When I was ten, my mom and dad made a gut-wrenching decision and gave me up for adoption…
…to the English language.
The process began when I was six, as my parents thought it was wise to start me on a frequent flyer program by having me stay 6 months in Taiwan, where I was born, followed by 6 months in San Diego. During this period, I excelled at being bad at both languages in school. While Taiwan school officials willingly admitted me provided that a bribe was attached to the admissions forms, the school administrators at La Mesa Dale Elementary School actually looked out for my best interests and told my parents: “You need to make a decision regarding your son’s education.” So in the middle of my 4th grade year, English became my permanent adopted language.
I experienced a harsh upbringing.
For most of 5th and 6th grade, I walked home with Cs and Ds as I struggled with writing grammatically correct English. The prevailing educational theory classified me as having a “learning disability.” I was sent to a “special ed” instructor who tried to help me, along with other kids who spoke like Elmer Fudd or stuttered like King George VI.
At home my mom was in distress. She acquired rudimentary functional use of English to make sure I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back and rice in my bowl. She picked up the language in part by using my “Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary” by Dr Seuss. Still, she was helpless as I struggled. As a loving Chinese mom, she could only attribute my bad grades to one cause: I didn’t work hard enough. I got plenty a-yellin’ each time I brought home my report card during this dark period.
In between being labeled “disabled” at school and “lazy” at home, I distained English.
I started to decipher the riddle of English grammar with help from friends of family. With additional tutoring outside of school, I began to write properly. I finally turned the corner when I entered high school and skated through English classes with high marks up to the end of my sophomore year.
Then Mr. Landry became my English teacher in my junior year. He was well into middle-age with a beard and the stern countenance of a communist party cadre. He always wore a Panama hat and a pair of Birkenstocks, reminding us he had tenure and we couldn’t do anything about it. At the time, I had perfected my sob story about having to learn English later than the rest in class. He looked at me with a contrived look of care. By the end of the first semester, I received a B in his class.
I was pissed. I became defiant. I also became relaxed, since I wasn’t in the game of grade mongering anymore. I recovered and regained my pace in his class. A year and a half later at senior awards night, Mr. Landry walked to the podium and announced my name as the Recognized English Student for my graduating class. After graduation, Mr. Landry became Dave, a close friend and confidante. In 2011 he crewed on my RAAM team in my first foray into endurance cycling.
Ironically, I took no English literature classes in college. I found academic literary analysis about as useful as performing mime to the blind. Good stories were about how to appreciate them as the reader, not squeezed to death extracting some shred of “evidence” to prove a flimsy thesis.
It wasn’t until I started riding a bike in earnest that I began to flirt with English as artistic expression. Since I did not have the habit of listening to music while riding, I would occupy those solitary moments by conjuring up rhyming words: what rhymed with “languish?” How many words rhymed with “ate”? Or trying to string together a sentence in iamb or trochee. Perhaps I became more aware of meter as I could feel and hear the pounding of my heart when climbing up a hill.
I went so far as to apply for admission to Stanford University. On the strength and merit of my impeccable FICO score when my credit card payments were processed, I took a couple extension classes on poetry writing. Modern poets only wrote in free verse. I was ridiculed for rhyming and following meter. Since then, I have avoided all poetry classes.
Instead, most of what I’ve learned was when a gay British man took me under his wings: I read Stephen Fry’s “The Ode Less Travelled.” His wit developed and crafted over decades of being an accomplished comedic actor and author made the book very accessible in understanding the structures and techniques of various poetic forms. He also shared my affinity for rhyme. In a world which deprecated rhyming, Fry’s encouragements gave me hope.
At this time, I rode with a Bay Area group called the Fremont Freewheelers Bicycle Club (FFBC). Back in the day, club rides required printed cue sheets since electronic navigation was still in the distant future. In jest, I wrote down the turn-by-turns in the form of English heroic verse: iambic pentameter rhyming couplets. Someone in the club asked if I would take on the role as the club’s newsletter editor based on my perceived poetic prowess. I accepted, thinking that my works could finally be “published” under the self-dealing of my editorship.
I still earnestly worked to find content to fulfill my role. In 2007, I caught wind that Bill Brier, a club member, just came back from this epic ride called Paris-Brest-Paris. I reached out for an interview. He accepted the invitation. Afterward, I thought to myself: I don’t think I’ll ever take part in such a long crazy endeavor.
A memorable endeavor is like a pearl. A speck of sand is implanted inside the oyster. In resisting the agitation caused by that intrusion, the oyster starts to form layers around it as protection. The accumulation of these layers ultimately transforms that speck of sand into a beautiful pearl. The idea of taking part in PBP became implanted in my head. The initial agitation became curiosity, then finally discovery and entry into the beautiful world of randonneuring. Random thoughts during a brevet become a poem.
And so I ride; and so I write.