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| 與爸爸飲茶，提前慶祝父親節(2021.06.17) |
大多數認識我父親的人，都會立即聯想到「天才」這個詞彙。我父親是一部行走的百科全書，一眨眼就能說出任何國家的首都名字；他畢生致力於傳播中國文學和古典詩詞，而獲頒授予榮譽文學博士學位；即使退休後還在麥吉爾大學攻讀。他不斷積累一項又一項成就，並激勵著我們所有人，無論遠近、老少。
我認識的父親，那個撫養我長大的人，有很多層次要發掘，每一層都會讓你意識到他是多麼強大。在成長過程中，他總是將教育作為我們姐妹倆的首要任務。無論花費多少，不管他必須加班多少個鐘頭，即使開車接送我們走多遠的路程，他和媽媽都非常樂意無私獻予，給我們創造最好的未來。他決定讓我們報考最好的私校，以保證我們不僅能好好學習，還能在最好的社交圈裡成長。即使他疲憊的身體睡眠不足幾個小時，他也總會花時間幫助我們完成作業，教我們如何超越老師的期望並在做功課的過程中獲得樂趣。令人難以置信的是，他總是在我們的學習中添加一些新內容，使其令人難忘並產生持久的效果。
我們在家裡成千上萬本書中長大。每次我們有難題，父親都會示意我們翻查百科全書，讓我們自己找尋答案。我們小時候總是去書店而不是玩具店，我們喜歡在圖書館的地板上花費數小時翻閱書頁，蒐集我們想借的所有書籍，並使其成為每週一次的父女聚會。我父親總是會購買並向我們展示參考書的價值，以及教我們如何一遍又一遍地使用它們。儘管我們喜歡一本好的小說，但家裡的大部分書都是參考書，例如，用於了解風味搭配、烹飪方法和原料來源的基本理論和信息，而不是食譜。這種教學方式讓我在烹飪中研發了更多的科學方法，並最終影響了我的整個職業方向。
父親通過他的創意和藝術眼光教我們。他有能力將聽過的一首歌，立即在鋼琴上為我們彈出來，並寫成樂譜，他還會將五線譜寫成簡譜，讓我們自己學習和演奏我們最喜歡的歌曲。我們擁有幾冊手工製作的樂譜，父女可以跟著一起彈唱。自從我們學會如何將鉛筆握在手中開始，父親就教會我們必須在線條內塗色而不許越界。我們不僅要填充圖像的空白，還要用鉛筆的不同壓力令顏色漸變而產生立體感。受到父親為我們畫的肖像的啟發，我們也會自己作畫，讓我們的想像力和創造力自由發揮。這種做法，令我在成長過程中培養出自我塑造的重要因素──創造力。在我作為食品開發技術人員的專業工作中，或在我開發食譜、製作工藝品作為禮物時，我都高度利用它。
我喜歡製作的禮物是剪貼簿。從照片中收集快樂的回憶來講述每一個故事，並表達我們對一個人的愛，是我學會做的最令人滿意的禮物之一。我的父親總是向我們展示創造記憶和體驗的巨大價值，而不是專注於事物的物質部分。他在日記中寫下了每一天的總結，一年中的任何一天都沒有錯過，並且已經寫了幾十年。這不僅可以幫助他對過去的活動、用餐、多年來的物價等留下記憶，而且還可以讓他重返難忘的時刻。我們也有同樣的攝影愛好，通過拍攝照片，從美食到家庭活動、旅行經歷，一切美好都會永遠保存。因此，我們成家後，同樣痴迷於通過照片記錄婚後生活，消閒時重溫這些難忘時刻，與我們所愛的人一起分享。
在我們的家庭聚餐時，父親會開始講述他過去的經歷，這些故事會讓我們著迷，我們會在餐桌旁聽他幾個小時。他擁有令人難以置信的天賦，可以用細節吸引聽眾，讓你覺得你似乎和他一起在故事中。在回憶往事過程時，他會加入一些歷史片段，所以我們學到了很多，因為我們對他的每一句話都念念不忘。從在柬埔寨長大，經歷戰爭，到十幾歲的時候住在越南、泰國，從作為移民搬到加斯佩西，再到寫七百封信來影響他的高中戀人（我媽媽！）嫁到加拿大，他的生活就像一部電影，而且將會贏得獎項。
即使擁有迷人的生活和成就，父親仍然保持謙虛，並始終尊重每個人。對於遇到他的任何幸運者，他對他們付出的愛、時間和明智的話語都非常慷慨。無論面臨什麼挑戰，父親的毅力和追逐夢想的目標不變。這一系列的叢書將讓你走進他的世界，探索他的思想，並希望像他激勵我和更多人一樣激勵你。我永遠感謝他教給我的一切，感謝他與我共度的時光以及我們創造的珍貴回憶。他塑造並引導我成為現在的我，我認為自己是世界上最幸運的人。謝謝您！爸爸。
盧嘉珮
2021.06.17於滿地可
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| 嘉珮送給爸爸的序文原文 |
My Proud Father
Most people who know my dad will immediately think of a genius. A walking encyclopedia who can name any capital of any country with a blink of an eye; a man devoted to spreading knowledge on Chinese literature and poetry as his life mission to which he was awarded an honorary doctorate; a man who pursued a degree at McGill University even at retirement. My dad keeps piling one accomplishment after another and acts as an inspiration to all of us, near and far, young and old.
The man I know and who raised me has so many more layers to discover, each of them will make you realize how formidable he is. Growing up, he always made education a priority for my sister and for myself. No matter how much it costs, how much overtime he had to do, how far he had to drive us, he and my mom were more than willing to make sacrifices to give us the best future there is. He made his research to sign us up for the best reputable schools to guarantee us not only proper learning but also the best social circle to grow up in. Even with less than a few hours of sleep in his body, he will always take the time to help us with our homework, teach us how to exceed the expectations of our teachers and have fun while doing it. It was incredible how he always added a twist to our learnings to make it memorable with a long lasting effect.
We grew up amongst thousands and thousands of books around our house. Every time we had a question, he would point us to the encyclopedia so we could look up the answers ourselves. We will always go to the bookstore instead of the toy store as kids and we loved it. We loved spending hours on the floor of libraries flipping through pages and collecting all the books we wanted to borrow and made it a weekly rendez-vous. My dad would always buy and show us the value of reference books and how we can use them over and over again. As much as we love a good novel, most of my books at home are reference books to understand the underlying theory and information for flavour pairing, methods of cooking and origins of ingredients rather than recipe books. This way of teaching allowed me to develop more of a scientific approach in my cooking and eventually influenced my whole career direction.
He taught us through his creative and artistic lens. He would have the ability to listen to a song and play it back out on the piano for us. He will translate the music notes into an easy way for us to learn and play back our favourite songs ourselves. We would have handmade songbooks that we could follow and play along. He would teach us coloring inside the lines as soon as we knew how to hold a pencil in our hands. We would colour not only to fill the void of the image, but to create a gradient of colour with different pressure from our pencil. Inspired by the portraits that dad drew of us, we would take it upon ourselves to create our own drawings letting our imagination and creativity flow free. This practice allowed me to unleash an important side of me that shaped me as I grew up - creativity. I exploit it highly in my work as a food product developer and in my free time when I develop recipes or when I am doing arts and crafts for gifts.
One of the gifts that I have grown to love making is scrapbooking. Gathering happy memories from pictures to tell a story and to express our love for one would be one of the most gratifying gifts I have learned to do. Again, my dad has always shown us the great value of creating memories and experiences rather than focusing on the materialistic part of things. He writes down a summary of his day in his diary not skipping a single day of the year and has been doing so for many decades. It not only helps him have a great memory of past activities, restaurants, prices of items across the years, but it also gives him a great tool to jog back through memorable moments. We also have the same kodak kid enthusiasm when it comes to taking pictures to immortalize everything from our meals, to family bonding to our travel adventures. We share that same obsession of documenting our lives through photos so we can relive these moments and share them easily with our loved ones.
During our family dinners, he would start plunging into stories from his past that would keep us captivated and we stayed to listen to him for hours around the table. He has such an incredible talent to hypnotize the listeners with details that makes you think you were there with him. Through his story-telling, he would add in snippets of history so we learned so much as we were hanging at his every word. From growing up in Cambodia through the war to living in Vietnam and Thailand as a teenager to moving to Gaspésie as an immigrant to writing 700 of letters to sway and marry his high school crush (my mom!) over to Canada, his life seemed like a movie that would win an award.
He stays humble even with his fascinating life and accomplishments and always treats everyone with respect. He is beyond generous with his love, his time and his wise words to any lucky person that encounters him. He is the very definition of perseverance and chasing your dreams no matter what challenges are thrown at him. This series of books will allow you into his world, exploring his mind and hopefully inspire you like he inspired me and so many more individuals. I am forever thankful for the lessons he taught me, for the time he has spent with me and for the cherishable memories we have created. He has shaped and guided me to be the person I am and I consider myself to be the luckiest person in the world. Thank you, Dad.
Sabrina Lu
June 17, 2021 Montreal
