I used to think my father was a simple man. Not simple in an intellectual sort of way, but rather easy to understand. To me, he was fairly one-dimensional. And it was pretty straightforward for me to figure him out and put him in a box. He was stoic. He was a workaholic. He was absent-minded. He had an off-colour sense of humor. He didn’t like to answer questions. He had a quick temper.
When I was little, my father told me he found me in the trash. As the story goes, he saw something move in the bin, so he lifted up a weathered piece of newspaper, and there I was. A cute little Chinese baby, that nobody wanted, covered in garbage. My father’s got a bit of a grumpy demeanor and usually doesn’t say much at our family dinners. But this story about how he found me? He delights in this story. It brings him so much joy. Years later, I found out that he told my sisters the same thing when they were growing up. We’d all laugh, as my stepmom and I discredited the story. We reassured the girls by saying that we were both there when they were born.
But no one was there when I was born.
I was two years old when my parents decided to separate. My biological mother wanted to return to Hong Kong, but my father asked to raise me, so I could have access to more opportunities and a better future in Canada. I imagine it as one brief moment. One brave request. One difficult decision. But what was the conversation really like? Did my mother fight to keep me? Or did she just hand me over? What would my life had been like if I had been raised in Hong Kong? What would I be like if I had been raised by my mother? These are questions that have no answers.
My father was 27 years old when I was born. When I think back to life in my 20s, I couldn’t imagine myself as a parent, much less a single parent, having just moved to Canada, and trying to start a career in math of all things. What was it like for my father to raise a young girl, all on his own? Did he think it would be different? Did he ever regret the decision? Our dinners together were filled with silence. We asked each other nothing, and we told each other nothing. I’d eat as quickly as possible so I could get back on the phone with my friends.
Looking back, I wonder why my father wanted to keep me when he just ignored me for the most part. He worked all the time and I was left to my own devices—playing with Barbies, reading books, trying to think of the questions to the answers on Jeopardy, watching hockey, and standing up for the national anthem even though there was no one else in the room. Alone. Always alone.
Sometimes you hear horror stories about step-families and half-siblings, but my stepmom arrived at just the right time. I was 13 years old, and starting to go through some terrible teenage angst. A new arrival to Canada, my stepmom was filled with love and hope. At night, she would sit beside me and rub my head until I fell asleep, unconditional affection I’d never had up until that point. My two sisters were born in the few years that followed and I was thrilled by their arrival. "At last, I’m no longer alone."
You’d think after witnessing his then-only daughter growing up with a very Chinese and very make-fun-able name, he’d spare my sisters. But my father is a man filled with pride and familial respect, so he followed the Chinese tradition and gave my sisters the same first name as me.
Kok Yan. Kok Sum. Kok Lin. Gok Yun. Gok Sum. Gok Ling. Gok has no direct translation in English. I once asked a Chinese calligrapher what it meant. He told me it was a very interesting name. A good name. He couldn’t tell me exactly what it meant but he said it roughly translated to patient. Gok. Patient. Yun. Person.
Having known myself for a dozen or so years at that point, and remembering how frustrated I tend to get when I have to wait for anything, I thought to myself, “that can’t be right.” So I looked up the first character of my name, Gok, in a Chinese dictionary. It took me some time, having no idea how to even begin to use a Chinese dictionary. But eventually, I found it. It said, respectful.
Gok Yun. Respectful person. Gok Sum. Respectful heart. Gok Lin. Respectful spirit.
But there’s so much more to Gok than simply respect. It also means honest, upstanding, with integrity.
Gok Yun. Gok Sum. Gok Ling.
Our father explained our names to a family friend over dinner one night, after a few glasses of wine. “I’d just come to Canada,” he said, as my sisters and I stopped our conversation and started listening intently. “I didn’t know about this meaning in English.” He said. “It doesn’t mean that in Chinese.”
Our family friend, who was visiting from overseas, asked, “What does it mean in English?”
No one responded. Eventually my dad said, “Something bad.” After a pause, he added, “It’s a good name.” My sisters and I nodded, silently.
These days, emboldened by age, I ask my father more questions. Sometimes he answers, sometimes he doesn’t. When he does, I make sure I listen carefully. Some days, I can see through the cracks to his pain. I see the sadness, the loneliness, the walls he’s put up, the inability to express himself through words and emotions.
Time always brings new perspective, and I think I now understand a little more about my father, having raised this disobedient and rebellious girl on his own for over a decade. At the same time, I understand a little more about myself as well. I owe my freedom to my father's hard work. I owe my compassion to his stoicism. I owe my curiosity to his silence. And above all, I owe my good life and my good name to this complex man, who made a brave request to keep me.
When I was little, my father told me he found me in the trash. As the story goes, he saw something move in the bin, so he lifted up a weathered piece of newspaper, and there I was. A cute little Chinese baby, that nobody wanted, covered in garbage. My father’s got a bit of a grumpy demeanor and usually doesn’t say much at our family dinners. But this story about how he found me? He delights in this story. It brings him so much joy. Years later, I found out that he told my sisters the same thing when they were growing up. We’d all laugh, as my stepmom and I discredited the story. We reassured the girls by saying that we were both there when they were born.
But no one was there when I was born.
I was two years old when my parents decided to separate. My biological mother wanted to return to Hong Kong, but my father asked to raise me, so I could have access to more opportunities and a better future in Canada. I imagine it as one brief moment. One brave request. One difficult decision. But what was the conversation really like? Did my mother fight to keep me? Or did she just hand me over? What would my life had been like if I had been raised in Hong Kong? What would I be like if I had been raised by my mother? These are questions that have no answers.
My father was 27 years old when I was born. When I think back to life in my 20s, I couldn’t imagine myself as a parent, much less a single parent, having just moved to Canada, and trying to start a career in math of all things. What was it like for my father to raise a young girl, all on his own? Did he think it would be different? Did he ever regret the decision? Our dinners together were filled with silence. We asked each other nothing, and we told each other nothing. I’d eat as quickly as possible so I could get back on the phone with my friends.
Looking back, I wonder why my father wanted to keep me when he just ignored me for the most part. He worked all the time and I was left to my own devices—playing with Barbies, reading books, trying to think of the questions to the answers on Jeopardy, watching hockey, and standing up for the national anthem even though there was no one else in the room. Alone. Always alone.
Sometimes you hear horror stories about step-families and half-siblings, but my stepmom arrived at just the right time. I was 13 years old, and starting to go through some terrible teenage angst. A new arrival to Canada, my stepmom was filled with love and hope. At night, she would sit beside me and rub my head until I fell asleep, unconditional affection I’d never had up until that point. My two sisters were born in the few years that followed and I was thrilled by their arrival. "At last, I’m no longer alone."
You’d think after witnessing his then-only daughter growing up with a very Chinese and very make-fun-able name, he’d spare my sisters. But my father is a man filled with pride and familial respect, so he followed the Chinese tradition and gave my sisters the same first name as me.
Kok Yan. Kok Sum. Kok Lin. Gok Yun. Gok Sum. Gok Ling. Gok has no direct translation in English. I once asked a Chinese calligrapher what it meant. He told me it was a very interesting name. A good name. He couldn’t tell me exactly what it meant but he said it roughly translated to patient. Gok. Patient. Yun. Person.
Having known myself for a dozen or so years at that point, and remembering how frustrated I tend to get when I have to wait for anything, I thought to myself, “that can’t be right.” So I looked up the first character of my name, Gok, in a Chinese dictionary. It took me some time, having no idea how to even begin to use a Chinese dictionary. But eventually, I found it. It said, respectful.
Gok Yun. Respectful person. Gok Sum. Respectful heart. Gok Lin. Respectful spirit.
But there’s so much more to Gok than simply respect. It also means honest, upstanding, with integrity.
Gok Yun. Gok Sum. Gok Ling.
Our father explained our names to a family friend over dinner one night, after a few glasses of wine. “I’d just come to Canada,” he said, as my sisters and I stopped our conversation and started listening intently. “I didn’t know about this meaning in English.” He said. “It doesn’t mean that in Chinese.”
Our family friend, who was visiting from overseas, asked, “What does it mean in English?”
No one responded. Eventually my dad said, “Something bad.” After a pause, he added, “It’s a good name.” My sisters and I nodded, silently.
These days, emboldened by age, I ask my father more questions. Sometimes he answers, sometimes he doesn’t. When he does, I make sure I listen carefully. Some days, I can see through the cracks to his pain. I see the sadness, the loneliness, the walls he’s put up, the inability to express himself through words and emotions.
Time always brings new perspective, and I think I now understand a little more about my father, having raised this disobedient and rebellious girl on his own for over a decade. At the same time, I understand a little more about myself as well. I owe my freedom to my father's hard work. I owe my compassion to his stoicism. I owe my curiosity to his silence. And above all, I owe my good life and my good name to this complex man, who made a brave request to keep me.