Some parents say that the most stressful time is holiday seasons with shopping and party preparation. Since I do no shopping and am too lazy for any preparation, I find the most stressful moment is when a child asks for something and will not take no for the answer. More often than not, it is a test of will between the minor and the parent, which often constitutes daily occurrences.

Of course, one of the sure ways to avoid this kind of stress is to take a laissez-faire attitude, be a yes-man all the time. In so doing both parents and the children will have an easy time, totally stress-free.

Yet, I don’t think it is the choice for most of responsible parents. At least, I cannot sit still when I see a picky child eating all meat without any vegetables, or that child insisting on watching TV after bedtime or playing on the computer without doing what he/she is supposed to do, etc.

Moreover, with laissez-faire attitude, you will likely cultivate in your child an expectation. That is, the child will expect an yes answer and feel frustrated or even mad over a negative one.

Looking back, I think it is easy to say no when the child is small. I remember the time when my son was small and made a scene at the store when his demand was denied. I would firmly took him out of the store and avoided taking him there as long as I could. Next minute he forgot the whole thing.

But things are totally different when your child is big and seems to have a much stronger will than you do. For me, this is the most stressful part of parenting. Still, in the long run, for the children’s wellbeing, I believe parents should stand firm, with some discretions, even if it means a stressful tug-of-war.

As a nation, it is so convenient to forget this simple truth, that is, with action speaking louder than words, we don’t need to preach this or that to other nations. We simply demonstrate what we expect others to do by our deeds. We cannot expect other nations not to engage in invasion when we invade other countries. When the U.S. condemns Iran of acquiring nuclear weapon, Iran could easily say, “We will be just like you, no more no less.” What a compliment! Indeed, the best praise from our enemy is to see them emulating you.

If a parent articulates uncivilized words and behaves unreasonably toward the youngsters, the children have every reason to behave accordingly. If you spend most of your disposable time on TV or Internet or any trivial pursuits, your children will surely follow your lead toward a mediocre end. You cannot expect an otherwise behavior from your children. Parents who indulge in computer games are disgusting hypocrites when they expect their children to be someone else. Remember the saying “a child is a chip off the old block?” Well, the old block determines what kind of chip it will be.

Too much challenge to us parents not to be hypocrites, right? It is never easy to be better than ourselves.

With the global recall of Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrids car, I smell another case of blaming game, that is, people have shifted too much responsibilities unto their vehicles when they got into accidents or when they abuse their car. I have been driving Toyota since 1986, all kinds of them, and the only problem that I have is cop’s speeding tickets, which is my own problem. I believe firmly that Toyota of all models are of top quality, in spite of its recent problems. Very often, it is people’s driving habit plus 10 cups of alcohol that get them into trouble with their cars.

This is very much similar to the famous 2003 obesity suit against McDonald’s restaurants for being responsible for making people fat and unhappy. And there have been numerous class-action lawsuits by lung cancer patients against tobacco companies.

Currently there are about 43,000 people killed in fatal car accidents each year in the U.S, and the number is climbing each year, with over 40% fatal crashes being alcohol-related. Until people take responsibility for their own lives, stop drink-and-drive, text-and-drive, and all other forms of risky behavior, no matter how safe the vehicles are, there is no hope of seeing a reduction of fatal car accidents.

One step forward, for an individual, only when we stop seeing ourselves as passive victims at the hands of others and stop enlarging the power of any external forces do we start taking responsibility for our own lives and turning a new leaf in the writing of our own history. So much fresher now.

I did not pay any attention to anything but fun when I was a child reading children stories. I knew all along that these stories were created by adults mainly for entertaining children.

It is not until I was reading them to my children did I realize some life-benefit moral lessons embodied in these stories. Yesterday afternoon I dropped my daughter at the book store after school. I gave her a personal pan pizza as her dinner and a Border gift card for her to get some drink. When I went to fetch her for evening skating, she asked me to buy her some drink. It turned out she bought herself a toy and two drinks. Having realized she spent more than she should and knew how displeased that I was, she was full of apology.

“I hope you will feel the sting of conscience for being so wasteful when you are aware of so many children who are under horrible living conditions.” She has seen the pictures and learned that children in some part of China are still very much deprived in their daily necessities. “I hope you will not waste like this so that you can make some contribution to help those unfortunate children,” said I.

“Compare to those unfortunate children, you are like growing up in a honey jar. But always remember not to indulge yourself or abuse your privilege or it will be taken away from you like what happened in children’s story. Remember the tale of a Fish man and his greedy wife?” She understands it and as always makes promise not to let it happen again. I am happy with her promise so far. Enjoy the weekend!

Last Friday, I took my daughter to a buffet, only on her birthday. Normally I am against eating buffet because of the potential to overeat and its possible undesirable consequence. This prompted me to think again of this concept of free.

First, you tend to eat more at buffet because it is perceived as “free” for the given amount of money. I never have good feelings after too much indulgence in food– feeling of guilt, of being wasteful, shame of lacking of self-control. I seem to be punished in more than one ways — physical discomfort with overblown tummy and mentally with self-inflicted guilty feeling.

Second, in fact by your second serving, you don’t enjoy it as much as your first serving. Let me put it this way — a chocolate candy tastes sweetest when you have only one per day or per week, but the taste decreases as you have more. Imagine how you feel by the time you can have unlimited chocolate candies. When you don’t appreciate your food and you still cannot stop eating, you are in reality doing nothing but wasting food. Same can be said of anything that is “free,” like free coffee, creme and sugar in your office.

Third, we no longer value anything that we think it free. Many children quickly lose interest in toys bought by their parents because they have too plenty of them and also things from their parents are like freebies, costing them zero cent. When both of my children were young, I used to give them the money and let them decide if they wanted to keep the money or buy the toys or hold the party. They often ended up keeping the money. When without any choice, they would stand firm on having whatever toys they had in mind.

It reminds of the old medical system in China. I don’t have the detail but I do remember the huge waste back then mainly because everything seemed to be free, taken care of by the work place that you belonged to.

Too much Freebies are not always good, from “free” toys coming from Santa or parents to free bonus for AIG’s big bellies — huge waste of all kind of resource. In fact, I cannot think of anything good about anything free. Can you?

I am sure some of the readers, whoever that may be, want to know what happens to the 10-year-old boy. Such a dramatic boy! I learned with great relief from his mother that he is doing okay after getting back home. Like fish back to water, so darling and life-saving. He has never been this happy before.

First, he is happy being with his classmates, who envied him greatly for having the opportunity to go to America. They like the American chocolates that he brought back. While in America, he seldom communicated with his English-speaking classmates, back in China, he is able to talk all the time in his native language. Language problem disappeared. Feeling on top of the world now. A plus point.

Back home, his mother is sitting by him all the time when he is studying and his father plays tennis or some other sports with him. The grandma (my mother) comes to see him very often. He often has another aunt and another big cousin, bigger than my son. He is never without company. While he was in America, I never had this much time for him, either busy at work or doing household work or something else. I don’t even have time for my own children. To further enhance his sense of loneliness, my daughter and he were not even talking to each other. Poor baby. Now all the loneliness is gone. Another big plus!

There are more varieties of food in China than here. He always gets what he asks from his mother. Not with me. I am not used to spoil anyone. Plus I am more stingy than his mother, though I had improved a lot with him. More weight gain. Oops! A minus if he is not already on the heavy side.

The biggest plus is the greatest relief that I have felt since he left! Too great to be expressed in any language! Like a mountain taking off my back, I feel as light as a swallow, true to my name. Sometimes, I feel like screaming out of the maximum capacity of my lung, just to express how relieved that I feel. Yes, I know how selfish I am. It is called self-preservation, that everybody is entitled to.

East or west, home is best. No wonder E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial wants to phone home when he first sees a telephone. I am happy so far.

Happy birthday!
Yes, my daughter turns 14 today, 5 days after her brother’s birthday and six years behind. Indeed, it was all well-planned so that I could save money by holding one birthday party for two of them, wasn’t it? Today she will have dinner with her friend and then go skating. And I will be her loving driver.

For some years, I have got into the habit of writing a long letter of appreciation to her. I always think writing will last much longer than any presents that I can give. That was before I have this blog.

When I first had my daughter, I thought, “Gee, the complementary part of the old saying ‘Like father, like son’ should be ‘Like mother, like daughter.’” If that was the case, I would be a happy mom. In fact, I am a happy mom no matter what. Three years later, I bumped into a book We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters by Cokie Roberts. Here again comes the new version of an old saying, “Great women think alike.”

As the year turns, I often find myself wondering, “Are you sure this is your daughter?” Last week, we had a true color exercise at work. There are four colors, orange, gold, blue, and green. Each of them is associated with one of the four types of personality. My daughter and I don’t even belong to the same color group, not even near to each other.

Next I explained to her the main difference between introvert and extrovert people lies in where you get your energy and find your happiness. Introvert people find it from within while extrovert from without. At this point, we finally found something alike between us.

She asked me if I ever felt depressed. This reminded me of my graduate school years. After I handed in all the term papers and finished all the exams. I suddenly found myself having nothing to do. And that was the moment when I felt rather low in spirits or depressed. So I told her, “It is when I found myself going about the life without any goal or pursuit that I feel depressed.” She said she felt the same way. “I must have a goal to live on,” said she. Finally and truely, like mother, like daughter.

Similar or different, we have been always very close to each other. I find no word that can adequately describe how grateful and blessed I am for having a wonderful daughter like her.
Happy birthday!

P.S. An anecdote on the date of her birth. Her due date should be April first. Since I chose to have her by c-section, I said, “Let’s not do it on Fool’s Day. And we cannot wait after the due date as she seems so anxious to come out now. Date 3/27 sounds a lucky date to me because 3 and 27 are so happily double-related as in 3 x 9 = 27 and 3 to the third power = 27.” The fun started even before her big date.

My son dutifully sent back emails as he travelled from Boston to Paris, then to Amsterdam, then back to Paris, next to Johannesburg, finally to Cape Town. Have no idea how many pictures he has taken all the way there.

He first started making money when he was in 6 grade, selling game programs that he made among his classmates. His first outside employment happened when he was 14 years old teaching Chinese to a family of two children, joined by their parents. I wouldn’t say he was qualified for the job as he could not read and write Chinese as well as he should be. Still, he got the job and managed to keep it for 4 years till he graduated from high school. He also started his internet venture during the same year.

Now, as my daughter is turning 14 years old this Friday, she is very serious on finding a job, the one that will make her look good on her resume. She also looks for money as she likes spending money. She did her research and started calling for any openings, not successful so far. But I have to give her tons of credits for initiating the efforts.

Whether or not she gets a job does not matter as much as what she learns in the process. There are so much to learn when it comes to presenting yourself and convincing the hiring manager you are the one for the position. An job offer means loads of trust and responsibility more than money or everything else. It is not a joking matter to win people’s trust.

Trust me job-hunting process can be very agonizing, discouraging and sometimes even feeling dejected, depressed, hopeless, desperate, all spectrums of negative feelings that you can imagine, as you bump into rejections one after another, to the extent of committing suicide as in the case of a Chinese Ph.D holder jumping over a California highway bridge after a long list of rejections.

My daughter will certainly appreciate the hardships involved in job hunting, hopefully not the full spectrums of unpleasant feelings. Not fun, especially in today’s shrinking job market.

Spring sowing season always reminds me of the Chinese saying, Sow bean, reap bean; Sow melon, reap melon. Don’t complain if you see other people’s plate full of delicious fruits while you don’t have any. You know I am talking about parenting, don’t you? It is both similar to and different from actual spring sowing.

They all emphasize the consequence of our actions in early time. The difference lies in the fact that you can always sow next time when spring comes around and there is always next spring as long as you live. Not with parenting, sadly to say. Once the child becomes an adult, we don’t have the magic to turn back the clock.

I know of two fathers, both being long-time friends of mine. One father has a son of my son’s age, about one month younger. He sounds such a grumpy dad, never writing to me without complaining about his son. The boy either failed in school or did not go to class after the dad had paid for the tuition. His negative attitude is very discouraging.

Honestly, I don’t have patience hearing him out and don’t even want to read his emails. To garbage, it often goes. Toxic and time-wasting. I know how cantankerous I sound to be. My questions are: where were you when the boy was little? Did you spend time making sure the boy on the right track? No, nothing like this. Then, as you sow so shall you reap. Don’t act like a whining baby.

Opposite to this is another friend of mine, also from high school, in fact, the dad of the girl who wrote poems posted on 3/4, 3/7, and 3/8 of this year. His writings of the girl are thoroughly exuberant with joy and content. You can even see his smile and happiness on his face just from his writing! Well, with your imagination. I am sooo happy for him!

If you spend your time going fishing or playing games while your child is little, in formative stage, think again. You might be better off postponing fishing or gaming till your child is in college, that is, till the fall of your season. Why? For your own happiness. Are you happy with a bitter melon in the fall?

Happy 20th Birthday!
My son turns 20 today. I wish I could spend the day with him on his special day like when he was 2 years old, cutting the birthday cake and taking pictures while he was blowing the candles. But today he is on his way to South Africa, staying there for a week to organize a global startup workshop there. I told my daughter I would go to her 20th birthday. She told me she would be far out of reach then. What a comfort. Well, nice try.

My colleague’s son moved back home after college, unable to find a job elsewhere. How we love to welcome them back home after four years of separation! Yet I don’t know how long that fuzzy warm feeling will last with an adult child supported by the aging parents. This is the nature of parenting–we wish the adult children are close by, yet not without their independence. It would be nice if we could have both, like having a son who is a millionaire neighbor. At least, in the same city. Aren’t we too selfish?

I am going to book an air ticket for my son from Boston to Beijing this summer, where he will meet some of his friends, then back to Boston. I know he is too busy to spend some time with us here. I wish I could go with him but I have commitment here with my daughter’s summer school. Thus, I will happily keep my commitment here while he will be on his way to his.
Have a safe trip to Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa.
Happy birthday!

Of eight doctors in our clinic, two are Chinese, one from Taiwan, the other from Philippines. Both of them are very diligent and professional, well liked by all. Both talk with foreign accent, not like native Americans.

What interests me is their differences. The one from Philippines grew up and earned both her undergraduate and doctor of medicine degrees from a Philippine university. She behaves more like a Chinese to me, approaching me like one of the same kind, though she cannot speak standard Chinese.

On the other hand, the one from Taiwan, finished high school here in US and is very Americanized in her behavior and her approach. I did not know she is a Chinese until a few days before I went back to China last year. She certainly has merged seamlessly into mainstream American culture so that you cannot even tell of her racial identity! A wonderful case of assimilation.

Sometimes, while reflecting upon these two Chinese doctors, I have a mixed feeling about my children when they grow up. Which is happier — the one from Philippines or the one from Taiwan? You don’t want them to feel alienated either from mainstream or their family culture. On the other hand, are they happy when they lose their cultural and racial identity and feel like one of the white?

A friend of mine told me of a Chinese who, after becoming a naturalized French citizen, refused to identify himself as a Chinese. “I am a French,” as he insisted so proudly and happily. I wish the world were as simple as it is seen through this French un-Chinese. Then all psychologists would be out of job. Here comes the recession.

A friend of mine talked to me about her 7-year-old son. He is a kind boy by nature, yet his kind-heartedness is not returned by his playmate, a neighboring child who mistreated him. He is not aware of the non-reciprocal nature of his kindness. Sounds so familiar to me.

I told my daughter of this last night while walking outside. She was rather vindictive, saying the boy should ditch that playmate. I told her that both she and her brother behaved like this when they were his age or even older than this. Even worse, I was not better than that boy even when I was in middle school.

I remember a classmate who was much worse than this playmate. We had been together since daycare years. She was far more mature than her peers, being the lead of the group wherever she went, with me being the opposite and serving her like a small pawn in her big plan.

When I was in 7th grade, she, being the so-called cadre of the class, often had late night meeting at school which often ended around 10 PM and I, being her friend, never failed to wait outside classroom and accompany her all the way to her house. We passed her home on the way to my home. I remember exactly that I was scared after I sent her to her home and ran all the way through a long narrow lane, across the street, through another long block, non-stop dashing the home run all by myself, chased by the memory of ghost stories so popularly circulated then.

Upon being asked why I came back home so late, I told my parents, “Zhang Weihua had a meeting and she was afraid to go home by herself, so she asked me to wait for her.” My parents knew there was still a distance between her house and mine and told me not to get home so late by myself. “It is not safe for you to walk all by yourself after dropping her to her house.” Still, I wouldn’t listen, for I thought I would do anything for a “friend.”

This girl Zhang also used my parents. When I went to a foreign languages school in Tianjin, she wanted to go, too, so she asked my father to send her there. So he did. Because of her busy extracurricular activities, she wasn’t able to give adequate attention to her study. Therefore, around mid or final exams days, she sought me out to help her. I remember clearly how I helped her with her school work, giving her my class notes and sharing with her my talents and cool brain. During a school outing into wilderness, we stayed over a month outside home. By then she had become rather unpopular so that nobody wanted to be her neighbor. Again, she turned to me, knowing too well of my good nature. Again I did what she asked.

By the time I was in high school, nearly everybody had joined the so-called progressive organization of the youth The Red Guard. Zhang Weihua, together with other class leads, determined who could become the member of this organization. She knew I was very anxious to be part of the large group, still she voted against me because, according to her, I was not active politically and I placed study above politics. I had served her in numerous ways. This was what she did in return. As far as I remember she had never done anything good for me. I never realize I could be such a good servant, though not for any noble cause. I must have been eager to please others at that time. A sign of extreme immaturity or low self-esteem or whatever.

I would say I am one of those late bloomers, like a bad investment during a prolonged economic downturn, taking forever to mature. Now I don’t feel anything about that part of my experience. Or rather, I had never really suffered from it as I was not aware I had been unfairly used by a so-called friend. It might be a twisted version of volunteer service, as nobody ever told me to be this silly. Too bad nobody ever told me not to either.

I only wish my parents could have spent more time with me, opening my eyes to and prepared me well for the diversities and the ugliness that inevitably ravage us on our life’s journey. In fact, I record my experience with Zhang Weihua so that readers will know better and can serve their children better than my parents. No blame, no hard feeling so far. Peace prevails as long as nobody feels disturbed.

I just finished a book by Atul Gawande, titled Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, 2007. I was hugely impressed by the overarching idealism throughout the book, felt like a warm current going through the body, so much like last century’s vintage, reminding me of JFK’s Peace Corps and “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do to your country.” A must read for all doctors!

The book goes into great detail with abundance of examples the “three core requirements for success in medicine–or in any endeavor that involves risk and responsibility” — diligence, do the right thing, and ingenuity.

It is easy to be diligent — pulling the cart as long as the cart is pullable. But it means a little bit challenge not to fall victim to our own human sins, failings or weaknesses, like avarice, arrogance, dishonesty, coverup of one’s mistake, knelling before a White House intern, even committing massacre currently going in Iraq.

The last one–ingenuity– “is not a matter of superior intelligence but of character. It demands more than anything a willingness to recognize failure, to not paper over the cracks, and to change. It arises from deliberate, even obsessive, reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions.”

How I wish more people could be like this. Well-intentioned dream. Well, at least, I wish to share it with my children and wish they will keep them in mind, no matter they will pursue in their life’s journey.

A good book, heart-warming and inspiring! Nice effort in cold weather.

“How many families are happy when how many families are sad”–a line from an old Chinese poem entered my mind on the eve before 2009 Chinese New Year. I saw the picture of the decapitated 22-year-old Chinese student, Xin Yang, from Beijing and could not wipe out the sadness from my heart. My son described the crime as “gruesome.” I cannot imagine how her parents can deal with this tragic blow right now. They just sent their daughter to Virginia Tech on January 18 of this year and learned of her death on January 21.

I may not know the reason of the murder but I can never in my life understand how such abhorring atrocity could be ever carried out. Indeed, murders like this forever perplexes the minds of thousands of kind-hearted people. This time I am more than overcome by total astonishment. I am consumed with deep fear and concern. In fact, we all should be for the safety of our daughters.

For many Chinese parents, personal safety, self-defense and self-protection have never been ranked as important as academic achievements. Since we cannot minimize the risk factors in society and cannot prevent their venturing out, we have to prepare our daughters for the adventure.

But how can we prevent unexpected event like this? I talked to my son and found myself grabbing for words, trying to warn him of anything of this kind, but failed to utter anything specific. I wish I knew better as a parent.

Chinese parents have this well-known saying, “Looking forward to the day when the child becomes famous.” If I interpret it literally, it goes like this — look forward to the son becoming a dragon. What a magnificent dream! But how many of us are aware of the fact that we cannot go higher than our thoughts?

True, thought precedes action and can condition us and channel our desire and directions. See all those TV commercials with tons of money throwing there? They all serve to cultivate and channel your desires to their products, stimulating you to buy till your last penny.

Imagine when our minds are thoroughly buried in minute trivialities, busy fighting over these details, and cannot think anything better than our daily engagements, where else do we expect to end up? No where. We don’t “become dragon” by accident. The desire and the thought must come ahead of everything.

Therefore, this desire and the thought are the gifts that I want to give to my children so that their minds are nurtured with great thoughts, which will hopefully generate great actions someday. Also, when the goings go tough on their life’s journey, they will have the backing of these positive thinking to tide them over. Ideally, once these positive thoughts take root in them, they will guide their life through all weathers.

Yes, a mom must be able to think way down the road, sixty or seventy years ahead, if they make it that long, hopefully. Because you don’t want to see your child ending up like the son of Daedalus who flew too close to the sun, ruined his waxed wings and dropped into the sea. Well, on the other hand, the story also emphasizes the limitation of a parent’s word or advice. Daedalus did warn his son not to fly close to the sun but the boy forgot it all. So probably will be gone to the winds my words to my children. At least we have tried.

How to instill some lofty ideas into their heads? By reading books on great people and providing them with the virtues, achievements, and stories of these people, constantly chatting with them about dreams and ideals that they should have.

Remember a boy will never become a dragon without his thinking and dreaming of becoming one. You are the one who first impregnate this dream.

It is true that very often money, in whatever form it may take, is the focus of what is desired by the children and what shall be passed on to the children, if there are some. For me, the teaching of money and life is one of the most valuable gifts that I would like to give to my children, priceless though the cheapest one.

There are tons of stuffs written on money, that money being a good servant but bad master, etc. Or money is not everything but nothing can be done without it. Money cannot make you happy but you won’t be happy without it. It is even mentioned in bible, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

I want my children to be aware of the relationship between money and their lives. While our life energy and time is limited, money is unlimited. There is no end of human desire for more and more because there are indeed more and more money and wealth if you strive for it, the more you make, the more you spend. But can you strive for more and more time and energy out of your limited span of life? No. Have you heard this, “Our span on earth is short.”

When we have to work for money, well, to make a living if you don’t have a large inheritance, we are in essence doing nothing short of exchanging our life energy and time for money, a limited for an unlimited and an unbalanced exchange, which we want to terminate as soon as possible so that we can enjoy our limited life by doing whatever we enjoy. Ideally retire at age 40.

Such a nice dream or perfect plan! Too bad not many of us can afford it! I remember a friend of mine told me, “When I was young, I wanted to retire at age 50 and start enjoying life …” Well, he is just like an Energizer Bunny, not that cute though, forever running, no where near retirement. Some friends of mine started having children after age 40 and will have to work their heads off to fulfill their financial responsibility for the youngsters.

Now what, after we know this relationship? Well, my advice for my children is like this. No paycheck, no matter where it comes from, can make you rich quickly and allows you to retire that early.

One of the legal ways to get rich this quick is investment — invest wisely and do it as early as possible, better starting it from your first paycheck. Yes, you got to leave some extra each month to invest. Saving needs self-discipline. You need to discipline yourself to put aside at least 15% of your income and invest wisely.

e.g. if your average annual investment is $15,000, after 25 years, with average 9% annual interest rate, interests compound monthly, the future value is about $1.4 million. If you start working right after college and can retire after 25 years, living comfortably with this saving. Of course, the more you make and invest, the less time it will take to reach your financial goal and then retire.

I told my children, “You will never have money for investment if you are like average Americans, living from paycheck to paycheck by spending every penny they make, when still not enough, start borrowing and finding themselves in heavy debt for the rest of their lives and finally never have a second to enjoy the most precious life on this earth!” I have learned many of my co-workers don’t even have money left for their company-matching retirement savings. Many of them started working in their teens and have to work till they drop dead!

A sad yet heavy lesson that I hope my children will learn as early in their lives as possible — get rich quick and enjoy life early. You cannot enjoy life if you are rich in money but poor in time.

One last thing — retirement does not mean stop working or doing nothing. It only means doing whatever we enjoy without having to worry about paycheck.

Yesterday as soon as my daughter got on the car, she told me she had a very sad day, which was rather alarming to me because she had never sounded like this before. A 8th-grade boy took his own life at home and she knew this boy. “He looked fine yesterday and did not seem to have anything wrong. Nobody knows why.” she said. Many students was shocked and cried over his death. As they found it hard to handle it, the school set up a councillor in library for them.

I did not know the dead, but my mind ran through many things, a 13-year-old suicide, his family, teenager suicide, his little sister, what was going on, teenager problem, conflict, etc. It is shocking and indeed very hard to accept the fact that such a young life was here yesterday, gone forever today. Suicide for any age group is awful; for young life like this, it is exceptionally sad and tragic, hard to comprehend and accept.

I learned that suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 15-24 and the 2nd among college students. This incident should be enough to alarm the parents of the special needs during teenager years.

We know adolescence period is the most volatile one of all, changing physically, psychologically and emotionally, feeling of isolation, unable to communicate how they feel and to handle their own emotions, an experience that is too painful to go through — leading some to seek the seemingly simple solution — suicide.

Without even learning the whole story about his death, I still assume his family is mainly culpable for his death. Family should be a safe harbor for children of this tender age, where parents are expected to be wise enough to identify and catch any early signs of problem that led to this end. How could they have such a tragedy happen under their roof? Why? Lack of communication? Or because of bad communication? Fight with parents? Bad match in personality? We might not know the whole truth about his death, yet we parents should have known better now. At least I have.

Nearly without any exceptions, all moms want to make their children happy by providing what they want, such as cooking their favorite food and allow them to do what they enjoy. But a wise and really good mom knows what is really good for the benefit of her children in the long run.

I have observed a rather unhealthy lifestyle in some children. Such as the 25-year-old boy living in my house is disproportionally in favor of meat, especially frying steak, hot and spicy, large and tender, averting vegetable as much as he can, to the extent that he suffered from stomach ulcer and bleeding at age of 14, and suffers from hyperlipidemia and high urine protein at young age. His uncle blamed his mother for this eating habit, “My sister often cooks large chunk of meat for him just because he loves it.”

I have also observed many children demonstrating unhealthy lifestyle — unbalanced food and lack of activity, which result in high hyperlipidemia, childhood overweight and even early onset diabetes.

I have long before realized that many diseases are caused by unhealthy lifestyles. Yet, not until I observed these lifestyles demonstrated in some children did I fully understand that a mom plays an extremely important role in shaping and forming a healthy lifestyle in her children. To be sure, a mom is definitely responsible for children with weight problem. Such as, my children love fresh and delicious donuts and cheesecakes. I would encourage them to gain unnecessary weight if I provide them with it every time they ask.

Yes, you can see a healthy lifestyle is one of the best gifts that a mom can give to her children. This lifestyle includes balanced and nutritious food, no drug and smoke, and the love of outdoor activities, anything that is opposite to laziness and greediness. True, it is easy to say but difficult to promote and cultivate this lifestyle over a long period of time. It takes tremendous persistence, patience and a lot of talking and nagging to plant a healthy eating habit. A really good mom will try to do the right thing by giving her children what is beneficial to their long-coming life, regardless of what.

I want to share with my children and the reader this story told by the grandma. A primary teacher took a student for a walk around their school campus. They talkd while walking, drifting rather aimlessly around campus. It took them 15 minutes for them to complete their first circle. On the second circle, it took them 10 minutes. On the third circle, it took them less than 5 minutes to finish the same route. Why? Because the teacher told the student before the second circle, “This building is our destination.” They knew where they were going on the second time. “Let’s see who can get there faster,” said the teacher on their last run. This time the student had a goal and was also motivated by the desire to be the first one to reach it.

Don’t we have similar experience in our lives? We work in a more efficient manner when we are aware of a deadline or plunge more energy when we know where our efforts will lead to. Such a simple truth — work can be completed faster if we have a definite goal — can be applied to all parts of our lives. Many thanks to old grandma’s wisdom.

I always have this or that plan for weekend, but never have it my way. I woke up before 6 AM on Saturday, trying to fix some breakfast for my daughter who needed to get school at 7 AM for science olympia competition. She would take school bus there and have the competition somewhere north of Missouri River.

I started working on applying for visa extension for the 10-year-old at my house. The boy woke up early today probably because of the noise created by my daughter’s early activity. As soon as he got up, he started chatting with his family over the internet. The loud noise from the conversation made me want to go out, but I had to get his application ready for delivery today. This I did.

I sped up and reached post office before it closed at noon, then to the bank, the library, and finally I did some grocery shopping.

Too many things that cried for my attention so that I found it hard to follow my original plan for my weekend — the 25-year-old nephew is in China but has to register for something like internship to keep his student status here. School has started there and we got to think of a way to pay for him. Sprint has just announced its plan for further reduction in force, in other word, layoff of people. Another one in the house needs to get ready for a trip to China, air ticket and purchase to name the least. My daughter keeps asking for skiing lessons and I needed to call around to find such lesson for her. The 10-year-old won’t quit crying for mama.

My daughter came home around 5 PM, indicating she wanted to go to Border’s. Great idea. So we went. And finally I got to sit down and rest a little bit at Border’s. Nothing extraordinary and nothing big accomplished. Still, I feel blessed for being around and able to do something for the children. I can’t imagine how dreadful it will be when I find myself nothing to do, all by myself.

Mao Zedong once said “we communists are like seeds while people are like earth. Wherever we go, we must integrate ourselves with people. We will take root and blossom out among people.”

A mom’s worries go beyond a child’s years at home and follow her child wherever he/she goes. I had anticipated the time when my son would be far away. So, even before he left, I kept showing him this quote from Mao Zedong. “No matter where you go, the only way to be happy is make efforts to be part of the group, instead of isolating yourself.” It is not money, not any short-lived tangible property that I want to pass to my children but advices like this.

I feel this strongly at office, I meet as many different types of monitors as birds in forests. Some are cheerful, friendly and helpful; some are not. Some frank and straightforward, some just the opposite. Some leave smiles and good feelings behind while some others, make you want to say “What a good riddance” when they have left. They travel and meet strangers all the time. It is their attitudes that determine how they themselves feel wherever they go.

My son joined the college fraternity and was surrounded by friends soon after he left home. In fact, he has merged so well that he has found his home-away-from-home among his friends and has never suffered from home-sickness. He does not call home as frequently as some college kids, which is a thing good if you take it as his quick adjustment to the new environment. Isn’t that the way every mom wants her child to feel when her child is away from home?

By the way, one of my children once commented that if you failed to merge into the group and isolated yourself, it was your own choice and you were the one who suffered and the group would not be negatively impacted by this. I think it will take toll on both parties — the isolated individual and the group.

Note, in an attempt to become integrated, we need to avoid getting ourselves lost in the group. 1/21/09.

For the first time, I am thinking of writing about mom, yes, as if I had never done so before. Many thoughts rushed into my head as I hit the topic. The thoughts streamed in totally haphazardly. Let me count how many ways motherhood is defined and described. I am not sure if these are descriptions or expectations, ideal or reality, or combination of both, or surrealistical.

(1) responsibility — cannot shake this off her shoulder once she brought into the world a brand new life, too bad there are too many irresponsible moms, well, not as many as dads of this kind,
(2) love and care, total, unconditional and unselfish so that she should not expect any return when she gives, not like investment into stocks, as if she were real angel,
(3) privilege, indeed, but only to those who can recognize it,
(4) having the fortitude and courage, no matter how physically fragile she is, like a pillar of steel, shouldering the weight of the whole family. Have you ever felt this way? Me too. Isn’t that fair enough?
(5) having tolerance and flexibility, adapting your expectations to reality, relaxing your authority towards your teens,
(6) having patience and firmness, with terrible two-year-old and even terrible-two’s dad with temper greater than his weight,
(7) wise and knowledgeable, ready to answer whatever questions the children might come up with, wise enough to know when she should let go of control,
(8) here’s a catch-all phrase — demanding all the best qualities that we expect from a decent human soul so that a mother can bring out the similar best qualities in the children.

To me, on top of it all, it has meant all of the following:
self-sacrifice,
total devotion,
no time-off duty,
never-failed dependability,
a guide or councilor when a need arises,
providing home in both physical and psychological, emotional sense,
sunny and cheerful when the children need you to cheer them up,
her responsibility for her offspring being as long and important as her life,
strong and optimistic when they need your shoulder to cry over or to lean on.

At some times, your healthy presence is all they need. Imagine how strong you must be for your youngsters, before you can rest your head on their shoulders if you can keep your head that long, not physically.

Mother should be a glorious title. No doubt it is arduous and laborious at time — education of the soul is never easy. Yet it can be a purifying, heart-warming, and rewarding experience.

In reality, we see moms from one extreme like Susan Smith murdering her children to another sacrificing her life for her child exemplified in China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, from restrict to indulgent type, from let-go to over-protective ones, from love with wisdom to love without … Just like seeing all kinds of birds in forests, we see all kinds of moms in real life…

For an ordinary mom like me, I feel there are so many things that I want to do for my children or want to pass on to them but never have enough time and energy. I wish I were as strong as a decade ago and could keep up with my youngsters in either walking or jogging. Gone are those days. Now, more than ever before, I am keenly aware of the fact that when a mom has a good health, she and her children have everything. Nothing matters as much as a mom’s health, not even money. A surprised discovery today!

Okay, I confess a feeling of guilt when I gave such a lengthy description of a 10-year-old boy’s lack of self-control in yesterday’s posting, as if I took great delight in airing his dirty linen to the public. Such a mean entertainment! How could I write non-stop when it comes to other people’s weakness? Perhaps I was too upset being waken up and unable to get back to sleep that night. I have promised myself not to devote my posting to such mean-spirited engagement any more, no matter what.

As the old saying goes, “instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.” If I do not have the match to light the candle or if the candle refuses to be lit, say nothing and live with the darkness or illuminate the night with your own light. It never helps if all I can do is to complain or curse whatever darkness I have in mind.

The key is paying no attention to whatever impudent behavior or brazen disrespect that is rontinely exhibited by the 10-year-old. It is simply not nice to focus on any undesirable behavior for too long. Even toxic to the mind. Besides, a person will lose the sight of the big picture when his mind is grounded to such granular details. This seems the real catastrophe to me. Luckily, this is not my style.

The world is so diverse and so not-ideal, well, if we cannot make a change, at least, be on guard so that we ourselves will not be unfavorably changed as the result. This posting is written for my children — aren’t you proud of your old fashioned mom?

Yesterday was the first day of school, also marked the end of winter break for most of the children. To be sure, kids need some adjustment from total relaxation to school routine. Normally, children can pack their backpacks and get ready for school without any fuss, even though they preferred not getting up so early everyday. At least this is how my daughter feels about it.

But the 10-year-old boy, being noted for his aversion to study, cried mostly heartily the day before school started, that is, on Sunday evening. He could not go to bed until very late. I had already fallen asleep but he woke me up around 11:30 PM, telling me he missed his mama and wanted to get on Skype. I knew how happy he was when he was playing non-stop till late into the night throughout the whole winter break without ever crying or missing his mother. He actually did not want to go to school. So I told him “Go ahead if it makes you feel better.”

Not done crying yet. On Monday morning, he got up crying bitterly again at the prospective of having to go to school. When reminding him of his being a student and taking care of his responsibilities as thus, “I know it, but still … ” Still, he could not control his tears. My daughter feels very repulsive over such a huge over-100-pound crying baby. Come on! Have some sympathy when someone cries.

His immaturity has been well-known to all. Yet, from this incident and others, I would say his immaturity is a symptom of lacking of self-control. Yes, lack of self-control is the root of all.

Okay, we found the root of many of his problems. The question that follows is: is it the result of nurture or nature? With all my advanced education in humanities, I am totally clueless. I have found myself utterly inexperienced dealing with children like this. Nice discovery today, right?

With 5 days away from the New Year comes over 500 Palistinian death. The year 2009 started with Israeli air attacks on Gaza, causing the loss of lives, bringing out a large-scaled protest and passion for revenge in the Middle East and throughout the world among Islamists, and further escalating the conflict between the two peoples.  I am sure the peace-loving Israeli had all the good intention of maintaining peace, only accidentally resulting in mass-killing.

Events like this always provides loads of food for thought. Can we overpower people with advanced military technologies and the support of the most powerful country in the world. Can we make ourselves accepted and well-liked by using threat and gunpowder?  When dealing with strong-minded normal IQ folks, I am not sure how much we can achieve with force. Of course, I am not the first one to discover this ancient truth, as I remember a saying from Sun Zi military book that the best way to conquer a city is through conquering the heart, not with gunpowder.

You cannot dissolve a conflict even with a rising tone, let alone air attack. On the contrary, soft-tone with firm voice and skilled diplomatics works better than what the powerful party often practises.

From the perspective of people living in that part of the world, peace has been so precious, yet has been so hard to obtain and maintain. It is getting harder to obtain with the loss of so many lives and sowing of so deep hatred among the living.

So much can be learned from this, sadly to say at the cost of so many lives!

W.B. Yeats’ often-quoted poem “The Second Coming” — “Things fall apart; The Centre Cannot Hold… ” This also accurately describes the feeling that a parent might experience when her/his children leave home. How you wish you could turn clock back. The cure is to laugh at yourself out and loud while keeping yourself busy.

Indeed, wasn’t I busy enough? After we got back from the airport, the girl got on the phone chatting away with her friend while I started cleaning the room till I cleaned everything out of my mind, as if I could. Then, the girl asked if her friend could come over. Sure, I could even go and fetch her. This I did. We later ended up in Border’s bookstore and spent the afternoon there. I had a stack of books by my side, which functions like a system of central support so that things would not fall apart.

My son called when he arrived in Cleveland, later called again when he emerged from the plane in Boston. Finally he called from his room at Fraternity house. It was after 6 PM. After that, each of us diligently went to attend our own business, though being far apart from each other. The nest won’t be empty or we won’t feel the emptiness if we could all be well-behaved like this. What a nice dream!

My son will be leaving for college tomorrow, the thought of which filled my mind with an instant emptiness. This will be the fourth time that he leaves home and I should have got used to life without. Still, this unspeakable meaninglessness won’t go away with the passing of time. Helping him packing has proved to be more than a physical challenge. Talk about endless motherhood! It is when I sent my own child away that I came to understand how my mother felt when I left her over two decades ago.

On the plus side, he has been home for nearly two weeks, better than nothing. We had many talks on as many topics as we could think of, leaving me so much to think about. And he has made efforts spending as much time with the family as possible, enough to stop any whining from me. Indeed, what else should a mother expect? I need to regain control as soon as possible so that life will return to “normalcy,” as President Warren Harding promised to the nation during his presidential campaign, though not with the same degree of terrible Harding dullness.

I have not talked about rules to the 10-year-old boy in my family. Why am I so hesitating? The answer is simple — I have not thought of a better way of communicating them to him.

He is a sensitive boy, feeling offensive and crying easily, and will rise up for forceful self-defense if the rules are too specific. If the rules are too generous, they won’t work. It only serves to feed into his head a disrespect of rules and those who make the rules.

Rules are preventive, restraining, and aiming at regulating our behavior. It is an exercise of authority over a minor or anyone below you in power or position. They are made for enforcement.  It is better not to have any rules that are not enforceable.

The assumption behind a rule is this — I cannot trust you to behave well by yourself, so I have to exercise some authority by enforcing some rules upon you, like an invisible chain limiting you from undesirable behavior.  Would you like this chain? Not really.

Even when I was in primary school, I was always a maverick, somewhat resentful when teachers set some rules on us students and when I saw teacher doing something that we were not allowed to do according to their rules.  I could sense a degree of unfairness. As a growup, I became more sensitive toward any hint of rules upon me. I feel it difficult to make myself accept disrespect and distrust. I know how bad I can be.

Ideally, if children could do the right thing by themselves and had the logical thinking ability to follow the right path like my children, I am better off without ever thinking about any rules.  But not with this 10-year-old. For me, at this point I need to think of a more tactful and effective way in putting an offensive bridle politely on the 10-year-old boy so that we can all live happily ever after.

I am going to be very frank and serious with the 10-year-old in my house. These are the rules that I set for him, give him a copy and demand him to follow them.
(1) Absolutely no violence of any kind. If you violate this rule, send back home immediately.
(2) Absolutely no visit to pornography sites on the Internet. If you violate this rule, send back home immediately.
(3) No cursing and disrespectful words to anybody in the house.
(4) No running in the house.

I wrote the above and showed it to my son. He told me not to talk to the boy now.  “Wait till next time he does something wrong.  Because children tended to have short-term memory.  It is more effective if we talk to him right after he commits a wrong,” he said. 

Surely enough, the little one will challenge me with a series of questions like these, “What do you mean?  Why do you set these rules?  Do you mean I am violent? Do you mean I ever visit porn sites?”

I am still contemplating when and how to talk to him about these rules.  Not a piece of cake.  I feel challenged even by a 10-year-old.

It is holiday season now with talks about presents and shopping all the time in the office. Although I do not go with the flow, I am not a party-pooper either.  Plus, I would not want to miss this chance to express good wishes. 

Therefore, I gave some Xmas colors self-made origami products to some people in other department whom I see on daily basis. I distributed a bottle of chocolate candies to those whom I have contact with, not a regular chocolates but a rather deluxe ones.  Not too much but a little gesture. 

I have found this practice of giving away a little something since I came to this company. People never give anything big or expensive.  It would make your look like a fool if you give lavishly.

I gave my CRC a Xmas card with a cloisonne-lid mirror, although I doubt if she understands what art it is involved in the making.  I feel like “Do in Rome as Romans do,” on the surface, though.

The 10-year-old boy in my house had heard so much about his big cousin and had been looking forward to seeing him with awe and tremendous good feeling, while my son also has learned about this younger cousin from his sister and others, not without preparation either.

The first encounter has been more successful than we ever expected. The 19-year-old treated the little one nicely and politely. He gave the little one a long-sleeve sweat shirt from MIT, but the little one does not know the word on the shirt. Neither does he know what MIT means and thus really he could not appreciate it.

When the 19-year-old could not understand some Chinese words that the little one said, the little one said, “What? How can you not know this simple word? I cannot believe it.” The big one admitted his Chinese was not so good and asked the little one to teach him.

Thus started a seemingly non-stop conversation with the little one asking his big cousin, “Do you know how to say … in Chinese?” The big boy behaved like a great man with a humble mind, glad to find a willing teacher, open, frank, and ready to learn and to enrich.

The first evening went sweetly without any friction with the little one who kept challenging his big cousin and felt on top of the world. My son has been nice, humble but not without a safe distance from his little cousin.

My son’s coming home provided a sharp contrast when we think of the arrival of the 25-year-old cousin who often finds himself wallowed in noisy fights with his two younger cousins.  We all agreed that my son’s calmness and maturity have tamed whatever wildness that the little one is likely to relish. To be honest, I found him getting more mature each time he got back.

Indeed, happy hours for us all.

My son was supposed to be home yesterday, but the flight was delayed for departure in Boston, consequently he missed the transfer in Cleveland and had to stay overnight in Cleveland. Luckily I have a friend there, who picked him from Cleveland airport at 9 PM yesterday and sent him to the airport around 10 AM today. He finally arrived home safe and sound around 2 PM today. The whole family went to fetch him at the airport.

This is how my children feel about any break, a break from school but not from their goals and plans.  I feel like a real mean mom again.  I told him we would work on three things during this winter break — finishing one Chinese book, writing New Year Resolution, helping me with this site.  I am not sure what help that I need but I know he can tell me what is needed to get some traffic.

The 10-year-old nephew is indeed one of a kind. He resisted strongly any efforts to make him open an English book, even a picture one. In an attempt to promote a love for reading and to enlarge his English vocabulary, I proposed a reward system, that is, $10 reward for completing one English book.  A few weeks passed without his ever openning one book. He once even told me, “I would rather not have this money than read a book.”

Last week, I proposed to raise the reward to $15. He still thought it not enough to motivate him. Then, I said, “Fine, no money at all.  It is up to you.” He quickly accept the raise, but still would not open his book by himself. “I am waiting for my mom to be online and study with me,” came the answer every time I asked him to read. For about two days he did not do anything because the electricity was off in the building where his mother lives.

My child would appreciate it tremendously if I did the same thing with her. But being stingy as I am, I have not given her any reward like this.

Lately I taught him the word kind and kindness, its meaning, examples of kind words, actions, and persons and their opposites. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling when I felt so hopeful at teaching and dreaming of the beautiful consequence.

Today is the first day of their winter break. I feel rather uneasy leaving the 10-year-old boy and the 13-year-old girl home by themselves, as I am not sure if a fight could break out. I told the girl of my apprehension. She assured me not to worry my head off as she considered it “too small to be noticed.”

She reported to me that she had practiced violin in the morning and studied Chinese by herself. She went to Border’s in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the boy prefers staying home, having all the computers to himself.  Peace prevails.

Yesterday evening my child said to me, “I bet you $10 if I don’t get my homework done by 8 PM.” I accepted the bet and wished her good luck.

I was thinking she must have assessed her homework and known she could get it done in that time frame. Also she must know that she could procrastinate until after 11 PM if she did not implement some rule or constraint on herself. She actually used this bet to force herself to focus on task on hand.  Good try.

This exercise of self-control will make every parent smile like a baby. Things did not go as smoothly as we thought, though. She thought her algebra homework was posted on teacher’s website like it was used to be, but not yesterday. So she got on the internet, saying “I need to send an email to my classmate, asking her about our homework today.” And then she was on internet doing something else, waiting for email reply, with no idea of how long that waiting would be. At this moment, she asked for an extension as she had some legitimate reason. I told her to call instead of waiting for email reply. This she did and got what she needed to get work done. By the time she started doing the real work, it was a quarter till 8 PM.

What happened was she did not start doing homework immediately after dinner. If she started earlier she still had time to check with her classmate and found out any problem that might unexpectedly crop up.  Instead, she thought she could get the work done in less than an hour and was puttering away her time on the internet or something not related to homework until after 7 PM.

I gave her 30 minutes extension, but told her, “You would not be able to get any extension if it were real work.”  Still, I take it as a good beginning to the long battle against procrastination and a good effort in self-control and time management.

I read a magazine yesterday at Border’s, Scientific American Mind, Dec 2008 issue. The cover article is “Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit?” By Trisha Gura.  I thought the topic is a timely reminder to my son who is almost famous for putting things off till last second. 

The article does not actually provide any feasible method of getting rid of this habit. Instead it tells us something we already know, well, not as exactly as the author, though — “Almost everyone occasionally procrastinates, but a worrisome 15 to 20 percent of adults routinely put off activities that would be better accomplished right away.” Nice to be told again, right?  I hope we do not belong to that group of adults.

The bad part is the foot-draggers have to face some undesirable consequences for procrastination –financial, physical, relationship, and even professional. I know a friend of mine who always postpones filing tax return to last second and never fails to file for an extension.

Procrastination is a learned behavior. The article traces back to early human history for its root, provides a brief nature-and-nurture argument, and goes through a lengthy explanation on people’s penchant for task aversiveness and pain avoidance.

You may think it is so easy to say, “Do what you should do first regardless of what.” Indeed, how complicated can it be?  No legitimate excuse whatsoever for failing your task.

I would think if procrastination is a learned behavior, like drinking and smoking and even overeating, it is only a matter of human will over human addiction or behavior.  The stronger one will prevail over the weak one.  You will be tragically defeated by your own addiction if your addiction proves stronger over your will and you willingly subject yourself to the control of whatever habit you may have acquired.  The toll is too heavy for life if you thus let go of control.

My child had two art classes in the morning, one of them was a makeup for last week’s.  This is the first art class that she attended since I got back from China. Saturday morning was spent chatting with friends and reading magazine and books at a church.  It was such a pleasant escape.  It almost gives headache when I think of a house with three kids and the amount of household work that is waiting for me. Yes, I am so selfish.

As you may have guessed, the word of the day for the 10-year-old yesterday was grateful, yes, as grateful as our closest friend — dog. I explained the word to him and shared with him the story of a grateful dog. He understands that it is very very bad to “bite the hand that feeds you” and we humans should learn from the dogs who return loyalty to the hands that feed them. I feel so hopeful, well, also a little bit too idealistic.

In the afternoon, the boy had tennis lesson at 2 PM and the girl had a birthday party at 3 PM, with me being the full-time driver.

A friend of mine recommended me a reward system as the mechanism to curtail the unsatiated demand for clothes and other expenses.  I used to practise it when my son was at elementary school, like 1$ for each 100 score that he made either on his homework or on test.  But I ceased doing that when he showed the tendency of requesting for return for whatever he did.  I found the system containing a flaw that cultivated this tendency.  That is, the child got the idea that he only did something when there was reward. The eventual fallout for the system was it was difficult to make him do anything for nothing.

What about responsibility, volunteering, and the love and care that parents have shone on their youngsters unconditionally? Getting good grades only means taking care of their responsibility, just as we parents take care of ours. A reward should be given for exceeding the expectation not simply for meeting it.

Yes, I do need to put a reasonable brake to the uncontrolled expense.  In the afternoon before my daughter’s birthday party, she asked to buy an additional gift for her friend. I vetoed the suggestion and reminded her that I had spent over $25 on her friend’s gifts. I knew she would eventually override my veto, still I raised it so that she would feel the constraint and tried to reach the point of mutual satisfaction in the end.

At this point I brought up the topic of budgeting and constraint, fiscal responsibility, the idea of living on borrowed money and going bankrupt when you have no place to borrow, etc.  After a brief lecturing, I asked, “How about this? Starting from next year, I give you a card with a total of $500 for your total yearly expense on your clothes and any other minor indulgences that you would want?”  I thought she would think it not enough and ask for more, but guess what? she asked me, “What if I have some money left by the end of the year? Can I keep them?” “Of course, you can keep them and you can deposit into your account if you have more money,” said I.  At this point both of us are as happy as we can be.

I feel like celebrating the triumph of reasoning, understanding, and compromise over everything opposite to these. On top of this, I am grateful to my friend who first gave me this suggestion.

The winter break is coming soon. I have talked to my two children my plan for this two weeks. Yes, by now they have got used to my asking them to set a goal and lay off a plan so that they can make good use of their time.

My plan is for them to have a crash course on Chinese. Specifically, I will ask them to find a Chinese book and finish reading it in two weeks, which includes learning whatever new characters that they see and need to memorize.

A few days ago I was looking for such a book and found many animal story books. Many fine characters found in animals are very much talked about and celebrated, such as loyalty in dogs and touching loving relationships between animal parents and their cubs.

This is the first time that I asked myself why dogs are so famous for their loyalty. I don’t think there is anything hereditary here. It is a conditioned and an acquired behavior. A dog treats its master well only because he has been well treated. If anything, I would say a dog is very grateful for the food and well-care that is given to it. It cherishes and values whatever good and attention it receives from its master, a much better company than some of the humans.

I would think a dog would behave differently if it were maltreated or abused. So is it true with human relations. Don’t blame me for being too optimistic. I believe if a child is well-treated, there will be desirable results, though not the same degree of gratefulness and abiding loyalty we see in animals. As the rule, good deed should yield good return.  We know that won’t happen always, given the fact that humans are a lot more cunning, crafty, capricious and complicated than any living beings. Still,  I am looking at the bright side and believe things will turn out well if we humans seriously learn something from our nearest friends.

Word of the day for the 10-year-old — Peace, which means no fight, no violence, no shouting, no hot temper, no weapon, solve problem with peace, live in peace. I feel like talking in dream again. When being asked if he liked peace, he said “Of course.” Only he needs to be reminded of practicing peace, for all.

“Laid off. Anything help” written on a board carried by a middle-aged man standing in bitter coldness just off 430 highway. The man looked so familiar that I thought hard and remembered he once worked at Prairie Life Fitness Center. There were many cars waiting off highway, yet no one offered him anything. Such a sad sight in this brightly lit holiday season. I could not imagine what was going in his mind at this moment — sad, helpless, shame, anger because of no help from anyone …

I was thinking of sharing this encounter with my daughter but I held back, because she was in a good mood to share a piece of good news with me. The news was she had achieved a very high score in a math test, higher than she did before and higher than some of the assumed-smart kids in her class. I told her she was so lucky to have a good brain because I knew she did not work hard and still got decent grades. That is a real blessing.

Some of the blessings are like air that we live with and enjoy daily, yet we seldom notice its presence until it ceases to be present.  Actually, a lot more blessings if you asked people like Helen Kelly.

A quick update on the missed flight yesterday morning.  I called the agency that issued the ticket. Luckily, they could soon find a seat for next Monday, for additional $500.  I picked up the bill and made the change immediately.  Thus gone $500, so easily and gracefully for me on this holiday season.

I have been tortured with irritating cough and insomnia since I came back from China, and on top of this, feeling the pressures from both sides regarding the 10-year-old in my house — on the one hand, the one witnessing him waving kitchen chopper insisted on his leaving; on the other hand, pressue from his mother whose intention on his stay was clear as daylight.  Finally things let down a little bit for me now.

I talked with San Yi, my youngest sister at home over the phone on Monday and Tuesday evening. It turned out both San Yi and Grandma were very much worried about me.  They were also concerned about the tension brought upon my family here by the arrival of the 10-year-old.

My youngest sister advised me not to sweat too much over the education of the boy as it was not originally intented this way.  I perceive myself playing the role of fire-extinguisher first, then that of an educator of soul and a care-taker, not the imparter of knowledge.  As long as I can keep under control his wanton temper, I am a happy being. Yes, “wanton” is the exact term that my child described him while I was in China.

I am keenly aware how much it takes to raise a decent kid. Each of us is strictly limited in our ability to do what we want. I can do only this tiny bit and I don’t expect I will make big difference.  If anything I want to get out of my effort, that is, I want him to be a better person first, then a useful one later.  I would rather him to be a useless good person than the otherwise.

As a Chinese saying goes, a journey of a thousand li starts from the first step. This first step for me is to introduce one concept per day, starting last Sunday, with the purpose of teaching both English words and the rules of behavior.  If I keep it up, he will be a lot richer and nicer after one year with 365 nice words.  So far, I have covered responsibility, respect, and trust. He understands the concept after my explanation, yet still having a real hard time memorizing these words.

Here’s a short list of words that I have planned to drill into his head: peace, peaceful, kind, kindness, friendly, volunteer, love, loving, care, caring, Jesus, take care of, giving, humble, modesty, hard work, polite, nonviolence, goal, civil, gentle, thrift, bless, blessing, honest, fair, fairness, truth, true, honor, courage, help, helpful, courtesy, responsible, respectful, grateful, etc. A good plan, I know. It only needs to be religiously implemented.  Again, wish me good luck.

I record all this experience so that my children will have a place to look for answer if they have questions on this matter in the future.  I wish I had some more cheerful topics to write on than this one.

I am hopelessly optimistic, because that is the only way to feel good and to look at the future.  The spirit of Ah-Q revives in me again.