We all have those moments when we’re flying; we get into that mode. This is an account of a day of travel. First, my initial flight takes off late; I normally schedule a moderate layover, but this was going to cut it close. Next, we land in Texas. It was either Dallas or Houston; I don’t remember. My second flight has yet to depart, which is in an entirely different concourse. I barely have enough time to arrive at the next gate. The moment the plane stops, I grab my bags and deplane as quickly as possible. I stop only long enough to get my bearings in an unfamiliar airport. Finally, I conclude that the quickest way to get to my next gate is the shuttle between concourses. That’s precisely what I do.
Month: October 2021
A Chinese boy sits in a warm classroom in Puerto Rico. He learned Cantonese from his parents, and they don’t speak Spanish at home. His first experience speaking the native tongue is Kindergarten, where he needs to catch up. This boy is now in third grade; he learned to print and write in cursive. His teacher calls upon him to read and he reads as competently as anyone else in his class. This boy is me around 1976.
As our teacher calls upon different students to read, there are two students (a boy and a girl) who consistently struggle; they’re siblings if memory serves. They seem perfectly competent at everything else but struggle to read. Naturally, each student will struggle and excel at different subjects, but this felt different. The way that they read almost seemed as if they transposed letters.
Years after I left Florida, I stopped to visit a Chinese friend of the family on a return visit. He was a friend of my mom’s, but he and I also worked together for a while. He now owned his own business. I admired him for his kindness and respected him for his principle. He gave me room to be myself apart from the pressures from the community. We caught up in our respective lives. I asked about his business; he asked about my life as an engineer. Eventually, he makes a suggestion, which sounded more like a directive, “You should go back to China to find a wife. It’d make your mom happy. It is our people.”