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Such a hard thing to become a father

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-19 07:40

A woman reread a poem written by her late father many years ago, when he must have been around the same age she is now: "My black work clothes/ Hated by my kids/ Reek of sweat or perhaps grease." She again felt gratitude and affection for her father as she recalled how hard he had worked each day without complaint, his sole "luxury" being the cheap tobacco he bought.

Sunday was Father's Day, and I found myself unable to stop reading "Musume to Musuko ga Tsuzuru Oyaji no Senaka" (Dad's back, as recalled by daughters and sons) published by The Asahi Shimbun.

The book contains 94 essays written by people of all ages, selected from among 1,720 entries submitted to the publisher.

One man found a neatly folded 1,000-yen note tucked away in his late father's wallet. It was money the man had given to his father from his first paycheck. The father, a plasterer by profession, had been wont to say: "Whenever you are in doubt, think of what your dad would do. It won't make you rich or famous, but at least you'll never have to worry about straying from the straight and narrow."

The son has always lived by these words of wisdom.

The expression oya no senaka o mite sodatsu, literally, "(a child) grows up looking at his or her parents' back", means that parents teach children by example.

One cannot see one's own back, nor can one cover its imperfections with makeup. A child sees a parent's back completely "as is". While it is easy to sire a child, becoming a father is another matter.

Novelist Takeo Arishima (1878-1923), who was one of the co-founders of the Shirakaba (White Birch) literary movement, noted in "Chiisaki Mono-e" (To my little ones), which he dedicated to his children: "The fact that you have - or had - someone who loved you totally and unconditionally will be important to you forever".

These words seem to echo feelings I had after reading the above-mentioned collection of essays.

In another piece, a young woman in her 20s, whose father is deceased, visited the small factory where he had worked for 37 years.

There, she realized for the first time that her father "had made many little screws in order to raise me to be what I am today, from the top of my head to the tips of my fingernails".

I am sure her father always loved her so unobtrusively that she hardly even noticed.

The Asahi Shimbun

(China Daily 06/19/2008 page9)