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     My brother’s letters have generally run along these lines in the past ten-odd years: “kidnapping the Emperor to command the vassals.” He always referred to our father as “His Majesty Our Father” whenever he wrote. As Sun Yat-Sen had said: creation of the republic is to make all four hundred and fifty million compatriots of our nation emperors in their own right! So “we” believe that there is no better way to refer to our Father than the way “our” brother has chosen.
     In our “palace,” Father really was the emperor. Ever since we were young we had all been scared of Father, as if we were mice in the vicinity of a cat. When I was little, I had at least some sort of a safe harbor to shield me from the storms, as Grandmother had always protected me; but by the time my younger brothers were grown up, Her Majesty Our Grandmother had passed away and we completely lost our source of indulgent support. It was also from that year, however, that we felt Father had also lost a certain pillar from his emotional strength, and there were times when even he seemed lost and silent.
     I did not know why I was so afraid of Father, until I came to teach at the Girls’ School and the students asked me to always keep a smile on my face; they said that they were afraid to see my unsmiling face. Then I remembered that Father’s face was also like that: “mighty without fury.” No wonder a girl remarked a few days ago that my face is very “grand.” It was another “grand” face like mine that had kept us always “standing straight” when saying “yes, sir” to our Father when we were young.
     We rarely saw Father smile, although Father had a very deep dimple in his cheek, so that it seemed as if a blossom had stirred up ripples in a pond.
     We rarely saw Father smile, although Father had a set of pearly white teeth that made him look like a model for the Blackie Toothpaste advertisement when he smiled.
     However, we often heard him laugh resoundingly as he chatted to our neighbors. His laugh had resonated like the enormous bells from a mountain shrine.
     Actually we were not the only ones who were afraid of him; all kids in the neighborhood were afraid of him. Crying children would suddenly choke back their tears when they saw Father walk past. If Father then threw a grin in his direction, the child would be at a complete loss, and only when Father had strolled far far away would the child suddenly seem to recall himself, at which point he would let out a piercing shriek as if the sky had fallen!
     Father had never shown his stern face to anyone other than my brothers and me. When Father got angry, his words would be clipped, and his scolds were always brief. A simple command: “stand up straight!” was enough to keep us well reprimanded for a long time. Once we were playing with a group of children, and Father happened to see me aim a blow at my younger brother. He was furious and called out: “Come here!” In addition to my brother and me, three other pale-faced children also ran over to stand straight before him!
     One bellow and the sky becomes overcast!
     Nonetheless, the lion does not always roar. Father said:“He who yaps a lot must not be a lion. A lion treads deeply within the forests; knowledge is deep in the heart.” These words are said in Hokkien, and I recall them clearly as I really liked them. The lion would not roar all the time, and true “knowledge” is not always bantered about. What is frequently being boasted of is not true knowledge, not real wisdom. Father was my sky when I was little; I did not know exactly how high or how wide the sky was, because Father’s “knowledge” was deeply hidden in his heart. The occasional drop of information was to me an entire forest. Even now I often make reference in my classes to things he had said, and I treasure every tree, every blade of grass in that forest.
     I am the eldest son, and therefore whenever Father made the routine offerings to our ancestors, he would require me to stand by his side to learn how to burn the incense sticks and paper money correctly,...