Dreams from My Father (Part 1)

This is a book written by Barack Obama long time ago. To be exact it was first published in 1995 and then revised in 2004. He wrote this book after graduation from Harvard Law School in early 90’s. The 2004 edition was made possible due to his success in being elected to the US Senate. The book is a perfect alley to the heart and mind of a President, in the truest sense. It is written well before he became a politician, a half memoir half root-searching story. Unlike his second book “The Audacity of Hope” which he wrote after his political career had been crafted, he had neither rhetoric to trumpet nor any political viewpoints to hide. Even in his widest dream he could not possibly imagine 15 years later he would have become the most powerful person in the world. The book is divided into three parts. Part One is about Obama’s childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, teen years in Hawaii again, and then his college life in New York. This part includes the first climax of the entire book – his getting together with his father in Hawaii for ten days. These ten days are the only time he spent with his father together, pretty difficult to imagine for most people including myself. Part Two is about his first career as a community organizer in Chicago. He had a first job as a trainee in New York but he didn’t consider this his career – just a job to make some money to pay for his college debt. There are lots of details about the campaigns and movements he had tried to instigate in a local community of Chicago. From this few chapters we came to know more about what’d been irking him in his early life, driving his actions and shaping his eventual career. Part Three is about his root-searching trip to Kenya. To be honest I just scanned through these few chapters. It is not easy for me to relate to his strong desire to iron out his identity through visiting his ‘home’ country and his extended family. He is a really good communicator and story teller. There are some debates in the US about who is the real author of this book but that is beside the point. This is his book, period. Some of the things he mentioned stir up some inner thoughts within me – I guess people call these insights. While he was still a boy living with his mother and stepfather in Indonesia, he made a couple of astute observations. The power is displayed in its naked form in Indonesia, he said, compared to the Western world. That’s after he witnessed a poor woman begging money from a group of men living in a wealthy neighborhood. I would say this is true for most Asians. For some unknown reasons, Asians are not ashamed to show off their wealth and power, even to these days. Mercedes will be running everywhere in China five years from now, not just because wealthy people there want a good car, but they need to tell the world around them that they are rich. They can afford a Mercedes. Adding to that is the cultural tendency of Asians to conform. That’s why luxury brands are bound to enjoy a booming decade in China. Obama paid tribute to his mother’s effort to bring him education while in Indonesia. Unable to afford International School, Obama went to local an Indonesian school. She supplemented that with correspondence courses from the U.S. She woke him up at four a.m. every morning, and taught him English lessons for three hours before he went to school. This reminds me of another recent book “Outliers” which suggests at least part of a person’s success comes from fate and luck. Without his mother’s effort, Obama might not have had a solid education which helped shape his life and career.

To be continued...

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