My parents separated when I was an infant. I grew up with my mother, and I visited my father during vacations. It was just as you would imagine: a stable and wholesome environment in a dull French town most of the time, punctuated by a few exciting days in Paris once in a while.

The defining event, if that is what it is, occurred in 1969. I can date it precisely because that is the year the movie Easy Rider came out. I was nine years old. Easy Rider was rated R, or more accurately Interdit aux moins de dix-huit ans.

So my father took me to see Easy Rider. I was afraid to watch the screen. There was a scene with naked people swimming in a lake. I knew something awful was going to happen.

On the way back home, I remember being relieved, happy, even thrilled. Suddenly my father, as he sometimes did, gave my shoulder a strong shove. This time, I lost my balance. I tripped sideways, fell through a velvet curtain, and landed on the floor inside a small Chinese restaurant.

All eyes were on me as I got back on my feet and scampered out. But once I was back on the street, I could not find my father. I was dumbfounded. My father finally emerged from behind a car where he was hiding, roaring with laughter.

I worshipped my father, so I unquestioningly adopted his version of the evening, and I laughed even harder than he did. We talked about my spill for days and then I sort of forgot it.

Thirty years later or so, that evening came back to my mind and I described it to my wife and my children as a prized memory of childhood. To my surprise, they were aghast, as if I had remembered an instance of abuse. Their reaction made me uneasy and I came to my father's defense.

Subsequently I went on a mad binge of Chinese civilization. I bought CD-ROMs and learned spoken Mandarin. I devoured books by Pearl S. Buck, Iris Chang, Ha Jin and Lao She. I watched Maggie Cheung movies. I participated in the Online China History Forum.

I did not make any connection until my wife told me that I was processing that old Chinese restaurant shove. The idea struck me as utterly ridiculous yet quite likely.

China was on my mind all the time. And when I finally got a glimpse of it, I wasn't disappointed. I was profoundly happy conversing in Mandarin and also frustrated that I couldn't read or write it too.

Shortly after I was back from China, my father came to the US for a brief visit. My children were diffident, partly because of the language barrier, and partly because they feared he might push them into Chinese restaurants I suppose.

Now the story comes to its conclusion.

While my father was here, I went for take-out Chinese, and I took him along. I can't explain why, but it was suddenly vitally important that my father should hear me order our dinner in Mandarin. Although my father didn't acknowledge my new skill one way or another, I felt that I had accomplished something momentous.

One final twist: a few days after my father returned to France, I dreamed that he was still at my house, writing a postcard with beautiful Chinese calligraphy. "Yes, he explained, I can't speak Chinese, but I can write it."

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