The Master
A simple life. That's my goal since I was a kid.
As a half-Chinese that lived and grew up in a foreign country,
hard will be an understatement.
My father can't find a decent a job.
The neighbors think that my mother is crazy.
I grew up being bullied by my neighbors and classmates.
All because we speak differently.
Mandarin is the mother tongue in our small home in Talisay.
They ridicule me everytime I tried to speak Visayan dialect.
They laugh at me everytime Mandarin comes out of my mouth.
What only satisfies me is the thought that I have my personal language.
I can curse them on their faces but all they can do is stare at me with blank expressions.
I understand them but they don't.
It was in elementary when the misery gradually ended.
When I started making achievements in my academics, I slowly built this reputation of an intelligent person.
It was in 1973 when Fúqin went home from work and never went out of the house again.
My mother had to step up or we will die out of hunger.
My father's body started to deteriorate and later on died in a miserable state.
We can't afford to send him to a hospital.
Múqin was so angry at my father that she still curses him even after his burial.
She put up a small store in front of our home.
It was in 1975 when the Philippine government finally recorded us as citizens (my parents our Chinese refugees).
She registered me as Dean Wong.
She did not include my father's name on the record.
Múqin never talked with anyone for mere chitchats.
You can only hear her voice when someone is buying her goods.
She sells repacked sugar, coffee etc.
I never had a chance to know about our family history.
Everytime I try, she beats me.
After a while, I stopped trying.
The domestic silence led me to become a consistent honor student.
My days that should have been spent into laughs, storytelling about what happened in school, was poured into endless study.
Music also became my friend.
It was my only diversion.
Before I finished elementary, I already learned how to play all the instruments available in school.
I tried hard to be contented in that wretched life.
I stopped myself from complaining.
I put all my emotions on hold.
I did not grudge.
It's as if I am in a black hole and I have no means to escape.
I am powerless.
