I was going to wait until my father passed to disclose any of my feelings about him, but why not… It’s a complicated mix of feelings. The net summation of all the feelings I have towards him points in a positive direction. But even so, there’s a lot of negatives in there. Yet, I don’t think any of that is his fault necessarily. We are just two very different people.
For one, I don’t see my father as a very mature person. I don’t deny that he’s a very mathematically gifted individual. However, he doesn’t strike me as someone who values words (i.e. language) very much, and that’s an issue with me. Because of that, I don’t regard him as a very intelligent or refined person. He thinks of himself as such, but I don’t.
Yet, underneath the crass exterior, the trashy clothing, and the sometimes downright rude demeanor is someone who I think genuinely cares about me and my mother. His overarching actions speak louder than his presentation. He is just someone who tends to follow all the stupid unspoken rules. He does things because it is how things are “supposed” to be done. I don’t know if this is an inherently Chinese attribute or what, but it’s what my father is. He is man of duty, not of principle.
The Ivory Tower 
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