The Wang Creed

12/19/2016 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

He knew that he and the world he lived in would not long survive.At the height of the Second World War when civil strife was continuing to tear through China, Bogun Wang’s [Wang Bogun] health was failing.

The educator and revolutionary feared for his family.

As the head of a clan whose prominence traced back nine generations, Bogun rewrote the centuries-old Wang family creed to guide his heirs through catastrophic times. My good friend Ed is his son.

Above all else the Wang Creed called for filial piety. Respect for elders and ancestors was the primary virtue stressed by Confucius, the revered philosopher who has shaped Chinese life since 500 BC.

Bogun warned that his society was turning from agriculture to commerce and that education would be the key to stability. He preached that those who inherit wealth cannot afford to be idle. The privileges and resources of the clan were dwindling, they would need to be shared and used wisely.

When the Communists gained power, Bogun’s widow Zhining and her children took asylum in the U.S., leaving Bogun’s world behind.

Ed has not updated the formal code of conduct as his father did.

What he has done, at the urging of his children, is to write a book that recounts his family’s role in revolutionary China. Like Bogun’s efforts, Ed’s book is a personal gift from a father to his family. A show of filial piety in reverse.

‘Patriot and Warriors’* will be archived and crawled far beyond the world of people named Wang — historians are a hungry bunch.

*Patriot and Warriors is now available at Amazon

Text Of The Wang Family Creed

When I was a child, my father had taught me that we should unite our family with filial piety and friendship… Read more…

Father, Son and Sports

12/08/2016 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

No one had ever played varsity. Coaching scouts didn’t know the family existed.The six-year-old playing in his first soccer game had no idea of the hopes his father had placed on him.

He didn’t know his family never had a trophy displayed on the mantle and never saved a press clipping from the sports section. No one played varsity. Coaching scouts didn’t know the family existed.

The boy’s father’s was determined to do something about that.

He’s a man with bad eyes and worse reflexes but he appreciates what sports can contribute to a child’s life. He admires athletes for their prowess and understands why people wear franchised logos, He sometimes featured sports legends in the ads he created for his clients. He tries not to be envious.

The man saw to it that his son was exposed to hockey, baseball, football and basketball. Golf and tennis were offered at school.

The boy joined a soccer league during kindergarten and took to the sport.

In the first minutes of his first game, the ball found its way exactly two paces in front of his power foot. “It might be a long time before you score again,” his coach laughed. And it was.

When the boy’s father volunteered as a referee, the league issued a uniform with a jersey, shorts and socks but he couldn’t bring himself to wear it— it’s risky for a guy who barely understands the game to look so professional.

The boy played on a team until late into high school when AP courses demanded his attention. He still gets together with friends and former teammates to watch sports.

He can rattle off stats and trivia with the best of them. When he and his old man are together, looking for things to talk about, he patiently explains the finer points of major league sports. That’s his job.

Being the jock in the family carries certain responsibilities.

Tradelasts

11/29/2016 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

…now he knew the whole thing wasn’t a figment of his imaginationNot long after the dinner party in the suburbs, the guest lost touch with the family that had invited him.

He had been warned they were a competitive bunch, that there were grudges and resentments among the four siblings and their spouses. A few of them could be expected to cross the line. No family is perfect.

It wasn’t the conversation or the food or even the generous selection of malt whiskeys that surprised him, it was what happened after the table was cleared.

The father of the clan, somewhere in his sixties, tapped his glass to get everyone’s attention. When they were quiet, he repeated something an acquaintance had said about his wife earlier that day. All eyes went to her. Even in the candlelight, the guest could see that she was blushing.

As the family sipped coffee and picked through chocolates, they took turns tapping their glasses and passing second-hand compliments around the table. These ‘tradelasts’ — that’s what the family called them — had an effect on everyone.

During the forty years since that evening, the guest has never heard the custom mentioned again, not even on Masterpiece Theatre.

He decided to search ‘tradelast’ online. There were only three vague mentions but now he knew that the whole thing wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

All of this has happened at just the right time. Things have turned ugly lately and, like a lot of Americans, he’s looking for something to hold on to.

Go Back To Where You Came From

11/17/2016 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

What he wanted to know, but was too polite to ask, is if he and his wife are in danger.(Names and faces are not included in the post for a reason. Read on.)
الأسماء والصورة غير متاحة لعدة أسباب

The man on the ‘L’ didn’t know she is in the U.S. legally. He saw a young woman alone, wearing a headscarf, and that was enough for him.

“Go back to where you came from.” he yelled.
لم يكن يعرف الشاب الأمريكي أن (ل) تقيم في أمريكا بشكل قانوني، لهذا عندما شاهد شابة وحيدة ترتدي غطاء الرأس، تقدم لها وكان كافياً أن يقول لها بكل جرأة لها: “ارجعي من حيث أتيت”

“I’m not in your home,” the graduate student replied. The encounter took place last week, the day after the presidential election.
ردت عليه طالب الدراسات العليا، بكل بساطة: ” أنا لست في بيتك”، حدث هذا الأسبوع الماضي بعد يوم واحد فقط من انتخابات الرئاسة الأمريكية

The woman’s husband asked an American he had met if they could talk. He had spent a year entirely dedicated to studying English and he was in the habit of listening carefully.
زوج هذه الشابة سأل أمريكي في لقاء عابر، إذا كان من الممكن أن نتحدث، هذا الشاب تعلم اللغة الإنجليزية خلال السنوات الماضية بشكل مكثف.

He asked if the American was worried about what was reported to be happening across the country. What he wanted to know, but was too polite to ask, is if he and his wife are in danger. Have they become targets?
كان سؤاله، إذا ما كانت أمريكا قلقة بشأن ما ذكرته أن يحدث في جميع أنحاء البلاد؟ كل ما ما كان يريد أن يعرفه، هل هو وزوجته في خطر، ومن المحتمل أن يصبحوا هدف؟ كان مؤدبا في طرح هذا السؤال.

He is here studying sociology with an emphasis on culture and religion, which includes the kind of fanaticism all too familiar in his part of the world.
هذا الزوج هو هنا لدراسة علم الاجتماع، مع اهتمام بعلم الاجتماع الثقافي والديني والفاشية التي هي سائدة في بعض مناطق العالم.

During his first stay in the U.S. he had been hosted by an African-American woman whom he refers to as his “American grandmother.” She assured him he is welcome here. For his wife’s safety he hopes that is still true.
في أول أيامه عند قدومه إلى أمريكا، كان يقيم في بيت سيدة أمريكية- إفريقية، يشببها أنها جدته في أمريكا. كانت هذه السيدة تؤكد على الترحيب به هنا في هذه البلاد هو وزوجته.

The friendship between the Middle Eastern couple and the American started like many do at our local coffee shop, by sharing an electrical outlet. They quickly discovered their views on life aren’t so very different and that their various mobile devices run on the same AC current.
بدأت الصداقة بين الزوجين القادمين من الشرق الأوسط والرجل الأمريكي في مقهى المحلي للقهوة، كما نفعل هنا دائما، وذلك بمشاركة فيش الكهرباء. مع الوقت إكتشفو وجهات نظرهم المتشابهه حول بعض القضايا، كما أن الأجهزة الكهربائية المختلفة تعمل على نفس التيار.

After School Reading Lessons, Sister Athelia

12/02/2024 by Pat Shiplett 18 Comments

She took the second-grader into the janitor’s closet and locked the door. ‘This is our little secret,’ she told him.

He was sure he was in trouble. Why else would his teacher make him stay after school?

She told him they would meet every Tuesday and Thursday. She’d taught the boy in the first grade and now in the second.

Again this year he had trouble following along as her class read out loud. He watched when the other kids turned pages hoping the pictures would give him a clue. When it was his turn, she had to show him where to pick up.

On that first afternoon after school Sister Athelia underlined the suffix of a word and told him that “t-i-o-n” is pronounced “shun.” Don’t ask why, she said, just trust me.

‘Do’ is ‘du’ except when it’s pronounced ‘da.’ ‘Ph’ is ‘f.’ And ‘ed’ sounds different at the end of some verbs. She marked sentences to show who did what to whom until he was diagramming simple passages on his own.

He squirmed when she predicted he’d be one of her best readers — all the best readers were girls. Without fail she had candy at the ready after every lesson.

When summer came, he started reading his brothers’ comic books. It took an hour to work through those first Scrooge McDuck stories but slowly he began to understand apostrophes and contractions, and how “oomph, ugh and ahem” are expressed in print.

The boy had a new teacher in the fall who wore colorful clothes and had pretty hair. Miss Anne pulled him aside at the end their first week to tell him how impressed she was with the way he read.

At just the right time Sister Athelia had quietly come to the rescue of another second-grader who became a lifelong reader. He didn’t know to thank her for what she’d done.