A Real House to A Real Person

    My dad was raised in a common  American family - his father is white while his mother is Asian American. He traveled to Texas to find out if it might be easier to find a job in a big city to ease the family's economic burden since the whole family was suffered from the Oil Crisis in the 1970s. 

    The panic of unemployment was anywhere. He used to be a cashier, bartender, server, and construction worker, long working time but low-paid. 70% of his salaries were sent to his parents and younger sister. Life was really tough though, but he never complained or told his family what he was going through at that time.

     In the 1990s, he became a dad and a real estate agent in Florida. 

     When I was a child, he was busying in taking people around the cities to show them the available houses and buildings. Even on the rest days, he would still go out and stay a little while in the houses on sale. He was like a perpetual motion machine and never stop. 

    What he usually said to us was: “Selling a house is not a difficult job, what really difficult is how to sell a real house to a real person”. It was quite complicated for a kid to grasp the actual meaning of these words, but he would also tell fairy tales and bought me children's books. I will never forget the time that I am sitting in his arms and listening to his own story about the past.

    He knew the characteristics of his clients, the neighboring community environment, and every detail about the houses. It seems like he was programming a unique system for every of his client and building. 

    “It is not about how much commission I can earn from, ” he said to me on a normal rest day when I was in my 20s, “A taciturn person would prefer a silent community greatly, and you can not recommend a quiet neighborhood to active young people otherwise you will receive endless complaints from their neighbors”. He put his big hand on my head and looked at my eyes, somehow I can feel the callus on his palm, “It is the principle of being a responsible salesman, it should also be the rule of who we are”.

     As time went by, I am a dad too. When I look at my son who is addicting himself to the piano instead of the paints I bought a couple of months ago, I suddenly realize what is the true meaning of “a real house to a real person”, and I guess my dad forget to tell me how energetic to build a real house to my real person.