Adventures of Andrew Lee

Warning: Imported from old college This post was moved from an older website hosted on a college server. These have been unedited and contain many mistakes. But, whatever.

Well, after a long week of disappointing finals, I finally retired my Reebok DMX Action-Hiking shoes that i bought in August 2001 at the Denver Tech Center from some shady shoe salesman. How is shoe salesman shady, you ask? Aside from pulling shoes from boxes with various electronics saying, "I have the perfect shoe... (rummaging past Samsung and Sanyo)... for you," trust me, these guys were shady. They did, however, give me a great deal on these shoes, which have traversed the globe ranging from places like night markets in Beijing, the areas of my ancestral Taishan, CMC, various hiking trails in the Rockies, the MOMA in NYC, and chicken and waffle houses in Georgia. These shoes, kicked out before they could tackle their toughest challenge, the capitol of the United States. In light of the holiday cheer, not only do I wish joy and happiness upon the world, but I also wish that every child could have a pair of shoes (be they from shady shoe salesman or not), so that they don't have to worry about shoes, but only of their adventures. That would be quite a gift.

I have finally packed my bags (in preparation for my semester in Washington, D.C.), including my Yan-Can-Cook twenty minute rice cooker, my unfinished Anna Karenina, and leftover food from the fridge (so as not to let it go to waste). As I was driving away from the college, listening to the end of the Kenny G- Auld Lang Syne song, with JFK saying "Let the word go forth form this time and place, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans." I realized that 3/8ths of my college career was already gone; I wondered why it had gone by so quickly. Trying to not lapse into an adolescent romanticism, quite popular amongst my generation, I recalled a mathematical equation that a good friend (a sage from Boise, Idaho) had told me. He said, "It seems fast because the year you try to remember, in relation to your total age, is small. When you're a little kid, it seems longer because you haven't lived as long. In a blink of the eye, Andrew, you will be looking at the woman you love. Blink. You'll hold your firstborn child. It only gets faster from here."

When I arrived at my great-uncle's house, I kept on asking him about my great-grandfather and especially about my other ancestors, attempting to gain guidance by their past histories. He said, "I can't remember. Besides, there is nothing to know. You know that your grandfather is an architect, right? That's all you need. Your great-grandfather is already dead. There is nothing more to know." Could these be the musings of an old man, tired of the interrogation by an eager young man? Perhaps, he wanted to forget, breaking the chain to the past as so many other immigrant Americans have done. Did my great-grandfather know that life would blink away so quickly, and his great grandson would only have a name, and three writings to remember him by? Did he know the bitter taste that he left behind with his wife, given to my grandfather, then to my father, and eventually to me? Or did he inherit this pain, as all of the Lee Family did? Would my great-grandfather have blamed the first emperor of China's death by mercury balls ingested in his quest for eternal life? Did he know the tragedy of Anna Karenina, or the conclusion of Konstantin Levin? Did he celebrate Christmas or know God? Did he ever feel lost and ask these same questions, as I am doing? Perhaps, he wanted it this way... to allow me to live and find my own purpose, Quite a gift.