Daddy's Girl

The Chinese value filial piety greatly. Turning back on your parents is something you go to hell for, and there's some appropriate punishment for it, something like being trapped in an old folks' home for all eternity until you learn to like it. I don't really know, I'm just guessing.

But what's particularly amusing is the supposedly inspirational stories we come up with to convince children to be good to their parents. And I'm telling you, that shit is just evidence that we had really dumb people in China once upon a time.

There's one about this boy who, in order to protect his dad from a swarm of marauding mosquitoes, took off all his clothes and let the little fuckers bite him all over, so that they would be sated on his blood and leave his father alone. Seriously, if I had a kid like that, I'd cry. With sheer disbelief that somehow none of my brain cells made the transition. I suppose it's sweet, but honestly, you couldn't come up with a better idea? Like closing the fucking door?

If that was bad, that's because you haven't heard of the other dude. The one who put on a deer pelt, snuck up to a female deer, and milked her. If your mom had a sudden craving for milk, what would make make you think that molesting deer would be a good way to get her some? What the fuck is wrong with cows? What the fuck is wrong with going out to buy her a quart?

In comparison, this other dude who washed his parents' shit off was a much better show of filial piety. Practical, an act of love and care, with good sense. Of course, this is probably where I find out something truly screwed up, like he did it with his tongue or something. It's not, but my faith is quite shaken right now.

I try to be filial to my parents, I do. Mom told me Dad was home sick today and I bought him a bowl fish noodles for dinner. Unfortunately, like the dumbass kids before me, I demonstrated sheer emotion and absolutely no brains and didn't call home to see if he wanted anything to eat first. I can't make a joke here, I'm worried because he didn't get up to eat it; he was that groggy. Hopefully it's just the medicine.

I've never been a daddy's girl. Our relationship has been, at best, civil. I love him, and I know he loves me, but we will remain stoically silent about it till the end. Ours is not the sort of heart-warming father-daughter relationship with profound moments of emotional closeness. At best, our attempts to convey our affection are almost cavemen-like; he'll present me with some odd trinket, I show up unannounced with fish noodles.

But it doesn't stop me from being worried sick that Dad is not himself. A few months back, he developed this strange habit of falling asleep all around the house. At the coffee table, on the couch, on the toilet bowl, while smoking, while eating peanuts, while reading the papers. It didn't bother us so much because we figured he was just being eccentric, or passive aggressively trying to get Mom to go to bed earlier.

Then he started to act a little weird. He'd wake with a start, see me and ask if I was going out, when I'd come home, showered, and was heading to bed. He fell off the bed when he was sleeping, not just once, but twice. Cracked his head against the cabinet on the way down and bashed his ribs against the wall. Thankfully, he had nothing but some bruises to show for it, but it still scared the crap out of me.

So tonight, seeing him with those sunken, listless eyes, I felt fear. He told me he had run out of the sleeping pills he has to take to sleep and hadn't had any shut eye for the past two weeks, which is why he'd run himself into the ground. It doesn't help that he'd been working full shifts, from 9am to 10pm, everyday for the past two weeks.

I'm praying it's just nothing more than that. That the horrible part of me that knows him all too well is right and that he's just playing things up to get attention. Please let that be it.