King of Uncool
What’s the worst that can happen? Lessons from my dad.
When I was in fourth grade, my dad picked me up from school on a bicycle—a bike!—because new immigrants to the U.S. don’t have credit scores. Without a credit score, we couldn’t afford to buy a car in cash outright.
Every day, without fail, he’d show up at the school drop-off zone meant for cars. He’d break into a grin and wave enthusiastically (too unsubtle for my preference) as soon as he saw me, and be inevitably wedged in the pick-up queue between sedans and vans.
It was mortifying.
By the time my dad finally bought a used (third- or fourth-hand, at that point) 1995 red Honda Civic, I was so proud to be picked up in an automobile that I’d take my sweet time getting into the car because hey everyone, look, I’m not on a bike!
My dad never understood why I felt so embarrassed by the whole ordeal. He’d tell me not to worry what my classmates thought. Or that if they did, they had nothing better to think about and they weren’t worth my time. He’d say it was more eco-friendly; we were being more considerate to the Earth. He’d say it didn’t matter whether I got picked up in a Subaru or a Schwinn as long as I got home from school safely every day.
Then he’d hand me my pink helmet and we’d be on our way.
He never understood why, after a few weeks of this, I started commanding him to pick me up on the street corner one block away. Or why I slowly signed up for every conceivable before- and after-school extracurricular activity like choir, cross-country, debate, journalism, track & field, yearbook, band, and orchestra (so at least the cool kids wouldn’t have to see me get picked up on a bike, duh dad!).
This had the unintended effect of exposing me to all sorts of skills and hobbies I wouldn’t otherwise have tried as a young kid. I quickly learned what I was awful at (singing, sprinting, any sport involving depth perception) and what I could do with relative ease (debate, distance running, music, writing).
By the time I got to high school, I used those very public speaking skills to persuade some adults to let me run the first-ever UNICEF High School Club, which turned into an official UN-sponsored program when I graduated 4 years later and earned me a nod from the Obama White House, plus roles with The College Board and DoSomething.org (plus free jeans from Aeropostale and a winter’s supply of snacks from Nestle as perks, oddly)—and became my first taste of the power of just trying stuff.
Of course 9-year-old me never registered any of my dad’s statements. Nine-year-old me was too focused on not being seen by my classmates in the school drop-off zone, or wishing I could be invisible when they did. I spent a lot of time in Cupertino, California that year wishing I could become invisible.
Nine-year-old me thought my dad was the King of Uncool.
My dad, who applied to work at McDonald’s after we first emigrated from China because he couldn’t find other work in Canada to support our family—
My dad, whose eyes lit up when when my mum and I went to visit him at work behind the cashier at the McDonald’s on Bank Street his first day—
My dad, who was relegated to the back of kitchen to heat up fries after his first week because his spoken English wasn’t fluent—
My dad, who started taking English classes at 33 so he could “work his way back up” to the cashier position—
I learned a lot of things from my dad: humility, work ethic, what really matters.
I learned by watching the things he did, the things he didn’t (he never complained, never remarked any job was below him) and channeling his steely sense of self-worth no matter if we were freezing in a one-room apartment in Ottawa (because running the heat costs money), dragging home a mattress we found in the apartment complex trash in Fremont Glen (one could say a formative family past-time was literally dumpster-diving), or later settling into a quiet suburban life in Northern California.
Above all, I learned there’s no shame in being different.
Because what’s the worst that can happen? They gawk at you from the backseats of their parents’ Mercedes as you get peddled around in a bike by your dad?
It’s more eco-friendly, I promise.
