February 14 marks the memorial anniversary of my father-in-law. In the early morning nine years ago on this date, the phone rang unexpectedly waking us up from sound sleep. My wife rushed toward the phone set from bed. It was her eldest sister, Zheng Shi, calling from Taiwan to advise us a shocking news, father had just died in Tainan City Hospital.
It was a tremendous shock to my wife as I heard her shrieked loudly, "what? How could it be possible?" She could not believe it because she had just visited her father in Taiwan one year earlier and witnessed father's physical fitness. Then there was a long pause followed by ums and uhs together with nods. Apparently her sister was telling her what they were planning to do in regard to the funeral.
A couple of days after that phone call, my wife was on the airplane heading for Taiwan. I did not travel with her on this big occasion because I had to work, tend to my mother's home caring, and look after the two children during her absence.
To me, my father-in-law, or my dad as I normally addressed him, is one of the few people I most respect to in the world. The bits and pieces about him are from my personal experience and from casual chats now and then with my wife as well.
Dad's name is Zheng Ying Chun, 鄭應春。 He was born on November 2 of 1920 in a scholar type of family in Fuzhou City of Fujian Province of China. There was a sister before him and a younger brother after him. His father was a highly educated person that he was appointed the head of the post office of Fuzhou City. Dad's grandfather was educated under Qing Dynasty's education system. His grandfather was also very scholarly that he was a qualified teacher in the village teaching works of ancient saints and sages.
Dad was a hard working student at school. After high school, he sat college entrance exam and won the first place of that recruitment. His study subject at school was Chemical Engineering. Because of his outstanding school marks, he was employed by the state-owned petroleum refinery company based in Fujian after his graduation.
While he was studying at the engineering institute, his grandfather, teaching Chinese literacy privately at home, was thinking of matching his beloved grandson with a decent girl. Among the students of his literacy class was a lovely girl at her late 10's whom he thought was the best candidate.
That girl's name was Chen Xin Hu, 陳心壺. Not so tall but with a lovely face that always smiled compassionately, she was from a well off farming family in the same village. Everyday in the morning, she would carry a big load of vegetable produce from their own farm to the market and accompanied her grandmother selling those produce. Because of her overly tanned skin, her nickname was "that little black beauty".
When dad was told of his grandpa's intent of matching him with the black beauty, he became uneasy every time when he came home after school and passed by the room where grandpa's literacy class was undergoing. He always bowed his upper body and sort of sneaking into his room. Mum later recalled her impression about dad before their marriage, saying "he looked like a skinny mouse with glasses trying to escape the surveillance of a cat."
After he had finished his study at Fuzhou Industrial Institute, he worked for China Petroleum Company in Fujian office as Chemical engineer. Then, following his parents' will, he married to "that little black beauty" in 1943.It was about the end of World War II when they had their first child, a boy. Life was very hard everywhere. Dad being the eldest son of the family picked up the responsibility of supporting the whole extended family with his sole income.
In 1946, dad's company sent a team to station in Taiwan to take over the management of Taiwan petroleum industry from the hands of Japanese government and dad was part of the delegation. His parents urged him to go with his own family plus his younger brother who was then only 10 years old. It was commonly believed that it would be easier to make a living in Taiwan so all the young men longed for this kind of precious chance. His father asked him to take the younger brother along with his own family and support him with living requisite including education.
Having arrived Taiwan, dad's extended family of four was settled in Miaoli county by his company. This young couple were friendly and helpful to their neighbors and local residents, and soon they won their friendship.In the next year of their arrival, there was this so called 228 incident erupted. The uprising was sparked by a rather minor dispute between a female tobacco vendor and a police, but with the complicated political conditions in the background, it turned into an overall attack against anyone who spoke no Taiwanese dialect. My mother-in-law was then holding her first child on the way home and was targeted by a group of radicals seeking for "the outsider" to beat. Under a miraculous assistance, a kind old local woman appeared in time to her rescue. Mum was given a shelter in a ceiling to hide till the drama was over.
In the following 5 years, dad's family members increased to 7 including uncle. He was then working as sugar production researcher in Taiwan Sugar Industry Research Institute based in Tainan city.
In 1955, the total of dad's family increased to 9. In the front row of this picture, from left are uncle, elder sister Shi, younger sister Jian, mum, my wife Zhen, dad, and younger sister Zhi. In the back row are eldest brother Qian and second elder brother Gan. We can see from picture that dad and mum looked quite thin, pale and tired apparently due to malnutrition while the 6 kids and uncle were all looked quite healthy and happy. This picture reflected fully how hard it was for dad to achieve up to this stage. And how could dad make enough money to feed the whole family as a sole income earner?Besides the fact he married to a decent wife who was willing to live an austere life style, dad applied his talent in his after-work business - a family farm in the back yard. He dug a pond to grow soft shell turtle for selling to the restaurants in the city. He did the successful marketing all by the guaranteed quality of goods and his reliability.
Dad then expanded this home business to egg farming. He built a row of chicken cages above the soft shell turtle pond. And above the chicken cage was a loofah gourd frame structure over which the loofah gourd vine provided a good shade for the hens and soft shell turtles living under it. The gourd provided a free nutritious dish on the table for the family. The hens' dropping dropped into the pond to feed the turtles with free nutrient supplement. Wow! what a marvelous ecology friendly farm dad had designed!
The family farm only helped to generate enough money for food for his big family. To provide better living quality for the family such as clothing, medicine, movies, books and education, dad needed to find a way out. But how was it possible in years of 60's and 70's to a salary man?
Perhaps Heaven had witnessed his hardship and his diligence in both work and family, dad's research project won the scholarship rewarded by the Central Research Institute. His annual income was doubled because of this reward from 1965, lasting 12 years, till 1977 when the youngest daughter Zhi was sent into university. Then, his research was no longer rewarded no matter how hard he worked. "Perhaps subconsciously I knew my financial burden was not that tough so I was not working as hard as before." dad told me once we talked about his past.In 1981, dad reached the legitimate retired age as an employee of a state-owned business. As fit, intelligent and helpful as he was at age 60, he felt he still got a lot to offer. His eldest son-in-law had just started a tool machinery manufacturing company, and was struggling with managing the filing of thousands of blue prints of machine parts. Dad's ability totally fitted in this position so he joined the new team right away from the time he was officially retired.
Dad helped in our big brother-in-law's company for about two years, during which period he set up a very efficient file management system for this new company. At this time, dad's former colleague, who was then the chancellor of St. John's University, heard of the news of dad's retirement and came to see dad. The chancellor eagerly invited dad to work for his university. Having seen our big brother-in-law's company was running well, he accepted the offer from St. John's University, an administration job.
So from 1983 dad stayed with us at our another home at Dan Shui where my wife's school was located. St. John's was only about 3 km to the North of where we lived. Dad only needed to take a short journey to and back school every day by bus. Working for school left him a lot of free time, and I noticed he began to studying Buddhism books.
His most favorite Buddhism book was Diamond Sutra. Sometimes he mentioned about some sutra excerpts to us. Though we identified ourselves Buddhist we rarely pondered the teachings in the sutra, therefore we were not dad's good audiences when dad came to the topic about Buddhism. But dad must have a lot of insight from his learning of Diamond Sutra and was earnestly in need of someone who would listen to him with some interest.One morning during school's term break, dad planned to go to his home in Tainan to stay with mum, he asked me for a lift to Taipei. Throughout this journey his talk had been centered around Diamond Sutra. I could only politely nodded and smiled here and there pretending I was interested in this topic but actually there was not any echo in my mind. We arrived Taipei railway station. Before we parted, dad concluded by saying "anyway, the core of Buddha's teaching in Diamond Sutra is only one thing - never ever attach your mind to anything, mind or physical." At that moment I suddenly felt a flash cross my mind, I had some echo with dad's remark before he turned toward the platform entrance. After dad decided to retire from St. John's University in 1988, Diamond Sutra was still his main studying subject. He respectfully copied that sutra by hand with his excellent calligraphy skill. The picture is the first page of dad's handwritten script of Diamond Sutra.
After his fully retirement, he did not waste his time in pursuing worldly pleasure, he spent a lot of time in compiling his family tree; recording the family's big events crossing from 1920 to 1989; doing his spiritual practice through copying sutras by handwriting with brush pen.I felt he was even busier than the days prior to his fully retirement. He was doing all these things as if knowing his days in this world was not long. Unexpectedly on 14th February 2000 he passed away with smiley expression, as what mum witnessed and said, at Tainan City Hospital.
I have been curious about what was the thought that came up dad's mind as he exhaled his last breath? Perhaps it was the words he said to me before he turned toward the platform entrance, "the core of Buddha's teaching in Diamond Sutra is only one thing - never ever attach your mind to anything, mind or physical."
May dad's soul be resting blissfully in the Pure Land of Amituofo.
