2011 - Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science

Dad
Charlotte Wang
“Knowledge is power!” my dad never
fails to reiterate. Standing at five foot
seven, with balding patches of limp dark hair, my
dad’s stature is far from intimidating, but his sharp
words cut quicker than knives in warm butter,
more than making up for his less-than-imposing
physique. He especially loves giving advice, quoting
ancient Confucian-style adages in four-word packages
of wisdom that befuddle more than educate. He
yells “shou zhu dai tu” when I’m not working hard
enough, “yán duō bì shī” when I talk too much, or
his favorite, “nan yuan bai che” as a prelude to his
lecture on making the right decisions. In fact, my
dad likes giving lectures on “what one should do in
life” so much that I have to constantly remind him
that he is a father, first and foremost, not a shrink.
Unfortunately, whenever I even begin to complain
about his excessive lecturing, I just get grilled even
more on the “principles of life.” So I have learned
to shut my mouth and merely nod in tacit consent
to save my ears from further deterioration.
One day, after learning that I had been taken
advantage of in school, my dad told me a story that
he has repeated frequently ever since. Known in
Chinese as , it’s a parable about
the farmer and the snake. The plot is simple: a
farmer rescues a snake from the freezing winter, but
instead of thanking the farmer, the snake bites and
eventually kills the poor farmer. Most people would
understand the underlying lesson as being careful of
who you help, but my dad translated it as “don’t be
stupid and become victimized by others at your own
cost,” while squeezing in criticism of what he calls,
my “remarkable naiveté.”
But my dad gained his cynicism the hard way:
growing up in a small rural farm in eastern China,
his childhood was far from easy. He never ceases
to remind me of all the hardships he has suffered,
both physical—toiling through sticky rice paddies
under the scorching sun, hiking up mountains for
firewood, and chopping trees to build houses — and
mental — staying up well past midnight working
grueling geometry problems, drilling himself in
English vocabulary and grammar every day, and
being the only person in Wuhan to enter a university.
He passes these stories on to me in avid, albeit
unsuccessful, attempts to make me learn the lessons
he did and lead a better life than the one he had.
One day, I entered Dad’s lab by accident and got
an inside glance into his natural niche. I watched
my dad scuffle around the lab, cramped with laser
machines, fiber loops, oscilloscopes, and cabinets
full of a jumble of random items: empty flasks,
metal bars, iron rails, plastic straws, screwdrivers,
boxes brimming with piles of literary journals and
research papers, and rows and rows of chemicals
— PPL, GOD, PPS. On the walls hung unfurling
posters of his latest discoveries, brilliant photos
juxtaposed alongside chains of mathematical models
and physics formula, their curly symbols and
square jagged edges mesmerizing in their novelty.
As I turned around, I spotted my dad standing
in one corner of the lab, the section where plasma
experiments were being conducted. He bent over
the humming laser beams in silent concentration,
brows furrowed, eyes fixed on a tiny blue-white
flame, gleaming and twisting like the glowing coils
of a slithering snake. His fingers barely grazed the
array of metal knobs, twirling in swift yet cautious
turns while his eyes never wavered. A couple of
his students walked in and he turned around to
greet them, discussing the latest project with vigor,
hands weaving through the air in frantic patterns
while scratching sketches on the blackboard. In one
moment, I had seen it all, his daily work cast in the
light of some holy ritual, while I gazed in dumbfounded
reverence and awe.
Mostly though, my dad loves telling stories,
especially after dinner when we are all sitting at the
table, stuffed and lazy. He often begins his tales
39