously telling themselves and you that they want you to be better than they ever were. For, isn't that exactly why they wanted sons so badly? Indeed, only Asian males can continue the family lineage by continuing to bear the family's last name. But what is the point of that when you only have two choices––to live a long life you never wanted, or to live a life so short you fail to pass on the baton to your own sons?

This is where human fallacy plays out its greatest tragedy in the Asian paradigm. To no surprise of his, my father found himself at the epicenter of the same tragedy that has for centuries past––and yet continues to––befall the pitiful sons of Asia. As the first child and only son of his generation, he had to put aside his love for technology, cinema, photography, the fine arts, and instead pursue a real career in business and politics, all in exchange for a glimpse of genuine approval from his father and creator. 

And yet, even until a decade after he had given his life for his father's cause, his father never once gave him the luxury of satisfaction or freedom from judgment, not even when taking his last breath. Instead, my paternal grandfather died believing the words of those only too eager to depose his son for their own selfish gains. Even to his last, my paternal grandfather failed to resist caving in to his own confirmation bias. Choosing to listen to those whom he paid to have his own biases confirmed, rather than to his own heart and conscience as a father, he was convinced that his son was simply never ready, never enough. Despite having afforded his son every other luxury in life, he failed to see how impoverished his son had become in the spirit and in the soul. Would my father still have given his life to such a meaningless pursuit, when he could have remained in America to perfect his flair at the technology and arts?

But of course he would have, for my father C.Y. Li was a proud Chinese man to the very core. Proud to be Chinese, prouder to be a Li, my father spent most of our time together imbuing in us the greatness of what it meant to be a Chinese person. He would read the Chinese classics to us, be it on literature or philosophy or warfare––Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Li Bai, Du Fu, Cao Cao, Su Shi. He would recount the great Chinese inventions––paper, printing, bank notes, gun powder, the abacus, the compass. He would speak greatly of kungfu, Shaolin, the martial arts, and even practice Qigong himself so that he could show us his ability to control his Qi. He would amaze us by applying principles of Chinese medicine to heal our minor ailments, including cupping, before there was an English term given to it. When it came to his Chinese identity, he was almost fanatical about it. And I cannot be more grateful that he was, for what would I have become without it? 

So absolute was his love for Chinese culture that he had given his very life for it. He had fulfilled every duty that was asked of him as the only son in his family. He had driven himself beyond humanly possible limits to do his father's bidding––so much so that even after his autopsy, the coroners reported that his heart was twice the size of a normal human heart. 

Surely now, nobody can fault a man for being this true to his cause, so true that his very heart bore the weight of his ambitions.