A Miracle

Throughout our life, we might encounter something which we found hard to explain how it could be happening to us, and if it benefits us, then we tend to call it 'a miracle'. In my 17 years of living in New Zealand, I had this 'something' happened to me 6 years ago, and because it came to me when I was desperately in need of it, so I called it 'A Miracle'.

To tell the story, it has to be started from mid 2002.

June 2002, my mother left this world. Not long after the 49 days of mourning period was over, in August, the owner of the company where I had worked for 9 years, decided to put and end to his business. So no new stock would be coming in for sale, and two other staff would have to leave immediately. I and another colleague were to be kept till the remaining stock was sold up or till the end of August 2003, whichever came about first.

I was greatly shocked upon hearing the owner's announcement. The reason unemployment was so dreadful to me was that my two children were at their teens' stage in schools, and I was then already 51 years old with no outstanding specific skill. Although I would be still get paid to do my job after the announcement of shutting down in one year time, I knew it was very short. So I had numerous nightmares since then.

A couple of interested businessmen approached my boss to assess the possibility of buying our business. I put a great deal of hope on the prospective new owner but they discontinued the talk after a few meetings. My mood during that stage was like riding roller coaster. I had been a voluntary telephone counselor for Chinese Lifeline since 1994, and now I became their client.

I sent out my curriculum vitae to about 10 different companies to apply for jobs such as call center staff, accounting staff, receptionist, store person and etc. None of them was returned with an interview confirmation. But that was not surprising me.

In March 2003, I came across a recruitment flier of Stagecoach Bus saying they had a program which helped to put the interested applicant on the bus driving seat. I was confident with my driving skill, I could do it. "Why hadn't I thought of becoming a bus driver before?", I thought to myself.

So after having talked on the prospect of becoming a bus driver with my wife, I launched on Stagecoach website and registered my application right away. A few days later, I received a phone call from Stagecoach telling me where to go to undertake an assessment on literacy and numerical skill. I went to the specified place as told, passed the assessment and was told that the depot manager would call me to set the time and place of the interview.

On 7th April 2003, I received a call from the manager of North Shore depot telling me the interview was set on the next morning.

I think I must have performed very well in the interview because they told me right after the interview that before they hired me they had to have a yes report from their designated doctor.

On 9th April, I went to see their doctor. On 10th April, the human resources officer notified me the success of my employment and that 18th April was the day I became an employee of Stagecoach. So I submitted my formal resignation to my boss, my heart felt totally relieved.

The training took off well. I drove the bus on the vast training field for the first two days. But from the third day I noticed my feces was very dark, and it was even darker the next day. I thought this could be the result of my long term stress and the dramatic change of my career style. The fifth day still saw the worsened symptom and felt a withering mental energy. On the sixth day I was sent to sit road test for passenger endorsement and I failed. But that was OK, that would not necessarily terminate my employment, however, I seemed to have a nervous breakdown triggered by the test result that after a sleepless night, I decided to quit my dream of becoming a bus driver. The next morning, I saw the feces turned to the normal color of light brown.

I went to see doctor, and was prescribed with antidepressant pills.

I was then a real unemployed dad. The feeling was acutely painful. My previous boss was kindly taking me back but I knew there were only two months away from the shut-down date of 31st August.

I think this was when the miracle began to cut in. On 18th July, when I was preparing to leave the office, my friend called me asking if I would be interested in teaching new immigrants the basics of everything about New Zealand. She told me she was already involved in that job, and she knew the company was still taking in more program advisers to meet the rapid growing enrollments. "OF COURSE I AM INTERESTED!" I yelled into the phone. So she gave me the contact phone and e-mail address of the head of education of that company.

After I came back home, I went straight to the computer instead of having tea first after work. I brought up a blank e-mail compose page on the screen and started typing a proper message stating how I got his e-mail address, what I intended for, what I could do, and why I should be granted an interview. Also attached my CV. Checked spelling and then clicked SEND. I felt totally relieved when I came to the dinning table for dinner, and also could not believe that I had asked for an interview in an aggressive way in the e-mail.

It was Friday night when I sent that e-mail, so I did not expect a reply during the weekend, actually I anticipated it would just be ignored. I had a pessimistic thought then.

After work on Monday, 21st July, the first thing I did was opening the computer and checking e-mail. Out of my expectation, among several mails was one with the name of that manger whom I asked for an interview.

I hesitated a moment thinking what would his reply be like; "yes, we need you immediately!" or "regret to advise you that we are now fully staffed."?

Click! The mail popped open. "....you seem to be lacking of teaching experience....we would consider if you could elaborate more on your educational qualification."

I was somewhat disappointed upon reading the message at first. But the second thought that arose was that I got to fight harder for the sake of my family.

I suddenly remembered I used to be serving as a political trainer for one and half years in the air force cadet training center when I was in Taiwan. So I edited my CV by adding this bit of qualification. Wrote a mail and sent them over with fingers crossed.

The next day, Tuesday, I came back home from work in the evening. Went straight to computer and saw his name listed with other mails in the inbox.

"....would this Thursday be convenient to you for an interview? We are at ....", the e-mail read. I could not believe what I read. I thought I had misunderstood the message. I read it at least three times before I was pretty sure I was given an interview. I came to dinner and felt the meal was particularly yummy.

On the appointed time of Thursday, 24th July, I walked to the reception counter to report my arrival. A moment later, I was in the interview room with the head of education. I later knew from other staff that normally if you are chosen, you will be interviewed by the managing director on another arranged date for the final decision to be made. But for some reason the head of education asked me to wait for a moment in the room while he went to get the MD to interview me. Then I was sent home to wait for the result.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon of 30th July 2003 when I was doing my office chores, the phone rang, and I quickly recognized it was the head of education who interviewed me the other day. In the phone he told me that I was employed as Program Adviser and the commencing date was 18th August 2003.

The new job came in time, 13 days prior to the shut-down date of my old one.

In retrospection of this episode of my life, I label it "A Miracle".

Tear Noodle

During the new year holiday, we noticed there was a new restaurant opened nearby the Northcote Library where I and my wife usually spend our Saturday mornings. The three Chinese characters "手扯麵" on the menu posted on the window outside of Xi'an Food Bar drew our attention. From the meaning of these three characters, we imagined the noodle was made by tearing the dough into finer strips to be ready for cooking. That must be it, but how the tearing technique is like? Curiosity pulled us into this restaurant and ordered two bowls of Tear Noodle with Fried Bean Sauce.

I selected a table with the best position for me to observe how the chef tore the dough into the right size of strips of noodle. The kitchen is not hidden in another quarter, instead, the customers can watch how their dishes are done by the chefs. The owner is smart that he adopts this tactic to attract more curious customers to come in.

I had watched several times on TV how Pull Noodle was made. It was spectacular, I would say, watching the whole process of making Pull Noodle. Here is one in Youtube. The making of Tear Noodle was not as high skill demanding as Pull Noodle.

I saw the chef began to stretch on a piece of dough the shape of rectangular. When it was stretched to about 30 cm he began to shake the band shape of dough up and down and smack it against the bench while at the same time to pull it further apart to make the dough strap even thinner. When the right thickness of the dough strap was reached, he then tore from the middle of the strap into finer threads of noodle and throw them straight into the pot of boiling water.

When the bowl of noodle was served to my table, each piece of the noodle looked very lively fresh. I pick up a few threads of it and put them into mouth. Beside the tasty sauce that made my taste bud cry, the special elasticity of the noodle made the chewing a delighted experience. So the whole bowl of noodle was finished in no time.

I think I can make it myself. It is not as skill demanding as Pull Noodle which might require years of on-job practice. But with this Tear Noodle, I think a couple of tries should make me there. So one day I asked my wife to make me a small dough for test.

First I rolled the dough into a shape of a rod of about 4 cm in diameter. Then divided it into pieces of 10 cm each.
Then flattened each of these 10 cm long dough pieces by palm into rectangular shape of about 10x15x1 cm. Then applied a thin coat of oil all over the dough piece, stacked them in a box with lid on and kept it in the fridge to wait for the tearing process to begin at the desired cooking time.Tearing is the part most challenging and fascinating in the whole process. It requires some practice before you can tear a strip of the right width all the way along the stretched piece of band dough from one end to another. At the beginning stage, when you are able to tear a fine strip off the band dough for a reasonable length by chance, you will become so excited that you might scream your head off. At least I and my wife were like that at our second practice which we made our Tear Noodle look quite like that in the restaurant.
Recently I Googled "手扯麵". Tear Noodle, I found a lot of blog posts talking about this handcraft. One said that he was addicted to it and had made Tear Noodle for meal everyday since he learned it from somewhere.

As to me, I am so fascinated by this way of making noodle for the following reasons:

• It sort of entitles you to be a Noodle Master and thus increases your self-esteem.
• Not any other tool such as knife, rolling stick or big working bench is needed than your hands.
• You don't need to sprinkle a lot of dry flour in the noodle making process in order to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other and make the working area dusty and messy.

Are you ready? Let's make a Tear Noodle meal for dinner tonight.

58th Birthday

Both my and my wife's birthdays are in February. So we have developed a tradition of celebrating our birthdays together on the same day, normally after 25th, in the month since our marriage. I can not remember as start from which year exactly have my children begun to remind me of our birthday celebration. But as far as I can remember that since 2006 when our daughter, Tessie, secured a full time job and our son, Chenny, was able to earn for his own spending while studying in the university, they began to take us out for a family lunch in a restaurant.

This year when our birthdays drew near, Chenny initiated this topic at a dinner conversation at home. He asked me how would I and my wife plan for our birthdays. As usual, we used of this opportunity trying to convert him into believing that one should be commemorating ones mother for the suffering she bore in the labor but not delving into activities designed for ones own joy on their birthday. This time he patiently listened the whole lecture without any dispute as he always did before. I said to my wife later on that our son was more matured this year. We also concluded that our children expected us to be aware of the arrival of our birthdays and plan some special activities for ourselves. That meant they were very care about us!

So on 23rd, a Monday, when we were supposed to attend in the weekly Buddhist meditation session in Greenlane, we decided to add something special to our usual transportation, normally by bus to and back, by train, and ferry boat for this time.

After we arrived at city, we normally changed to ride on another bus heading for Greenlane, but that day we hopped on a train instead. I had never got a chance to ride a train in the past 17 years since we moved to New Zealand. So we felt like a child traveling by train for the first time. I took a photo of my wife in the carriage. I saw her smiling all the way through out the trip.

On the way back after the group meditation session in the Buddhist meeting, we explored the Ferry Terminal Building in the city for the first time again since we have moved to New Zealand. It was full of shops and tourists.

I checked the timetable for a ferry heading for Devonport where we can have a relaxing stride along the beach and enjoy the peaceful reminiscent atmosphere of the small town. I had travelled by ferry to small islands for a couple of times before, but this was the first time I rode it from city to Devonport. So it was my another first time experience.

It was two O'clockish when we arrived Devonport. There the sea view, flying sea gulls, tourists and the shops created a peaceful relaxing picture that made you sleepy. We enjoyed ourselves there for an hour and then took a bus home. I thought to myself that the simple but joyful tour we had that day had somehow fulfilled Chenny's wish of seeing us to do something special to celebrate our birthdays.

In the following week, first saw Tessie's e-mail asking if we would be interested in watching an opera show called "My Fair Lady". She would buy the ticket costing $74 - 100 each for us as birthday gift if we said yes. Astonished by her generosity but we replied saying we preferred a family lunch at Daikoku Restaurant on the weekend.

Early in the morning of my birthday I received a text message in my mobile phone from Chenny wishing me a happy one.

So we had a lovely family lunch there. Chenny brought his girlfriend Lily along. We shot a few photos in the restaurant to mark our birthday celebration of 2009.

Our 58th birthday is indeed an unforgettable one. The fact that children will grow; we will get old; nothing material remains unchanged permanently; and etc of thoughts rise and sink in my mind on that day. The force that drove me to write this post was the feeling of delight in receiving the return feed from my children.