Back when I was around four, as I am told, I was often left in the care of my grandfather when my parents went shopping for food on the weekends in the heart of San Francisco Chinatown. My parents would often make the trek to the Chinese community to first and foremost, visit my grandfather and after lunch, buy the very reasonably priced produce and meats. Twenty dollars could feed a family of four comfortably for a week back then and mom was not one to skimp on food. This also applied to clothing. They were inexpensive clothes, but high in quality.
I use to wear hard leather shoes back then in the day and this one Saturday my shoes looked kind of worn. I was with my grandfather as I always was on Saturdays when he took it upon himself to buy his oldest grandson (that meant a lot in Chinese tradition back then) a new pair of shoes. Shoes weren't cheap back then and at four, I knew what the value of money was. Unfortunately I didn't know the relationship between grandfather and grandson.
As we were entering the fancy clothing store in Chinatown (although Chinatown was a tourist trap even in the sixties, they still had a residential community around the area, and the locals also shopped for fine clothing)
I asked my grandfather why.
When he told me the reason I shrugged away as if to say
I didn't want one. Actually that was exactly what I
said. My grandfather was very upset with me and then
stormed out, embarrassed beyond reason. He said some
mighty strong words to my father in Chinese and I nearly got
whacked (a very common practice in those days).
When demanding an explanation, all I could say to my
father and to my mother was.....
"You always tell me never to accept gifts from
strangers. You never told me that yeh yeh (Chinese for
paternal grandfather) was not a stranger."
My father translated that to my yeh yeh and the three of
them laughed for a long time. We went back to the
clothing store with my parents this time and even the
sales people got a laugh when my grandfather explained
to them what had transpired earlier. I got my pair of
new shoes, but I also had a very red face and cried out
of embarrassment.