My Dad, Old Huang

I think, perhaps because of having Old Huang around, knowing that there's someone in this world who unconditionally believes in me, what else could I possibly fail at?

Old Huang is my dad, a middle-aged driver in his forties with gray hair and a potbelly.

He doesn't have much money, nor any special talents. He's been driving for over twenty years, dabbling in business in his younger days, selling cars, traveling far and wide, but ultimately coming back to settle in a small county town, driving a car and coming home every week to cook delicious meals for us.

What he's most proud of is having a good wife, my mom, and two good children, my younger brother and me.

Old Huang has quite a few bad habits. He loves smoking; his addiction is even bigger than mine. I've tried to advise him many times to smoke less, but he never listens. He just squints through the smoke and says, "How many drivers don't smoke? Smoking helps keep you alert. You think I've been driving safely for so many years without smoking?" It's hard to argue with him when he's smoking, so I just roll my eyes and ignore him.

He's also addicted to playing cards. Whenever he has free time, he'll sit in the mahjong hall all night playing mahjong. If he wins, he comes home happily and gives us pocket money. If he loses, he sneaks back home and goes straight to bed. During my rebellious teenage years, I would often storm into the mahjong hall and argue with him. I'd be so angry, like a prickly hedgehog, thinking he would slap me, but instead, he would just lead me home, then turn around and apologize to the mahjong hall owner.

"I'll blow up this stinky place sooner or later!"

As he dragged me home, I would still glare at the owner, bravely threatening her with my fierce words, as if I were a hero sacrificing myself with a few pounds of explosives strapped to my back.

For a long time, so long that I grew up to be a young lady, calm and composed, the neighbors still teased me about it.

So, I didn't really get along with Old Huang when I was little.

Especially because he used to like picking me up and tickling me with his beard. After he popped my balloon and promised to buy me a new one or compensate me with peppermints, he never followed through. That's when I decided I couldn't love him anymore.

My childhood dislike meant not letting him hug me, crying, throwing tantrums, and causing chaos every day.

Old Huang was even more adept. When my mom was at work, he would just drop me off on the street and go play cards by himself. I would play in the mud on the street, wander around the town with a group of boys, and climb onto rooftops.

Since Old Huang didn't care about me, I didn't care about him either.

Old Huang really didn't know how to be a father. In other families, fathers pamper their daughters, buying them fancy clothes and dolls, dressing them up beautifully. But Old Huang treated me like a little puppy or kitten, letting me run wild wherever there was mud and water. When I came home, he would carry me to the tap, without even taking off my clothes, and rinse me off thoroughly, washing away all the mud and grass from my body and clothes.

Then he would stand in the courtyard laughing and ask me where I had been playing today.

Although Old Huang didn't care much about my daily life, he was very strict about my studies. Since elementary school, I had to go to the teacher's house every day to learn mental arithmetic, and when I came home, I would be locked in a small room to memorize the consonant chart on the wall. Fortunately, I was smart when I was young, so I learned quickly, and my grades were among the top in the class.

Later, because of mental arithmetic, my Chinese scores were too low, and Old Huang made me quit mental arithmetic. At night, he would sit on a small stool at the dinner table and guide me in writing down new words silently.

Whether it was because of that period of strictness or because I gave up mental arithmetic and started to lean more towards reading, my Chinese scores in fifth grade suddenly improved, and even my imagination and composition skills were among the best in the class. I even had an article published in a famous elementary school publication and received my first writing fee.

My affinity with words began from there. And throughout my entire growth process, the interest and support Old Huang gave me in this aspect were the greatest.

In junior high school, Old Huang had an accident.

He had always been known as a skilled driver, never having had an accident in all his years of driving. But this time, he drove from the side of the road directly to the edge of the road, the entire car overturned, and he was trapped underneath with his right leg pinned and unable to move.

The people who came to deal with the accident were busy from eleven in the morning until five in the afternoon before they finally got Old Huang out from under the car. My mom crawled over to him crying and thanking him while supporting him on the slope, and I stood far away with my younger brother, expressionless.

Old Huang lost over ten kilograms that week.

A big guy who used to weigh over a hundred and sixty kilograms, he had lost down to just over a hundred and forty kilograms. His waist was visibly smaller, and his face looked ten years older. At that time, I was going through a rebellious phase, arguing with my classmates at school all day and not speaking to my mom at home.

Old Huang looked helplessly at the two people he loved hurting each other. He wanted to discipline me, but he didn't have the confidence. He wanted to advise me kindly, but he found that I was indifferent and contemptuous of everything.

I was really annoying at that time, with poor grades, disobedience, and easily irritated, cutting off all the joint photos with my mom at home, writing many vicious curses on the walls, and no one in the world wanted to get close to me. Even my mom, who didn't talk to me more than a few words all day.

But when Old Huang limped into my room, sat on my bed, and slowly spoke to me, my eyes, which had been so arrogant, rolled with hot tears again and again, silently sitting in front of the desk crying, responding to Old Huang's words with my back and silence.

He told me that he had been immature once, sent off to the army by his uncle. When he was bullied by the veteran soldiers in the army, he didn't shed a tear, when he was wounded in battle, he didn't cry, but he cried bitterly when he received a letter from my grandmother. At that time, my grandmother's family was so poor, how could she raise so many children all by herself? Other people were starving at home and eating bowl after bowl of sweet potato residue, and he, at least, wasn't starving to death in the army.

"Your mom scolds you not because she thinks you're annoying. Every time she scolds you and goes back to her room, she cries. After you go to school, she quietly cleans up your room and sees those words, and the photos, she cries every day. For parents, how could they dislike their children? No matter how you are, you're still our daughter, aren't you? Dad believes in you."

Actually, he didn't know that I was so grateful for that one sentence he said, "I believe in you," which made a child who had once denied herself so deeply gradually become the strong, brave girl she is today.

But Old Huang also had his tender moments, and quite a temper.

When I was about to take the high school entrance exam in my third year of junior high, my grades were still unstable, and I was torn between going to a prestigious high school with too much uncertainty or a regular high school with less pressure. Old Huang, sitting at the dinner table, threw down his chopsticks and yelled at me:

"Do you think going to a good high school won't cost us a lot? Do you think going to one of those tuition-free regular high schools won't save us a lot? But, studying is your own business. Your dad can only struggle at the bottom. Do you still want this? A good high school has more pressure, but the teaching staff is stronger, and your horizons will be broader. Don't worry about these few dollars. How much do you think you can save? We'll scrimp and save to send you to a good high school and a good college. First of all, you can't give up on yourself! Go confidently to take the exam. I believe in my daughter!"

At that time, I was stunned and tears and snot flowed freely. My mom was afraid of affecting my grades and was angry at Old Huang. But the fact proved that Old Huang's trust was correct.

Even the college entrance examination was like this.

Over the years, I never told Old Huang that the essay I wrote for the college entrance examination was about him, right up until the end when I couldn't help but cry.

That year, the Hunan college entrance exam was an open essay on "a pair of hands." I wrote about Old Huang's hands, covered with calluses, able to drive, repair all kinds of furniture, cook all kinds of delicious dishes, and even bend down to cut his daughter's toenails.

My toenails inherited Old Huang's, growing into the flesh, and they had to be cut off every now and then, or they would develop serious abscesses. In my third year of high school, I only went home once a month, too busy to even wash my clothes, let alone spend time carefully picking out my toenails and patiently cutting them off. So when I came home, my feet were already swollen and couldn't fit into my shoes.

Old Huang saw this and immediately brought a basin of water over, bent down in front of me, and soaked my feet. In that moment, I suddenly felt a little at a loss. This scene seemed to take me back to when I was very young, when he bathed me and fetched water for me. The handsome dad with green hair had become the Old Huang with a bulky body. And in all these years, I had never given him a basin of foot water. I was so moved at the time that I wanted to cry.

Putting my feet on his legs, he carefully picked out the toenails that had grown into the flesh and then cut them off. When he squeezed out the pus, he was so gentle that he didn't seem like the rough and fierce uncle at all.

At that moment, I fell in love with this old man a little bit again, feeling that as long as Old Huang was there, everything would be fine.

My relationship with Old Huang has been distant and close, especially after going to college. I could go for a long time without calling, but once I called, Old Huang would jokingly ask if I was out of money again. He didn't know that being so direct made his daughter very embarrassed.

When we met at home, we would eat and talk about life. Old Huang was very trendy, learning to go online completely on his own. He could talk about current events with reason and evidence, and when I asked him some professional questions, he could leave me dumbfounded. Sometimes I even thought that if my brother grew up a little more, they could watch basketball games together while cracking sunflower seeds and arguing.

Recently, I've been busy looking for internship placements because I don't want to work in my field of study in the future, so I'm in great pain trying to switch careers. My mom, who doesn't understand, just worries and asks, "If you don't find a job in your field, isn't college a waste?"

Old Huang is decisive, just saying, "If you want to try, then go ahead. If you succeed, you win. If you don't, we're still here for you."

He didn't mention that he was already in his forties and still struggling to drive a truck.

At that time, I was so touched that I sent Old Huang a crying emoticon on WeChat, and Old Huang replied coldly, "What are you crying for?"

Later, when I applied, interviewed, and tortured myself into an unrecognizable state, I complained to Old Huang on WeChat, saying that the good positions in the company were not suitable, and the ones that were suitable were too demanding. Old Huang directly advised me, "Don't go. If you want to go, go where you want to go. Those who hesitate won't succeed."

I pitifully asked, "But what if I don't find a better position in the future?"

"Don't worry, you will. I believe in my daughter. Dad won't lie to you."

And just like that, I rejected those companies.

During this time, I've been feeling helpless, asking older students, sitting on buses for a long time struggling with the weather, going to interviews, and torturing myself to the point where I didn't even want to talk when I got back to school. But when I thought of what Old Huang said, that he believed in me, I felt like there was a place on me that was glowing, constantly providing energy and motivation.

From childhood to adulthood, people who know me always ask why I'm so confident and never afraid of the unknown?

I think, perhaps because Old Huang is there, knowing that there's someone in this world who unconditionally believes in me, what else could I possibly fail at?

Old Huang, even though your personality is not likable, the future husband I want to marry must never be like you. But you should know that your daughter loves you very, very much, even though she may not say it or express it in actions, her heart is most sincere, most grateful, and most fond of you.

So, I love you, Dad.