My grand­moth­er told me two sto­ries I had­n’t heard until yes­ter­day. I’m not sure how much truth there is in them, although it’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine my grand­moth­er embell­ish­ing any­thing.

My father was sup­posed to meet my grand­moth­er for lunch one school day when he was about 15. He nev­er showed up, but called her instead, half an hour past the meet­ing time. It turns out that three guys had approached him on his way to see her, demand­ing that he give them his ring, his watch, and his neck­lace. When he refused, they dragged him to a garage to beat him. Having prac­ticed Shaolin Kung Fu with a pri­vate mas­ter for years, he fought all three and won.

Around the age of 17, my father and his friends were out hav­ing a late night snack at a restau­rant where peo­ple cook their own food on skew­ers. In the mid­dle of the meal, a few tri­ad mem­bers came to the table, and know­ing that they were too young to smoke, asked for cig­a­rettes as an excuse to cause trou­ble. When they could­n’t pro­vide any, the tri­ad mem­bers told every­one to give them their mon­ey and jew­ellery. Everyone com­plied, and put their belong­ings on the table. At the right oppor­tu­ni­ty, my father grabbed one of the gang mem­bers arms and held him in a prone posi­tion, with a skew­er to his chest. My father told his friends to get their stuff from the table, and demand­ed that the gang mem­bers give his friends taxi fare home. When my grand­moth­er found out, she sent my dad to study in Canada, wor­ried that the gang mem­bers would take revenge.