Resume my role as a telephone counselor

I had once been a telephone counselor since 1994. That was a voluntary job helping the Chinese speaking residents of Auckland when they are in need of someone to talk about their difficult situation. It was a part-time voluntary job which I contributed six hours per month in the evening sitting and waiting for calls in the telephone room. That job lasted for about 10 years till October 2005 when my Parkinson's disease disabled me from driving.

Although I had stopped serving as a telephone counselor since then, I have been playing this role now and then in the past five years. What motivated me to write this blog was due to my latest experience in helping my family friends going through their problems, and that two cases brought the memory of that 10 years working as a volunteer up my mind screen.

I was browsing on the Internet in the morning of last Friday, the phone rang and I answered it. It was from our family friend. Her tone was frustrated, bit angry and anxious, instantly I knew she must be having some problems and I should provide whatever assistance to help her out. Naturally I had gone through the basic steps of telephone counseling skills with her. And it was a satisfactory one because later in that evening she rang to thank my help as her problems had been solved and she was happy again.

The next day, I received yet another request for counseling from my friend Mr. X his problem was sent to me by text message through mobile. The message reflected anxiety and depressing sort of feelings. I texted back saying that I would reply his message by e-mail as it got to be a lot lengthy. Then we both found that even a long e-mail could not touch the core of the problem, so we arranged a telephone conversation.

Mr. X's case was done in the evening of the next day. It comprised of three seperate contacts by three means of e-mail, telephone and mobile devise.

In the telephone session, I mapped up the whole picture and empathized him, and by the end of the process, I heard the tone of his speech turned from depressing and anxious into calm and hopeful. He commented on my e-mail that I sent to him earlier as having pin-pointed something that was troubling him.

In my diary that noted my recent telephone counselling experience, I could not surpress the joy of my heart and have thus typped to conclude the episode I played in. "... I was affected with my routine, and the tremor becomes bit more rigorous, however, the feeling of being helpful is nice."

Learning Google Spreadsheet - Part 1

For some reason I have been fascinated by the amazement of how the spreadsheet can process complicated data since the end of October 2010.

It all began with Chenny's request for my assistance in sorting out a three-page name list which he scribbled notes all over the blank areas about the class time changes, students contact details and etc. the notes were so messy that even Chenny was not sure what some of the notes were about.

It was not a big task. Before long I had it finished by putting those notes in a Google spreadsheet. But by the time I was going to give it back to him, I was curious to know if he had any administration system in place to help him managing his music teaching job. All he showed to me was a timetable which sets the week days on the top row and a time with an increment of 30 minutes ran on the first column starting from 9 AM till 9:30 PM, and about 30 students names were scattering over the grid of the table. This table serves to tell him the class time of his student. Other than this timetable, is the three pages of a computer print which the music Center gives him for the purpose of contact with students. As time goes by these three-page prints became very messy, and Chenny was the only one who could get information out of them, but I believe even him would find it hard. I think that was why he asked me to retype it.

I vaguely know that database is the answer, but I aim at making it possible to access on the Internet so that Chenny can refer to his database through his iPhone when he is on the road. So I searched for the functions on the Web and landed at the webpages of Google docs.

I knew Google docs contains spreadsheet application, but I had only learned how to use the most basic formulas like addition, subsection, modification and division. After some searches, I found that the functions I had in mind had also been asked by many other Google docs users in the help forum, so I knew I was on the right direction of my adventure in the exploration of creating a working system for Chenny.

First of all, I created the main worksheet which I labeled it "Student". This is for Chenny to enter their contact details, class time, class day, fee to charge. Then the challenge came when I created the second worksheet labeled as "Time window".

In the "Time window", my idea was placing a formula in each of the cells that was able to grab the data in the column of class day and class time in the "Student" worksheet and to place the student's name in the corresponding cells in the "Time window" worksheet.

It took me about two weeks in reading many many relevant posts in Google's help forum and playing with the formula which I thought should work but always ended up with a return of "N/A", "ERROR", "REF" or anything but not what I wanted. Gradually my frustration was rising and my patience was running out, suddenly the right data turned up in the cell when I pressed "enter". That feeling was wonderful. It was like you had just won a big prize of Lotto.

For almost one whole month, most of my time day and night were spent in the exploration and
experiment of the formulas. Due to this sudden change in my everyday living style, I spent very little time on the Internet. Some of my friends noticed this change, e-mailed and asked me why I was suddenly so quiet on the Web.

Once I had sorted out the first working formula, it became easier to interpret the strange language used in the formula. Below are some of the formulas which I figured out after innumerable experiments:

=sort(filter('Lesson log'!A2:K,'Lesson log'!J2:J="y",'Lesson log'!I2:I<='Lesson log'!G2:G,'Lesson log'!A2:A>=(today()-14)),2,true,1,true)

=count(iferror(filter(Student!A2:A,Student!F2:F=E4,Student!G2:G<>""),"0"))

=iferror(iferror(filter(Student!A:A,Student!F:F=F1,Student!G:G=A15);filter(Student!A:A,Student!F:F=F1,Student!G:G=A14,Student!H:H=2)),"")

=index(filter(C1:C243,search(H34,B1:B243)),1)

By the end of November, I had accomplished a Google spreadsheet that was able to accommodate Chenny’s need for queries, information check, statistics of his earning. And he finds it helpful, and I feel I am still useful.

Chan family (詹家)

In the afternoon of 18/09/2010, someone was knocking the door. I slowly moved to unlock the door and found it was Mr. Chan standing at the door step with a warm and kind smile on his face, both of his hands holding two boxes of something. "Some freshly baked moon cake for you" he said to me. Suddenly I realized that the moon festival was around the corner, another year had slipped into the history silently and rapidly. Since Mr. and Mrs. Chan retired in 2006, they had been presenting us with their homemade moon cake prior to the moon festival.

I thanked and received the two boxes from him. I opened the boxes and saw 16 pieces of assorted moon cakes. To me these are not just cakes, they represent solid friendship.

We made acquaintance with Chan family in September of 1992 in a Taiwan countrymen party held in a Taiwanese family somewhere in Northcote of Auckland city. Since then our two families have been in contact now and then and have never lost in touch in the past 18 years of time.

My impression of this family is hard working, intellectual and humble. They raised three sons. And not only that all of them are good boys at home, they all have outstanding performance at school. No wonder in 2010, when their youngest son was granted doctorate degree of Biochemistry, we witnessed their success in creating three doctors for New Zealand in 20 years of time.

Mr. Chan himself led a good example to his three boys. He possessed bachelor degree of Chemistry from Tonghai University in Taiwan. Having immigrated to New Zealand, he worked as a Baker in a supermarket. The work hour of a Baker is normally in the midnight, so Mr. Chan enrolled himself on a further study course in the University, and won himself a master degree of chemical engineering two years later.

Mrs. Chan worked at an electrical supplies company as an assembler. In order to help with her husband supporting their three children, she took extra jobs to be done at home. The children saw their mother worked so hard, they spared their studying time voluntarily to work on the job that mother took home.

Mrs. Chan is famous in the Taiwanese community for her very talented cooking skill. During the first half of the 90s, Asian food was very rare in the market. However we've got a chance to learn from her how to make those Taiwan delicacies at home. There is almost nothing that she doesn't know how to make in terms of cooking. Although she is famous of her talent, she lives quietly in the community. Every day she goes to work in the morning, and rushes back to make dinner for the family in the evening. Unless it is necessary, never have I heard that she drops in someone's home to chat. All her time is for the children and the family, and for their friends who are in need of help.

When I was going through my career crisis in early 2003, she quietly sought for any job vacancy through her personal networking for me. She has a nephew working for a computer company in Auckland. Her nephew is in a position of recruiting new staff to assist him. And one day when I paid a visit to their place, she said to me in a kind tone, "don't have to worry about job, go to see my nephew when your current job is vanished." Though I did not turn to her for help that time because a miracle fell upon me and made me secure a good job, her kind enthusiastic support conveyed through that few words is never erased from my memory.

Having three excellent grown-up sons, their retirement life is very secure of course and they are simply able to enjoy a very wealthy style of life, but they are not. Almost every time I rang them to make an appointment of visiting them at their place, they are always at home to answer my call. Mr. Chan is always working in the garden or on some housework, while Mrs. Chan makes simple but delicious food in the kitchen.

Although their three children secretly discussing which one among them should be living close to where their parents are so as to look after them. But Mr. and Mrs. Chan frankly told the three children that they should not be worrying for them for the time being, and it is okay for them to go to any place in the world to actualize their potentiality. So now all three of their children are in big international research or financial institutions in Europe and Australia. Here, in Auckland live this pair of very happy mum and dad being busy in the kitchen and in the garden respectively.

Jean paid a visit to her mother in hospital in Taiwan

Chenny and I got up at 5:45 AM in order to drive to airport during the busy traffic hours of the motorway and arrived there in time to meet with his mother. From my observation, Chenny is nice to his mother although very often he is impatient with her.

Jean's mother, aged 90, had a fall at home and then lost consciousness during the daytime one day in late June of 2010, and was thus rushed to the hospital. On July 5, Chenny and I sent Jean to airport early in the morning to get on board of the earliest flight of Korean airline for Taiwan to pay a visit to her mother in hospital. Time flies by very quickly, Jean's scheduled returning date is up, and here we are going on the way in the raining dark early morning toward Auckland airport to meet her.

The traffic was not as bad as we expected, so by the time of 6:45 AM, we were already sitting in the waiting room of the arrival exit, while well ahead of the 7:30 AM arriving time of the flight. I estimated Jean would not be able to get through the customs and everything within one and a half hour, so we both dozed off in the waiting zone. Suddenly Jean appeared at the exit with a cart loaded with three luggage on it. Chenny briskly stood up and walked forward to greet his mom with an affectionate hug and a sheepish smile. I found these 2 to 3 seconds Chenny's greeting to his mother was very moving and beautiful, and I regretted I was not able to capture that few seconds in the camera.

After having settled everything at home, Jean told me that once her mother was in a very dangerous state, "mother's face showed great pain, nervousness, horror; hands and legs pushing and kicking as if being horrified or annoyed by something, and everyone of the family was expecting the very worst and showed extreme anxiety." she continued, "Suddenly an idea flashed through my mind that I should go to the pure land Buddhist group nearby to make pray for a peaceful pass away for mother and/or do a repentance service on behalf of mother."

So she told her siblings about what she thought and wanted to do for the rest of the day, and she immediately left for that pure land Buddhist center.

At the receptionist's desk, a female Buddhist told her that they were undergoing a 21 day service called "the three-time reminder (三時繫念法會)" which were exactly suitable to her mother's case. So she enrolled on straightaway and took part in the ritual wholeheartedly through the rest of that day.

Having returned to the hospital, she told her siblings what she had done that day, and then they began to notice that their mothers facial expression radiated peacefulness, and the doctor discharged her from the ICU that night, and every one of the family were greatly relieved and unanimously attributed this dramatic change to what Jean had done in the Temple.

Jean has told me many stories about what she experienced, saw, heard in this trip to Taiwan. To get the cheapest airfare, she flew with Korean airline, and thus had to stop by Seoul airport on both ways to change airplane. On her flying to Taiwan, they were supposed to stay overnight in Seoul and change airplane the next morning. That was her first time in life she had to travel on a journey through which she must use her limited English to solve any problem that could possibly arise, so although she still smiled all the time when she was telling me the story, I believe she must be pretty nervous when the aircraft was descending to land and that would be the beginning of using her English in making inquiries relating to accommodation, meals, and etc..

She said that she could feel all the single female passengers who needed to spend one night in Seoul to change airplane in the next morning were anxiously looking for someone of same-sex to join as a group. And soon there came two ladies toward her, one Asian and one European. They friendly and politely asked if Jean was going to change airplane in the next morning? And so three of them naturally became a group, and they went to the transition desk, to the bus stop, to the hotel, to the check-in desk, to the restaurant for dinner, and etc. together. and Jean's innate enthusiasm naturally made her become the leader of the three member group. The Asian lady was heading for Qingdao, and she had no English almost. The old Europeans lady was to fly to London to see her granddaughter. She was living in Tauranga. Jean's limited English turned out to be helpful to the two nervous ladies during the trip.

In the next early morning after Jean's arrival, I found this e-mail in the inbox when I turned on the computer after I finished my morning practice. The message indicates that mom's condition is still improving. Amituofo!

姐夫與真姐您好！

真姐安全抵達，我們也放心了。

今(8/2)早進病房，媽張著眼睛看我，跟媽講話她會點頭；把手套拿掉，跟她作手部運動，幫她作合十動作說"謝謝妳啊！"，之後她說"謝謝妳啊!"媽就自己拱手了。

今天這些進步都讓我與敢非常驚喜，但媽手上的傷口發炎紅腫，倒是令人耽心。皮膚乾癢讓媽常想抓癢，幫媽剪了指甲，擦了E油，情況緩解。

陪伴中，敢早晚都幫媽作腿部伸曲運動各50次，避免僵硬。

下午2：00遷移到安養中心，照顧雖不如醫院周到但也不錯了，敢晚上可以回家好好休息了，他也夠辛苦了。

你們多保重！

阿健

When My Wife Is Away

My wife left for Taiwan yesterday to pay a visit to her mother, aged 90, who was sent to hospital urgently a few days ago.

In the past three years since her last visit to her mother in Taiwan in 2007, we had never parted from each other. We saw each other in the day and in the night; we had meals together every day; we talked on children and on life now and then; we helped each other and actually I relied on her more because of my Parkinson's disease. I thought all of these would be just repeated on and on till the last day of hers or mine, but we knew that sooner or later she would have to fly to Taiwan for her mother's sake.

Of course we had many occasions of parting from each other for a few days or even a few weeks in the past 33 years of marriage life, but the longing to see her again was never be so strong as this time. I don't know what's wrong with me.

She is scheduled to come back on August 2, and the countdown process has been activated yesterday at the time when she passed through the departure gate.

Marriage -- Then and Now (part II)

My previous blog post is to some degree in favor of the notion that "marriage is the grave of love affairs". I got to hide that post away from being seen by my wife. To my view point the female agree with this saying more than the male do, but once they got married they tend to bury it deep in their minds and try not to mention it. Because otherwise, what can they do? They are locked up, and so do the male.

It sounds very miserable, isn't it? It is true. I have seen so many real examples including my own case, none of them is free from complaining each other occasionally. I believe when they engage in verbal fighting, the saying of "marriage is the grave of love affairs" comes up their mind. It is a very powerless situation, you just got to be conceded with the reality.

I believe there is almost no exception among all the married couples in the world that throughout their marriage life they never had the thought of getting divorce flashed across their minds. I say so, because it arose in my mind many times, though fortunately it did not stay forever, otherwise if it manifested a step further, it will definitely hurt the relationship and consequently will bring marriage into the grave for sure. If all my friends and relatives say that my marriage is a very harmonious one, and yet, the aforesaid secretive thought of mine still arise occasionally, then you will realize how delicate the marriage life is, and why the divorce rate nowadays rockets year by year in our society.

I'm not saying to my next generation that marriage is dreadful; is fragile, and so they should stay away from marriage, and lead a celibate lifestyle throughout their life. Actually I'm trying to make clear my disposition about marriage as that it is our responsibility to get married and to manage it nicely if we tick yes to most of the following guidelines.

1. Are you healthy physically and mentally?
2. Are you on a full-time job, or in a business that can support your family financially?
3. Do you agree that he or she has certain characteristics that attracted you during your dating period?
4. Do you think that on major issues such as religious belief, political stands, moral values yours are quite agreeable to your partner's?

Give your answers to the above questions honestly, and if all the answers are positive, then, man, especially those with good genes, should find no grounds to stay away from entering marriage, because marriage is a form of guarantee; commitment; duty; actualization to your love affairs. Despite that it is true, we still see a lot of candidates wandering about the door of marriage, being reluctant to enter it, until some new factors emerge and force them into either marriage or flight. And I think choosing flight is the majority.

Why is that? There are many factors that can fire a flight. The most common one, as far as I can think of, is the fading love ingredients. When a relationship gets stuck in this situation, both of them suffer, and I finally realize why there are psychologists or counselors everywhere nowadays.

I'm not a psychologist so I cannot help people in this type of suffering scientifically. But I believe the cure can be found in tradition and in spiritualism. My prescription will be like in the following.

• Avoid living under the same roof, or observe strict celibacy for as long as possible before marriage.
• Spare at least 15 minutes every day to proceed indoctrination, brainwash. Get your preferred passages from Bible, Sutra, or whatever that last 15 minutes long when you chant those inspirational passages.
• Believe in causality. Believe that everything we do matters, even a very trivial deed brings its consequence. So be conscientious in what you did, what you said, what you thought.

Sounds very stupid? But when you paid the bills to the professional and still get no cure, then this is one you should try, at least it is free, and all you could suffer is 15 minutes, but most important is that you have done something to the rescue of your marriage issue.

Marriage - Then and Now

There was a popular saying in the early 1960s in Taiwan, "marriage is the cemetery of love affair" so it said. This phrase was often heard during my junior high school days. Young people, especially female, in that era liked to comment on marriage by quoting that phrase whenever a hot debate or chat on that topic was coming to an end.

As a small boy I, in my early teens, dimly understood what that phrase meant. It was the fashionable way of saying "once you get married, love affairs will be gone" in those days.

Looking back, I am very sure it was because young people at that time was beginning to have more freedom in making friends with opposite sex. Once they began to go dating with each other, they were overwhelmed by the sweetness, nervousness, and excitement that streamed out of their love affairs. But all these honey tastes faded away soon after they got married due to various reasons. Then they concluded, "marriage is the cemetery of love affairs", this must be it.

I remembered it was during 1960s when the romance fiction writer,Qiong Yao won the position of the most the popular novelist in Taiwan. Her stories captured the hearts of young people, particularly girls. Her books were brought to school secretly because the disciplinary authority of the school was very annoyed to see so many girls reading Qiong Yao's fiction during the class time.

I agree that Qiong Yao's fiction has some magic power. I remembered in the summer vocation of my second year in the junior high school, when I was about 13 years old, I found a copy of Qiong Yao's fiction placed on sister's desk.

Before that day, I used to be criticizing her fiction as unhealthy and depressing, and I had never read any of her books. But out of curiosity that day, I picked up the book and started reading it. As soon as I had finished the second page, I was totally absorbed into the story titled "outside the window". It is a story about the love between a high school student girl and her most admired class teacher. I was so deeply fascinated by that story that I read without a break throughout the night and finished it in the next morning in one go.

Therefore under the influence of Qiong Yao's fictions, I witnessed the beginning of what was then called "free love", meaning, unlike their parents' generation in which abiding by match-maker's arrangement was a tradition, instead, they are free to pursue friend of opposite sex whom they admire. Qiong Yao's books brought young people abundant of imageries about the beautifulness, sweetness, excitedness or even bitterness of love.

I think that was why my generation saw most of the young people never hesitated in entering the marriage. That covers across a range of life stages, for instance, pursuing, love-letter writing, dating, engagement, wedding, parenting. And if they are lucky enough, they fulfill their marriage successfully till the end of their lives.

Unfortunately a great percentage of marriage falls in the following pattern.

The sweetness remained growing steadily during the dating period and reached its peak when they just entered their marriage stage. Then the sweetness found in the love affairs started its declining process. Why? Because there are so many factors that may shake the foundation of their love affairs, such as parenting, if they have children right after their marriage; bills to be paid; relationship issues relating to in-laws; and etc..

Most of the marriages are maintained in a functional only state in my generation, only a very few of them are able to claim that theirs are the sweetest and the most successful ones. Though many of them are disappointed with their marriage lives, the traditional values such as mutual respect, toleration and patience and etc., taught by their parents and in school do help them manage to keep their marriage moving forward.

Thirty seven years after I got married, I am now watching how my next generation's marriage philosophy is like. My observation tells me that a majority of them dread the idea of getting married. Why? I think it is something to do with the overall out-of-balance of materialism and spiritualism in the modern society.

The materialism is looked upon as far more important than spiritualism, and this results in herding the young into a logic of material guarantees successful marriage. So, before they reach their preset goal of income, they tend to avoid entering marriage. But the material world changes so rapidly, by the time they reach their preset goal, the income has been devalued or more new stuff are there to tempt their desire, so they have to reset the goal, and it seems to be endless, just like a dog chasing its own tail.

People tend to think that the more money you have the more successful your marriage will be. Most people believe money is equivalent to happiness. But the ancient saints and sages have already told us that is not true. "Happiness comes from within", they said. And this is what the spiritualism is about.

So my advice to my children is to constantly watch the scale of materialism and the spiritualism in the mind and always keep them in balance, and leave the rest of the matter to the hands of Buddha.

The Sight of My Father's Back

Father appeared in my dream recently. As usual, just like when he was alive, he was quiet and only smiled slightly in the dream. After that dream, I recalled bits and pieces about him. The first mind picture I had was Dounan Railway Station. That was one sunny afternoon in 1974. I stood by my father waiting for his North-bound train to return home. I was then serving my obligatory military service at Huwei Air Force Cadet Training Centre, and father himself rode one early South-bound train to where I was stationed to see me.

Out of missing me and concerning of my winter clothing, he spontaneously decided to bring some home-made food and some warm jackets to come to Huwei to see me. His appearance at the visitor's reception quarter that afternoon was beyond my expectation, so when I was paged for a meeting at the reception quarter of the camp entrance gate, I was puzzled.

When I rode my bike to rush to the camp gate from my office, I saw a medium height, solid built body with crew cut hair figure from a distance. I recognized it was father, both hands carrying bags of stuff. My mind was deeply touched upon seeing father, especially by his bothering to travel whole day in order to hand me some comfort.

He was not talkative. Apart from basic questioning about my living details in the camp, silence filled up most of the time of our being together. I briefly guided him through the barrack, and before long, it was about time to leave for catching his return train to Taipei.

I gave my father a lift with my bumping bike to Dounan Station 5 km away. While waiting for train on the platform, he became more talkative, and it was all about how I should be looking after myself well while being away from home. Soon, the train slowly rumbled in and put an halt by the platform. I saw from his back, noticed a slight bent over it. At that moment, the sight of his back made me recalled his being the most pampered only natural son of Chen family during his childhood and youthhood. And now, he was 59. Man did age after all. He entered the carriage, waved his hand signalling me to return to camp safely. My eyes welled up with tears at this moment till the train moved out of my sight.

The reminiscence of that episode about seeing my father off on the platform of Doulan Railway Station connected my thought to the short story titled "The sight of father's back (背影)“ written by Zhu Ziqing, a prominent literature scholar (1898-1948). Every Junior high school student in Taiwan read this article in their year two Chinese textbook. In the story, Zhu mentioned about how their originally well-off family became a shabby one and how his father, facing the worsening family setback, reacted to peoples and matters. Zhu Ziqing filled the story with great deal of emotions both his father's and his own. I was so moved when I reread the story that I intended to write some of the stories about my father.

Father was born to a wealthy family in 1915. My grandfather, being a well-known carpenter and furniture trader, had earned a big fortune for Chen family and owned many farming lands. Apprently my grandmother had had infertility problem since her marriage, as she bore her only son, my father at age 36. My uncle was adopted a few years before my grandmother got pregnancy. People in those days believed adopting a child, especially a boy, would increase high chance of a boy born to this family. (people in picture, from left: my aunt, my mother, my grandmother, my grand father, my father, my uncle)

So my father, being the only natural son of Chen family, was deeply pampered. He at a stage of his childhood, loved raising pets such as rabbit, bird. My mother was the one to tidy up the droppings. At another stage in his early youthhood, his interest changed to radio. When he heard that a new radio product was available in the market, one of my grandfather's apprentices would be assigned to escort him by riding a bicycle to Taichung City about 25 km away to buy one.

Life began to challenge my father from around the time when a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake hit the middle part of Taiwan and flattened our dwelling in 1935. Followed by my grandfather's death at age 59 in 1938, and the eruption of World War II in 1939. Consequently the timber supply for our furniture trade was cut off. Father was lacking of trade skill but he had to pick up the responsibility of Chen family's livelihood after my grandfather's demise.

To a young man in his mid 20's of age, being raised up in a fully protected circumstance, and lacking of trade skill, making a living to support a family of 7 in that tough situation was really difficult. So year after year, the whole family could only live on the reserve saved during grandfather's day.

Father's life challenges were not just from the three big incidents. There were many other heart breaking events arose before 1948. They lost three children. The first kid they lost was a boy killed in the 1935 Taichung Earthquake. The second was a girl whom my mother described as the most beautiful girl, named 'Hilei', she had ever seen, died from flu epidemic. The third was a boy died, again from flu epidemic, in his infancy in 1948. So if all of them survived, there should be 9 children all together in our family. (picture shows Chen's extended family in 1954, front row from left: 2nd cousin, my aunt, my mother holding my sister, my father, 1st sister, 4th sister; back row from left: 2nd sister, 3rd cousin, 3rd sister. Uncle was in Japan, 1st and 3rd cousin were visiting their father in Japan, so they were not in this photo.)

Since the government had enacted the Land Reform program in 1950, Chen family began to lose its status as a landlord. My memory that I had seen a rice paddy owned by our family was in 1955 or 1956. I think after 1960, all my father owned was a very old dwelling with a grocery shop in the Ching Shui township and a household of 8 members to feed. Anyone who has to went through these long term challenges will definitely develop anxiety and/or depression. My father did not show this symptom, but his short tempered personality must have something to do with it.

Father was a serious, strong willed, inflexible, easy to be offended type of person. This type of personality made him quite unpopular in the community.

We ran a grocery shop before 1967. Most of the time, the shop was managed by my mother and 3rd sister. My father took over the shift between 8pm to 2am. Now and then, he looked after the shop during the daytime when 3rd sister rode bike to the neighboring town, Salu, to pick up our orders of cigarette and wine for resale, and mother left for a while to cook lunch and dinner. Quite a few times, when father was in charge, I witnessed a few times during my childhood how he either upset the customer or being upset by the customer, anyway that resulted in unpleasant serious quarrels in our shop. So a close friend of our family advised my father to avoid showing up in the shop as it only discouraged customers to walk in. Therefore my father quit the involvement in running the shop eventually, and left for the neighboring town to work as a band saw technician for a timber mill.

It is understandable why had father developed into an unwelcoming person. That was all to do with his being overly pampered and protected when he was young. However, father was basically a righteous, sympathizing, trustworthy, courageous person. He never had problem getting along with decent people.

Having been in their 56 year long marriage life, my mother's comment about father must be the fairest one, "your dad does not know how to express his feeling and emotion", mum once said when she was alive.

Indeed father was very bad at expressing his inside world. All I can recall from my childhood memory, he never had kissed, hugged me; never had played any game with me; never had told me any story, however, I believed his love to me was profound. He had been trying to show his intimacy to us children, but just did not how to do it right.

One evening, when I was about 12 years old, he, out of nowhere, had this idea of giving me a treat, watching a live singing and dancing show. It was very weird, as we all knew father never had watched a movie or show before. And I never knew what was in his mind that evening when he asked me if I'd like to watch the show with him.

I remembered I was very excited from this surprising treat. I still remembered vividly that show was presented by a girls' group named Yu Xia girls singing and dancing troupe (玉霞女子歌舞團). But I had no idea what their show was all about.

We bought the tickets from the box office window, entered the theater and seated. Soon the program started. The brass band of this troupe played a very rocking exciting overture, then, a row of about 12 girls, danced out from both sides of the stage following the rhythm of the music kicking their legs up and down. And, gee..., every single one was in bikini. At age of 12, I was sort of aware of sexuality, but being in a conservative society in early 60's, I felt terribly awkward at that instant moment watching bikini girls with constantly serious dad next to me.

Father's usually serious facial expression made him not so popular in the community. However, his caring mind toward people in hardship was warm, and that was manifested in his action in silence.

He quietly gave money to beggars without even mentioned to mum for her praising on his kind deed. Mum told me that once she saw dad did this without his being aware of her watching from distance. She concluded father was soft minded but stink faced.

The feature of his personality traits made him a mighty defender for his married daughters and nieces. Before 1970's in Taiwan, domestic violence was more or less seen in most households. This was not an exception to many of my sisters and cousins who had married. It must be a horrified experience to my sisters when they were attacked by their spouse in over-heated quarrels that they cried home to report to my mother for solace.

This was what had been kept in my memory about one of the daughter defending episodes occurred when I was about 11 years old. Once in an afternoon I saw sister cried in mum's arms, and mum was sort of condemning and cursing her son-in-law's misconduct. Father was watching all this quietly. Then, suddenly we noticed father was disappeared. Mum's intuition told her father was rushing to sister's home to give her husband a lesson. Mum became worried about what might be happening between father and the son-in-law under that furious atmosphere.

Before father returned, sister took the evening bus home. After all, she was married, and to Chinese tradition, particularly before 1960's, there was no return to the maiden home for a married daughter.

Apparently father's sudden appearance at my brother's home with his innate 'stink' face had given the son-in-law an effective warning of "no more violence!"

Similar incidents happened to my other sisters and cousins, too. Every time father's silent but mad face successfully suppressed his son-in-laws' rude behaviors. So all my sisters commented that father was the bravest one in the world, while the brother-in-laws who'd ever made trouble all claimed "you'd better behave yourself if you want to see a smiley dad appearing before you."

To my sisters, father was a hero, a brave man. He seemed to be an unbeatable figure. Unexpectedly in September 1988, he was rushed to hospital and was diagnosed brain stroke. Followed by many complications and went through a major operation in his stomach. Throughout his life, I never heard him sighed or groaned once even in great discomfort when he was hospitalized. According to mother, he never had shed tears. "Being a brave man is the core objective of Japanese education", mum said. Dad had accepted 9 years of Japanese education during its ruling in Taiwan. (picture shows dad in a tour to a pearl company during his visit to uncle in Japan in 1963.)

During the four month time in hospital, father's only older brother flew back from Japan to see him. They might had met each other for about five times only in their lives since uncle migrated to Japan in early 1940's.

I was standing by father's bed side in the hospital when uncle walked into the ward. Uncle bent over to talk some comfort words to dad. Father's eyes showed great surprise upon recognizing his dear brother. Though he had lost speech ability, he could hear voice. He shed tears for the first time in his life after having heard his brother's words.

After about four months of many attempts of getting his series of complications fixed in the hospital, all failed, on 23/02/1989, father left this world. To my sisters, his strong will and unbeatable courage is always with them. As to me, it is always his meeting me at the Dounan Railway Station platform and the sight of his back.

A Cross-generation Friendship

This young fella is known as Robbie. He has been my colleague, English teacher, playmate, or in the modern term, my buddy since that day when he introduced himself to me in 2003. As his age is the same of my own kid, I take this friendship with him as a cross-generation one.

The stories started from 21st October 2003, the first day of the three day training program which our company, Ora Limited, sent us to for our learning of moderation skills. Ora is a private training establishment providing a distant learning programme titled Kiwi Ora to deliver knowledge about the basics of New Zealand to new immigrants who enrolled.

It was a clear spring morning. The training was undergoing in Wesley Community Centre in Auckland. Peter, the trainer, had just finished his first class of the day and announced a 20 minute tea break. So we walked out of the classroom for a good breath of air and mingling with colleagues we had not seen before.

As I was leaning on the veranda rail outside of the classroom, gazing afar, recollecting what had been taught in the first class, a young man with a backpack walked briskly up the flight of stairs, sort of in haste, toward me.

"Hi!" he said to me, panted a bit. "Hi!" I greeted back, "my name is Morris. Are you coming for the training?". "Yes," he said, "My name is Robbie. I am a newly recruited advisor. The second head in the office just informed me of the training this morning. It is my commencing day today, so I came from office to join in the class. I must have missed the first period..."

The conversation went on. I knew he was from Taiwan at age 6 with his parents. He had just graduated from Auckland University, was major in Education, worked for Federal Express in the last six months, and bits and pieces of other topics till the trainer swinged the bell to call us in.

The second class was game related to the training. The trainees were divided into 3 groups to be in the game. Robbie was naturally invited to join our group. His English proficiency, nimble movement required by the game made the elder and ESL (English second language) members of our group less stressful.

Robbie and I became close friend during the three days. Soon the three day training was over and we went back to work routine from own home office relying on telephone and internet to contact the Kiwi Ora students and the outside world.

Computer skills is an important part of our everyday job as a Kiwi Ora advisor. We were supposed to be able to use the Office softwares and general office equipments well. We had to deal with trouble-shooting in case of paper jam on printer or fax machine, computer system crash, internet disruption, virus issues and etc. Under this circumstance, someone like Robbie who was recognised as computer expert among advisors became very important, and often called out to the rescue of other advisors'.

I was quite good at keeping the office equipments run smoothly, however, from time to time the Windows system, virus or internet could go wrong inevitably and these problems were beyond my computer knowledge.

Once, my internet connection was lost. Robbie came to check all the possible problems but found none. The last option would be running a system restoration which was very time consuming. Without a frown, Robbie moved my notebook to his home and spent one whole night to get it up and running.

Another time of Robbie's big help given to my computer was when I shifted to another place in October 2004. The internet connection was lost again. He just worked on it for me with enthusiasm.

His regular contact with me via e-mail and text message through mobile phone means I have a private tutor teaching me English. At the begining stage of my involvement in Kiwi Ora, it took me at least 15 minutes to finish writing a short e-mail. Through constant practice in writing messages to him, I am now able to write a lengthy article like this post in English with ease of mind. Thanks to him.

With so much assistances he had given me, what had I repaid him? I could not think of any, however, he insisted he had learned a lot through talking with me. What a profound compliment he has made!

Being young, that meant his reactions toward unfair or offensive remarks from his students or other colleagues tended to be following the impulse instead of the brain. Fortunately he managed to hold the hurtful feelings and turned to seek for counselling from me.

I usually gave him my caring ears, showed my empathy to him, reflected what he was feeling, and lastly asked him what would he do toward the problem. I followed the counselling principles which I had learned from my 10 year engagement in the voluntary role as Auckland Lifeline telephone counsellor. Although I was not sure how much help my caring ears and the fundamental counselling skills may have brought in defusing his anger, I did act to him like a patient and caring parent to his own kids. Well, he usually commented at the end of our counselling-like conversation, "ah! sensei (sir in Japanese), you are wise man. Thank you very much.", leaving me dumbfounded.

In June 2005, I was diagnosed having Parkinson Disease. Quite depressed I was from hearing doctor's announcement. This time, Robbie played his role as my counsellor. His prescription was: inviting me to join his letter-drop cruise* whenever he scheduled one; and proposal of taking my annual leave for a holiday in Australia. I accepted his suggestion and he also arranged his holiday to be in the same time window. So on 15th August 2005 we flew together to Sydney. I stayed at my 4th sister's place and he stayed at the Holiday Inn enjoying a real holiday.
As my disease deteriorated due to its progressive nature, I was gradually losing ability of driving for duration over 10 minutes. He was always pleased to give me a ride to places such as company functions, conference, student meeting venues, or anywhere over the other side of the harbour bridge.

By April 2006, my disease became more unbearable. I considered quit from this job. It was a tough decision to make as although my daughter had gained her bachelor degree and a permanent job, my son was just in his first year in the university then. It was Robbie who came to my home office on 3rd May 2006 to help me make up my mind.

I had drafted my resignation e-mail the previous day but was finding no enough courage to send it to the head office. Robbie said to me, "Chenny is in university now and is able to support himself, why do you have to struggle with work now that the disease is troubling you?" That's right, how can I hide the fact of being sick forever? So at that moment I hit the SEND button of the Outlook to get that resignation letter e-mailed to the manager with Robbie standing beside me watching.

About two month after my resignation, Robbie followed me. He got an even better job at an education institute. His new employer sent him to Boston, USA to attend the world annual e-learning conference.

Though our colleagueship had come to an end in 2006, however, this cross-generation friendship carries on till no end.
Things are in constant flux. I was informed by Robbie the other day of his very tough decision in life: shift to Adelaide, Australia where he was just offered a job as e-learning advisor. Considering New Zealand is where he spent his days of childhood and youthhood; is where all his friends live; is where his parents reside. It is a difficult decision to make, yet the quest for the deeper taste of life can only be attained if one is resolved to transcend the boundary of comfort zone. No matter what is to be his final choice, by the moment prior to his very likely departure, I post this article as my best wish to his new life in Australia.

* letter-drop cruise: Some of Kiwi Ora learners are slow in doing their assessments. When their due-date is up, then the advisor has to use all sorts of method to motivate them. Dropping a notice of late assessment by hand-delivery in the student's letter box make them feel the advisor is close to them and thus they give more effort on the assessment.

Mother's cooking

This is a zoomed in cropped photo of my mother (on the right) and my aunt from a very old and faded family photograph. Mother was about 19 at the time when this picture was taken in 1934. She was dressed in a female adult suite for important occasions in that era.

Once, we were reviewing our albums, this was the one she stayed her attention on the longest as if her memories about that scene emerged right before her. Then, she usually left it with a comment, "Your aunt and I were widely praised by people in the community as the most beautiful and dutiful daughter-in-laws of Chen's family", and then away to the next photo.

Indeed, mother was very beautiful when she was young. Apart from her good looks was her excellent cooking skill. It is especially true when I retrospect the images of her working in our very old kitchen of 50's in Taiwan when burning coal or wood was the only way to cook. The chopping board was about 50 cm in diameter. There were no sink and bench for preparing the cooking ingredients. Chopping board served as working bench and a pail of water fetched from a facet some ten meters away were what you got to cook two to four dishes and the staple, rice, every day.

Not only that, mother had to slaughter chicken or duck from a lively one to a naked lifeless one and lastly a delicious roasted or stewed meat dish that the whole family fought to grab to their own bowl. I wondered if any of us ever thought about how mother worked in the ill equipped kitchen to get those tasty dishes served on table.

Once I noticed mother only picked the least demanded dish into her rice bowl while all of us landed our chopsticks on the meaty dishes, I asked her why? "A cook is delighted the most seeing the dishes are emptied rapidly. I am fine with this less wanted one....", she said.

I remembered once I watched how mother slaughtered a duck of black feather. That was an unforgettable experience.

In a small town like Ching Shui of 1950's, most of the households got to kill poultry by themselves. There were just no such thing as supermarket where they could simply pick a tray of chicken thighs to their cart. They went to the poultry section of the market; point to the most lively one to the vendor; the vendor tied up the legs of the fowl with a few straws; hooked the poor creature on the balance scale to get the weight of the fowl to figure out a fair price for both parties. Then the mother carried that fowl all the way back home with the fowl's head dangling down along the way.

This was what I witnessed when mother processed that very duck.

Mother fetched the duck to a cleared area in the kitchen. Pulled both of its wings and stepped over the wings with her left foot. She had made some preparations prior to the slaughtering. A deep wok of slow boiling water was ready for removing duck's hair by dipping it for a right length of time. A tray of about two cups of glutenous rice was placed aside for absorbing the duck's blood for making a side dish called duck blood cake.

Back to the slaughtering. Mother asked me to go away as the killing was disturbing to view. I begged to stay to watch. No time to waste on arguing, so she carried on. She read out a short speech while her fingers nipping off hairs clear around the spot of the duck's neck where she aimed to set the blade on. I still remember that mantra mother read to the duck. It went "duck, duck, it's suffering being a duck, not worthwhile trapping in the form of a duck forever. Be born to become a member in a rich family."

As soon as the mantra finished, the blade swished, the blood streamed down, mother quickly moved the plate of gluten rice to the blood. The duck jerked a couple of struggles before it went complete motionless. Then mother kept on moving the rice plate about to make all the rice dampened by the blood evenly till no more was to flow out. The head was then put in between the wings waiting for dehairing.

Phew! That's enough for me. I am not going to tell what I had seen after that. It is disgusting to watch the whole process, but we seem to be forgetful particularly when the duck become a dish on the table. However, that memory during my childhood germinated and grew fruition that about 25 years later I claimed myself as vegetarian.

As to mother, she stopped slaughtering by herself for cooking after a dreadful experience occurred. She told me she once killed a big duck without any family member around. She laid the duck on the ground after its blood was drained. Suddenly when she was doing something else, she heard some rustling noise at her back. She turned around and saw that dead duck stood on its legs with head still wrapped in between the wings clumsily walking about. Mother gasped and ran away from the kitchen horrified.

I think slaughtering might be mother's most disliked task of her everyday cooking chores. Otherwise cooking of other non-life related dishes is simply piece of cake to her.

Since she was assigned to cooking chore for Chen's family by my grandmother at the age of ten, she had quickly acquired all the kitchen skills such as setting up fire, control of the heat strength of the fire, food preparation and storage, steaming, grilling, stir frying, boiling, flavor seasoning and etc.

There is not any signature dish of hers as all her dishes are just equally good. But what impressed me the most was the rapidness of her cooking.

Once a group of our relatives came to visit us unexpectedly around lunch time. It was a customary that the host was supposed to offer the visitors meal be they not yet had one. Immediately my mother retreated to the kitchen, and within one hour she presented a big plate of lovely fried noodle, a grilled whole fish with soy sauce and drizzled with spring onion, a plate of sliced boiled pork with sauce, and a stir fried green leafy vegetable on the table. Sometimes I came home from school hungry. This was never a problem to mother that within 10 minutes, she could turn the leftover into yummy hot meal for me.

While fast food business is damaging the health of young consumers worldwide nowadays, cooking from a mother is becoming more urgent and important. It is not only the deliciousness that counts, it is the love and education that generate from cooking activity make us unforgettable in a later day.