Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Father’s love

This is the first time that I wrote about my Dad.I never even thought what kind of person my father is, and to write

something about my father. Thank Professor Bill Belew for gaving me the chance, I had a chance to miss my father and to think about the love that my father gave me.

My father was born in the 1930’s in a family of intellectuals. My grandfather was the underground Communist Party members. My grandfather was died for political reason after my father was born. My grandmother did not take long for illness died. So my father was brought up by his uncle, one of the dignitaries of the Chinese Kuomintang officials.

In 1949, Chinese Communist Party liberated China, the uncle of my father turned away from Nanjing of China to Taiwan with his family, but my father could not go into Taiwan because he did not rushed to the aircraft, so he had to stay in China. In this way, my father separated from his family for his whole lifetime.

During China’s Cultural Revolution, my father was beaten into a rightist and was exiled to Xinjiang’s Yili, which is my hometown. My two older brothers and I were born in Xinjiang.

The important thing that I learned from my father is when he encountered persecution and difficulties, he never gave up. When my father was dispersed with his family and lived alone in China, he was only 15 years old. At that time, China was just at the end of the civil war, everywhere are the remnants of the legacy of the war. It is hard to imagine a high school student, who had no family and how to take care of the situation, and how to live. My father was a strong life down, and made outstanding achievements.

In the period of the Cultural Revolution in China, because there were family members in Taiwan, my father was labeled as a rightist, and was exiled to distant Xinjiang. At that time, Xinjiang was very poor and backward, my father was less than 20 years old, he has just gone through the pain of being separated from their families, but also experienced political persecution, this kind of painful experience, it is very difficult to experience and imagine for people who have not experienced it. But my father was strong enough to take over, and brought me and my two older brothers with my mother.

Cultural Revolution in China

In addition, another thing that I learned from my father is how to love. Although my father suffered a lot of pain, the pain of being separated from their families, the country’s political pain, loss of her daughter’s pain, but he never gave up his life, he did not complain to anybody. He used his whole life to love my mother, love my brothers and me. He always did his best to provide best life to his family, to made money to support my brother and I to study at school, even in my family most difficult economic period. reading. At the meantime, he is always very caring people around him.

My father is an ordinary person, but in my mind, he is one of my favorite people, a brave father, a good example of father in my family.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.