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A Little Stealing Gambler                                                 By Wah You Lee                             Contents

When I was nine years old. My mother punished me with a rattan beating because I had committed a wrong. The wrong was "stealing and gambling". A little boy, just nine years old, who dared to steal and gambling, should be called "a little stealing gambler." Oh, my God, how awful the designation was!

What was the matter? It was that on the morning of the third day of Chinese New Year, I pulled out a drawer to look for something and found a few cents scattered there. I thought my mother didn't care about these few coins anymore, so I picked them up and put them in my pocket. That afternoon, because the New Year's celebration had almost passed, I had nothing to do and felt bored. So I went to the streets to look around. On the street, there were many gambling tables. Every table was surrounded with people. One kind of gambling game was that on the table six kinds of seafood were drawn. I remember four of them were the fish, shrimp, crab, and frog, but as to the other two kinds, I forget now. If you put one cent on one kind of seafood and won, you could get three cents. By being curious and greedy, I joined the gambling. If forget whether I won or lost now. I played just a short time, then lost interest and left.

I didn't know how my mother knew about it, but after dinner my mother wanted to interrogate and punish me. What could I do? I remembered the people's saying, "The bad boy would run away from home to escape his parents' punishment; the good boy would come home to receive the punishment." I didn't like to be a bad boy, so I didn't run away. But I really didn't like to be beaten, either. What could I do? I decided to hide.

Where could I hide? Ah, there was ladder leaning against my house's wall and the top of the ladder reached the attic. When the sun set, the light was weak. If I hid myself there, no one could see me. So I climbed the ladder. From there I saw my mother was very angry and walked back and forth with a rattan in her hand, looking for me. I found it amusing and could not help laughing. On hearing me laugh, my mother knew where I was. She wanted me to climb down but I didn't. She got very angry, shook the ladder and said, "A little stealing gambler, I don't need to take care of." I could do nothing but climb down

Of course, I had to receive the beating punishment. My mother beat me with a rattan. She gave me one whack and blamed me with one sentence, such as "How dare you steal money?" (whack) "How dare you gamble?" (whack) "Someone who steal a needle in childhood would steal gold after growing up." (whack) "Gamble and you can lose all you have." (whack) "You little stealing gambler, do you dare to steal and gamble anymore?" (whack)

Under the rattan beating, I could just say, "Yes" yes"yes", but in my mind, I thought, "I just picked up the money. I didn't steal the money. I don't deny I have.

Played gamble, but you can't call me "a little stealing gambler."

At that time, my father just blamed me and explained to me what I had done wrong, but didn't give me any beating. Maybe he made an agreement with my mother that he was responsible for earning money to support the family and my mother was responsible for teaching us.

This story happened sixty-plus years ago. At that time in China 100% of parents beat their own children and 100% of children were beaten by their parents, heavily or lightly, and no law could interfere with that business. I would like to remind people who are living in America that even though you are Chinese you can't beat your children for any reason, or you will get in trouble.

Now, sixty-four years have passed. As an old man, I am not greedy to get anything from others and dislike gambling. So I should say, "thanks" to my parents, because they taught me a good lesson. "Thanks, thanks, dear Mama and Papa."

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