Every now and then, you read a piece that wrenches your heart and makes you cry, makes you feel oh-so emotional. And, makes you feel grateful for writers, relationships, love, and for all the heart-feely-deep pieces in the world.
This one by Hua Hsu for the New Yorker is one of them.
Faxing was cheaper than long-distance calling, and involved far less pressure. The time difference between Cupertino and Taiwan was such that I could fax my father a question in the evening and expect an answer by the time I woke up. My homework requests were always marked “Urgent.”
He replied with equations and proofs, explaining the principles of geometry in the margins and apologizing if anything was unclear. After wearying of America’s corporate ladder, he’d moved to Taiwan to work as an executive in the burgeoning semiconductor industry, and he was busy establishing himself at his new job. I skimmed the explanations and copied down the equations and proofs. Every now and then, I rewarded his quick, careful attention by interspersing the next set of math questions with a digest of American news: I told him about Magic Johnson’s announcement that he was H.I.V.-positive, I narrated the events that led up to the Los Angeles riots, I kept him up to date on the fate of the San Francisco Giants. I told him about cross-country practice, made honest commitments to work harder at school. I listed the new songs I liked, and he would seek them out in Taipei’s cassette stalls and tell me which ones he liked, too:
I like the November Rain by Guns N Roses. The Metallica is also great. I couldn’t enjoy the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam. The old songs reinterpreted by Mariah Carey (I’ll Be There) and Michael Bolton (To Love Somebody) are marvelous. The MTV’s “unplug” is a great idea!
As a teen-ager, I had better things to do than fax with my dad.