"Have you checked the oil in the car?" My father used to say to me. "Hello, hope you are well." Sometimes our phone calls would begin with a question about the oil and end with a question about the oil, with not a lot in between.
Fathers have a lot of love to give, but it's often supplied through the medium (方法) of practical advice. In my experience: It's mostly about my car.
"How's the car running?" "Did you get it serviced?" "How did you get that scrape (刮痕) on the side?"
Why can't fathers just say "I love you" or "It's great to see you"? The point is: That's exactly what we are saying. You just have to translate from the language that is Fatherlish.
The words "You made my life better from the moment you were born" may be hardly heard, but the key is there in the more common "I'll hold the ladder while you get the leaves out of the gutter (排水沟)."
When I was 17, I went on my first road trip—a friend and I in that old car. My father stood on the corner early on a cold morning to say goodbye to us.
"Highways are dangerous," he said, "so don't try to catch up with anything faster than a horse. And take a break every two hours. And every time you stop for gas, you really should check the oil."
At the time we thought his speech was pretty funny and would chant "car and horse, car and horse" every time I drove faster and passed other speeding cars.
Dad's long gone now. But after all these years, I realize that had I owned a copy of the Fatherlish-to-English dictionary, I'd have understood that the speech my friend and I so casually mocked (嘲笑) was simply Dad's attempt at affection.
