Fungs Do Not Like Snow

My dad's ticket of entry into the U.S. was his admission into Washington State University, a school he knew nothing about except that tuition was cheap. For a Chinese kid who grew up in Saigon and Hong Kong, to be plopped into Pullman, with its corn fields, red barns, and white faces, must have been quite a culture shock. He experienced snow for the first time there, which was a thrilling novelty at first but soon became the bane of his existence. To this day, my dad attributes his lifelong troubles with arthritis to that first winter, when he played in the snow without covering his 110-pound body, which up until then had only been exposed to 80 degree weather, with the proper attire. He says that the morning after that first frolic, his joints were in so much pain that he couldn't move. His right leg remained swollen for the rest of the semester. Chinese medicine would attribute my dad's ailment to "fung sup," or "wind and dampness," which throws off the equilibrium of your body's "life energy" or "qi."  (The opposite would be "yeet hay," or "hot air," which results in a different set of ailments.) It's no wonder that, after one semester in WASU, my dad decided he had to transfer to UC Berkeley. There, still limping around campus, he got referred to a Dr. Lee, a Chinese American doctor, who drained his swollen leg and prescribed a regimen of aspirin. Eventually, the pain and swelling went away, but he always got some flare-ups during cold weather. Two years ago, he had to get his right hip replaced, and he was still cursing that fateful snow day in Pullman.

I just survived my first New England blizzard, Nemo. I sent my family pictures I took while tromping around waist-deep in snow.

My dad's email reply: 

"Holy Shit! It reminds me of Pullman in the winter of 1969. Dad"