Recently, I caught David Henry Hwang's latest play "Golden Child" on American Conservatory Theater. I walked away with a deep stirring in my heart to answer the question posed by the protagonist (supposedly Hwang's maternal grandfather) - "Why cannot a man speak the truth that is in his heart in his own home?" The truth he was speaking of was his newfound faith in God. The dilemma was that this man was born into a traditional Chinese family in China where ancestral worship was practiced. He painfully struggled with the obligation of filial piety, that is, caring for his deceased parents through ancestral worship.

I wondered about this reality…how that many Chinese Americans grow up within homes where they could not speak the truth. More specifically, I am referring to the limited communication that occurs or occurred in many homes between Overseas-born Chinese (OBC) fathers and American-born Chinese (ABC) sons. Apart from the communication gap due to monolingual speaking fathers with limited bilingual speaking sons (as in my generation), there are some personality and cultural factors that come into play. This article will address some of these factors and also present one person's attempt to close the gap in connecting with his father.

Different Folks, Different Fathers
At one end of the continuum of OBC fathers, there is a common and true-to-life portrait of a silent, passive father or a soft-spoken Chinese man with his children. These were the less educated, but hard working men who left their homeland to strike it rich in the Gold Mountain ("Gum San"). Children in these homes grew up knowing very little about their fathers except that they were always at work. The silence from fathers kept these young men in the dark as they struggle on their own to find their identity as men in the world. At the other end of the spectrum, there are OBC fathers who were anything but silent. This may be where the fathers were loud, angry and at times heavy-handed, possibly due to experiences of dealing with racial discrimination and/or work-related pressures. Children from these households grew up with a fear of their fathers and dislike for them. Some vowed to never repeat what they experienced from their fathers. Of course, OBC fathers fall somewhere along this continuum with some being appropriately communicative, neutral, or even positive in relating to their sons. Regardless of what types of fathers they had, many ABC men grew up with the difficult challenge of finding their own way in defining themselves as men, husbands, and as fathers.

There are also culturally based factors that may account for some of these father-son dynamics. According to Confucian philosophy, the order of society follows the principle of Five Cardinal Relationships. At the top of this hierarchy is the emperor and his subjects, followed by the father and his son, husband and wife, brother to brother, and friend to friend. You may wonder that if the father-son relationship is the most important relationship in the family, why there is a lack of closeness between them. It appears that although fathers initially have an informal and affectionate tie with their sons, there is a major shift at around the age of six. In this major shift, a social distance is created and the relationship becomes more formal. From the father's perspective, he moves from a posture of unconditional tolerance to one that is conditional with a set of rules and expectations. The rationale for this shift is given in the following statement - "You cannot be your son's friend and correct his behavior." So, it is believed that the aloofness is necessary to develop the proper behavior of a good adult in the son. This apparently remains the course of the father-son relationship until the father ages and the son is expected to care for him in return (filial piety).

The Challenge of Connecting with Fathers
Working as a Christian therapist in the San Francisco Chinese community for more than 15 years has given me a perspective about the need for healing in our homes between fathers and sons. I believe that this was what the prophet Malachi had in mind when he wrote - "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers..." (Malachi 4:6). This "turning of ones heart" carries within it the notion of a softening the heart which is an emotional process. Each person and family must find his own way in this process of making contact and fostering closeness. For some, this would be a painful process, so this journey inward may be best taken with a guide, such as your pastor or a professional counselor. Much of what I offer to the men who come for therapy comes out of my own journey in healing my relationship with my own father.

My father was an immigrant from Canton Province, China. He came to this country at the age of 13 and spent more than forty years working as a cook at the Dominican Convent in San Rafael. In my growing up years, he boarded there to save on bus fare and came home for his day-off on Thursday each week. So I grew up with limited contact with my father and I recall longing for a closer relationship with him. This longing continued to be there and was not met in my latency or early adolescent years. When he retired, I was 16 years old and by then, I had my own peer group and activities. Soon afterward, I left for college. I left home with a less than adequate model of manhood and fatherhood. My father passed away some 10 years ago. I recall taking the following steps to connect with this quiet, stuttering old man in the last decade of his life. Here are some practical steps in connecting with our fathers.

1. Connect physically and socially.
Look at your father and observe him for who he is physically. These connections can be nonverbal. Since my father had high blood pressure, I routinely checked his blood pressure. It was during those times that I had tactile contact with him and looked at how he had aged. Once, I recalled noticing the length of his fingernails and how the skin on his hands and arms had dried up through the years.
Find activities that you might do together. Men tend to bond with men over activities and tasks versus face to face interactions. One of the best talks I had with my father was on a drive back from Reno; where he told the story of his coming to this country and first saw his father at the age of 13.

2. Connect historically and mentally.
Take a family history from your father and serve as the family historian. For those who have children, one of the best gifts that you can pass on to your children is the family legacy. Interview your father to develop a family tree. In the process of interviewing my father, I learned of the death of his first wife and about the lack of fathering that he himself experienced. If your father is not living, interview relatives and friends who knew him.
Write a biography of your fathers. Tell the whole story about your father - the good parts and the bad parts. Consider the ways your life is better because of him. I learned the value of diligence and frugality from my father.

3. Connect emotionally and spiritually.
Grieve the loss of your father. For those whose fathers have passed away, this process can be, and in fact, must be completed. Here are some steps to facilitate this process:

• Make time to remember your father in his totality. You may select the anniversary of his death, his birthday, Father's Day or some other special day.
  
• As you take an inventory of your father, acknowledge and accept both his positive qualities as well as his negative ones.
  
• Acknowledge all the feelings that you have toward him - anger, betrayal, guilt, sadness, etc. This requires you to feel your feelings and taking trips to the cemetery may help facilitate the expression of these emotions.
  
• Integrate the loss into your life by giving some meaning to his life. For example, identify concretely those memories of your father, which live on in you.

Forgive your father for his failings. For some there is much anger and fear that must be overcome before they can even approach their fathers. The first step is to connect with these intense feelings and to take responsibility for dealing with them. I believe that this generation must take the first step in turning our hearts to our fathers. Forgiveness is an act of the will that men of God must take to free themselves from the burden of the past. The best job that our earthly fathers could have done was to accurately represent the Heavenly Father in raising children with love and discipline. Some of our fathers fell far short of this goal. Yet for Christians, we know that the Father heart of God can sustain us as we traverse the terrific distance between our fathers and ourselves.

Pray for your father's salvation. Some of our fathers do not have a personal relationship with God. I believe that they are hungry for meaning in life as they approach the later stages of life. There is no better person to share the love of God with them than you, one who has felt the embrace of our Heavenly Father.

May God give us the courage and grace to connect with and to embrace our fathers.

Biographical Sketch Dr. Sam B. Leong is a licensed psychologist and a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist in private practice affiliated with the Christian Psychotherapy Services group in San Francisco. With over twenty years of counseling experience, his areas of specialization include men's issues and couples therapy. He is married to Julie and has two children, Josiah and Erin.