My Parents

As I am writing this entry, I just finished celebrating dad's birthday with my family, am semi drunk on a 53% Mao Tai Wine, and really need to head to bed. But I wanted to savor the moment and write it all down before tomorrow comes. Before the wine wipes away my memory.

I don't usually write about my parents but my best friends can attest that I am really proud of them and that I'm really close to them. Even when I was on my weekend getaway, I thought about them often and was getting a bit emotional.

It is my dad's birthday today. Sort of. My dad was born on August 24, according to the Lunar Calendar; or October 12, according to the Julien/Gregorian Calendar. (Yes Mark, we figured out dad's birthday on the Julien calendar) But because of the way birth certificates were recorded back in his days, we have been celebrating his birthday on August 24 every year. As I was asking my dad about his real birth date, the topic came about that both my mom and dad have the same birthday on the Lunar calendar, but different birth dates on the Julien calendar because of their age difference.

So every 19 years (?), my parents would have the same birthday, on both the Lunar and Julien Calendar. As they were telling me this, I was thinking their story is really romantic and sweet. I don't have the most romantic parents and they're not very expressive of their feelings for each other, as is typical of Asian families; but somehow I correlate their same lunar birthday as fate and destiny. That two people who fell in love because of the art of writing (or handwriting, I should say) turned out to have the same birthday, have the same hard-working attitude towards their goals, came from being desolately poor to living well, have the same drive to motivation, have driven their motivation to being successful business partners. On top of all that, they have raised a big family together and still take care of their respective family back home.

As critical as I am of their marriage and their happiness with each other, I can't help but feel they were meant to be together. That's romance in itself. Their love story may be typical but it's romantic and they worked together for it.

(Thanks Eric for the Lunar/Julien/Gregorian calendar links)