✨Comment BRIDGE if youd like to receive the full list of questions I asked my dad (and allowed him to ask me) on a one-on-one trip to his birthplace in Malaysia, and the boundaries we put in place for a life-changing conversation. 💛
Talking to our parents can be awkward. Especially if there’s a special occasion like Mothers’ or Fathers’ Day.
If you have traditional Asian parents, have an estranged relationship with them, or just have wildly different values, even just sitting across the same table can be filled with tension. Time only widens the chasm.
Honestly, I never thought I’d be able to do this—
— but as the years drew us, once inseparable, slowly apart, the stirring to get to know my Dad better again deepened in me. I didn’t want to live with regrets.
Casually, I tossed the idea of visiting his birthplace as part of getting to know his past. We had not travelled alone together for over 20 years.
I couldn’t believe he said yes. Couldn’t believe he booked flights and planned a 2-day itinerary overseas one-on-one with me to visit a part of his life that was locked away from my own.
So I prepped questions, got on a plane with him, and interviewed him about his childhood, working life, marriage and fatherhood… as he brought me to visit his village, the shophouse home that 11 of them squeezed into, the hospital he could have died in from a malnourished diet of pineapple, rice and cabbage, and family members I’d never met in my life.
Tears welled in my eyes as I reflected on the story of his mother’s cancer and early death, his motorcycle accident, his desperate risk-taking attempt to make it in the States, and embarking on a Masters program on financial aid while working as a dishwasher in pizza parlors to earn $4 USD a day. How he went from buying 10-cent pineapples once a week in his village to make himself pineapple jam to stave off hunger to being his own self-made businessman.
If it’s been a while since you or if you’ve never had a chance to hear and see parts of your parents’ story, perhaps there’s no better time than now. 💛 Keep building bridges.
*published with permission