I remember Manuel complaining once that I was always more than willing to put up the personal stuff about my friends up here on this journal (especially if it’s hideously embarrassing for them) but one never sees a thing about my private life.

Well, perhaps not my private life. Quite a lot of that is up here. what he meant was that I never mentioned my family.

I suppose I’ve been keeping my family and own private life separate. Different animals. They never really figured into my days when I was in Munich.

That’s not right either. They were obviously never physically present, but in my thoughts every day.

I am a very proud person. I suppose I got that from my family, especially my Dad. But this ain’t the nasty kinda pride; it’s pride in one’s family, it’s another kind of love.

Which does not mean that I can’t be arrogant. But that’s another story, and no, I will prolly not tell you that story. Some clichés are pointless.

Other clichés however, well, let’s just say they’re there for a reason. Take me and me Dad for example. Classic father-son complex. We could never communicate. We were always busy with our own spheres of life; him with his work and me with my studies. I loved literature and the arts; he was a sports champion in his younger days and a supercoach later.

Of course, we loved each other. Immensely. We always knew that. But Asian fathers are naturally oppressive and Asian teenagers are, thanks to our American pals, unnaturally rebellious. It’s hard to like those you love, and family the hardest.

Me Dad and I are exactly the same in some ways. Very loud, very brash, very opinionated, very stubborn. Never without an argument. Come to think of it, so was my Dad’s dad.

I love telling people who don’t want to hear this about us three Mah men. All born in the Year of the Horse, which is perfect cuz our family name means horse in Chinese. It’s some kind of line, some sort of undeniable power. It’s a male thing.

Women bitch; men, we just keep silent and that is worse sometimes.

My Dad and I never used to be able to have a quiet conversation without erupting into raised voices and huge arguments. I think, to some extent, we enjoyed it. All Mah men do.

This evening my Dad taught me some basic Tai Chi. Eight warm ups that would prolly look sily unless you were doing it yourself (and even then, still) and a couple of basic positions. He showed me how it could be used for self-defense; I tried attacking him and using the same slow moves he taught me earlier speeded up Matrix-style, he nearly threw me halfway across the room.

My Dad’s not a large man, by the way.

He wistly told me about “helping” a large and brusque German man in his younger days get a headfirst to the hard granite ground. I found that really funny. He talked and I listened.

Sounds simple but it took me more than two decades to learn how to do it.

It took me a year, last year, to realise why I wanted to do it.

Love is when a vegetarian eats meat, love is when a mouse attacks a cat. Love is something less mushy than that, love is something simple like a loudmouth shutting up to listen.

It took me a year, last year, to learn how to listen. Manuel, who’s the best listener I know, he taught me that. Erich, who can’t keep his gap shut this side of Mike Stone, taught me that there’s always something worth listening to, no matter how much it might seem at first to be absolute garbage.

Take this as a compliment, guys.

Of course, my Dad’s changed too. He’s more mellow (if a volcano can mellow) and he only repeats what he says ten times now instead of fifty. That’s an improvement.

I wouldn’t have asked him to teach me Tai Chi a year ago. I was too busy. Studying, working, whatever. You guys might not believe this but I was a study freak, a workaholic, back before I came to Germany. It was exhilirating and it nearly killed me.

I can see that now.

Soul, I had no soul. (And I don’t mean Aretha Franklin.)

Munich took a lot away from me, and nearly all of it was waste, it was rot. I’m healthier and happier now than I’ve ever been in a long, long time. Going there and coming home…

I went out for dinner with my family tonight and I met an old friend. He almost didn’t recognise me. I was thinner, he said. He wasn’t a close friend, and our conversation wasn’t exactly strained, but something was distinctly wrong, awkward. I suddenly realise he wasn’t looking me right in the eye. He was shifty.

That was me, formerly.

On the way home after dinner my Dad commented on how thin and drugged out that friend of mine looked. He had an earring too. Now this means nothing to most of you, but this is a conservative Asian family I’m talking about. He’s only gone to Singapore (ah! That dreaded place again!) to work for some months and look at him, quipped my Mom.

Everyone seems to think it’s strange I haven’t changed all that much after a year in Europe. What they meant was that I didn’t come home spitting foreign expletives, pierced in every available flap of skin, and possibly dragging some black chick back, five months gone.

They worry, you see.

But never too much. They always seem to have the utmost confidence in me, my family. Alone in Munich, this is a terrifying thing. Here, it’s invigorating.

I miss talking to Blue about anime and martial arts. (He never could avoid saying Judo when he meant Ju-jitsu.)

Not that bad though. I’ve discovered that my best bud Wern loves anime, something he’s come into recently as well. And me Dad’s teaching me Tai-Chi.

Give me three years and I’ll kick your ass.

(Maybe.)

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Copyright © 2002 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.