My other antiques

This electric shaver has been with me in the past 23 years. Almost everyday in the morning, it kissed me good bye on my beard growing area and made me ready to work. Its brand name is Mr. Jelmi of a Hitachi product. Loyally it served me for about 22 years till 2006 when its blades became too blunt to do a good job. Despite this fact, its heart is still energetic when the power is turned on.

During its 22 year long service, it also served my son, Chenny, when he found his beard began to ruin his appearance in 2005. I happily passed this shaver down to my next generation wondering how much longer time it will serve for Chenny. However, within a couple of months, he returned it to me saying the blades could not effectively cut his beard any more. Indeed it couldn’t do a reasonably good job for him because his rather softer beard required a new shaver with sharp blades. So I got it back to continue its daily task for me till it really had to be discharged from service in 2006 when I was also forced to retire due to health problem in the same year. What a coincidence! It is now sitting on the corner of the desk watching me writing its story.

It was purchased when I stopped by Hong Kong to visit a printing ink supplier on a business trip in 1984. Hong Kong was called the shopper’s paradise by Taiwanese in 80’s and 90’s because its free port status. All the commodities imported were free of tariff. My first overseas business trip was to Singapore to visit a printing plate manufacturer in 1984. According to our itinerary, we would be visiting another supplier in Hong Kong on our way home from Singapore, so we planned to save as much money as possible for shopping in Hong Kong.

In a shop in the busiest area in Hong Kong, my attention was also drawn by this Casio pocket calculator. It is as slim as 2mm thick, and it was at an amazing cheap price compared to the price sold in Taiwan. So I bought about 20 pieces of it for giving away to my colleagues and friends as gift.

I kept one for myself. It helped me sorting out numbers in my daily customer service responsibility till 1992 when I emigrated to New Zealand. And it carried on its service for me in the new land for another 6 years till 1998 when the company, which I worked for, purchased Microsoft Office Suite, then I gradually gave the number matters to the Excel program rather than this pocket calculator. Although it is no longer needed, it is still kept carefully by me in my working bag. And amazingly, its solar powering is still working well.

This is the lap top computer which my ex-colleague calls it “the never dying thing”. Why is such a unique name given to it? Because my friend, being very knowledgeable on electronic products, has anticipated frequent technical problems from it since it was turning to be 4 years old in 2005. Quite often he would ask me how my lap top was working for me, and all the answer he got was always good. So once in the phone conversation, this “the never dying thing” slipped out of his mouth when he was told that it was running well.

It was a second-hand goods purchased in 2003 when I was just employed as program adviser helping new immigrants to learn about New Zealand. This job required me to have a computer for communication with head office from home. So during the period from 2003 to 2006, this little thing had helped me recording notes about each student on my list and handling e-mail exchanges with the head office, students and other colleagues.

Sometimes I felt that it helped me to make a living and enabled me to send my youngest child into university. Now I use it to contact friends in the world by e-mails, know what’s happening from the web, do research on Buddhism studies and so on.

I hope this little thing will really be a “never dying thing” as my friend calls it.

Portrait of my sisters

Seated first from right is my dajie, eldest sister born in 1935, 16 years older than me. Dajie is tall. She is about 165 cm, a height that made her outstanding among our neighbours. After all, there were rarely girls found over 155 cm due to poor nutrition in her days. Although she is tall, she runs rather slowly. Once our father recounted his own witness of dajie’s slowness in race competition in a sport event, “I went to see her in the race competition thinking she would win at least for the top three places because she had legs far longer than other contestants. But I surprised to see that she was the slowest runner.”

Dajie has a good temperament. Whenever she argued with her siblings or friends, she argued with a smiling face. This is an obvious difference from every one of her siblings because we are generally short tempered.

Eventually the fact that dajie was adopted from a neighbour revealed. She was the second last daughter of that neighbour who had too many children and found hard to raise up them all. My mother then just lost a son from an acute infection and was in deep sorrow. My grandmum suggested that she should adopt dajie to ease the sadness. That was how dajie was adopted.

Dajie died at the age of 58 from gall-bladder tumour. She married to Yan family and bore 3 children, two sons and one daughter.

First from right is erjie, the second elder sister, 13 years older than me. Erjie married to a school teacher who later promoted to be in charge of the teachers team. To our family, she married to a decent social status.

It is said that erjie was very beautiful when she was young. That was how she attracted Lee family’s attention and soon the match-maker came on behalf of Lee family to offer their proposal. Admiring the bridegroom’s occupation, my parents nodded their heads.

Erjie also went through a period of hardship as many other housewives of her day after marriage. She bore Lee family 4 children, 3 sons and 1 daughter.

Erjie is quite generous. Each time when mum or dad visited her, she always bought them good food and inserted some tea money into their pockets prior to parting. Mum likes to tease dad’s frequent visit to erjie because of erjie’s generosity. Dad always argues that it is from his love.

Standing at the centre is my sanjie, the third elder sister, 9 years older than me. She learned to become a seamstress from a cousin when she was at her late 10s and early 20s.

Sanjie has a good virtue of perseverance. She helps educating us this value by telling stories or giving lengthy lectures on this virtue. She helps tutoring on our school homework. She is very strict that she doesn’t worry tearing off the part of our poorly done work and asks to do it over again. For many times, she did this to sijie, my 4th elder sister, and that made her cry madly.

She married to Liao family and bore them two sons and two daughters of twin. Because of her always emphasising good value to her children, all of them are quite successful in their careers especially the 2nd son being a vet and the 3rd daughter possessing a master degree in the horticultural art.

With her seamstress skill and her strong belief of perseverance, she had successfully overcome the hardest period of life when all the 4 children were in various stages of schooling.


Standing at the centre is sijie, the 4th elder sister, 6 years older than me. Sijie is the most sociable child among us. I remembered she always had someone to talk to wherever she went when we were small. And pretty often, she brought her classmate home, even stayed overnight at our place.

Sijie was very attractive. When she was dating with her husband before their marriage, the young man was in mad love with her that he not only often treated sijie the Taipei delicacy food, Yaroubian (鴨肉扁), a kind of roasted and smoked duck, but also bribed the family members by giving a big pack of Yaroubian. Though as a matter of fact, he was still struggling with his knitting garment business when he was dating with sijie.

After they married, sijie helped his business booming by working as his accountant, quality controller, cooker for the team of workers and etc. that was indeed a tremendous load to her.

She bore 3 children for the Lin family, two sons and one daughter. They made quite a fortune yet lead a no-frill life style. In 1989, they immigrated to Australia. Now sijie is living with her 3rd son, a baker, in Sydney with the eldest son and daughter working in Taiwan.

Sijie is a devoted Buddhist. Her husband died in 1999 from liver cancer. With the supportive fellow Buddhists’ chanting and counselling, her husband passed away peacefully.

This is xiaomei, younger sister, 2 years younger than me. Like me, xiaomei is rather shy and introvert. Perhaps our age is close that we find we have similar way of thinking about life.

Xiaomei married to Ye family at 30 years of age, quite late comparing to all her friends. This must be something to do with her commitment to looking after our parents. In our tradition, looking after parents is the responsibility of the son. I am the only son of the family so I am supposed to pick up this duty. But before I stabilized after my 2 year military service and 3 year period of career exploring, xiaomei shared the duty without complaint at all. To her willingness in looking after my aging parents while I was away in other towns, I am so grateful to her.

Like sanjie, xiaomei also possesses the perseverance virtue. She bore two children for the Ye family, one boy and one girl. And she educated them to become decent people in the society. In order to reduce the financial load of parents, both children do part time job during holidays while most of the university students are enjoying their fun activities.

Xiaomei is also a devoted Buddhist. When our father died, she was the one able to cite a praying mantra everyday for father for the 7 periods of 7, ie 49 days hoping to help father’s spirit to return to Amitabha’s pure land. She is indeed a filial daughter to my parent and a respectful sister to me.

Amitofo!

Toastmaster

This certificate makes me recall the one year time during 1995 when I was a member of Glenfield Toastmaster, one of the many clubs under the Toastmaster International. It is a non-profit educational organization aiming at improving the communication, public speaking and leadership skills of its members. It is commonly known as speech club. When one is fear of speaking publicly or talking to a small group of people formally, he is most likely to be referred to the speech club.

To the majority of people, public speech might be one of their most scared challenges, and I am not the exception. It is even worse to me, because not only that I am scared of public speech, I am supposed to be speaking in English, my second language. Being a new immigrant in the English speaking New Zealand in 1992, I realized that if I want to make life easier in this new land, I have to overcome the speech phobia, especially the English one.

One day in 1995 when I and my wife shopped at the Milford Bin-Inn, this kind couple who ran the shop, Ron and Margaret, chatted with me about issues an immigrant might have. Ron and Margaret were immigrants, too. They were from England a few years earlier than me. Ron soon spotted my concern about how to improve communication and public speaking with my not-so-good English. He introduced me to Margaret, and asked her how they could help me in this regard.

Margaret was a speech club enthusiast. She told me she would suggest me to visit the Glenfield Toastmaster meeting on the coming Wednesday evening. They met twice a month. As a club visitor, I would not be assigned with a role to practice. I was only supposed to watch how the meeting going, how each assigned role fulfil their task. She would meet me there if I would like to have a try. I was eager to upgrade my ability of spoken language. So I said yes to her with slight reluctance.

On the appointed time, I appeared at the entrance of the community centre where Toastmasters met. I could hear people chatting in one of the rooms. That must be the meeting room. I walked nervously toward that direction. Soon I saw a brightly illuminated room with a reception table by the door. There were already some members being busy with preparation for the meeting. Standing behind the table was Margaret. I relieved a little bit upon seeing her. She told me her assigned role that night was the receptionist. After having signed on the attendance sheet and got the program leaflet, I was seated at the back row so that I could watch how the whole meeting underwent.

I could not recall the details of the meeting. Generally I felt everything there was performed formally. The receptionist, the meeting conductor, the topic presenter, the time keeper, the tea server and the volunteer who tidied up the kitchen, all these roles worked closely in accordance with the agenda of that night. The meeting went energetically and smoothly. Some members were already very eloquent speakers. Humorous words flowed on and on like the everlasting clean mountain spring. Most of the speakers experienced freezing somewhere, and their face turned red, but immediately, they were supported by lot of hints from the members in the audience, thus the speech carried on and the embarrassment disappeared. The atmosphere was very friendly.

During the tea break, some members approached me about my feeling of the program. I held a glass of juice in one hand and a cookie in the other, and told them what I felt, and they seemed to understand what I had said. Instantly I felt I was part of the new country, I was ok to become a member. That night, I felt I was like a Member of Parliament attending a conference.

I enrolled as a member after two more visits to the meeting. Before long, I received a bulky manual and my name badge sent from the headquarter in US. Wow! How cool it is! But the challenge had just begun after receipt of the manual; I was supposed to present my first speech of 5 minutes long on introducing myself sometime in the first month following receipt of the manual.

I spent a lot of time after work to prepare and rehearse the speech. The day approached rather swift, ready or not, I had to stand behind a lectern to present my speech on the scheduled date. Now, recollecting these bits and pieces of memory, I am surprised to see what kind of huge stress I had once been able to bear when I was younger. Obviously, power of resisting stress reduces as we age.

The title of my ‘Ice breaking’ speech, meaning a new Toastmaster’s first speech, was no longer in my memory, but it focused on describing my personal traits. My heart thumping wildly and my body as hot as a fire ball when the meeting conductor announced my presentation and invited me to the lectern. I inhaled deep breath, put my speech notes on the lectern, and scanned the audience with big smile as that was suggested in the manual. Oh! Dear me! Those staring eyes from audience frightened me, yet I made myself calm to start my speech.

“Madam Chair, fellow Toastmasters…” I began with a formal greeting followed by strings and strings of words that seemed just going through without any flavour. Then when it came to a stage where I stated about how I was nicknamed as ‘saint’, I said to the audience: “because one of my first names is ‘sen’ which sounds so similar to ‘saint’, and also because of the fact that I behave like a monk, so one day during a period break at school, one of my classmates suddenly called me ‘saint’, and this has become my nickname since then.” I continued “but fellow Toastmasters, please don’t regard me as a saint because I am not deserved to this title ….” Waaahahahaha! There was a long and thunderous laughter erupted among the audience. Time was almost up, so I made a conclusion and bowed down, finding a great relief inside me.

During the tea break that night, many fellow members approached me to congratulate and give comments. “Morris you did very well. I love the bit when you said ‘please don’t regard me as a saint’…” One gentleman who worked for Fisher & Pakel commented so. The meeting conductor of that night even commented at the end of the meeting saying “Morris is the star of tonight”. Not just these compliments, the club awarded me a plaque to mark my success in the first speech. Wow! What a great encouragement they had given me.

I had played the roles as a receptionist, topic presenter, tea server and time keeper during the one year time. Then, I found my commitment to my work, family, voluntary job was increasing so I talked to Margaret about my situation and quit this lovely program.

I am grateful to all the fellow members because of their friendly support. I am also grateful to Margaret and Ron. Without their mentorship, I will never be able to go through the one year time and have learned so much.

Volunteer

This picture shows all the Chinese volunteers of Auckland Lifeline gathered together in their annual meeting in September 2001.

Auckland Lifeline commenced its service in 1965 providing telephone and face-to-face counselling to the public. When people are overwhelmed by any sort of difficulty and feel it hard to talk with anyone they know, then, talking to a trained and experienced counsellor through a telephone may be a good choice. The Chinese community in New Zealand began to increase rapidly in late 80’s. So in 1992, Auckland Lifeline set up Chinese Line to cater the needs of Chinese speaking immigrants.

I brought my whole family to New Zealand in 1992. Soon after I had settled the major issues such as driving licence, schooling for my children, getting familiar with local customaries, I found that there were anxiety and worries within me. In where I was from, these would not be much of concern, because you have close friends there to help and everything is just too familiar to you. But living in a new country is another story. Everything you encounter is new. You are supposed to deal with all the new things with your inefficient English. At times, I felt these challenges were too much for me. But immigration is a one way route. You have to just move forward.

One day, a fellow Taiwanese immigrant living on the same road, whose name was William Chen, asked me if I would be interested in working as a volunteer for Chinese Line. He was already a volunteer of that team, but they needed a lot more to fill up the roster. Thinking that we are in the same boat and we should help one another, I decided to enrol on the training program and become a telephone counsellor.

The training started in July 1994 in a sunny winter day. Four new volunteers of us were accompanied by two senior volunteers working with the trainer, an old English lady called Joyce. The training would be running in three consecutive weekends. That was the first time in my life I was taught the skill of how to listen carefully, how to establish rapport, how to correctly reflect the caller’s feeling, and how to help the caller to sort their problems out.

On the second day of the training, we underwent practice of self awareness. Each one of us including the trainer was supposed to draw pictures or symbols representing our own story in each stage of life either up or down on paper. We called this picture our life map. After everyone had finished the drawing, we took turn to present our story of happiness or sadness to the whole group. This activity is designed to help bringing us to face the unhappy or traumatised past under a caring and supportive environment.

When it was the youngest trainee’s turn to present her life map, she stuck at a point where her unhappy past must be too awful to her that she burst into cry uncontrollably. So she was allowed to do her presentation again in the next session. But the same problem occurred to her in the second attempt, and the trainer could not but explained to her that she should seek for professional assistance before she could help others. So she was dismissed on that day. That was the first time I saw a person collapsed mentally, and I wondered how many were out there in need of caring support.

The training was completed in the third weekend. We were made familiar with the telephone room and other facilities in the building before we left. Then, after having attended another three meetings we were officially placed by the telephone to take calls.

Time flies. I could not count how many nights after a day’s work I drove to fulfil my roster. Sometimes I was on duty by my own for the three hour duty, but most of the times I had a colleague, who took calls of Cantonese speakers, working together, so we could chat when there was no call.

Although it was quite a big load to me as a father, husband, son, and worker and in addition, a lifeline volunteer, I felt meaningful and so I had worked for this organization for ten years till October 2005 when my driving ability was reduced due to my illness.

I am no longer able to travel to Lifeline by car to refresh the friendship with those co-workers. But I am still able to get in touch with a few of them by e-mails. People needs friends and socializing, and that’s why provision of free telephone counselling is a significant offering to the society.

My Zen Retreat Experience

I had my first and only one experience of Zen retreat in May 1992. Although I now practice Pure Land Buddhism and realize the importance of focusing in this technique, from time to time, I would recall the activities I had taken part in during that 3 day Zen retreat.

1992 was the year when we immigrated to New Zealand. To start this big move, I came by myself alone in March in order to find a right home for the family to live in. During this stage, apart from looking for a house, I was also seeking for local Buddhist group where I could have social life and spiritual practice.

Through phone book, I got in touch with a Buddhist group called Dorje Chang. I explained the purpose of my visit. The man who met me asked me what kind of Buddhism I liked to be in. I really had no idea when I was asked with this question. But somehow, I described something like sitting in meditation. So he thought I liked Zen tradition and gave me a number of Zen Society.

The organizer of the Auckland group of Zen Society was a kind elderly called Jim. He asked me to meet him in their regular sitting venue in a library in Ponsonby. I had my first time ever formal sitting with a group of about 10 Zen Buddhists, all were Europeans, that evening. Despite the numbness on legs after the sitting, I found I really enjoyed the solemn atmosphere and the serenity of the zendo setting. Thus, I became a regular attendee of this group till I left for Taiwan to fetch my family in June.

In one of the sitting sessions, Jim announced that he was going to organize a weekend zen retreat to be held in a camping field in Swanson, Western Auckland in May. The fellow practitioner sitting next to me that evening urged me to experience this wonderful activity. So I enrolled on.

It was a cold Friday evening. The winter was almost there when the zen retreat began. Jim was the first one arriving the camp with full load of food in his yellow Ford station wagon. I volunteered to help unloading the stocks. Before long, it was almost dark and everyone had arrived with smiley face.

The zendo would be set up in the central activity hall. Jim assigned each of us a task to be completed before the formal retreat commencement ritual that night. My assignment was to wipe the zendo wooden floor sparkly clean with some other fellow helpers. By 7pm, all the tasks were done, and we all gathered in the dinning room for Jim’s instructions about this activity.

The activity would formally commence from the start of dinner. The dinner was of vegetarian dishes. Complete silence would be kept throughout the retreat period. Not even a wink of eye to each other when we encountered on the paths of the field. This was aimed to keep us focus on our mind all the time. All activity sessions would be signalled by means of bell, wood block. Actually this activity is a mini size of a traditional zen monastic life. Wow, by accident I was put in this kind of experience. Wouldn’t it be cool?

The dinner began finally. I was really hungry. We all sit in silence on our seats waiting for the rice to be passed to you. When it arrives, you scoop some in your bowl according to your need. Then wait for the other side dishes to come around and you scoop the right amount into your plate. And when the dish passing is finished, you start eating your meal. We were suggested before the dinner that the process of meal time was a training of mindfulness.

After dinner, only a couple of volunteers were helping washing and tidy up in the kitchen, the rest of us walked to zendo upon hearing the striking of the wooden block. Zendo was illuminated only by two candles stood beside Buddha’s statue. Along the walls of the two sides were two rows of sitting mattress, called Rahu. The leading monk was a Kiwi who was ordained in L.A., called Mike. He led us to do 15 minute walking zen followed by 30 minute sitting zen. What impressed me a lot was Mike’s shadow on the wall. His shadow radiated sort of concentration of his mind. I believed it was the result of constant practice.

Night meditation was over on the bell rings. Mike led us to walk out of zendo. Then it was time for all sorts of individual needs such as a cup of tea, toilet, shower or whatever, but everyone had to be in the bed before the wooden block was striken.

Four persons shared a hut of two bunks. Nobody shared the hut with me, so I had more space to keep my personal belongings. It was really cold. The bedding I brought for this retreat was not warm enough, but it was only a two night stay anyway. I said to myself this could be the first time in my life I would be in silence for two whole days. Wow! How cool it is.

The wooden block sounded again when it was still very dark. It was 4:45am. My first thought when I was woken up by the block striking was about the days when I went through my new soldier training in Taiwan many years ago. I dressed up quickly and quietly walked to the washing room. The whole room was full of steam because everyone was having a morning shower.

The second block striking meant gathering in zendo for sitting meditation, or razen. That was a sitting session before the breakfast. How cold it was in the spacious zendo early in the morning, but it might be the best time for mindfulness training. Besides coldness, I heard stomach rumbling sound here and there. Everyone must be very hungry. What a distraction! But again, this is what practice is about.

After breakfast, there was a short break for everyone to sort out whatever was needed to be done prior to the morning sessions. I only remembered there were endless sitting meditations and walking meditations in the second day of the retreat. For a few times, I fell asleep during razen. Encouragingly, I had short moments of mind stillness. That stillness really made me feel an indescribable joy. Some people term it the Dharma joy.

The third day was half day activity. We did a lot of cleaning on the building, windows, kitchen floor. Jim later explained that this cleaning tasks we had done was called working zen. It was a time to train our mind to concentrate on what we were doing. By the way, we gave the rented facility back to the landlord in clean condition.

After the lunch, we chanted a verse and it concluded our retreat. At this moment, many of the attendees took a deep breath and made a big grin and began to talk and talk loudly. We said good bye to each other. Although I said to one of the fellow Buddhists that I really enjoyed and would like to join again later, I found all my time was spent for my family after I brought them over in September 1992 and could not do what I had said.

I hope all the people I met in that retreat are well and are practicing their Buddhism as diligently as before.

The Big Question

At some stages of our life, we may have big questions come up our mind such as: Where was I before birth? Where am I going to after death? What I am here for?

I remember it was in my pre-school age when I asked my mother, for the first time, where I was from. I remember the answer given was that I was popping out from a big stone. Though I believed what I was told then, the same question had been asked by me at various stages of my life again and again, and the answers were different one another.

The answer of this question is not just something as that is explained in the biology textbook. I think all of us are born to be with some degree of a philosopher’s mind. That’s why, in my personal example, I kept on asking and considering over the same question. All sort of answers and theories were never satisfactory to me, and I think this applies to everyone else, because the real truth is not yet found.

Over 2500 years ago, Buddha had gone through the same process trying to sort out his big questions about why is life impermanent and suffering, and how to attain permanent bliss. After all, he was an extraordinary human being, after 12 years of searching for the answer and the way to solve the problems, he got it. He tried to explain and teach his experiences and methods in the following 49 years to people who were also in quest of the answers. But only a very few could understood his teaching and achieved enlightenment. Most of his teachings seem understandable to us, but yet, the answer to the big questions are still beyond our reach. Why?

Because it is such a big question that the answer is beyond the capability of any language to describe to make it understandable to us. That’s why Buddha taught us eighty four thousand methods in his 49 years of lecturing. He assured that by practicing the most suitable method he had taught, we will finally get enlightenment and fully understand the truth of life and the whole universe. The truth can only be experienced, and can not be really understood by means of words.

What is the most suitable method that will enable us to achieve the objective? The one that most patriarchs and senior practitioners advocate is Pure Land chanting Buddha’s name. One of the most popular websites promoting this method can be accessed by the following link: http://www.chinkung.org/ . Another method being popular among western Buddhists is meditation. Rev. Kusala Bhiksu is one of the American monks teaching this method. His very popular podcast lectures can be downloaded at: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma9/dharmatalks.html .

Well, my fellow answer seekers, let’s set off for the journey of seeking the answer. May whoever reaches the goal remember to come back to help the others.

In memory of my uncle

This picture has been kept in the album for over 70 years approximately, so old that uncle’s face is almost not recognizable. Standing on the far right is uncle, and the one next to him is my father.

Uncle was tall and handsome. In addition to the good looking appearance , he had good sense of humour and was pretty talkative. I knew stories about uncle mainly from my mother. Aunt did not like to mention about uncle. If she did, it was about the bad side of uncle.

Why aunt was so unhappy with uncle? The story began with the fact that uncle had left aunt and their five kids in Taiwan during world war II, and he himself went to Japan to seek for a better living. But this arrangement resulted in a virtually termination of their marriage life. What had happened was that a Japanese widow was in mad love with uncle and would not let uncle to leave Japan. Aunt knew this problem through family friends whose husbands left for Japan as well. They came back home to see the families every a couple of years.

Although uncle did not come home to see aunt until 18 years after his second journey to Japan, he really worked hard in Japan to earn money, and frequently sent money home for aunt and the five children to live on. He firstly worked as salesman for a pharmaceutical company for a few years. He then used his saving to set up his own pearl jewellery business. He bought pearls from pearl farmers, polished and processed them, and sold them to tourists. Business grew rapidly and he employed two workers who were a pair of sisters, both were very beautiful.

Working with a tall, handsome, humorous and talkative Taiwanese employer, the older sister loved uncle so much that they lived together before long. The younger sister loved uncle, too, but her older sister was in the way so she said a lot of rumours about her sister to uncle so as to damage their relationship. The younger sister finally won the battle and replaced her sister’s position living with uncle.

This Japanese aunt was a good woman because she attended uncle with great patience and care during the long period when uncle was in serious illness. Her tremendous caring moved uncle so much that when Taiwanese aunt blamed her for seizing other’s husband, he stood up to defend for his Japanese wife.

Uncle did come back to visit his Taiwanese family in 1968 for the second time since his immigration to Japan. I could imagine how aunt felt upon meeting with this long-time-no-see husband. Aunt was good at singing when she was young. I remembered during my childhood I often heard her singing songs relating to love sickness. But when she talked about uncle, she often cursed him with hatred. Poor aunt had lived with her youngest daughter’s companion. This cousin, Chaishia, was tall and beautiful but she pledged to stay single throughout her life. My father, mother and aunt all had been urging her to get married when she was still young. But Chaishia always argued that how could she left her mother without someone’s companion, and what if she married to someone who ended up to be another example of her own father. Chaishia’s filial virtue is indeed respectful. She is 64 years old now, still single.

Aunt died in 1984. Uncle came back to attend the funeral. No one saw him shedding tears. He commented on his relationship with aunt, “Our relationship can go only so far in this life. The love feeling has to remain natural”.

Uncle died in 2006, aged 93. News about his death sent back to Taiwan saying that he was baptised to be a Christian in the bed by Sumi’s husband, his son-in-law, who was a pastor.

Life is like that of the waves in the ocean. Uncle’s stories make me realize that everyone of us is living for a purpose of repaying what you owe to others. In uncle’s example of relationship, both his Taiwanese and Japanese wives had repaid what they owed him. The Taiwanese aunt bore and raised up alone five children for him, and the Japanese aunt attended for his daily living for about 56 years in addition to a daughter.

I hope uncle has united with his Taiwanese wife in heaven merrily.

Jean's tour to Pure Land Learning College

This is my wife, Jean, standing by the entrance of Pure Land Learning College. Picture was taken during her recent visit/learning trip to this school (or monastery) from 24/2/07 to 10/3/07.

In June 2001, Master Chin Kung established Pure Land Learning College in Toowoomba, Brisbane, Australia. In order to continue the mission of spreading Buddha’s education, he found it was necessary to have a homebase where decent Buddhism lecturers can settle in and concentrate on their cultivation and learning. From time to time, they invite adherents from all over the world to the College to witness their learning outcome.

The most recent visit/learning activity was scheduled on 24/2/07 for 2 weeks. Having learned a lot from others about Master Chin Kung, we took this as a very precious opportunity to meet the master in person and to treat ourselves with an overseas trip together. However, at the last minute of the decision process, we realized that one of us had to stay at home to look after our dog, Spot. As Spot listens to me more than to anyone else of the family, I decided that I gave up this opportunity, and let Jean travel with the New Zealand group of 10 to enjoy her first time ever of a visit/learning tour. Through the assistance of Amituofo Chanting Society of Auckland, this group of 10, led by Mr. Lee, set off for Brisbane on 24/2/07.

Jean was very much impressed by the College’s valuing the real essence of things instead of pursuing the appearance. For instance, she thought the school building could be something like a traditional Chinese temple. But it is not. It is just an ordinary Australian building. She was told that the building used to be a Catholic church. The College maintained it as it was after the purchase. This enables them to save a great amount of money and energy in property maintenance, and thus, their delivery of education quality can be more assured, and more resourses can be saved for education related activities.

A short distance from the main building is a vegetable farming section growing organic produce. This is where the residents of the school can exercise their physical body by involving in the garden jobs apart from the spiritual cultivation. Together with another even bigger area of vegetable garden farther away, the amount of vegetable produce is sufficient to feed the 1000 visitors of this activity. The 3 meals each day are simple but abundant and fresh.

It is said that Master Chin Kung’s biggest dharma protector, Mrs. Han Ying, was very good at cooking, and also took the meals provided to visitors as a very important part of the religious activity. So during her life time, she had created a lot of recipes of vegetarian dishes. In this activity which Jean attended, each of the visitors was given a recipe book based on Mrs. Han Ying’s cooking principles. After Jean returned home, she made a few dishes following the recipes and found that we all liked their taste. Most important is that the materials required in the recipe are very ordinary stuff and the cooking process is simple.

The daily activities started from 6:15am in the morning and ended at 9:00pm in the night. Each of Master Chin Kung’s disciples was allocated at least one lecturing session of two hours. The topics were surrounding the three classical works – The Ten Good Deeds Sutra (十善業道經); The Supreme Response Chapter(太上感應篇); Disciples Regulations(弟子規). This covers the 3 major beliefs of Chinese community: Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Master Chin Kungs believes that the teachings taught in these three classical works are like the three legs of a Tripod. That means attaining Buddhahood begins from fulfilling the teachings of these three works.

Besides the three lecture sessions each day, there are Buddha chanting practices in between the classes. Buddha chanting is held at Ten Thousand Surnames Ancestors Memorial Hall (萬姓先祖紀念堂). In the hall, Jean saw that the three sides of the wall were full of wooden plaques each of them represents a family branch in Chinese history. A religious ceremony called ‘Three times reminder" (三時繫念) is conducted here regularly to remind both the ancestors and the alive of their endeavour to immigrate to the Pure Land.

With this tight learning schedule, Jean said, one can empty their mind easily for receiving the good knowledge. To her personal experience, she totally dropped the material world matters as soon as the first two days had past. She felt her mind was full of dharma pleasure since the 3rd day and onward.

On 4th March, the visit/learning activity came to its peak because the Master Chin Kung arrived the College from Hong Kong to conduct a memorial ceremony for his biggest dharma protector, Mrs. Han Ying, and his dharma initiator, Master Zhang Jia(章嘉大師).

For years, most of the adherents have been learning Buddhism with Master Chin Kung by means of CDs, books or on-line videos without having a chance to see their teacher in person. So the atmosphere in the hall was a mixture of respectful, exciting and surprising when Master Chin Kung entered the hall. They have known from CDs that their teacher looks young and is healthy despite his being 81 years old. Now they witnessed this fact by themselves. After the ceremony was done, the adherents of each region had a photo with their teachers and the master.

Time flies. On 6th March, they said goodbye to the college and carried on their remaining activities at Amitabha Brisbane Association. On 10th March, they came back home with a more purified mind. I am surprised to see that Jean has become a more committed vegetarian after this visit/learning trip.

Our dog, Spot

This is our dog, a mix breed of Labrador and Jack Russell. We call him Spot. Spot became part of our family in 1998 when my son, Chenny was in his last year of the primary school.

Chenny had asked me for a dog well before 1998. Knowing that having a dog means a lot of responsibility and daily care, I turned his request down many times. Once, he raised the same dog issue again, in order to shut him up, I bought him a dog, an electronic one. This electronic dog only made him happy for a couple of weeks. The desire for a real dog never had disappeared from his mind.

One weekend mid day in October 1998, while we were passing by a business area in car, Chenny saw a child walking a dog. His constant desire for a dog erupted at that moment. As usual, I refused by telling him reasons why we should not own a dog. But this did not work. He began to cry. My mother, sitting in the passenger seat, saw her beloved grandson crying, urged me to nod my head. I knew this dog issue had to be settled this time.

We went to a pet shop, but there were no dogs. The owner said we could buy dog from the classified advertisement section of the newspaper. Chenny was then smiling but still quite anxious. So we bought a paper and drove home immediately to call up the dog breeders and made inquiries.

By the time we were going through the advertisement, we saw all sorts of dog breeds listed on the paper. We only knew that each breed had its unique character, but after all, which was the most suitable to Chenny and our family? Being anxious to get his own dog, Chenny said: “just get any dog!” At that moment, the Telecom icon, a very cute Jack Russell dog called Spot, came up my mind. I said to Chenny: “how about buying a Telecom dog because it is medium in size, and it is clever?” “Yes, any dog! Let’s make phone call now!” He replied.

I called the first breeder under the Jack Russell section. A lady answered my call. We negotiated on the price. Got her address and route instruction, and there we hopped onto the car and headed toward the breeder’s place, Western part of Auckland while we were at the Northern part.

When we finally arrived at the breeder’s place, a rather small Jack Russell dog ran up the driveway to see us. It looked very impressively smart. I thought that was the dog we were going to take home, but the owner said it was the mother. We were showed the way to the back yard where we saw two puppies were playing fighting energetically to each other. The owner said that were the only remainder of the 7 puppies born by the bitch we saw just now.

Chenny was showing a bright big smiley face staring at the puppies. “Which one do you like?” asked the owner, “one is a boy and the other is a girl.” “I want to get that boy as I am a boy.” The owner handed the male puppy to Chenny. The puppy seemed to be very happy with Chenny’s affection; it sniffed all over his chest, and even tried to climb up to sniff his face. On the way home, its name had been decided. He was named after the Telecom icon, Spot.

It was already getting dark by the time we arrived home. Where were we going to keep Spot? Seeing him walking all over the place and beginning to shit on the carpet, I realized that the first thing he needed was a bed in a confined area in the basement. So despite the dinner was ready, I set off to build a 2 metre by 2 metre confinement using the board from a wooden case.

Lacking of experience in raising a dog, I had been busy with Spot for the following few weeks. First I found that I didn’t take his growth into account. The confinement was built too low that one week after his arrival, he could easily escape from his area. So I extended the height, but 3 weeks later he demonstrated his skill of climbing over the confinement wall. So I built a gate in the BBQ area and kept Spot out there.

His new area was big for him to run about and play with Chenny. But one night at about 12 O’clock, he barked furiously for some reason. I had to get up to check. He stood against the retainer wall barking at the direction where I saw a round pile of something about 2 metres away. When I touched it, my finger tips were jabbed by needle like thorns. It was a hedgehog. So I went to garage to get a bag and moved the hedgehog to other part of the garden. This kind of scenario repeated about a dozen times before winter arrived and I rearranged a place in the basement for Spot to spend his night.

I did regret buying Spot because of all the hassles. However, he did have brought us some security and happiness. One mid night, he barked furiously toward outside of the basement where we hang clothes under the car port when weather was not so stable. I commanded him to be quiet, but he would not. So I came down to check, turned the light on. I found nothing wrong. Next morning, my wife found a couple of Chenny’s T-shirts were missing from the clothing lines. We then realized why Spot barked so furiously last night. The second time Spot just scared off the thief with his loud barking.

On every Thursday night, every household in our area is supposed to put their rubbish bag or wheelie bin out on the roadside for the truck to collect or clear. My property has a long and slop up driveway. So I have to struggle with pushing the wheelie bin up the drive way once a week. One night, I had an idea of getting Spot’s help in pulling the bin up the drive way. I secure the leash on the handle of the bin while my hands firmly hold on the handle. When this was ready, I tilt the bin on the wheels and commanded “Let’s go Spot!” You know what? Upon hearing “Let’s go!”, he turned his face forward, his tail erected high up, put all the strength he had on his four legs, and pulled enthusiastically all the way to the road side. And I only needed to steer the bin at the right direction.

Time flies. Spot is now over 8 years old, equivalent to 56 years of human age. He is more matured now, not as neurotic and restless as before. By October he will be turning 9 years old, and become the oldest in my family in terms of life span. I realize one day we will separate from each other for our own reincarnation. So I teach him this sound “Amitofo” which contains Buddha’s vow of receiving the soul of the being whoever recites “Amitofo”. Interestingly, each time I do this ritual before him, he always stares at me with a wondering facial expression as if saying to me: “Mate, what are you talking about?”

Guide To A Happy Life – Di Zi Gui (弟子規)

This pamphlet caught my eyes one day in a Buddhist group cultivation session which I attend regularly. It was displayed among many other Buddhism publications on the table for free circulation. It drew my attention not because of its delicate cover design but the subtitle “GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE”. I said to myself silently “Gee, hope this guide does bring happiness to me.”

I turned to the introduction page of this pamphlet and read “Confucius believed that moral principles, virtues and discipline should be the very first lesson taught to a child, and that children should practice them daily.” That means a happy life can only be achieved if the foundation of being a good child is carefully laid at a young age. So this is a book teaching children to become a good people when they grow up. But the subtitle “GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE” sounds that it is a set of guides applies to people of all age.

Indeed this set of guides should be followed fully in order to guarantee a happy life. Why? Because the learning outcome found in a child can only be excellent if the parents and people surrounding this child are leading good examples. Therefore, this book is not just created to teach the children but also the adults. It is understandable to me that the happiest parents are those whose children are behaving and performing nicely. A child with good behaviour learns other subjects more efficiently. A student with good learning efficiency achieves life goals more easily. Thus, each step of their life is getting good influence from this set of guides set out by the ancient sages, and this brings about long lasting happiness to all the parents, children and people concerned. Isn’t this logical?

It is not just logical, it really works. Recently Master Chin Kung made an experiment in teaching this book to the children and interested adults in a small town called Tangchi in Anhui Province. He anticipated a notable result to be achieved from this experiment in 3 years; however, a good result emerged in half a year instead. He said this result proved that people are educable. This town has a lot of moving stories now. The crime rate obviously drops. Children are polite. Their learning records improve. And adults are leading good example. The leaders of other cities are seeking for this kind of education to be delivered to their residents.

A happy life is what everyone looking for throughout their life. Recently I heard a lot of news from Radio Live about tragedies caused by gambling, party pill and alcohol. Nowadays we tend to choose any method that brings instant effect. It is fair to do so. But the result tells us there is no bargain in getting happiness. The deluded happy feeling only lasts a few hours and perhaps ends up with a lot of trouble. For the sake of creating a happy society, why don’t we get this educational pamphlet a try? If it is promoted and carried out properly, it should generate a good outcome in one year.

This pamphlet is accessible following the link below. It is published in bilingual format, and is welcomed to download for free circulation. Amitofohttp://www.amtb.org.tw/pdf/hz32-05.pdf

My music life

This picture was shot in 1968 when I was in the second year in senior high school. The picture shows the Chinese orchestra, which I belonged to, was performing in the competition in high school group of Taipei city.

My eldest cousin Jinshia was the first one in the family who noticed that I was very fond of music. Once in a family gathering occasion, she said to me: “When I arrived home from Japan, I saw you squatting in the corner of the living room singing a child song repeatedly without being aware of my presence. I knew at that moment that we had a musician in Chen family.”


I was then just 3 or 4 years old. Jinshia had just come back from a one year stay at uncle’s another home in Japan.

Another family member who commented that I was a fast learner of musical instrument was Chaishia, my third cousin.

One evening, I was attracted to the sound of 洞簫(kind of wind pipe, made of bamboo as shown in the picture). I was wondering who could be playing this lovely music, so I went to search the source and found that it was Chaishia. I begged to have a try. She showed me how to blow. Instantly I could make sound out of it and in a few minutes after I had sorted out the scale, I began to play one of the pop music. Chaishia was amazed at my ability in learning an instrument so quickly because I was just 6 or 7 of age at that time. Later in my life, I had owned two different types of bamboo made flute.

Obviously Chaishia is talented in music too as at another time, when I was about 10 years old, she borrowed a violin and played a pop music. Upon sight of her playing an elegant instrument, I was so excited that I watched silently till she stopped. She would not let me have a try because it was an expensive instrument. The desire of owning a violin arose from that glimpse and was then buried in my mind straight away. I knew dad could not afford to buy one for me.


Six years after the first encounter with a violin, I was in the first year of Cheng Gong Senior High School. CGSHS was famous of its Chinese orchestra which won gold medal in the competition many times for the school. The leader approached me asking if I would be interested in learning any of the Chinese musical instruments. The desire of playing violin woke up at that moment, but I knew Chinese orchestra had no violin but er-hu (二胡). Er-hu is a two string bow scrubbing instrument. The leader told me that the tuition was free. All I needed was buying an er-hu of the most basic brand. It was priced at 65 Taiwan Dollar forty years ago, about 4 bucks New Zealand money. I thought dad could afford it and although it was only two strings, it somehow quenched my thirst in learning violin. So I confirmed my enrolment in the after-school music lesson.

In the second school year, the orchestra wanted a few more new members and held an audition. I passed and became an er-hu player. After many training sessions, we were ready to take part in the annual high school competition. The school was proud of our performance because we won gold medal in both Taipei competition and Taiwan final competition that year.

I loved music and played er-hu regularly until the day when we had our first child in 1982. From then, I gradually found I had no time to enjoy playing er-hu. In 1992, we immigrated to New Zealand.In 2000, when my two children were at their 18 and 13, I found some more leisure time back, so I learned playing flute with a South African teacher in Music Education Centre.

My son has got music gene from me. He also loves music. When he was just a toddler, he voiced an understandable melody one morning when he was playing in the bed. During his days in kindergarten, his teacher commented that his percussion beat was the most accurate one in the school. Through his schooling period, he had learned recorder, cello, clarinet and guitar. He played all of these very well but he would dedicate only to guitar.

I always remind my son of playing only good music to bring happiness and peacefulness to the audience.

Grandpa ever said so to grandma

Grandpa died at the age of 59, well before I was born, however I have heard quite a lot of his stories from my parents and my eldest cousin, Jinshia who was the most pampered grandchild of my grandma. My mother told me that my grandma always took Jinshia along wherever she went.

Grandpa was born in Taiwan. His father immigrated at age 9, to Taiwan with relatives from Fujian province of China. So my grandpa is the second generation of Chen family in Taiwan. He learned a skill in the carpentry trade after he grew up, and made a fortune in this field. He was appointed as Horshio(保正), equivalent to Justice of the Peace in New Zealand today, by the authority during Japanese ruling of Taiwan.

My overall impression about grandpa is that he is a gentleman. He was popular among his friends. My mother said that whenever he was not working, there were always friends in his office chatting or singing together. Besides feeding a team of about 10 apprentices and able carpenters, he also generously and frequently took his aunties, uncles and his cousins from the country side to stay at our home during the festival events, and provided them accommodation, food and pocket money.

Wealthy people as he was in his day were commonly having concubines, but he was one of the few exceptions. My cousin Jinshia told me that it was not only because our grandma was very beautiful but also because of grandpa’s virtue of respecting others. He respected grandma very much. Jinshia said that as far as she could recall, she never heard grandpa said anything harsh to his wife. His tone in speaking to her always sounded polite and respectful.

In 1968, when the combined cemetery of Chen family was finished with its reconstruction, we all went to the cemetery located on the hill side of Ching Shui to pay our respect and worship to the ancestors. By the entrance of the tomb yard, we saw a woman weeping in great sadness in front of a new tomb. Upon seeing this scenario, my cousin, Jinshia told me that once on the Tomb Sweeping Festival after grandpa had died, she accompanied grandma to the cemetery. On the route toward grandpa’s tomb, they saw a woman crying sadly in front of a tombstone. That reminded grandma of the words grandpa had said to her when he was still alive.

Jinshia said to me with eyes staring far as if she was with grandma on that time at that place, “Grandma told me that once she came to the tomb yard with her husband and saw someone crying sadly in front of a tomb.” She continued. “Grandpa tenderly held grandma’s hands when they saw this, and said to her ‘Yuan, I hope you don’t cry as sad as that woman upon my death as that will make me feel sorry for you.’ And there they passed by that woman rapidly.”

That was how my grandpa treated others. Through Jinshia’s words of mouth, grandpa’s good examples are passed down. And I hope, through this blog, it will be transmitted to my children and their children.

How dad met mum?

This picture was taken sometime in 1973. Being held on dad’s lap is my 4th sister’s youngest son, Zonghsing. The smiley boy standing beside my mum is 4th sister’s eldest son, Menghsing. My eldest sister’s son, Anzhi is in white shirt in the back row. The one in blue cotton-wadded coat is me.

Mum was the second daughter of a tenant farmer who grew crops on my grandfather’s land. Every now and then, my grandfather would travel to their home to collect the rent from this farmer, and that was how he knew something about this girl who later became his daughter-in-law.

Mum once told me a story about my grandfather’s wisdom of selecting the right daughter-in-law. During the land lease period, there was a drought. Her father could not heap enough crops to feed his family and to pay for the rent. Her eldest brother, who was a big helper in the farm then, argued with the father. “Dad, pay less to the landlord as it is all we can do.” said her big brother. “No, we can not break our agreement in the rent. Let’s pay the rent in full and eat less in each meal for the rest of the year. It is important to be a trustable tenant.” So without knowing about the tenant’s hardship, my grandfather collected the full payment of rent.

When my dad was 10 years old, my grandfather suggested to my grandmother that they should adopt a good girl to preserve as their daughter-in-law. By doing so, they would have sufficient time to train the would-be-daughter-in-law into an obedient wife for their son. This adoption of a would-be-daughter-in-law for the son was a common practice among wealthy families of my grandfather’s generation. “That’s a good idea, but do you have the right one in mind?” said my grandmother. “The second daughter of our tenant is also 10 years old now. She will be our best choice. She is healthy and good looking. It will never be wrong to choose our daughter-in-law from a trustable family such as our tenant’s” said my grandfather.

So at the age of 10, my mother was sent to the Chen family and being trained with all sort of household chores. She could not have good clothing and shoes to wear prior to her arrival, now she was given all these luxuries, and the most important to her was school education. She stayed as top student in the primary school. Her teacher helped her ask for permit to carry on her education in high school, but was declined by my grandmother who believed that a wife without high education was easier to be disciplined.

At the age of 18, dad and mum were “送作堆”(‘put together’) as a married couple. Dad was lucky that he was served nicely by his well trained wife. Throughout their marriage life, mum did all the household chores and taught us how to be a trustable person. I love dad and mum, but frankly to say, I love mum more.

Happy New Year

It is the new year’s day of 2007. Everyone has more or less forms of celebration on this day. Travelling, climbing mountains, walking in the bush, reading books, eating or even sleeping are just a few examples of the New Year holiday activities. To me, I use of this time to write a blog posting as my form of celebrating the start of the New Year.

I have wished my families, relatives and friends a Happy New Year annually for at least 50 times since I had memory about everyday life. Chinese celebrates Lunar New Year which is about one month following the New Year of the solar calendar. To a child of my generation, New Year is an exciting day for many reasons. New clothing, big feast, toys, money given in a read envelope and a lot of social activities such as dragon dance, lion dance, fire works, parade of various performing groups. Children could be looking forward to the New Year’s arrival a few weeks earlier. I remembered that each time before the New Year arrived; I vowed to hold on it and would never loose it. But, after a few years of life experience, I finally realised that New Year is never in our control, it slips away and it sneaks in quietly and stubbornly.

While New Year is an eagerly desired holiday to children, it is rather an unwelcome event to adults of different mind sets because its arrival reminds them that they are one year older. Examples of people having this kind of feeling are such as entertainers, stage performers, good looking women, the elderly and etc. To them, the arrival of New Year means their enjoyable life has been deducted by one year.

Why do people have such different feeling about New Year, the feeling about time? Buddha points out that it is because of our minds craving for the pleasant objects, and this results in the feeling of loss. The feeling about time is actually an unreal phenomenon. In the Mind Sutra: “When in a meditation of deep wisdom, Boddhisatva witnessed that the cores of the five sensory mechanisms were of emptiness.” So if one can harness his mind effectively, one can maintain a genuine peace of mind. This mind state can be achieved by doing the appropriate meditation practice according to the self nature of each individual. Many highly experienced meditation practitioners in the world can witness this true fact about mind.
In reflection of feelings about New Year, I now feel that the meaning of my New Year’s wishes toward my dear family, relatives, friends is not just the worldly blessing but also the understanding of the nature of mind.