A story: The Black Shadow

In the story of Daddy Long Legs, starting the day Judy had received a mysterious trustee covering all her education and clothing, her life changed. She went through her 4 years college under the accompaniment of an anonymous man, a black shadow. Received every piece of encouragement, Judy learnt how to walk along hundred crossroads in every darkest night.

To me, Judy was gifted. However feeling alone whenever falling to pitfalls, she doesn’t need to bear the loneness herself because those can be shared with her blurred “daddy” and comforted by every benediction sent miles and miles away. Sometimes, I’d rather choose to have the Daddy Long Legs nearby rather than living with a real-life black shadow for which I can’t feel a bit of love from him.

My father.

My Ba-ba was born in a reserved and traditional Chinese family. Similar to many less-privileged local citizens in Macau, he worked as a junior tailor in his early twentieth after leaving primary school.

He was a small bookstore owner in his mid-fortieths. He was as tall as the Daddy Long Legs. He looks particularly like the contemporary great philosopher and thinker in his blue shirt, a pair of reading glasses with a pile of newspapers or Chinese classics, from Han to Qing Dynasty, in his bluey bag.

Like the typical oldies in housing estates, he likes bringing along with his three lovebirds to the amenity park. Well, not yet. Whatever successful or not, he likes researching flowering formulas, seeking all kinds of essential nutrients in supermarkets to nurture flowers at his utmost effort. Now, everyday there are twenty plates of African Violets waiting for my dad to water them after work.

Albeit being able to write the letter from A right up to Z, he can neither pronounce nor spell out a single word. Usually, he likes putting “a” and “e” in incorrect order for his own name, “Michael”. Of course, I seldom found him capable to read the program name properly for one time from the National Geographic.

Sometimes, dad liked to proudly imitate the way Donald Trump laying off those contestants from TV Show, The Apprentice. He slapped on the table, looked at the 19inch TV screen seriously, and confidently shouted “YOU-ARE-FIRED!” with an accurate “d” ending consonant.

Back to reality, the only sentence he’s most familiar with so far is “Hello! Long time no see!” to his old friends, who can also speak a few English like him.

“Isn’t that you just simply put those Chinese words directly in English grammar structure?” I intentionally challenge him.
“Well…they all understand.” he replied in a natural tone.
“Isn’t there something wrong?” he voiced softly.

Right, he exactly knows nothing about grammar structure. Is my dad the most comical man in the world? I just don’t understand.

In the eyes of my relatives, my dad is literally a good “man”. You can barely find one male would sincerely refuse getting a cup of brandy or a cigarette from peers, except my father alone.

To him, regardless of the attractive pool size and special tips, he thinks that casinos, betting branches, horse-racing course and snooker centers are all the places linked to pathology, loan sharks or loneliness.

Not much rich he is though, he never envy, but always disdain those gamblers who bring themselves besides some lucks, and also short-term prosperity. Not much sociable he is though also, he would never feel alone, but scorn to some successful flatteners in climbing up the glittering social ladders.

Whenever Chinese New Year comes, the whole family will gather at my aunt’s apartment. Uncles and aunts like to play Mahjong or prepare dinner, (Mahjong is a popular game treated as social activity among Chinese community.) and cousins like to compete in online games.

Apparently, all of us are enjoying this festival with family members. The only people sitting quietly at dining room and watching the boring comedy would be probably my elder members and, my dad, without saying a word.

Usually not long afterwards, I would hear something heard for thousand times.
“Hey, why don’t you play Mahjong with them? Ar Sing won twice! Ar Kuen lost the most! Ha-ha!” my mum told dad.
“I want to sit here.” he said.
“Come! Come! Come! One more seat over there!” she insisted.
“We see different things.” he murmured.

I found this couple couldn’t have been more different emotionally. Mum is constantly affectionate. She wants to change my dad’s gloomy face but fails. Still, he likes his old self. He is that kind of old-fashioned, very fond of Confucianism. He’s also the only person who’s still deep-rooted by any Chinese ethical and philosophical sentence, for which you’ve been puzzled at since childhood time.

Is my dad the most slow-witted man in the world? I just don’t understand.

I try not to grudge against him of being quite stubborn and contrary. That’s “he”, I reason. Since the day I’ve known him as my father. And the day I became his daughter, tracing back to a remarkable year.

That was a freezing January. Before giving birth to me, my dad escorted mum to hospital. As I was told by grandma, there was a brief interlude in the impending scenario.

“Where do you go?” the taxi driver asked.
“Tang Siu Kin Hospital, we’re in hurry!” dad said.
“No. Go to St.Paul’s Hospital” he stopped within one second and continued.
“St Paul’s that private one? It costs you thousands! Not just for room service but also for a small napkin they’d count you!”
“Go to St.Paul’s, driver” he said.

I doubted if the taxi driver would ignore them and ask them to leave “politely”.

They stopped the heated debate. Mum didn’t say a word at a moment. She just held a firm cross-arm, frowned with concentration and gazing at the trees whizzing past the Eastern Corridor. Slightly, she glanced at the oldie from the window reflected.

The one sitting an empty-seat away from her was also musing over the silence. “Tic-Tac-Tic-Tac…” he’d never heard the second hand moving so massively from his watch. The roar of taxi engine and useless chatter of radio all faded into quietness. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting in a hot pan liked an ant. He couldn’t help himself rubbed his sweating hand and kept looking at his tarnished watch.

To him, every single noise was heavily amplified to his ears. All he looked forward was the surprise like opening a gift from a box 24 hours later.

It was the next day’s afternoon. In the pale pink room in hospital, on my mum’s cupboard, there were a basket of fruits, several packs of energy drinks and a rabbit soft toy, all sent by my aunts as blissful congratulation.

“The baby girl looks like his father.” said by the nurse who was escorting my mum, and carefully holding the tiny me weighted for only 6.5 kilograms in her arm.

“No, never be as stubborn as his father does! Haha!” mum said.

My father didn’t say a word. He couldn’t keep his eyes out of this doll, red cheeked and a pair of small brown eyes. There were thousand of Chinese names flashing through his mind but hardly could he name one. Because he needed time to look up from dictionary one by one, digging the name he believed the most meaningful to this baby girl.

At one moment, he just never thought of being so content with when the baby grabbed his pinkie. So tightly yet heartily stun his heart. It was just a nice portrait to every painter…It was also no wonder for a reticent man liked holding his daughter’s hand instead of giving any great speech to demonstrate his father heart.

I was raised by my dad’s hands miraculously throughout all the years. I learnt walking my first clumsiest step at the Victoria Park by holding dad’s hand when I was 20 months. I also learnt Chinese calligraphy when I was 5 year-old by imitating his calligraphic posture.

“Sit properly, hold the pen straight!” He snatched my hand seriously, giving me instruction like a military coach commanding an order. But, I’ve got used to it. Sometimes I was a bit sluggish and tried to complete the task simply by filling the ink in every stroke. While he was taking the nap, I would secretly watch my favorite Sesame Street. I knew I was not supposed to practise the entire pages of Chinese classics in every Sunday. Boring.

“That is just a little start, but you’ve already failed.” He slapped the table and was mad at the 5 year-old me.

The tears welled in my eyeballs. Rushing back to my little comfort zone, I had no one to talk to but crawled slowly into my blanket. I peeped at the door gap and found he was still quietly flipping over his calligraphy reference book in the living room joyfully. Seems that he did care how I was feeling bad in the stuffy room.

I cried and yelled in front of the wall because nobody listened to. “How horrid of him to scold me for a trivial matter? How could he leave me alone? I’ve already stained all my fingers with ink and he was just ready to make a long list of my misdeeds! Why he was that kind of cold-hearted?” A voice repeatedly stirred up in my brain.

Since then, I hold strong fear in front of my father as I strongly believed he was the only father on this earth for always putting on a gloomy face. Gradually, I learnt how to talk less from my past experience. It wasn’t for respecting him but for a cleverer response to be silent so that he could find no excuse to punish me.

I was right. It has been many years he didn’t condemn me, suspect me, understand me, console me and cheer me, even we lived together in a harmonious way to a certain extent. Whenever I scored high marks or crammed in exams, entered a good school or failed in promotion, dating or broke up in a relationship, he didn’t show great interest in asking me about.

It was my graduation today. Clear sky as background and joyful atmosphere everywhere. For this important day, I’ve invited my relatives to take the photos at university. There were crowded in lawn. Everyone was close together and made the pictures particularly warm and friendly without boundary.

“Hey quickly come here! There’s a good place! Your daughter has been waiting here for so long” Mum shouted to my dad, who was standing far away. She looked quite hilarious with the gorgeous black suit, a pearl necklace and her delighted smile.
“OK” Dad replied.
“One-Two-Three cheers!” my aunt holding the camera called.

“Hey! Congratulations! You look so smart today! Who brought you the nice flowers? Boyfriend? Ha-ha” my good friend, Denise, smiley asked.
“O Thank You! No, mother brought me.” I acknowledged.
“Hi Auntie! Let me take a picture for your family and relatives, OK?” Denise was holding her latest Polaroid Camera and asked.
“Yup sure!”
“O where’s your dad?” Denise questioned.
“Well, I dunno.” I replied. Then when I looked back, I saw my dad exactly standing behind me.
“Ba-ba, my friend wants to take a photo for us.” I said.

He walked nearby me and mom silently and gently smiled.

Flash.

The plastic sheet slowly came out and I gazed at this unfamiliar picture. His face was seamed with wrinkles, a lot of white whisker, and silvery hair. My dad looked so old than before.

Sunlight was dim. On the way back home, just now I saw a black shadow lengthening with the day on the grass. Then I noticed one thing. It was forever the Daddy- Long Legs to the absurdly childish me.