Every Father’s Day, I think about Pushing Hands《推手》—the 1991 debut film by my favorite Taiwanese director, Ang Lee, and the first in his “Father Trilogy.” It follows Mr. Chu, a retired Tai Chi master from Beijing who moves in with his son and American daughter-in-law in suburban New York. What unfolds isn’t loud drama, but quiet tension: cultural clashes, generational gaps, and the delicate art of coexisting across difference. 

That resonates deeply, because my relationship with my father was a lifelong version of pushing hands.

My dad was born in Yancheng, a small city in Jiangsu, China (yes—the same province where Suzhou, Portland’s sister city, is located), and fled to Taiwan during the Chinese civil war as a teenager. I was born decades later, in a very different Taiwan.

He loved classical Chinese poetry and held fast to proud, traditional ideals. I loved literature too—but also pop music and being (in his words) “too loud.” We debated everything. We both wrote. We both adored flaky Shanghainese pastries. He thought I was rebellious. I thought he was ancient.

At one point, I swore I’d do everything differently from him. And yet—somehow, by some quiet miracle— I fell back in love with Chinese culture, and built a life sharing and interpreting it…in a garden that echoes his home province, but halfway across the world. Life’s funny like that.

We pushed hands. We learned to move around each other with time.

Last August, I held his ashes and accompanied him to his final resting place on a peaceful hillside in northern Taiwan, overlooking the sea. He never made it back to mainland China, but from that coast, I guess he can see across the water. Maybe that’s close enough.

This is my first Father’s Day since he passed. I’m thinking of him—and of Mr. Chu. Of all the fathers who don’t always say “I love you,” but show it in staying, yielding, and trying—even when they don’t quite understand.

We pushed hands. We didn’t always agree. But we stayed in motion, together.

Happy Father’s Day, Baba. And thank you.