Today’s post is a bit long and will not follow the same format as previous posts. Within the news lately there has been a lot of anti-Asian hate. Growing up in Sudbury there was some racism within the city, but for the most part I was shielded from a lot of it because of the people that I was surrounded by. I wanted to highlight some key people that really helped shape who I am today. To get to where I am today, my parents had to sacrifice a lot and make a lot of very hard decisions. We moved to Canada with nothing, no money, no clothing, not being able to speak the language or anything. The church sponsored us and set us up paying for all expenses and helped out our family. We started off quite poor, but my parents spent all of their money on us and made sure that we had a normal life growing up. We grew up middle class, but that is through the sacrifices of my parents. My sister and I would receive 1 gift for our birthday and 1 gift for Christmas, but I do not think we ever felt that we were missing anything. I remember some kids telling us everything that they received for birthdays or Christmas, and I never remember feeling jealous or caring.
Sitting in the comfort of my house it is easy to say that I would make the same choices and have the strength and fortitude to do what they did. I can say that in principle I would like to think I would, but I am not 100% confident. The story of how we got here was my elementary speech from grade 1 to grade 8 because it was super easy for me to memorize and no one was going to tell me I can not say that speech every year. I will tell that story at another time. My parents have shared more stories as we got older and it makes me realize more and more how tough some of those decisions were. The thing is, the decision that they made, if they were wrong would lead to everyone’s death. We escaped from Vietnam to have a better life, but that was not a guarantee. One of my mother’s cousins had a young son my age, and he died during the escape. Every time she saw me she was sad as I was a reminder that she lost her first born, and when we visited them I did not have someone my age to play with.
People grow up without strong parental figures in their life, or lack guidance. Parents can be neglectful or not provide love and support to their children as they try and survive and make it through their own life. I like to think that people always have positive intent, that they are doing what they think is right for themselves or their family. Sacrifices need to be made and you do what you need to. I have always had access to a computer, and my parents bought a computer for me when I was in grade 2 or 3. The cost of the computer at the time was insane and I remember that my parents had saved up for a year in order to buy it. It is not something you realize as a child. My parents would sacrifice for themselves in order to provide for us. My father grew up without a father and throughout my life, I do not recall him showing any overt signs of affection. It did not mean that he did not love us, he just never said it. Seeing him interact with the grandchildren I can see the difference. He does not verbalize love, but he shows it through his actions.
As I grew up I was lucky that I had more than just my set of my own parents. I have always had a very strong support structure in place, and in that sense I have been extremely blessed. I normally do not say the names of people, but in this instance I will.
In grade 2 we moved to where my parents currently live, and even though I had gone to the same school I developed new friendships. With out back yards connected, I met my best friend David. Growing up David was like a brother to me. We got into a lot of trouble and had a lot of fun together. We never did anything seriously bad, but we could be trouble makers. This was also when I was introduced to Olivia and Angela, David’s cousins, whom I am still close to now. I remember as kids the two of them just staring at David and me playing something random and them telling us that we were weird. I am sure that we were playing something ridiculous.
Growing up, their household was always warm and welcoming. I remember having dinner and meals at their house repeatedly. Denis and Darlene helped shaped who I am today. David is the runt of the family compared to his other two brothers. I am sure I stole some of his size as I am monstrous compared to my parents. Good old Italian cooking and walking up an down the hill daily to their place. When David and I got into trouble, I was often there to get the lectures on how stupid we were. I also remember them taking me to watch David’s sporting events and getting treats from the canteen. My parents could never afford to let me play any organized sports even though I begged them for years. I realized that they could never have committed to the time required as well as it being a non-essential cost. They brought me camping with them and I was included in a lot of experiences that I would not have been exposed to otherwise. David use to play competitive hockey and they would go canvas houses for sponsorship and I went along and participated. Lots of fun and then we went to Ponderosa afterwards to eat. It is a memory that sticks in my head for some reason. Denis would always give random words of wisdom during whatever sporting event we were watching. Darlene was always kind hearted and provided for the family and made some of the most delicious food. I was exposed to a lot of food and experiences because of their kindness. They always made me feel like part of the family.
I would also attend some of the events with the family, especially with Angela and Olivia. Their father would come watch me play soccer with the rest of their friends. I was never really good at soccer, I was just really fast. I would miss the net a lot on breakaways and things like that. He would then inform me what I did wrong and how I could do better. Seeing as I am not playing soccer professionally, it is clear how well I took those lessons. He also watched a lot of formula 1 racing and we cheered for opposing teams. I would always hear about it when Ferrari won and how good they were. It was a pleasant experience.
During my elementary years, I also spent time a lot of time with my friend Byron and his family. His parents Gene and Joyce were fantastic. I would often eat at their house, and since a lot of the times it was just showing up unexpectedly, they would need to re-portion all of the food and share with everyone. Gene would also bring me along camping, where we would setup tents and try to catch our own food. I do not remember us ever being successful. I remember being forced to eat trail mix during the trip to keep our energies up and putting up a tent in the rain. To this day I hate trail mix, but he always made sure we had energy and would explain how to survive in the wilderness. We had to carry our own supplies in the backpacks as well as the shared needs of the group. These are all unforgettable memories and something that I would have never experienced without them.
During my undergraduate degree at Laurentian I was a terrible student. I would miss a lot of classes and spend most of my time in the lab running experiments. I had people take notes from me and tell me when my examinations were. I did not always try in class and would on occasion just do the bare minimum to get by, especially if things did not matter. I remember in 4th year thesis class, I handed in a paper that was not my best work. Dr. Persinger was handing out the papers and when he got to me he told me that my paper was garbage and he expected more from me. I was the only one that he called out in the class and everyone was shocked. To this day, he was the only one that knew how to push my buttons and get me to kick my work into an extra gear. After I graduated from my undergrad I went to some other schools and then was back in Sudbury. While hanging out in the lab, he told me to go register as a Masters student. I did not have much direction at the time and was not sure what I had wanted to do. He provided mentorship and pushed me to become better. During the statistics course I took with him, I was the top student and was quite arrogant. It was a two part exam, where one part was in class and the other was a take home paper. Right before the exam, I had told him that I would be pissed if I my mark was anything below 80% and that I expected to finish top of the class. It was a three hour exam, and I timed everything so I would finish in 3 hrs, no one else was close to finishing so he gave people an extra hour. I left because I finished and went back to the office where I saw Dr. Persinger. He asked me how it was and I said I think it was not too bad. I am not fond of looking at my marks, due to the expectations my parents gave us. I was not going to check out my marks because I did not care. He was aware of this. When the exams were marked, Dr. Persinger decided to call me to tell me my mark. I received a 79%. At this point we should have been almost done our take home paper. I was livid when he told me my mark and that someone had a higher mark then I did. I scrapped all the work I had done and started something far more advanced and combined multiple data sources to come up with a new direction for my paper. I ended up with the highest mark in the class. Talking to him afterwards, he told me that he had graded my paper differently than the other people since he had higher expectations for me. During the exam he had asked in principle how we would answer the questions, but I derived the formulas and answered the question. If I did not do this I was not provided full marks even though no one else could do it. If I was graded the same as others my mark would be much higher. He knew how to use my ego against me and how to push me to another level.
When I met Mel and we started dating, it was kept a secret from everyone at the University. I wanted to make sure that all of her accomplishments were her own and no one would question whether she had help or not. Mel had a job that was close to my parents place, so my Dad had a key made for her so she could go to their place on her breaks for lunch. This was quite the surprise to my mother and myself, as my dad never did things like this, but this is how he shows affection.
Now that Melanie and I are married I have another set of parents. Rob and Sue. Sue does a lot of really small things that may go unnoticed. She would make sure that the house was stocked with your favorite treats. She would buy my favourite cereal or chips to have in the house just in case. She would always try and make other people happy and would remember small details. If there is any sort of minor holiday she will have a gift for you to celebrate. 10 years ago she made a flan once, and I do not remember if it was successful or not, but I have been trying to get her to make one ever since. Today she delivered it to our house. I will try it later tonight. Since I started the cancer treatments I think that she has dropped off treats for us weekly, mostly treats that the kids and Mel like, as they are far easier to please. But she is consistently baking treats for us. Rob has been a father figure to me in a different way than my own father. His approach to lessons is not as stern and strict as my own father. He does not drop words of wisdom on life like Denis, try and educate me on things like Gene, or try to extract that extra effort from me like Dr. Persinger. But he taught me how to pull the trailer behind the truck. He made sure I was the one that drove and parked the trailer every time for 5 years. Now I am comfortable to do it on my own without help, but he would help guide me. He was always willing to help out with home projects. We would often have lively discussions on how to do thing as we do not always agree. Especially when how to park the trailer, or the best way to do an improvement project. Rob was fine with making do with what we have and when I asked, is there not a better way, he would tell me a better way if we only had this piece of equipment. I would reply, why did you not tell me that before? I would then go buy the equipment to make things easier. So if anyone needs any power tools. I have them all.
At the end of the day, throughout my whole life I have received guidance and knowledge from a lot of people. I had have the privilege of being included and integrated into their families. Growing up I had friends and others say things like, “if only you were white, you would have been a perfect match for our daughter”. And the scary thing is that these people did not think that it was racist or anything bad to say. Growing up in a small city, there were not a lot of Asians. Some other kids would say things about my race, but not when I was with my friends. My friends and their families made me feel welcome and part of their families. It is easy to have a positive outlook on life when I have had the privilege of growing up in such a warm and welcoming environment with people who wanted to mentor me to become better person.
Quoc Hao