{"id":111,"date":"2025-04-06T23:56:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T15:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/?p=111"},"modified":"2025-08-18T10:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:03:11","slug":"chopping-through-life-with-my-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/06\/chopping-through-life-with-my-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Chopping Through Life with My Father"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"626\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-1024x626.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-112\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-1024x626.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-300x184.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-768x470.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-421x258.jpg 421w, http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1.jpg 1481w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Father and I. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Growing up, I didn\u2019t realize my dad was teaching me how to become a historian. I just thought he had a peculiar obsession with dusty books, ancient poems, and scribbling cryptic notes in margins like a literary detective. His nightstand was stacked with thread-bound volumes filled with stern-looking men in robes, poets and thinkers whose names I couldn\u2019t pronounce yet. Before I even entered primary school, I could recite Tang poetry like a mini scholar, thanks to the man who once told me that Du Fu \u201chad a heart big enough to shelter the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But my father wasn\u2019t loud about lessons. He never preached; he just lived them. He wore his admiration for Lu Xun China\u2019s most unflinching modern writer, on his sleeve, literally. His haircut, posture, even the stoic stare he gave me when I messed up, all said: \u201cBe better. Think deeper. Say something meaningful.\u201d Sometimes, he would strike a Lu Xun pose so I could sketch him, his silent way of reminding me that history isn\u2019t in books alone; it\u2019s alive in us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout my school years, my dad handcrafted tiny notebooks filled with quotes, verses, and moral reflections. He expected me to carry them in my pocket like a compass. \u201cRead them. Memorize them. Let them shape you,\u201d he\u2019d say. So I did. And when I started topping the class in writing, it wasn\u2019t because I was naturally gifted. It was because someone, quietly, deliberately, had been chiseling that ability into me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a line from a movie my dad and I once watched: <em>\u201cIn this shit life, you must chop something.\u201d<\/em> He laughed, then nodded. I think he agreed. In a world full of noise, he taught me what to cut away and what to keep: books, integrity, empathy, craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My father may never win awards or write books, but he built the foundation for everything I hope to become. If I ever write history, he\u2019ll be the footnote I repeat the most\u2014quiet, essential, and profoundly human.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Father and I. Growing up, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-my-father-and-i"],"views":252,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lzl-historybuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}