A Letter Across Time and Dimensions

Dear Papa Ho;

This letter goes beyond the grave to a man to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for lessons that have left an impression across over half a century.

Some of my fondest childhood memories center around a little elderly Chinese man I knew as Papa Ho. I attended the first and second grades at Taipei American School in Taiwan in the late 1960’s. Still, to this day, over half a century later, I remember the school song. It’s the only Chinese language I actually remember. The other thing I remember, and will to the day I die, was Papa Ho.

Papa Ho was our landlord. He and his wife ran a small store off the rear of the home our family rented. Their stock in trade seemed to be sweets and crafts mainly. Many was the treat I was snuck by a dimple faced, dark eyed, matron who always had a ready smile and a wink. No language barrier between Chinese adults and small American children was unbreachable – with the right cookie or candy. I’m not sure how old Papa Ho actually was at the time, but While Martin Luther King was preaching about racial equality, a runty little American boy was learning about peace, love, and racial equality riding around the Peoples Republic of China on the back of a rickety motor scooter behind a wizened Chinese man. Boy, the stares we did get – especially after I contracted a rare bone disease in my feet and ended up in a cast unable to walk for well over a year. Said disease was a hell of it’s own. A rare tropical disease which caused bones in my feet to swell, shatter, dissolve, and, thankfully, regrow. Many days I spent on the couch, on my knees, hands gripping the top of my parent’s new leather sofa as I watched through the window my two brothers, and two sisters play in the yard with the puppies, comforted by a snuck treat from Mrs. Ho.

Those puppies were also a story unto themselves. The Chinese didn’t grasp the concept of keeping dogs as pets. They were considered just another food animal by most and nuisances by the rest. But a group of construction workers allowed my siblings and I to bring home two little furry barkers from a pile of debris on their work site one day. I recall them scratching their heads as the laughing white children ran off with their squirming prizes. Crazy American kids. Papa Ho and his lovely wife merely shook their heads and smiled at the vagaries of strange tiny Americans.

Dixie and Bullet eventually had pups of their own, a playful balm to the crippled child chewing little holes on couch cushions. I’m sure you get that picture. The advent of dogs as pets in town was much commented upon. Unfortunately, so was the advent of some miscreants that climbed our fence one day and poisoned those puppies while we were out. Papa Ho was quite incensed himself at the intentional hurt his peers or fellow culture members inflicted solely out of malice directed at different views. That callous cruelty hurt.

Interesting experience for the crippled child of an Amercan soldier being carried to the top of a giant smiling statue of tremendous girth in the arms of a crinkled Asian man. But, my lord what a view to see from the eyes of a giant hollow statue of the Buddha. Ah, the wide-eyed innocence of six. That boy did not realize it was culture he was absorbing as he laughed to see giant Chinese dragons in street parades surrounded by dancing people in fascinating masks; sloped colorful tiled roofs; Asian women in brightly colored costumes. Culture he was absorbing as he interacted with a rickshaw driver trying to earn enough rice for dinner; when he shook hands with a smiling matron with white paint on her face in a gown shimmering like a silken rainbow. Yes, culture. A culture varied and older than our own by millennia. I haven’t forgotten open markets with produce and goods laid out all over. Olfactory treats of meats and fish hung, festooned with buzzing flies. Also, I recall stares of flabbergasted Asians who couldn’t figure out for the life of them what that tiny American boy was doing with Papa Ho. Papa Ho cared not one whit for their stares. Mrs. Ho understood just fine and laughed whenever I clambered with my casted feet onto the back of that Moped. Upon our return she would have a sweet treat waiting and a kiss on the cheek prepared.

Papa Ho taught me important lessons: Humor, life, understanding, and acceptance. These lessons overrode those taught in the vein of intolerance and venality proffered by those less accepting of other viewpoints. Those lessons have taken me upon a path far different than I would otherwise have trod. Papa Ho’s lessons, along with those taught by my own parents, left an indelible stamp upon my character.

While my stern, authoritative father taught me lessons in respect, duty, responsibility, loyalty and morals, Papa Ho was instilling gentler lessons. Lessons of tolerance, acceptance, and, yes, love. I love and honor him still to this day though I am probably as old now as he was then.

Rice paddies and water buffalo. Open air markets and street theater. Perhaps my reflections today are colored yellow by the patina of time. I loved Papa and Mrs. Ho unequivocally with all my heart. May they Rest in Peace. While Dad and Mom may smile down from above, I know that my guardian angel, rather than someone named Michael or Peter, is a little Chinese man with a twinkle in his eye, a ready smile, wisdom in his soul, and acceptance for a little crippled American boy in his heart.

A second father in my heart. A friend. A teacher. An influencer. Papa Ho. My Mr. Miagi minus the Karate.

I’ll Love You Always

Andy