No Regrets

Over dinner, my dad recalls having a girlfriend in Hong Kong who was really rich. Her dad was self-made millionaire, and whenever she met with my dad, she would arrive in a black Mercedes or Rolls Royce, escorted by a personal driver. Upon hearing this story, my mom says to my dad, "You were so stupid to dump her."

Dad replies, "No! If I married her, then I never would have married you!"

To which my mom says, "Then I'm the stupid one."

END.

Dad Is Good With Names

Upon catching me and my brother watching The Ellen Show, my dad asks,

"Oh, her show is still on? What's her name... Helen De... De... Helen De Lesbian?"


END.

The Fung Genealogy Project

My family does our big Christmas gettogether on Christmas Eve, which means that Christmas Day usually finds us bored and in need of something to do. This year, I decided to get my family to start a project I've long wanted to do: build the family tree.

So I started an account on Ancestry.com, and our entire gang-- me, my brother, my parents, a bunch of my aunts, uncles and cousins-- gathered around as I input all of our names and birthdates into the system. Upon discovering that we can pull up records like marriage and divorce indexes, the older folks began outpouring family dramas from the past. (A less light-hearted version of Fung My Life could document stories of adultery, political betrayal, mental illness, all sorts of juicy stuff.) My dad then became particularly preoccupied with digging up dirt on his cousin's ex-husband from the 1970s.

Dad: Oh! See if you can find anything on Aunt G's husband, ah-Bob.

Me: Who was Bob?

Dad: He was a bad, bad man. I remember when Aunt G was still in Hong Kong and married to her first husband, she somehow met Bob. So she had an affair with Bob and then left to the US with him. Later, she sent for her three kids and her husband, and they came to the US. So her husband thought she wanted to reconcile, but when he got there, he found that Bob was living with her. But the real bad thing is that Bob was abusive to the kids.

Me: That's terrible. So did she leave him?

Dad: No! He left her! He went back to Hong Kong to rekindle a romance with a previous girlfriend. He always tried to swindle rich women. But that woman had already married some rich guy so she told him to fuck off.

Me: Damn. He was a bad man.

Dad: Yeah, very bad. And we all thought G was stupid to go with him. But Bob was evil. Evil Bob.

Me: So what do you want me to find out?

Dad: Find out if they ever got divorced! And if he ever got remarried!

Me: Was his official name Bob or Robert? Or some Chinese name?

Dad: Oh, I don't know. He's just Bob. Evil Bob.


Collectively, we were able to locate records confirming that he and my aunt G had indeed divorced. But even with knowing the man's full name, the older folks continue to use the moniker my dad coined in recalling this particular family drama: "Where does Evil Bob live now?" "I heard Evil Bob got a stroke a few years ago." "I wonder if Evil Bob got much of G's money." "I remember Evil Bob was at my wedding."

Evil Bob has become a sort of icon in the family history. He may need his own blog. EvilBob.blogspot.com.

My Dad the Cyberstalker

I've always hated that website, ratemyprofessor.com, not because of the fact that students get to make stupid public comments about me, but because my dad also gets to see those comments. Here is a conversation from 2007, when I first started accumulating student evaluations on the website.

Dad: Do your students ever have a hard time believing you're the instructor?

Me: Maybe. That's why I'll dress up a bit when I teach. You know, to look professional and all.

Dad: Is that why your students think you're HOT?

Me: ???

Dad: Is that why they say you have cute shoes? Heh heh...

Me: Have you been looking at my ratemyprofessors.com profile, dad?!

Dad: Of course! When I google you, that's the first thing that pops up!

Me (truly creeped out about the idea of my dad cyberstalking me): When the hell did you learn how to google search people?

Dad: Come on! Your old man isn't that stupid! I learned how to put videos on youtube!

Me: Yeah, and we were all shocked that you figured it out. You can't even operate the DVD player!

Dad: Shit, come on!

END.

Teaching Advice from Dad

At every end of term, my dad urges me to be easy on my students while I'm figuring out their final grades. Here's why:

Dad: How are your students' papers?

Me: In any pile, aside from the two that are excellent and two that are disastrous, they're generally mediocre-to-bad.

Dad: Do you ever give your students Fs?

Me: Only if they don't turn in the work. So long as they do the work, even if it's awful, they will pass the class.

Dad: For the bad students, don't give them Ds or Fs, okay? A C is a good enough warning.

Me: Dad, that's grade inflation. C is supposed to be average. But yeah, that's usually what ends up happening anyway. I stick in so many easy assignments, the average usually ends up being a B, sadly.

Dad: Good. Because when I was at the University of Chicago, one of my classmates got so mad at his professor for not passing him on his thesis, that he shot and killed the guy and then shot himself.

Me: ... Uh...

Dad: So don't be too harsh on your students. They might kill you.

END.

Batteries

Two weeks after Thanksgiving, and Dad is still obsessed with his remote control helicopter. I chatted with him over the phone about it.

Dad: I've been practicing every day. I'm pretty good at taking off and steering. Now I'm learning how to land the helicopter onto the kitchen table.

Me: I'm surprised you haven't broken the thing yet.

Dad: I thought it was broken, but it wasn't. You know how I have to charge the battery for one hour in order to play for ten minutes? As it turns out, I have to also play with it immediately after charging, otherwise the battery dies again.

Me: I see.

Dad: It's like sex. You have to keep practicing or your batteries die. Very frustrating! Hahahaha!

END.

Mom Brags About Me To My Friends

I've been taking Taekwondo classes for the last 10 months, which, given my entire lifetime of being utterly unathletic, is kind of a big deal for me. One would think that my mother, a sturdy woman who has long bugged me about putting down my books and getting more exercise, would greatly encourage my new hobby. The last time she came to visit me, she watched one of my classes. Over a dinner party with a bunch of my new friends, she tells them how impressed she was by my abilities:

Mom: She is so weak! When she kicks and punches, it's like [faking punches in the air] piu! piu! piu!

END.