MLK would have LOVED the Yankees...

Happy MLK Day!  I realize I have a few posts that need continuation, but I wanted to honor a great man today.  Thanks for reading, and to view last year’s MLK post, click here. 

Don’t be a Hater!

During the first week of school I was taking a sip of coffee from my Pittsburgh Steelers coffee cup when one of my students decided to use that moment to introduce me to his favorite team.

Bastien:          “The Steelers suck.”

Mr. Lin:         “Thanks for your opinion, but we don’t use that word in my classroom.  I take it you’re a Ravens fan?” 

Bastien:          “Yup.  And I hate the Steelers.”

I figured this much, since the Ravens are the arch rivals of the Black and Gold.  Then, when the Steelers lost to the Ravens in late November, he used this opportunity to try and provoke a response:

Bastien:          “Haha, Steelers lost.  We beat you!”

Mr. Lin:         “Yeah, it was a great game… the Ravens played really well.”

Bastien:          “You’re not mad we beat you guys?”

Mr. Lin:           “Honestly, I cheered for the Ravens last year during the playoffs once the Steelers lost.  I really like their style of play.  I know it’s a rivalry, but it’s just a game.”

Bastien:          “Yeah, but we’re rivals!  We hate each other!”

Mr. Lin:         “Yeah, but if I find myself cheering against a team I know my life is consumed by hate.  I’d rather just cheer for my team.  I’d rather my life have more love in it than hate.”

            I hoped those words would resonate in him…

The Power of Love

Often lost in the recounting of the Civil Rights movement is the ground-breaking way that it was carried out.  Yes, we may know the theory behind civil disobedience and peaceful resistance, but do we truly understand how difficult it must have been to carry out?  After all, it is far more intuitive to think about exacting revenge and to allow our hate to engulf us than to love.  But, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently states,

“I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

On this Martin Luther King Day, I want to recognize a great man who understood that hate was a burden.  This man realized that that it’s consuming nature is far more destructive to its owner than to anyone it might be directed towards.  Because of Dr. King’s great leadership, a nation found that love is a far more powerful and effective weapon than hate.  

A 10-year old boy

In a world where sports have become more important in our daily lives than God and country, families and friends are often divided along team allegiances.  Many carry the hate of another team more strongly than their love for their own team.  I recall an encounter a few months ago with an Orioles fan who angrily told me he could not bring himself to cheer for the Yankees, even if a Yankee victory was necessary for his team to make it to the playoffs.  I wonder… how much does resentment affect his life?  In what other areas does it manifest itself?

As an educator, I’m determined to teach the lessons that we aren’t required to teach.  I know these lessons are the ones that are of greater importance to one’s overall satisfaction with life than being able to write eloquent essays or perform computation that most adults use calculators for.  I pray each day for my students to see that life success is beyond academics and money.  I pray that their lives will be filled with love, and not by hate.

When the playoffs began two weeks ago, the Ravens were in the playoffs and the Steelers had not.  Bastien and I exchanged words once again:

Bastien:          “Sorry your Steelers didn’t make it this year.” 

His normally jestful eyes were thoughtful and genuine.

Mr. Lin:         “Yeah, it kinda stinks.  Oh well… I’ll be cheering for the Ravens.  It would be great for Ray Lewis to go out with a ring.”

Bastien:          “Yeah, it would be.” 

When the Ravens square off against the San Francisco 49ers on February 3rd, I’m happy that I’ll be rooting FOR a team, and not AGAINST one.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another – Romans 13:8a

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

Yesterday, one of my students came to me at the end of the day with a very strange question: 

Alicia:             “Mr. Lin, is there any where that you want to go that you need directions to?"

Mr. Lin:         “Hmm… not that I can think of.”

Alicia:             “Come ON, Mr. Lin!  There has to be somewhere you want to know the directions to!”

She sure was persistent!  I decided to indulge her:

Mr. Lin:         “OK Alicia, how about Heaven.  Can you tell me how to get there?”

There was absolutely no hesitation in her reply.  Apparently, Alicia knew very well how to get to Heaven.

Alicia:             “First, you close your eyes.  Then, spin around 5 times.  Next, hit the imaginary piñata and run straight through the imaginary candy.  Then you will meet a llama named Bob.  Give Bob an apple and $5.  Bob will give you a ride on his back to Hogwarts Academy and $20.  Once you are at Hogwarts, Acadamy, use the $20 Bob gave you to get on Hogwarts Express.  Go to compartment 5 where you will meet Ke$ha.  Ke$ha will give you a map leading to a year long journey to the Bulgarian countryside.  Once you are there, turn to your right, and there will be Heaven.”

Mr. Lin:         “Wait… what??” 

Alicia proceeded to repeat the exact same directions, verbatim.

Mr. Lin:         “Okaaay…”

She wasn’t done yet.

Alicia:             “Now ask me how to get to Sesame Street.”

            This ought to be good…

Mr. Lin:         “Fine.  How do you get to Sesame Street?”

Alicia:             “Same thing as Heaven, except you turn left.”

            Alicia proceeded to skip away, happy as a clam.  I, like you undoubtedly are, stood there shaking my head.  I’ve had many, many moments as a teacher where I’ve wondered,

What’s going on in that kid’s mind???

            All of a sudden, a thought came over me.  I called her over; it was my turn to ask a question.

Mr. Lin:         “Alicia, if you turn right to get to Heaven and left to get to Sesame Street, you would be going in opposite directions, right?  So… is Sesame Street the opposite of Heaven?”

Alicia giggled; she had realized this joke had turned Sesame Street into a far less happy place.  Again, she skipped away, unable to keep her dimples from appearing once again.  I watched in amusement as she packed up, oblivious to the hilarity that she provided for me. 

81% of Americans…

…believe in Heaven. That’s a true statistic, taken from a Gallup poll in 2004.  As childlike as Alicia’s words were, it conveyed a decidedly profound thought:  The way to get to Heaven isn’t all that different as the way to that OTHER place.  What I mean is, are Christians really all that different?  If you were to ask any of my friends from college, California, and New Jersey, I’m certain they still recognize the same person as I was not-so-many years ago.  Well, perhaps I’ve grown up a little (not much, but a little!), but haven’t we all?  The same friends that were branding themselves with hot coat hangers, running with the bulls in Pamplona, and staying up until 6am on weeknights drinking 40s are now fathers, businessmen, and… Christians. 

My life hasn’t changed all that much since I made the decision to start following Christ in 2007.  I’m still impulsive, impatient, and prone to do really stupid and borderline inappropriate things.  But, I’ve matured, become more altruistic, and become (relatively) responsible as I’ve aged.  These things all could have all happened regardless of me becoming a Christian.  The difference is that, as alluring as it is to turn left towards Sesame Street, I made the decision to turn right.  It's comforting to know where that road leads.

Leave it to a 10 year old child with dimples to remind me that Heaven was never - not even in my darkest hours - really all that far away.

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.  ~ Mark 10:15

Words Never Spoken: Chapter II

This is chapter 2 of my story, ‘Words Never Spoken’.  These entries will appear from time to time in addition to my regular blog posts.  I hope you enjoy them; they are a compilation of memoirs from my father’s life in the United States that I’ve gathered, along with stories from my classroom.  To read the prologue and chapter 1, click here.

Chapter 2 – Ms. Dornan

Each year our school puts out a yearbook that contains class pictures.  In order to insure that there are no mistakes, teachers are given copies of the class pictures to make sure that names are spelled correctly and the right students are in each class.  A few weeks ago, we received those copies in our mailboxes.  Lindsay, a 23 year old first year teacher, came to me after looking at her copy of the class picture.

Lindsay:         “I look like one of the kids.”

Me:                 “C’mon, I doubt that.”

Lindsay:         “Seriously.  If they wrote ‘Lindsay Dornan’ instead of ‘Ms. Dornan’ as the caption, you’d think I was IN the class, not TEACHING the class.”

I looked at the picture; she was right.  It was difficult to discern her youthful face from the beaming smiles of the 10 year old students that were in her homeroom.  I couldn’t help laughing a little.  I also couldn’t help but think of what it would be like if, in 30 or 40 years, I came across a picture from my first year teaching.  Would I remember how excited and nervous I was on that first day?  Would I remember all the incredible stories from the students that I had that year?  And, would I remember how the year was filled with difficult and unexpected challenges?

***

In the summer of 1966, my father found out that he had been accepted into the University of Missouri doctorate program for metallurgical engineering.  3 years of hard work, careful planning and saving money had come to come to that moment.  Now it was time for the second part of his plan to take effect.  He began packing and preparing for America.  Finally, in November, he boarded an airplane to Seattle, Washington.  He was 23 years old.

When he exited the airplane on November 30, 1966, it was the first time my father had set foot in a different country.  As he told me about that day, I recalled the day I left for college.  That August, my parents drove with me to Boston ease the transition.  When they left, I recall the thought of ‘Oh man, I know no one here, and my family is 500 miles away!’ I was scared, excited, and everything in between – and my friends and family were only a phone call away.  I would see them on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even some long weekends in between.  Can you imagine the magnitude of emotions that must have been pulsating through my dad?  Not only did he not know anyone, but he didn’t know the language well.  On top of that, the only communication he would have with family is through mail – and in 1966 international mail took weeks – and sometimes even months – to get to its destination.  The next time my father would return to his native Taiwan, he would have a wife and two young children with him.  Not that these thoughts would be on his mind.  He had other things to think about.

The plan was for him to work for a few weeks so finances wouldn’t be as tight when he started his graduate program at the University of Missouri.  My uncle, the 2^nd of the 6 sons that my grandmother bore, had a friend in Seattle that my father would stay with.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to find a job for those weeks so it was off to Missouri without any additional money.  While he didn’t leave with any extra cash, he did come out of Seattle with a strip of black and white photo booth pictures – the only artifacts that remain from his short stay in Seattle.  He stumbled across these pictures during the last week he was in the United States while he was packing to leave.  It seems poetic that he would find pictures from his first week in the U.S. during the final week he was in this country.  These photographs are now a fixture in the mirror above my dresser. He looks almost exactly the same as he does now.

My father, about 1 week after coming to America.

If those pictures could speak, they might tell me that my father was excited for the opportunities that awaited him, but also nervous because of the unknown.  But these pictures don’t speak.  All I see is a confident young man that is in high spirits.  I don’t see the stories this man has to tell about leaving Taiwan or Seattle.  These stories would stay unearthed for 46 years – the first I heard them was the day I drove him to the airport on that final day in the States.  It isn’t because the men of the Lin household are notoriously bad at communicating.  It is because in the grand scheme of things, his time in Seattle was but a flash in time – a minute detail in the great story of his life.  The 23 year old man in those pictures is naïve.  He is unaware of the spectrum of challenges he would face in the next few months.  And, he would learn that he was impervious to all of them.  

Next chapter - An Asian in Missouri, 1967...

Words Never Spoken: Prologue and Chapter I

Hero – noun.  A man admired for his achievements and noble qualities; one who shows great courage.

Tonight I drove my hero to the airport.  No, Superman wasn’t in my passenger seat tonight, and neither were Derek Jeter or Hines Ward.  The person I dropped off at the airport tonight was Dr. Kuang Y. Lin.  After 46 years of living in the United States – exactly 2/3 of his life – my father is moving to the place he still considers home.  My father will be spending his retirement in Taiwan.  This is part I (of hopefully many!) of my tribute to the greatest man that I know.

Prologue

The word 'love' is a complex word in English.  It can be a noun, and it can be a verb.  In Taiwanese, it's not a complex word at all.  That's because there isn't a word for 'love' in Taiwanese.  It doesn't exist.  Maybe that's why I never heard or said the words, "I love you" in the household growing up.  Those words didn't exist.  They were words never spoken.

Similarly, my relationship with my father has been both complex and, on occasion, non-existent.  If you ask either of us, we can probably recall numerous times where I’ve been a terrible son or he’s been a poor father.  I guess this is common for many; after all, we are only human and none of us gets a manual on how to be a good father/son.  Most of us mature and grow out of the stage where we can’t stand our parents, but unfortunately I tend to be a late bloomer.  It has only been in recent years where I’ve realized he’s my hero, and that I want very badly to be more like him.  The evolution of our relationship from one of anger and borderline loathing to one of respect and love is one of many chapters.

Chapter I:  Mr. Barca

“Mr. Barca, I heard that you were an engineer in Ethiopia.”

One of the greatest parts about my job is that I can see parts of my life in each of my 10 year olds.  The week before parent-teacher conferences, another teacher had told me that Mr. Barca, father of one of my students, had been an aeronautical engineer in his native Ethiopia.  

Mr. Barca smiled at me and nodded. 

“Back home, I was,” he said in his soft-spoken way.  “But I need to get more schooling in order for me to be an engineer here in the United States.  I hope to be able to do this soon.  But first, I want to make sure my son gets a good education.”

Mr. Barca is the type of parent that teachers love.  He cares deeply about his son’s education and behavior, gives him plenty of support at home, and also respects and cares for his son’s teachers.  Beyond that, he also took a risk by giving up a great job in his native country to move to the United States.  As we talked about his journey, I began to think that he was similar in many ways to another great man in my life.  Mr. Barca is an engineer with a singular focus – to make sure his son is given the opportunities he didn’t have in Ethiopia.  Similarly, my father once had a singular focus.  It was this focus that brought him to the land of opportunity.

***

My father was born in 1943 in a rural town in central Taiwan.  He was the 4^th of 6 boys, and there was no running water.  I think about the stench in my classroom on days where my students have P.E. and I cringe when I think of what things must have been like for my grandmother in a house full of boys.  Like me, he loved playing outdoors, got into a little mischief, and even got a bad grade a time or two in school.  In fact, he once got a 33% on a test in middle school.  Unlike me though, he cried when the teacher showed him his grade. 

At the ripe old age of 19, my father graduated from the Taiwan Institute of Technology (a hilarious aside – think about what the acronym for that is.  Yes, I’m a 5^th grader at heart).  After serving his mandatory time in the Taiwanese Army, he became a math teacher, then made moldings for a gold company, and then sold electronics.  That last job paid him $75 per month – great pay at the time.  To give you an idea of how high this salary was, my grandfather was a well respected administrator in a hospital, and his pay was only $50 per month.  I asked my father years later why he gave up such a great job, and his answer was simple:

“I wanted to be an engineer.  The opportunities for engineering in Taiwan were not good at that time, and the best opportunity for me would be to come to the United States.”

For 3 years, my dad had a single goal – to come to the U.S. so he could get his engineering doctorate.  3 years is an eternity for a young man.  So much can change, and so much can serve to dissuade us from our initial goal.  I recall being asked where I saw myself in 5 years in an interview after graduating college.  Two years later I couldn’t tell you what that goal was because so much had changed.  But, my father is not like me.  His focus never deviated.  For 3 years, he and my grandfather saved their meager salaries until they had $800 for the one-way ticket to the U.S.  Then, my grandfather mortgaged the land he owned so that my dad could have 2 semesters worth of rent and food.  Everything was in place; my father was about to come to the United States.

I recently spoke with my dad about this dynamic time in his life:

Me:     “Dad, were you scared or nervous when you were getting ready to come to the U.S.?”

Dad:    “No, I was excited.” 

Me:     “Just excited?  I think I’d be scared too.  I mean, what if you didn’t make it in your Ph.D?”

Dad:    “Grampa sacrificed a lot for me.  I couldn’t fail.”

I’ve often thought about that conversation.  Even though I know my grandfather loved my father dearly; culturally, the shame that would have been felt would have been too much for my father to withstand.  On top of that, it would have been financially impossible for him to return to Taiwan.  The courage that my father had to take that risk – to go for his dream despite not having a safety net in case of failure – was incredible, and even heroic.  I want that same noble quality that he has.  I want the courage to strive for a worthwhile goal.  I want to be able to do this with the persistence and single-mindedness that comes when failure is not an option. My father’s admirable achievements in his amazing life are in large part because he has the courage that few men possess.