{"id":4477,"date":"2021-05-31T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/?p=4477"},"modified":"2023-05-18T11:35:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T03:35:52","slug":"the-measure-of-a-father-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/the-measure-of-a-father-today\/","title":{"rendered":"The Measure Of A Father Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have always held a deep love for stories and legends, specifically the process of what makes good storytelling and the art of analysing a character. It was a passion passed on from my father to me, nurtured during my teenage years. Every Saturday morning, after visiting the wet market to get our weekly groceries, we would sit down at a nearby coffee shop \u2013 the only one that served Teo Chew porridge in our neighbourhood \u2013 to have \u2018man talk\u2019.

A cup of kopi-o in his hand, a coke in mine (because that\u2019s the only time he indulged my love for sugary drinks), salivating over steaming white porridge and freshly cooked luncheon meat, salted veggies, braised tofu with yoo tiao and ham chim peng, dad would say \u201cDid you read about\u2026.?\u201d

Everything from religion, legends and fantasy weapons, to superhero comics and special abilities, we would review story plots, debate creative decisions, and \u2013 the part he most loved \u2013 analyse a character\u2019s values and qualities. He would go over what made up a character\u2019s personality; how they were raised, their background, the psychology of how and why a character makes decisions in a given circumstances, whether those decisions were wise, and how they could have possibly made better choices.\u00a0\u00a0

At that time, I thought of it as merely fun discussions. It was only when, as a young adult, given responsibilities with handling relationships, finances, work, and experiencing a real-life crisis where decisions could influence life or death, as well as the quality of life afterwards, that I realised those \u2018fun discussions\u2019 were actually his way of teaching me valuable life lessons. Lessons on morality, responsibility, sophistication, leadership and the sacrifice of oneself for family. Lessons on how to \u2013 not only be a man \u2013 but a good man.

These sessions took place nearly 20 years ago, in the days where smartphones were still in its infancy and streaming TV services were non-existent, when Asian and Western culture \u2013 though different in practice \u2013 had common values in what made good people, good families, and good society. Even then, fathers were considered unsung heroes and their celebration was relatively low-key.

While the celebration of fathers in Asian culture still remains relatively the same as before, the same cannot be said for our Western counterparts. Feminist theories and movements in the Unites States and certain parts of Europe have taken a strange turn, taking the form of disparaging men and masculinity. Major brands have even advertised their products by belittling the role of fathers in the family and sometimes even imply as unnecessary.

This may seem irrelevant to our culture and daily lives, but its important to remember that new societal trends are often imported into other cultures through consumed media, especially by children. This is even more prevalent with the existence of social media and streaming services, which provides greater exposure to international events and trends.

This isn\u2019t to say every imported social trend is negative, some actually add positive growth to our culture in becoming an international society. What this writer means to say, is that as we develop the concept of family and what it means in today\u2019s modern world, we mustn\u2019t forget our roots \u2013 both traditionally and socially \u2013 and value our fathers for the virtues they teach us and their sacrifice to build strong families and provide lasting happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have always held a deep love for stories and legends, specifically the process of what makes good storytelling and the art of analysing a character. It was a passion passed on from my father to me, nurtured during my teenage years. Every Saturday morning, after visiting the wet market to get our weekly groceries, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"religion":[],"unit":[],"years":[],"productt":[],"pricing":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4478,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477\/revisions\/4478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"religion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/religion?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"unit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unit?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"years","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/years?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"productt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/productt?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"pricing","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xiao-en.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pricing?post=4477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}