This Father
My eldest daughter in the 3rd grade of elementary school gave me her calligraphy of
"Obligation to Father" which she had written with a writing brush in a private
calligraphy school on Father's Day. To look at it, I felt the characters were
indescribably good. 'Father' is very nice, 'To' is quite moderate but when it comes to the
most important character of 'Obligation', it loses every balance and appears chaotic.
The characters meaning 'Father' and 'To' must have been written in one breath, so the last
part of 'To' is blurred, and there, obviously she must have filled too much ink into the
brush for the next. (The Chinese letter meaning "Obligation" consists of 'big'
in an angular box and 'heart' just below the box.) The angular is very fat, and a small
'big' is put tightly in it, then 'heart' just below the box shows the situation of total
collapse.
Innocent child is very honest indeed. It looked to me as if she was wondering what to do
with the high meaning of "Obligation, and I felt a bit sad thinking that the
obligation might be a selfish strategy of adults against children.
Oh, my daughter!,
I do appreciate such a great gift to me on this particular day like today.
But your innocence makes my heart painful.
I do not like such kind of family play.
Do you think that you have any obligation to me?
Why do I have it?
Because I do not even know as yet how I should show you my true love.
Break out from the bounds of the box and grow up.