For baba 

Writer: Alyssa Zhang

Editors: Amy Li and Alloe Mak

I think I’ve given my father a bad rap. 

Though my childhood was littered with his absence, his body on the other side of the world, his pictures hung in every corner of our household. I always knew he worked hard, something made clear by his consistently slightly-askew-ties in every video chat, and his tired voice as he spoke in broken English. I made up fantasies of what he did for work constantly, perhaps to fill my sparse image of my father. As a pathological storyteller/fabulist/chronicler/ narrator (or liar, as some like to call it), I often fantasized about strangely-specific career positions for my father. 

“He’s a professional horseback rider,” I would tell my friends in preschool, describing the feeling of my body bouncing on his shaking knee, telling him, “faster baba!”

“Actually, he flies planes for a living now,” I whispered to my friends, telling them about his black Air Miles card and the way he strolled through airports leisurely, entering lounges with a smile over his shoulder. 

“My dad works for the government. I think he’s going to be president,” I said loudly in class, sitting cross-legged on my homeroom carpet. My friends gasped in awe as they shouted out, “Alyssa’s dad is the king of China!” My first-grade teacher looked at us, puzzled as she questioned, “Alyssa’s dad is a communist?” Truth be told, I didn’t know what that meant. But that was the end of my storytelling. 

I still don’t really know what he does for a living. But I do know that he rose quickly in the corporate ranks, booking constant one-way flights back to our motherland. I know he works hard. I know he always sends money back home. But it never makes saying goodbye any less hard. I bury my face into his chest, holding on tightly to the folds of his sweater, forcing his arms around my shoulders. 

When he is home, his presence shakes our floorboards and his voice echoes through the halls. A lot of people think my dad is scary—I don’t blame them. Once, I came downstairs to the sound of him speaking on the phone with one of his delegates. “Tell me why it isn’t done. No—that isn’t a reason, it’s an excuse. If you aren’t capable, you shouldn’t be in this position,” he said, moving his arms as he paced, his tone charged with a sense of finality. He switches between English and Mandarin. Sometimes, he falls into Chinglish when he really gets riled up. This was the voice I grew up with. Even when the anger wasn’t there, there was always a reminder. The way my sister scurried away when she heard his step pattern. My mother’s shoes positioned at the back door. The dent in the living room wall. He used to get angry like this a lot. 

For much of my childhood, it was easy to paint him as the bad guy. It just made sense. His co-workers seemed terrified of him, his voice was chronically thunderous and it seemed like his head grazed the top of every doorway. He was so Herculean, that it was almost difficult to see him as anything close to human. 

I wasn’t always the best daughter. I spent most of my teenage years out late at night, cutting up clothing, and never calling enough. I was rebellious. But so was he. 

In high school, he ran away from home for a month and a half to join a professional rowing team. He told me all about it.

 “You can’t blame me. It was the worst high school in the country. You see, I liked science—chemistry and physics and that stuff. Physics holds all the answers to the universe. (I never took physics) I need to experiment to understand physics. But my high school, that shithole, didn’t have the money. So I took it up with the principal. They said no. I left.” 

He occasionally tells me stories like this, some much too far-fetched to even seem a little bit true. At moments like these, it’s like he has all the wisdom in the world. 

“After I came back, the principal gave me the key to the lab, and let me do whatever I wanted,” he said with a smile. My dad has always been hard-headed in that sort of way. “If you want something, you don’t stop until you get it. Anything is possible,” he mused lazily, his head strewn back on a cushion. 

Once, I asked my mama, “Do you think baba is like, a really above average person?” 

Truth be told, he is really just silly. I don’t think he ever wanted to be anything great. 

Here is a list of silly things that he does:

• He really, really enjoys biking. He has so much biking gear, it almost seems like overkill. My favourite outfit he has is this neon green set that is much too tight on his legs, and the helmet that makes hair go all spiky like the green kid from Teen Titans Go! 
• He also sings a lot. He bought a karaoke machine for the house (for me and my friends, or so he says) but when he sings, he sings. He says he likes the classics and old Chinese music, but I hear him work out to Hotel California on repeat. 
• For a week in October, I had one of my best friends stay with us while her grandparents were away, but naturally, I had to be out of the house sometimes. At dinner, he fumbled awkwardly around as he offered her soup and rice. They ate in comfortable silence at the kitchen island. He told me later that she was a nice girl. 
• He told me that the transportation systems in China used to be “no good,” and he once rode a train for 36 hours to see my mother. I told him that that was romantic. He replied, “You try standing for 36 hours and tell me it’s romantic.”

Now, when I think of my dad, I don’t really think of the horseback rider, or pilot, or King of China. I just think of these things. Things that make him human. Things I really love. 

Above all, I love his undying support for me. 

As I moved through high school, I had a lot of rough nights. I cried hysterically over SAT questions, my head in my hands, nails running through my hair and eyes puffy from my chronic sobs. My father would always watch in silence from the living room, occasionally storming in with anger. 

“If you can’t handle the pressure, don’t do it. No one forcing you. Crying won’t get you anywhere.” 

“Go away baba. I don’t want to hear this right now,” I would whine back at him. 

He always made it up to me. After I finished a set of questions, he would wave me over to him on the couch. At first, I didn’t go. I was so angry at him for yelling. But he would always eventually get me to sit. “I am proud of you. Anything is possible,” he would say to me, his hand around my shoulder as I buried my face into his chest. 

“You can’t yell at me like that. I just need to cry sometimes,” I would reply, my voice muffled. 

“I know. Sometime I don’t handle things best. But you can’t be so soft. What are you going to do alone? You can’t be baby forever.”

I always understand what he means. But I think I’ll always be his baby forever.

When I got into Berkeley, he was on the other side of the world. I made my mom wait to tell him; I wanted to tell him myself. 

“Baba! Guess what?” I mused over the phone. 

“No guessing. Just tell me!” 

“I got into Berkeley!” 

I heard his scream of excitement over the phone, followed by, “I’m very proud of you. Go celebrate! Anything is possible!” 

My mom told me later that he had cracked open a very expensive bottle of alcohol with his boss to memorialize my success. I laughed. 

For the next few months, my imminent departure took up 75% of our conversations. We talked about my housing situation, sororities and cheer teams, and the Californian branch of BrainScramble. Two weeks ago, I booked a one-way flight to San Francisco, four thousand kilometers away and three hours behind. 

I wonder if I will become accustomed to airports like he did. I wonder if I will be able to stroll through terminals with black cards and clicky shoes like him. I wonder if our bond will wither. I will miss the way his voice echoes through our hallways. I will miss his hugs and the sound of his hands on his guitar. I will miss the simplicity of his sentences, the feeling of being someone’s little girl. 

I am afraid that he will be angry at me, like I was angry at him, for leaving to someplace so far away. But I hope he will look at me with the same admiration when I am able to send money back home and when he sees my name in lights. I hope he will see even a fraction of his mind in his hopelessly romantic/storyteller/daydreamer daughter. 

I know if he watched me write this now, he would shake his head with his defiant sense of seriousness, and say, 

“No. Be better than me.”