The past couple of nights over dinner–which Dad has been cooking, he’s been opening my eyes to some simple but tasty dishes–I’ve asked Dad what he’s been up to while I’m out:

• Dad’s reading a book by Lee Teng Hui, a former president of Taiwan, which addresses issues about the Japanese spirit. It’s in Japanese, and intended for a Japanese audience apparently.

• It’s interesting to note that Lee is about ten years older than Dad, but is of the same generation of Taiwanese who grew up under Japanese colonial rule and were, for all intents and purposes, considered part of Japan and Japanese. So Dad’s generation is familiar with issues of cultural identity that I, as an Asian-American, have been going through as well. And he’s also gone through the entire post-WWII Chinese imigrant experience on top of that, having choosen to live in American suburbia rather than in an Asian ghetto. That’s pretty cool!

• He’s been practicing his cello, and has been excited about getting a new transcription of Bach’s “Six Cello Suites” from Pierre Fournier, which matches a CD he brought with him. He pointed out differences in performance in various passages to me. It’s his favorite version.

• Dad’s been finding interesting ways to make small optimizations in the household. For example, the jar of “Planter’s Honey Roasted Peanuts” I had contained a lot of sugar/salt mix floating in the bottom, making it difficult to extract peanuts without getting a mouthful of powder. I’ve always just lived with it, but Dad took the time to remove the peanuts from the jar, extract the powder, then replace the peanuts. He then used the powder to make a variation of sweet and sour pork for dinner tonight. Genius!

• Another tip: Dad suggested that I soak the bamboo rice paddle (used for digging rice out of the rice cooker) in sesame oil. This will impregnate the fibers of the paddle and make it more non-stick. I had noticed that rice paddles in Taiwan seemed greasy, but never knew that it was done on purpose to make them nonstick…I just thought they were old.

• We talked about but about Dad’s past experiences in adminsitrating the Taiwan Theological College, how his experiences in the U.S. from 1957 to 1977 shaped some of his outlook as far as executive procedure went.

• Dad clarified a long-standing question I had about Christianity and how it was really different from other forms of humanist, spiritual belief systems that believe in a higher ideal, gods, or God. The way I understand it now is that it’s not so much what is believed to be the higher authority, but how that authority is revealed. In other words, it really is about the Bible and how you interpret it that differentiates a Christian (and various denominations) from other people. I think I tended to have more of an absolutist view toward what Christianity actually meant.

• Last night we went to Border’s, and picked up the entire Frank Herbert Dune series for him to take home with him. Dad has found the story to liberate him from his traditional sources for theological musings. He also mentioned that the last book in the Ender’s Game trilogy (Children of the Mind) had interesting theological discussion, which is probably not surprising given OSC’s background. It’s cool how Dad is open to various forms of literature for ideas.

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p>I asked Dad what he does to keep busy at home. It goes something like this: * Practice Cello, which gives him a lot of joy. * Raise Orchids. There was a time when he thought of raising very expensive orchids, but the weather conditions and environment in Taichung tended to kill them. So he now, rather pragmatically, focuses on raising very hardy orchids. I may ask him to set up some kind of OrchidStation&tm; here. * Study Languages. He’s been practicing his Thai, and can now go to the market and buy things when he visits his colleagues. Dad has a zeal for languages, apparently, as he’s also interested in picking up Korean (“pronunciation similar to Taiwanese, grammar same as Japanese, same characters in Chinese”), Vietnamese, and maybe relearning German or Spanish. He’s not so much into travel, but the study of languages keeps him from “becoming stupid” he says :-) * Read news on the Internet