Introducing Mrs. Lee's art works

This Chinese character means Buddha. It was written, or I should say, painted on a framed canvas with color oil paints, by Mrs. Lee, our family friend. It looks like she is doing calligraphy on this character. But, traditionally, Chinese calligraphy is done on absorbent cotton paper with water based black ink, while this work is done on canvas with oil based color paint.

Mrs. Lee calls her painging style "Buddha Calligraphy Oil Painting". The style name implies that all her works are surrounding on this Chinese character "Buddha" exclusively; are in various calligraphy patterns; and are done with oil painting skills.

Mrs. Lee loves oil painting. She loves the richness of its colors. She tried to describe for me about how she was overwhelmed by the antient oil painting works displayed in Louvre Museum when she visited Paris ten or more years ago. "That sudden wonder I had upon viewing those art works was hard for me to describe. Perhaps the seed of my fondness of oil painting was nurtured by those masterpieces at that moment and started its sprouting. I had been pondering on oil painting works after we left Paris."

About five years ago, Mrs. Lee was referred to Master Chin Kung's DVD lectures on Buddhism. Through learning Buddhism together with her husband, her spiritual practice progressed steadily. She learned from Master Chin Kung that by observing precepts so one can attain concentration; by holding concentration so one attains wisdom, the perfect state of enlightenment. During this stage she had the idea of practicing concentration by doing calligraphy.

"I think now that I am a devoted Buddhist, why not begin my practice on the 佛﹐Buddha?" So she did her first calligraphy of 佛﹐Buddha, in the conventional way, by using paint brush, ink stone, ink tray, and absorbent cotton paper.

She gazed at her calligraphy upon its completion for a while, at that moment, the feeling she had buried in her mind after that visit to the Louvre Museum sprang out. The idea of integrating the three areas - spiritual practice, calligraphy and oil painting, emerged. Not long after that wonderful inventive day, she had all the materials need for the so called "Buddha calligraphy oil painting" ready in her studio.

"I usually enter a blissful mind state when I work on this art, no exception," she said, "it has been my method of cultivating concentration, and my way of getting solace whenever I have any worrying thing in my mind."

I noticed that one of the pieces was a 佛 riding on space shuttle, and I asked her what was in her mind when she combined this two mutually contradicting subjects into one picture. She said, "The public has misunderstood Buddhism as being superstitious, while as a matter of fact Buddhism exists everywhere throughout the univers, in our daily living, so I was trying to tell the spectators even the success in launching a space shuttle which is the product of all the top forms of science and engineering is the manifestation of Buddha nature."

As time goes by, her works is cramming up her small studio, so she has another idea. "I had this strong urge of sharing my enjoyment from doing Buddha calligraphy oil painting with others." she said.

Mr. Lee, her husband, is also a very devoted Buddhist. He organized a Buddhism learning group on the North Shore. He helped to give many items of his wife's art work away through the Buddhist group.

Yet, she wants to spread her joy to many more other groups. I asked her what kind of price would she put on her works.

"The materials are affordable to me, my labor and time are the offerings to Buddhism, so I am very happy to give away free," she said, "but if anyone who does feel the blissfulness from the works is willing to share the cost, they can pay whatever amount they like as donation to Amitabha North Shore Association".

Being moved by her devotion to Buddhism and her pursuit of Dharmic bliss, I volunteered to construct a website for her to publicize her ideas and artworks.

So this concludes the story of Mrs. Lee's unique Buddha Calligraphy Oil Painting.

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.

Learning Japanese 1972-1973

Japan had a difficult time after World War II. From 1945 to 1956 when it was admitted as an UN member nation, this period of a decade must be the toughest time in its history imagining the great number of soldiers killed overseas, the two atomic bombs that wiped off two of its big cities in a short instant during the world war.

Yet, it stood up, reconstructed their homes, and just within 10 years, it became fit again. In the 3 decades from 1960's to 1980's, its GDP was over 10% for many years, and although gradually declined during 1980's, an average growth of 4% was still maintained. So during that period, Japanese Miracle was a familiar term seen on newspaper.

When a country becomes rich, its cultural influence in the world strengthens too. The indication of this influence can be seen by the growing popularity for its language and pop music.

1971 was my first year in the college. The most popular foreign language apart from English for students to select as their school subject was Japanese in Taiwan. In areas in Taipei city where private educational institutes were clustered, we could see commercial signs of Japanese language schools were one after another along the street.

In late 1960's, when I was still a high school student, I began to feel the Japanese cultural influence on me because among so many popular singers on radio and TV, I was deeply fascinated to a Japanese singer called Judy Wong. Judy was a Taiwanese but was raised up in Japan. I was her fan during my teens period. Later I enrolled myself on a Japanese learning course with a private language school when I received my first payment of wage from my part time job in 1972 doing subtitle for movies. When people asked me why I chose Japanese as my second foreign language, I always replied "because I am a fan of Judy Wong".

Two years before I started learning Japanese in the language school in 1972, I already bought a beginner's learning kit, a disc record and a textbook. I learned the 51 片かな and 平かな together with very basic conversational 挨拶語, such as 今日は，今晩は，おわよごさいます and so on all by myself from that kit in 1970. So by the time of enrolment, 先生assessed my level and placed me in the intermediate class. I still remember now the first lesson of my textbook is about a 手紙、letter.

There were 2 sessions of two hours each per week in the course. Class began at 7:00pm in the evening. I was always the first student arriving the classroom if I was not called to do the film subtitle job after school. The teacher was in his late 40's, a clerk of a trading company supposed to be a Sino-Japan joint venture one. He was of a medium plump guy with heavy near-sighted glasses and crew cut hair. His spoken Japanese resembled those Samurais I saw in the movies. I thought he deliberately mimicked the actor's tone in his teaching in order to add some fun in the class. And his tactic worked, as I found his class interesting and enjoyable.

During the two years of learning Japanese, I made acquaintance with a girl named Yang Li-fang in the class. Miss Yang was 3 years older than me, an employee of Matsushita Electronic. A smile always on her face when she walked into the classroom. Being a clerk of a large company, she must be loaded with tasks as I noticed her frequent absence from class. Each time she came to class, she took the seat next to me and asked to borrow my notebook so as to catch up the missed lessons.

A couple of times, she invited me to have supper with her after the class at the nearby food stools. I should confess now that I did wish our friendship could further develop. One day, I wrote her a letter after seeing a long absence of her from class. The letter must have implied my admiration of her, although slightly, because she sensed it. To avoid causing embarrassment to me, she skillfully mentioned that she had boyfriend. Thus, I remained a boy without a girlfriend until 3 years later in 1975 when my colleague in the Air Force Cadet Training Centre introduced me to a girl who is now my wife.

I learned Japanese quite hard that I was up to a level of being able to write understandable letter in Japanese to my uncle who lived in Kobe, the 6th biggest city of Japan. However, I only got two chances so far to put my Japanese into practice.

The first one occurred when I and 4 of my college classmates were in a tour to the Eastern Taiwan where there was a big population of the earliest Taiwan settlers who spoke their own language and some Japanese. In a bus to Hwalian, the eastern city, one of our seats was mistakenly occupied by a seemingly early Taiwan settler, a tribe woman. None of my friends could make her understand she had taken the wrong seat. One of my friends knew that most Taiwan tribesmen spoke Japanese, so they urged me to try my Japanese. So I did, and after a couple of sentences uttered from my mouth, she realized what had gone wrong and returned the seat to us.

The second time was in 2000 when my daughter, Tessie, was staying in Tottori of Japan through AFS student exchange. One evening after work, my wife received a call from Japan, she passed it to me because both parties found no common language for the communication to go on. I took the call and practised my learned Japanese the second time in the past 27 years. My Japanese was already very rusty then, and yet when there was no effective common language between the two, a few right words did make both side relieved and the messages somewhat understood. Tessie's host mother just wanted to tell us that Tessie was very safe and happy in their home, and was getting along well with the family members.

Now the whole world is facing a big economic recession, and Japan is no exception. There is a saying that whatever goes up comes down, I find this explains all the ups and downs of all matters. Buddha's teaching is even more sensible, Impermanence applies to every thing we know of. However, as a not-yet-enlightened being I still hope the downturn will be over soon.

Part Time Job

One Sunday morning in 2000, I was surprised to see Tessie, my daughter, bravely walked into Daikoku Restaurant to the interview for her application of a part time job as waitress. She looked somewhat nervous but she deliberately tilted her chin up, radiated as much confidence as possible through her face and posture, smiled a bit and walked to the reception counter. Outside of the restaurant, waiting for her in the car, I and my wife observed all about that short moment of Tessie's pre-interview nervousness, extolled, "what a brave girl."

About half an hour later, she walked lightly out with natural brilliant smile. "I am employed!", she yelled.

This life experience of hers occurred when she had just returned from her one year stay in Kansai of Japan through AFS student exchange scheme, and was going to enter the university. She had worked a couple of other part time jobs during her school days so she had earned her own.

Seems that year 12 is the period when most of New Zealand children starts their first part time job. Again, when Chenny, my son, reached his year 12 in school, I heard from my wife one day after work that Chenny was out with some other classmates in the business areas of Takapuna and Milford hunting for part time jobs door by door.

Both I and my wife had been concerned that Chenny might not be as independent and brave as his sister, but the news of Chenny's attempt of seeking a paid job indeed astounded me deeply. I was so grateful to the education of New Zealand which helped my two children cultivate the spirit of independence.Though his first attempt was a failure, he didn't let it affect his mood. A few months after that try, through one of his close friends' recommendation, he got a part time job with New World Super Market Milford, worked as produce assistant stocking the shelves of its vegetable section. (Chenny is second from left.)


Since then, he, was just like his sister, had made his own spending money to accommodate his social and hobby needs through their own effort. Of course he changed a couple of employers since then. By the time this blog post is being written, he is working as guitar tutor at Glenfield Music Education Centre in North Shore.

What about their dad in terms of part time job during his school days? Nothing until the end of his first year in Journalism College.

I was in my first year in the college in 1970. In Taiwan, the school year normally starts from September. The first semester ends at early February followed by three week term break. The second semester starts from early March and ends at the tail part of June followed by two months of summer vacation.

In the Western world of 60's, The Beatles were getting popular, and hippy style living was spreading like wild fire, and these cultures began to cast their influences over the students in Taiwan at the ending part of 60's, In most high schools, the male students were supposed to be bald and this was part of the school uniform code. The school which I was in was less strict on the hair ban. They allowed us grow hair on the top part of the head up to 2cm maximum, and yet many more rebellious boys still tested the authority by growing hair beyond the limit. So from time to time, there were serious arguments between the offenders and the disciplinary officers occurred in the school yard.So as soon as we entered university, we were free from the hair restrictions. In the campus, we saw quite a few students grew hair style of The Beatles, and most of us grew hair following the society's norm. Mine was of the average length and of the standard model in 1970 (photo taken in a school gala).

Now back to the part time jobs I involved in the three years from 1970 to 1973.

When the first school year was coming to end in June 1971, I registered myself as job seeker at the student center in the school. I knew the number of job seekers outnumbered the jobs available, however, I hoped that I was lucky enough to be given one of any jobs because I really felt I should not ask for any pocket money from my parents after high school.

And I was really lucky that I was assigned to the Central Currency Production Plant to work as assistant of its administration office. That was a 9 to 5 job, but because it was for me during the summer vacation to work in only, so I called it part time job, the first paid job in my life. I used some of the money I earned from that job to buy a transistor radio.

Then in 1972, I was offered an on call job in a film subtitle print* workshop. It was owned by my friend's big brother. My friend was there helping his brother doing the marking on the footage of the corresponding subtitle, but since he was leaving for military service, he recommended me to his brother.

When I went to the interview with the boss, he showed me what to do and told me the wage of $100 (at that time, a simple lunch costs about $4) would be paid upon completion of each movie. Averagely each movie took me 8 hours to finish on my part. I was over joyed with this offer.

Every day after school, I was asked to call my boss to see if there was any task awaiting me. If so, then I was given a start date for that job, and I went to work on it as instructed. Sometimes if the job was urgent, I had to work till midnight or even through out the night till it was done. But it was not too bad.

When I got paid a lump sum at the end of the first working month, I used part of that money to enroll myself on a Japanese course with a private institute. In another blog post, I will tell you some dramas that occurred during that period of time.

I was on that part time job till I graduated in June 1973.

I like to tell my children that it is not for the money we go for a part time job, it is for the spirit of independence and for gaining life experience we go for it during our school days.

Amituofo

* How the subtitle was done at where I worked in 1972? Nowadays the subtitle of a film of other language is done by various modern technologies. But the process of the subtitle making which I involved in 1972 was quite primitive compared to modern day's.

The process began with recording of the dialogues of the whole film in a small lab. The translator presented to watch the movie while I recorded the sound onto the tape recorder. Then I gave the recorder together with the tape to the translator after the movie. The translator listened to the tape and typed all the dialogues in sentences of proper length on the paper both the original language, normally English, and the translation. Each sentence was coded with a number.

Then this bunch of papers of the translated sentences was passed to a writer whose calligraphy was perfect. He wrote each sentence within the specified space for plate making.

Then the calligrapher's originals were made into copper letterpress through photo graphic technique with corresponding number on its back side.

While the dialogues were being made into letterpress plates, I ran the reels through a photo electrical device. This device beamed through the sound track of the reel and brought the sound out through a speaker, enabled me to trace the beginning and the end of each dialogue on the reel so I could mark on the film with the code corresponding with both of the translation's and the letterpress plate's.

Lastly my boss would run the reel through a stamp machine which applied heat on the letterpress plate that has a code corresponding to the code I marked on the film frame. After the plate had stamped each of the picture frames, the subtitle of that peculiar dialogue was then done.

My Days in Junior High School 1964 -1966

This might be the only picture I had during the three year junior high school days. I am the one standing at four from the right of the second row from the back.

It was shot a few days before the graduation ceremony was held in June 1966. The scene was in front of the newly built hall of Ching Shui High School located by the state highway in Ching Shui township of Taichung County, Taiwan.

From the picture, you can summarize the features of the high school in those days. 1) big student number per class, there were 54 in our classroom. 2) all the students had to wear uniform. 3) all the boys had to be bald-headed. 4) opposite sex in separate class.

You are right, all the four points hit the spot! I'd like to share one of the dramas about me occurred during the three school years.

Each year, the school held a model student election activity. Each class must nominate a candidate through their in-class democratic process to the student activity administration office to involve in the final model student election.

Of course that was just a way of democracy education through practice. But we all took it seriously hoping the candidate of our own class would be elected so that we could share his honor.

I , being a quiet and shy boy in the class, never expected that I was nominated in the in-class selection and, even could not believe, won the top number in favor of me. I was scared my head off as a year one junior high school student with the unexpected result. But our class teacher, Chen Yao-tang (陳瑤塘)﹐assured me that the whole class would back me up in the in-school election campaign.

The next day, the whole school began to be bustling with vote inviting activity, poster hanging, and etc, My friend's neighbor was a printer who printed 500 pieces of bookmark with my profile on one side and a blank class timetable on the other for distributing to the voters in the vote inviting activity. I remembered it cost me $10. My friend told me that I could pay it with the $50 award when I was elected as model student of the year. It seemed as if he could foresee the election result that I would win the 50 bucks.

After one whole week of campaigning activities, there came the voting day. Most of my classmates were in the school hall watching the votes being called out and added to the corresponding candidate on the blackboard, but I was too nervous about the result that I hid myself in our classroom. Once a while, one of the very enthusiastic mates would rush back to report the update. As the vote calling was going on, these messengers ran back and forth the classroom and the hall excitedly with the latest accumulated votes casted to me.

By the time the sun was to set, all the votes were cleared from the boxes. The result showed that I was among the school model students of the year.

I told mum and dad after returned home about the news that day. They were very proud of me being a model student,

The big brother of my neighbor who was a profound calligrapher wrote a few posters of 銘謝當選, "thanks for voting me" for me to hang on some corners of the school yard the next day.

At the nearest morning school assembly after the voting day, a certificate of model student, award of $50 and a medal were handed down by the principal.

That had occurred in the first year of my junior high school days. Never had I thought that I could be so popular in the school as a introvert boy, that in the next year, the same process repeated once again, I was elected as model student for the second time.

Believe or not, but it was true, I was selected as candidate for the third time in a row during my three year junior high school period. But this time I did not win in the final election.

In Remembrance of My Aunt

A few weeks ago, Aunt came to my dream. She quietly looked at me with a kind expression as she usually did when she was alive. The dream was quite clear, and it was the first time that aunt ever appeared in my dream since she died in 1984. So I reflected upon the dream a lot after I woke up.

Aunt was born in 1914 in a small town called Ching Shui in the Taichung County of Taiwan. She was named Jioa (招仔), meaning inviting a brother, by her parents. She was the only daughter in the Lee family. Her younger brother was actually adopted by her parents for the sake of having a son to carry on the family name. That was why her given name, Jioa, contained a meaning of inviting because her parents hoped that this daughter would be inviting a boy to be born in this family. So I guess her parents must have experienced infertility problem before given birth to aunty.

According to my cousin Chai Hsia, aunty's youngest daughter, aunty was famous of her good look in the town and was nicknamed "Ching Shui Beauty".

Aunty's maiden home was located at a road nearby the water supply stream called Biakau (埤仔口). This stream was formed by a spring gushing up steadily from the ground. In early 1960's, though at that time all the families in Ching Shui already had tap water run to their homes, people living nearby Biakau still liked to fetch drinking water from the stream or even washed their laundry there. During my childhood, I often played in the shallow part of the stream while my mother did the laundry there.

In early 1930's, when uncle was at his teens, he was assigned by his father to fetch water for the family. Due to this daily task which required him to pass by where Jioa lived several times a day, uncle noticed this beautiful girl. He himself was tall, handsome, and very talkative, so I believed Jioa must have good impression on this guy. Soon, my grandfather sent match-maker over to Lee family to propose a marriage and this good looking couple were married.

After she was married into Chen family, my grandfather thought her original name Jioa was not very graceful, so he renamed her Chen Lee Yu Ying (陳李玉英), meaning jade heroine.

About ten years after their marriage, uncle left his family to the care of my father and headed for Japan to try his luck in small business of pearl trade. So aunty was virtually widowed since mid 1940's. Although uncle did come back to visit his family after his departure, but those couple of visits were only short stays and eventually there was no more visits at all. Later, aunt was told by fellow Taiwanese immigrants that uncle had relationship with a Japanese woman. Aunt's hope of seeing her husband back with a big fortune was shattered.

Aunt was a good singer. When I was a small child, I liked to be around her and often heard her singing pop songs. The songs she frequently sang were almost those about missing of the loved one. As I recall these past views now, I can appreciate how hard a time she had been through that she had to alleviate the stress by singing songs to herself so often.

Because of her ill fated marriage, she advised her junior generation to be careful with making friends of opposite sex. Once my 4th sister told aunt that she was in love with a man whom my sister described to aunt as generally a good man but not tall and handsome. Aunt said to her the inner quality was most important. She said, "look how handsome and tall your uncle is, and now where has he gone?". My sister bore aunty's advice in mind and later accepted that man's proposal.

Aunty raised up two sons and three daughters all by herself. With the unsteady money that uncle sent back for the family, aunty did job for a local straw hat weaving factory to earn a bit more money. I used to be observing how aunty did the job, and soon I learned how to do the job. So sometimes, I came to do the job with aunt, and this little help won her constant praising.

Aunt was very kind. Up to mid 1965, there were still seen beggars begging for food door by door. For a few times I witnessed aunt gave food or coins to beggars turned up at the doorway.

When I got sick, she always came to sit by my bedside and said kind words to me. I cherished her gentle touch over my forehead and her sympathizing words whenever I was sick in bed having fever.

Aunty's health had never been good. Many times during my childhood, I saw her staying in her bedroom alone, getting up, walking to the medicine bag to get a sachet of pain killer and gulped it down with water. She had been bothered by frequent headache. Once she also showed her lower leg and pressed a couple of spots. I saw the skin sank and formed a hollow. I pressed mine and it bounced back instantly. Later I learned from school it was symptom of Beriberi disease indicating the body was short of Vitamin B.

In 1984, aunty's health deteriorated sharply. Once upon hearing of her being unwell, I took a day off and came down from Taipei to Ching Shui to see her. Chai Hsia, my cousin, was looking after her by the bed. I saw my very thin and pale aunt lying in the bed with nostrils hooked up with oxygen tubes. She struggled to get up to greet me, tears streamed down her face. She said to me, "Ahsen, I'm afraid I am dying this time...". I felt tears welled up my eyes and found no better words to console her than "no, you are not, as the mercy Buddha will bless you...".

That was the last time I met with my dear aunt as a few weeks later she passed away. Chai Hsia was very sad, she commented by aunty's tomb yard, "this is the end of this Ching Shui Beauty's life...".

Right after the meeting with aunty in the dream, I have included her in my pray list when I do my daily spiritual service in the early morning. May aunty's soul gets full rest and enlightened.

2009 Easter Show

The Easter Show ran from the 10th April, Friday, through to the 13th April, Monday, this year. Easter is a very cultural and religious festival in western countries. Here in New Zealand, the school term break of a two week period coincides the arrival of the four day long Easter holiday. This makes the whole country immerse in a very peaceful and joyful holiday atmosphere when Easter comes around the corner.

About two weeks before the opening of Easter Show, Tessie asked us to make the 13rd April, Monday, free for her to treat us a day out to the show ground. As we would usually be attending the weekly Buddhist assembly in the morning on Mondays, so we asked her to come to meet us at the assembly hall in Greenland when it finished at the midday, and made the show ground activity in the afternoon. She agreed.

Soon came the appointed day out, the 13rd April. Early in the morning, a fellow Buddhist gave us a ride to the Buddhist assembly. There we meet weekly practicing mindful meditation in forms of chanting sutra, chanting Amitofuo, walking and sitting, aiming to achieve a complete mindfulness and thus to attain Paramita Wisdom.

Our two children knew we attended Buddhist assembly regularly, however, in spite of our urging them to join with us, they never showed any interest to know what the assembly was all about. So this day out offered by Tessie was an invaluable chance that we could pull her in to have a look of our religious group.

We had share lunch after the spiritual practices finished at midday. Tessie came in to see us when we were having share lunch. Our fellow Buddhist kindly scooped a bowlful of assorted vegetarian food for her. After the lunch we listened to recorded lecture of Di Zi Gui, Standards of Being a Dutiful Student, for half an hour to conclude the assembly.

Having said good bye to fellow Buddhists, Tessie drove us to the Easter Show ground which was nearby the meeting hall we had just left. Although it was the last day of the four day show, it was still full of people. It took us long time to find a parking place.

When Tessie and Chenny were in their childhood, I took them to this show a couple of times. The admission then was $5 or $8 per head as far as I could remember. But now, it is $18! Out of love, my wife instinctively fought to pay for the admission at the front of the box office. The girl officer faintly smiled at the sight of fighting for the payment. Tessie was a bit embarrassed with mum's odd practice, she seemed a little unhappy with mum's stubbornness though she understood it symbolized love. Tessie won the fight. She paid it.

We walked around the vast show ground in the stream of people, most of them were having something in their hand to eat, ice cream, pop corn, BBQ, drinks and etc while walking. We watched farm work competition, Chelsea Dog show, various farm animals and people playing in the carnival sideshow area. On shifting from show to show, Tessie always hugged my arm in her one arm and mum's arm in her another arm along the way. I thought she had sensed the aging process occurring on her beloved mum and dad that she treated us in this affectionate way.

Seeing that we looked tired, Tessie got into the long queue of a Danish Ice Cream to buy us a special ice cream as the last activity for the day out.

The significance of the show to me this year was that it was my first time since I became a father being taken out to the show ground for a treat by Tessie, my daughter. The feeling of being loved and cared for is especially strong when I am gradually losing the ability of driving a car due to my Parkinson's Disease.

So this is an unforgettable Easter Show to me and my wife.

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.