My Father – Huizhong Yang
Figure 1: Photograph by Pin Chen, August 1993
A thin man and his baby play on a bed, and there is a baby toy beside the baby; this baby looks like it was just born a few days ago. The baby does not open his eyes to look at his father, and the father, kissing the baby’s hand, shows he loves this baby. The father puts the baby in the middle of the bed because he wants to protect his child’s safety. The bed, pillows, bed sheet, washcloth, and father’s clothes suggest one thing—this family is poor.
I was born in 1993 the same year as the picture. At that time, my parents were living in the cheapest apartment in the city of Harbin, and several families used the same kitchen and public bathroom. It was a difficult time from my mother’s pregnancy to my birth. At the beginning of my mother’s pregnancy, one of my parents’ friends borrowed all of their money from them to go into business, and the business failed. Thus, my father, Huizhong Yang, took three months to study, buy, and sell stock for the first time in order to earn the funds to pay the hospital bills for my birth. I was sick for the first few days after I was born; I lived in the hospital for three days and was given Penicillin. My father had unstable emotions, a weak body, and did not eat enough food even after he obtained money. Thus, my father got an illness—excessive internal heat. In Chinese medicine at that time, this disease was hard to cure for poor families because there was a lot of pressure on poor families to work, and they may not have time to rest. If people wanted to cure this illness, they needed to rest for a few days. However, my family was poor, and my father needed to spend most of his time working, so he could not cure this sickness in a short period of time. Because of this illness, his head grew a pimple; after this pimple disappeared, it left a scar on my father’s head. This picture was taken on the first day after my sickness was cured, and my father played with me on the bed.
“You can learn more by travelling thousands miles than
by reading thousands books.
You can learn more by seeing different people than
by travelling thousands miles.
You can learn more by following the winners’ way than
by seeing different people.”
—Chinese Proverb
This quote is a famous proverb in China. The Chinese think reading books can change people’s minds; thus, it can change destinies because reading more books allows people to know and understand a lot of theories, methods, and techniques; reading not only means reading books, it also means learning from school. Travelling means practices because practicing can develop these methods and techniques. Also, traveling to different places gives more experiences, and these experiences can keep people from falling into temptation. Seeing different people means communicating with more and different people because everyone has their opinions, knowledge, and experiences; these opinions, knowledge, and experiences reflect wisdom. People can make these strengths them owns and avoiding their weakness is the shortcut to achieve success. Following the winners’ way means when people get confused, they can use winners’ or others’ ideas for reference to think clearly and get the key points. This way it is easy to know which kind of method is the best for them.
At the end of 1998, the economic situation of my family improved because my father became general manager of the branch office and he earned lots of money from stock. My father could offer a better environment for me, and he began teaching his experiences to me. When I was in the third year of elementary school, my father told me this proverb, and that he could help me to do the first three things, reading, traveling, and seeing different people. For the reading and traveling, he bought books for me and brought me to travel to other places. For seeing different people, he began taking me to his company dinners, university and high school students parties, and some informal social activities when I was in the second year of middle school. However, “following the winners’ way” required me to do it by myself because different people have a different definition of winners, so my father’s way may not be appropriate for me.
From 1998 to present, when they have free time, my parents will take me traveling to other places to see this beautiful world. Before I came to America, I visited almost one-third of China.
Figure 2: 1998, Hainan Island
This was the first trip in my memory, and I was five years old at this time. We traveled to the Hainan Island—the most beautiful island in China. This year was the sixth year of my parents’ marriage, and the day this picture was taken was their wedding anniversary. These two phrases in red, one on the top and one on the bottom, mean lovers vowed that their love is as constant as the sea and mountain.
When I went to school, my father arranged for me to go to the best school in my province even though my grades were not high enough. He wanted to give me the best education and sources of knowledge during student life. Compared with other classmates or children, my childhood is full of good memories for me. My father thinks a healthy body and mind are more important than good grades. When other parents pushed their children to study, a common phenomenon in China, my father let me learn something I was interested in and brought me to the gym to do some exercises. If I wanted to study, my father gave me the best environment which he could give to learn knowledge and skills. If I did not want to study, he brought me outside to enjoy natural scenery.
Because my father had this attitude for me, I had the lowest grades from elementary school to middle school. However, I was interested in computer games at that time, and my father did not want me to waste time on games. He found a class about robotics structure and programming and let me take this class. For the first few weeks, I was fascinated in this class, so I studied this subject for seven years until I went to high school.
Figure 3: Photograph by Chengji Yang
These are my certificates; the right one, I got when I was in middle school, and the left one, I got when I was in high school. I joined two national competitions. The competition, which I joined in high school, does not have any particular meaning for me, it only is a certificate, but the other one has a special meaning for me. Because I always got the lowest grades before I joined this competition, my mother did not want me to continue to spend time on robot programming, and she did not want me to join this competition. She thought I should spend time studying math, Chinese, and English because I got the best grade on physics and chemistry for every exam in my class, but my total grade was the lowest one. In addition, Heilongjiang province never got the first prize at that time, so my mother thought that joining the competition was useless. However, my father supported me to join the competition because he thought this was a good change for practice and experience for me. Finally, my partner and I brought the province the first gold medal. The gold medal is given to the group which gets the first prize.
Two men stand on the balcony and look at the outside scenery. They look like they are talking about something and have the same posture. My mother took this picture at the end of a dinner party. My father and I talked about what others talked about at the party, and only us are on the balcony. After I had gone to university, my father began taking me to join this kind of party to study how to communicate with others and analyze useful information from their conversation because they may talk about stock, futures, position changing, etc. After each party, my father would ask me what I thought about this party and what kind of information I got. For the first dozen times, most of my analysis was wrong, but I am improved every time. My father thinks some communications may not have any relation to him, but the information or effect of this kind of communications may have relation to him. He thinks this is a good information source, and he can use this sort of information to earn money because some company’s positions changing may affect this company’s stock.
Over the years, my father thought me all the time, whether is be codes of conduct or handling affairs. He is not good at expressing his feelings, but he puts his love for me into his actions. He may not remember all the gestures and lessons he gave me, but I remember all the things he did for me in these years.
