Songs of Pain and Hope

A major part of basketball is learning to penetrate the defense.

I could never do it with pure athleticism.  5’5” 155 lbs (give or take) on a good day.  Quick, but not fast; strong for my size, but not in comparison with others.  Not talented enough of a dribbler.  Just not enough raw power or talent.

The way I did it was what I learned as a kid and reinforced in Indiana.  Learning to find the seams, using screens and picks, deceptive movements, disciplined cuts and curls, reading the defense.  Slow-Slow Fast-Fast.  Learning to shoot from different spots on the floor.

Basketball is truly beautiful to watch and play if done correctly.  It is very much like a well choreographed dance when plays are well executed.  I loved studying the Princeton, triangle, and motion offenses – those that rely on intelligence and controlled play.

Same thing for life.  Keep running the offense.  It will eventually break the defense down.  Or if not a basketball fan, from Shawshank Redemption – time and pressure.

I used to teach Ethics to college students.  The first and last time I used PowerPoint.  I don’t know why people like this program so much, it totally disrupts the spontaneity and natural flow of teaching.  From then on, it was just chalk and blackboard.  Also the last time I gave essay exams.  It’s true that grading them is a crapshoot – I may as well have thrown them down a flight of stairs to see where they landed to assign a grade.  Oh, and it’s true, the longer the response, no matter the amount of BS, the better the grade.

I once had a friend, an experienced Jesuit priest who worked in the prison system give a guest lecture.  One student asked the classic question – “Are humans good or evil?”  He then tells the Native American story of the two wolves.  A Chief is speaking to a young brave and tells him that within him there are two wolves constantly at war.  One wolf represents all that is good and true while the other all that is evil and twisted.  Concerned, the brave asks “Who wins?”  Chief answers “That’s easy.  The one I feed.”

On the final exam, I unfortunately did not have the energy to create a multiple choice exam, so I took the easy way out and presented some ethical scenario with plans to visit the nearby stairwell.  Quite surprisingly and pleasantly, at least one student ended their answer with that story.  A+.

That story has resonated a long time.

In the US, everyone is equal, at least on paper.  But not in Malaysia, where if you’re a non-Malay, especially Chinese, you’re a second class citizen.  My parents had friends arrested in the middle of the night for some trumped up political charge.  If you think the police in the US are bad, check Malaysia out.  In fact, one of the reasons why I became a prosecutor and police advisor in the US, is because my opportunities to do so in Malaysia would be limited.

Regardless, I am proud to have been born and raised there (12 years). The best food in the world.  Two seasons – monsoon and hell.  Sea turtles, beaches, the rainforest.  Night markets, temples, caves.

A friend recently told me that one of his friends married her Malaysian husband because Malaysians seemed capable, passionate, and fierce.  Truth.  She forgot funny, intelligent, and humble.

Being Malaysian shaped my life.  It taught me how to work with different cultures. To learn to fight and live from a weaker position.  To punch above my weight.  To strive  to the end. To appreciate freedom.

Nonetheless, Tanah Tumpahnya Darahku.

My mentor taught me this as a 25 year old – The mark of a master is simplicity.  For example, the best and most deadly samurai swords are simple.  Those with ornate decorations may only be that way to disguise mediocre work.

My mentor’s context was lawyering and writing, but I’ve found this concept applicable in other areas – like cooking.

One of Malaysia’s most famous dishes is Hainanese Chicken Rice.  Look it up.  It has a cult following.  There is even a stall in NYC’s new hawker market that specializes in the dish and sells it for the ungodly sum of close to $20.

Deceptively simple in look, it is difficult to create and master.  On the surface, it’s boiled chicken and rice, with some garnish, soy sauce, chili sauce, and soup. 

It took me years to learn to make this properly.  I would make it for dinner guests over the years.  It would take hours to prepare, all about technique and timing.  I also value this dish because it wastes nothing.

This is what I figured out worked for me, from various recipes and videos.

(The Chicken)

Young chicken in water.  Bring to a simmer for 20 minutes.  Turn off heat and cover pot for 1 hour (residual heat will cook the chicken).  After the hour, place chicken in ice water bath to stop cooking and gelatinize the skin.  Let chicken rest, cool to room temperature, and dry before cutting it up.

(The Rice)

Fry uncooked rice in oil.  Add diced shallots, garlic, ginger.  Once slightly cooked, transfer to rice cooker and cover with the stock from the boiled chicken.  Cook rice.

(Soup and Chili Sauce)

Add winter melon to the chicken stock to make soup.  I never bothered to learn to make the chili sauce, there are decent commercial brands out there, but can be hard to find.

There were quite a few police deaths over my years at Investigations and the NYPD.  Two officers were executed in their vehicle – a Hispanic officer who aspired to be a chaplain and an Asian officer who left behind a young wife.  At their funerals, the officers in attendance turned their backs on Mayor DiBlasio.

That happened my first year.  I didn’t really know what to think.  But now, I see it was not only warranted, but also should be applauded.

There was another officer executed a few years later, a Hispanic one and a mother of several children.  When I watched the funeral service, I was so disgusted with DiBlasio.  Instead of genuine empathy or sorrow, his self-serving speech was to score political points.  He thought that by repeatedly enunciating her name in the most perfect Spanish, it would resonate.  The same mayor who would later “defund” the police (he didn’t even do this, just did some accounting tricks to make it look like he was).

In addition to these tragic murders, there were an unusually high number of officer suicides.  There was actually an investigation of the Department’s counseling services and that Deputy Commissioner I wrote about would make jokes.  Yup, jokes about life and death.  He even included one in a flippant way in the Department’s official response.

Any and all suicides are tragic, but there was one that stood out to me.  A Chief kills himself on the day he hands in his retirement papers.  He had a sizable pension waiting for him, but no family.  I’ve thought long and hard about this incident.  It speaks a lot to the concepts of belonging and purpose.

That Asian officer – medical personnel manage to harvest his sperm and his wife eventually gave birth to a daughter.  You take the wins where and when you can get them.

I’m not much of a drinker although like a certain Supreme Court Justice, I do like beer.  But other than that, I’m pretty much a lightweight when it comes to alcohol – Asian genes.  When I was younger, a teaspoon of Robitussin would turn me bright red.  Underage drinking?  Twice.  NYC and North Carolina.  I won’t count the champagne at a wedding and the wine at a Shabbat dinner.

What I do find fascinating is the process involved in the brewing of alcoholic beverages.   The ingredients involved are few (source of sugars, water, yeast), but the end products are diverse.  Beer, wine, whiskey. The last of those is especially of interest.  That saying about men and wine – that’s from a pope – some turn to vinegar, the best get better with age. 

It occurred to me a few years ago that whiskey is similar as a metaphor and in some ways, better.

Wine is grape juice that is fermented.  The best takes years or decades to mature.  But it still can be drunk relatively quickly.  Not so much with whiskey.  Whiskey is undrinkable from the get-go and the maturation process is a must.  

What stands out in the process is the use and choice of barrels.  A barrel with mild wood is inadequate to mature the whiskey; it is too weak to impart any flavor and will be overpowered.  Conversely, a barrel with harsh wood will overpower the whiskey and detract from its natural flavor.  You need to pick just the right barrel.

I read about a Japanese whiskey where the initial brew was so harsh that the brewery dumped it into a barrel with rare wood and let it sit in a corner for years.  When they finally tasted it, it was magnificent and now a bestseller.

I made the connection with how people grow.  The barrels we choose or are chosen for us matter (work, friends, social organizations, etc). It’s the interaction with these barrels that form us.  And a lot of time.

My DA Chief and I have been conversing.  A long story, but an unlikely friendship until it all clicks.  Life’s strange like that.

I told him about the phrases I made the kids memorize.  The ones that guided me and what I tried to live up to.  They show up in my stories and life.  At the risk of being repetitive:

1.  Strong Brave Kind

2.  Quicker Tougher Smarter 

3.  Observe Orient Decide Act

4.  Better to Die on Your Feet than to Live on Your Knees (the boy questions this one a lot)

I told Chief that I probably had to add a fifth about God.  He replied that would complete the set. So…

5.  Trust God

The shortest, simplest, and for me, the hardest.  When I reflect on the journey, I see so many reasons not to do this.  Yet, so many reasons to.

It’s not my favorite movie or book, but the Life of Pi is instructive.  Pi as a boy survives a shipwreck and is interviewed by insurance agents to decipher what really happened.  Long story short, one version is magical and beautiful.  The other is frankly just brutal and cynical.  

At the end, a writer being told the story by an adult Pi is given a choice as to which version is the true one – he chooses the first version – also chosen by the insurance agents.  Pi then concludes “And so it goes with God.”

So we get to choose.  

Was God a monster (not all are bad I must venture)?

Was He absent, uncaring, weak (probably my biggest charge)?

Or was He good, powerful, and loving as claimed and taught?

It depends on the day, sometimes by moment.  But I think overall, I will choose beauty over brutality.

Postscript

There are two other phases added after I initially wrote this.

6. Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

7. Better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.

(From the Indiana years)

Yesterday, I found out that a man I helped keep in prison for the next 20 years will be staying there.  The case I won on appeal was denied further review by the Minnesota Supreme Court. I wrote a poem about this man earlier in the summer.  It was defiant and vengeful.  I no longer feel that way.  

Now I wonder how different I am from him. I thought that wanting to be a prosecutor would satisfy my heart – to make up for the wrongs that I have seen.  But I do not think that is so.  We are supposed to be the good guys, the avenging angels, but in moments like this I do not take glory or solace in that line of thinking. I dream of being a hero.  But I neglected to see the costs of being one and how difficult it is to be one.  To steal a line from a friend’s page and from Moulin Rouge, I think all I want is to love and be loved in return.