Happy Humiliation (A Lesson)

Flushing (Background)

Gong Gong, Amah, Grace, Jonah, Noah and I took a trip to flushing. After much frustrating traffic, dizzying carsickness, adn other stress filled environment in Taiwanese we arrived at our destination. Gong inquired in a New Jersey in your face way about an elevator to New York Chinatown man who had been asked about the broken elevator and escalator millions of times that day who responded in a placating, attempt at calm which was tense from being asked all day.

We entered Amah's shopping heaven. A supermarket  that Grace and I had been to before. I saw her face brightened and her eyes twitch as they had at Kam Man in Quincy when she suddenly rushed off  in the glories of purchasing produce.

Being the main child caretaker, I have the children's normal schedule ingrained and attuned to my own. Wake Up, breakfast, play for a certain period of time, get fed or freak out and melt down in a terrible tantrum. We were approaching meal time as we had come to Flushing with the goal of eating lunch.
I mentioned as much to the leaders in law.

Amah went off. saying she couldn't take it anymore and that I was dis-invited from New Jersey. That I had to "calm down" and that this was a special supermarket. Besides she saw me as an irrelevance. I wasn't needed. Next time they could just hire a nanny or something.

I explained that I was calm and that we could do as much shopping as she liked but that the small children needed to eat, and I was also starting to get hungry.

"You go then yourself!"

"Okay, just give me my son back." I said and then explained, "If you guys want to shop first that's fine but but the children need to eat first."

I don not like Amah going of on me. But her going off is so continuous that it had become background noise to me. Although I will admit, because of my nausea, despite my level tone, I was indeed inwardly angry.

What happened next though enraged me, though I couldn't show it.

Gong Gong now went off on me and told. And when I explained that I was not starting a fight here and to please not make a scapegoat of me, "Shut Up!" was the last screaming sentence of the Patriarch.

When things become stressful it is sometimes just easier to find someone to blame. A scapegoat.

The easiest scapegoat is the weakest and preferably an outsider.

Physically I am not weak. However, having no job, no money, no keys, no car, no ride, and my progeny with me I was no position as a rational human being to fight back physically or verbally at this very street type encounter. I was an outsider and yet a dependent. So no matter who was right or wrong it was just more convenient to turn on me, so as to bring the rest of the family together. It was so convenient that I had to swallow it and go along with it like a dog or a small child.


I went into polite block out mode. Where I was polite and simply tried to ignore the evil. So when Amah vindictively pushed Jonah as a means of getting at me I simply took him into my arms and said, "I know dai dai, just accept it for now it will be easier for you."


We returned home pretending like nothing happened and I placed my rage in the upper right corner of my brain where it burned a blue flame and emitted cold slow burning rage through my body that will last a decade, while making connections with memories of all past slights growing into a nice little monster in my subconscious.

I continued to talk to and give attention to my children. If I were not needed to do this, indeed I would not feel the necessity to come, even of I got along perfectly fine with Grace's parents.


Upon arriving to the house I went out for a run. Where I have come to tolerate women going of on me, older men going of on me, while touching the nerve of my manhood, employment, and general success is enraging to the point of savagery.


However, after the run I managed to find a way to put my anger into a short story I was planning instead.


I arrived to hear that Grace had actually decided and told her parents that they would leave the next day. It eventually came out in yelling and crying and had to do with Amah's evil push of Jonah.

"That child is as much part of me as he is you." Grace said to me. She was deeply hurt and emotional fragile. I explained that I was actually angry for another reason and it was taking all self control to not fight physically let alone verbally.

I was petty and been slighted, but there it was. Where as before I needed a ride. Now it was law and perhaps Gong Gong's age that was keeping me  from bringing about a confrontation physically. Well in any case this was not the time and place for this. As I slept I realized I simply needed to say my piece. Not yell it or punch it out. But Grace was feeling so bad that she asked that I not do it. I planned a letter, an e-mail, or a You tube video.

We left the next morning and on the ride away I went between forgiveness and revenge. I had tried to bring the subject up, but Gong Gong would not raise his eyes to me mine but kept them on the floor until at the last moment when we drove away. I cannot read minds, but if he dared to twist the whole thing against me, I could not abide that. And then, passing a poster about Jesus I realized that I should and could.

But then much later, I was back at revenge.

Mastering one's mind is not easy.


Happy Humiliation.

Back in Boston, I unloaded the car and Grace asked me to go to Chinatown to pcik up some dishes. I said I would be glad to go and walk. In fact, I would job there. I brought my straw hat.

I passed bu children selling lemonade and a giant party trolley full of drunk revelers passed by. I thought that I was more or less happy.

But as the revel bus passed by my hat flew off and a giant  roar and cheer rose up from drunk men partying. I looked back and thought I heard jeers. I sprinted towards the bus and actually chased it down  coming close to it and screaming, "You got a fucking problem?" I was smiling because I had a problem and was looking for a fight, for someone to exchange blows with, not because of anything they said, but because I thought that there was someone on that trolley that was drunk and belligerent and would exchange blows with me, and every strike to that person would be in my mind a strike  at Gong Gong and Amah who I am forbideen by law and societal norms to strike.

But as I approached the van there were no men waving at me to come fight. They were cheering me. The only beckoning hands were from dancing women coaxing me to join their fun. But I didn't understand and continued yelling. "Wait is he mad?" I heard. "Why are you mad?" some men yelled. "I am so confused right now!" Yelled another.

Clearly I was angry, stupid and crazy. I was being taught a lesson. and indeed the proverbial beating of someone to teach them a lesson is nonsense. The best way to teach someone a lesson is by partying, being happy, and friendly.

I walked back to my original mission, getting food, late and foolish in a happy humiliation. Humiliated because of my stupidity, happy because I had finally seen the foolishness of my petty anger.

I owed an apology to that entire bus, and to the children selling lemonade. I was an embarrassment to mankind. But luckily, they were able to show that to me with kindness.

Compared to those revelers I am probably weaker in physical strength. And in terms of mental "enlightenment" or perhaps sanity, I am clearly much farther behind than them. I have tried to calm my nerves through meditation and martial arts, but perhaps wine women and song is the true path to nirvana. In any case I had arrived jogging through a party, with drink and music and beautiful young people passing by a lemonade stand run by little cherubs frolicking. I had jogged through a paradise, heaven on earth, and the anger which I thought I had put aside rushed up and took control of my sanity and though everyone around me was in heaven, I was in hell.


I laughed all the way to Chinatown at my foolishness and upon my return I gave two dollars at the lemonade stand. More embarrassingly I knew the adults supervising the children and I apologized for my behavior. Though again, I owe an apology most to the group of revelers who did nothing but spread good cheer to me in return for my violent outburst of summer scrooginess.

Instead of being chastized by the woman at the lemonade stand I received an understanding smile and a rice crispy treat for my money.


Keeping composure is only a temporary fix and is not the same thing as mastering your emotions. What I swallowed in New York, came out irrationally, uncontrollably, and angrily with interest in Jamaica Plain, at the wrong people, who thankfully, taught me a lesson in human social norms and recognizing joy and paradise when it is there.