kung fu hooey. i had a dream where i got into physical fisticuffs with an old chinese man. he wasn't that old, maybe fifty, but he was definitely a father figure type. in my dream, we argued, he started pushing me around, and then i spit and hit him. and then hit him again when he was down. apparently i fight dirty.

i woke up wondering if this reaction would be okay in real life. are old men, like women and children, exempt from physical altercations? i'm sure confucius didn't support the hitting of elders, even if there's a good reason involved. i wanted to use the rule of "he was bigger than me" to justify my dream actions but if that was the rule, then many women and children could be hit by me -- i'm not that big.

i had this whole elaborate scenario where i hit this guy and then rationalized it out to not only my parents, but my friends and the chinese community. strangely, i would not have felt the need to rationalize anything, or defend my actions to anyone, had this older man been non-asian. why this is i don't know. perhaps filial piety has been ingrained in me.