On Air with Douglas

On Air with Douglas


Kevin Stea RETURNS! - Feb 25,2014

February 24, 2014

"I recently had dinner with my birth parents together for the first time. Sitting between them i realized how little time I had left to really know my now 78-year old father Andrew, having grown up with my caucasian mother and barely a word spoken about him until i tracked him down at 18. 26 years later we've still never spoken of his childhood in China, escaping war into Korea or his missionary immigration to the US. Only a few years ago did i discover his seven marriages and splintered relationships with his eight brothers and sisters. 12 years ago my father and I made a plan to go together and he cancelled. We never spoke of it again, but now he is the only one of the family who remembers our home in China. Thirty years ago my grandfather returned to Antung and was accused of being a spy because he received money from the government, so though the world has marched forward, our distant family still lives in the same house there and in much the same way. I've never spent more than one night with Andrew, so it is a unique opportunity to actually document these first moments of sharing, of traveling, of healing, of becoming related. From staying in our ancestral home, learning my father's technique in stretching noodles by hand from scratch and walking the Great Wall to studying the language and history, we'll be discovering each other anew and making up for a childhood apart, while Andrew confronts the death of his mother and his youth spent supporting his siblings and the realities of war. We cannot move forward powerfully without understanding our past, which begins with our family. We are the architects of our future and the biggest most fulfilling journeys can begin with the simplest of questions that we never seem to ask those who we've known all our lives, such as ‘Who are you??.