A Day Out to Takapuna Library

It was May 16 of 2010, a Sunday and happened to be a beautiful and brilliant sunny day.

Sunday has been spared for my day out if the weather promising. Where do I normally spend it? Beach, bush, the roadside café? Nah... Library is my favorite option, and on this beautiful day, the one in Takapuna is the best.

It is the best library I had ever been to, not because of its beauty of the building, or its huge stock of books, but because of its friendly librarians and its location in the town-- beach at its East side within a short walking distance and the business center of the town on the other. You can look out to the beautiful ocean view from the first floor while you are reading.

It was a clear day yesterday, so I left home early to go to Takapuna library. I had a three hour stay in the library enjoying my late acquired hobby of reading. While the book that I am reading now is to be finished soon, so I went to the shelf to fetch the book "to kill a Mocking bird" which the computer said was available in the library. But when I followed the call number to its location, the book could not be found at or around where it should be. This book was recommended to me by our family friend, Michelle, who is a very spiritual type of person from England in early 1990s. So far she already recommended me three books all are very enjoyable to me.

So I approached the librarian on the desk for assistance. I said to her that I could not find a book which the computer said was available in this library. She asked me what was the title. I told her the title and was wondering how she could help as the book was indeed disappearing from its place and I only wanted to report my discovery about this fact to her so that she can update the status of that book in the database. Amazingly she smiled at me and said "it was a very popular book, now follow me please." and led me to another section of the shelves as if she already knew that the book of that call number was not there but she knew that another book of exactly the same title could be found somewhere she was leading me to.

Without much effort spent in her search, she grabbed a book from the cart, and it was exactly the book I was after. I was very amazed by her ability of remembering all the details of a book. Then I turned to her to give my gratitude that was when I noticed that she wore a very thick glasses. I thought she might have read the whole lot of books in the library. I smiled at her saying: "you have a marvelous memory", before I was turning to leave. She asked me to wait a second, and took another book that was a lot thinner than the one I already got from the shelf. She flipped through the pages while telling me it was of the same title in the form of playwright. I thanked her saying "no, thank you, I'm happy with this one and it will keep me going for three weeks." That was her second round of demonstrating her art of book management.

Having got the book, I walked to the first floor, took a seat facing toward the big window which I could look out to the picturesque ocean view. Before I had mentally and physically settled in my seat, I connected my mobile device with a free Internet connection provided by the library, and sent e-mails to my friends, and the text messages to my families of my latest updates. within a few minutes, my mobile device beeped to the incoming messages of their updates in return. How amazing the IT technology is.

Then my mind steeped into the world in the reading. With the printed language being picked up from the page of the book by the eyes and interpreted by the brain, the ideas or thoughts of the author are being screened, assorted, investigated, compared with, commented, agreed with, disagreed with, and etc. of processes by our brain. Wouldn't it be far more amazing then our mobile device? I don't believe that in the near future a super computer equivalent to human intelligence will ever be created.

It was time for lunch. I walked down through the staircases and walked out of the library into the courtyard right in front of the building. I opened my back pack and took out my lunch which my wife has prepared for me that morning. It was water boiled dumplings. After I had consumed three or four pieces of them, I thought why did I not snap a self portrait? So I took out my mobile device and created this profound picture.

After I had finished my lunch and done with my medication, I walked straight away into the library again and to where I was originally seated this morning. I thought while I was passing by the reception desk Takapuna library could be the most attractive place to me that it was able to pull me in right after the lunch.

Time passed by very quickly, unexpectedly people around me began to pack up and a minor commotion arose from here and there. Before long, the security guard walked through every corner of the library swaying a bell. I quickly took out my mobile device, and tapped the following text message "the bell tolls now, and I am going home."

And that put an end to my lovely day out.

Mother's Day 2010

The Mother's Day of 2010 has three features worthwhile to record.

Tessie and Chenny celebrated Mother's Day for their mom on the 8th (Saturday) and 9th (Sunday) of May respectively due that their activities clashed.

Chenny arranged to celebrate Mother's Day for his mom on Sunday. He sent a text message to my mobile asking me to tell mum that he would bought some stuff home in the evening so she should not bother prepare for dinner. It was exactly 7:30 PM as he had specified in the text message when he put two big size of pizzas, one pack of french fries and four bottles of beer on the table. Three of us a great fun time.

Tessie chose Bluebird vegetarian café on the Dominion Road. It was a very small but elegant family restaurant. This restaurant is pervaded with air of peacefulness and tranquility. The interior decoration, the indoor plants, and the paintings on the walls are rich in the belief of Hinduism.

Before long, the course of meal was delivered to our table. Surely we would not forget to snap some pictures to record the joy of the mother. Then, we started enjoying these exotic food with happy chats throughout the time of the meal. A good variety of topics were covered, but the one story that mom contributed made all of us laugh to death.

The story goes like this. To protect the privacy of the main character of the story, let's call her Mrs. Soso.

Sometime in the year 2009, mum was told of this story occurred actually in the public toilet on the roadside of Pearn Crescent opposite the food court of Northcote shopping center. "Mrs. Soso, a middle aged Asian woman, hurriedly walked to the public toilet. Obviously she was in a hurry to get her business done without unnecessary delay. Fortunately the indicator on the doorknob was in a green, so she opened it and walked in." mom said with a bit of mysterious facial expression.

"It must be a great relief to her being in it that she decided to do her job relaxedly, with no rush at all. Apparently she was having some degree of constipation that in almost 10 minutes she still remained on the toilet seat.

Suddenly a string of narrative message of female came out of the hidden speaker inside the toilet. She could not understood any word that was said, so she ignored it and carried on her business. But the speaker was only in silence for one minute before the next bombardment of message shot out one more time." mom started to laugh at this point as she knew what happened next. Tessie and I were still in the cloud. Mom carried on.

"This time she was more uneasy with the second round of narrative message which she also could not understand a word, so she decided to leave the business incomplete as it was. Suddenly, the electric door "Zooooom" slided wide open and made her dumbfounded on the seat. Swiftly she jumped up, pulled up the pants, rushed toward the door side, and pressed on the button trying to get the door shut, but it stubbornly remained open." up to this point, mom spoke on and off in an effort to compress her laughing nerves.

Tessie and I burst into wild laugh when the story was coming to this point. And we both prompted mum to complete the story with the remainder of the episode anxiously.

"Mrs. Soso gathered up her consciousness now, then she heard there was the siren going apart from the passersby throwing their curious eyesights over the toilet which was normally shut. She left the scene as quickly as she could and harbourd at a corner of a shop concerning that she might have damaged the toilet. Fortunately, in about one minute of chaos, the siren stopped and the electric door shut close. Mrs. Soso relieved upon seeing everything of the toilet restored to normal, and resolved to improve her English proficiency from then on."

And that was the end of the story, and was also the end of yet another unforgettable Mother's Day celebration.

The one morning in Mitre 10

Date was the 17th of April 2010 on which the story went.

The night before, Chenny reported a leaking tap to me. I had noticed this problem long time ago and had thought about getting it fixed, but I was lacking of confidence at that time, so I just left it with fingers crossed. But that night when Chenny told me the problem and I went to have a look, I knew I could not just get fingers crossed, I had to get it really fixed as soon as possible. Obviously Chenny tried to tighten up the knob too forceful and had completely collapsed the inner fitting of the knob. So now, not only the washer has to be replaced to stop the dripping, I will also have to find a substitute knob.

On the next morning, I had a quite high level of motivation to travel to Mitre 10 by bus because the weather was promising, cloudy and cool but no rain -- it is a kind of good weather for outdoor activity.

The bus dropped me off at King's Plant Garden Center. Then I continued the remaining 800 m to Mitre 10 by walk. My walk had developed into a funny pattern in the last three months due to the Parkinson's disease. The gait of my walk looks like I am in a hurry to reach the destination that I am sort of running but am in small steps. Muscles of the arms and legs are abnormally tense. And this rigidity consumes a lot of my energy, this is especially worse when I walk along the footpath next to a busy road. The rumbling noise from the traffic makes me nervous and this worsens my balance that I am afraid I may fall to the road. So I have to tell myself to slow down, to be relaxing, but the legs remains in its fast but small steps dashing forward. Walking on the footpath with all sorts of wandering thoughts flowing through my mind, finally the vast Mitre 10 building stood before me.

I felt excited when I walked through the parking lot and marched toward its entrance. The excitement increased steadily while I was a bit closer to it. I thought it is something to do with my DIY spirit which knows Mitre 10 is the home of DIY.

When I stepped into the area that the gate sensor reaches, the automatic sliding door swiftly opened for me. I walked into the building and saw aisles and aisles of product shelves before me. I thought that Aladin must be feeling the same when the genie stood before him when the cloud from the oil lamp faded away.

I got my shopping list out of my backpack. "seal tape, assorted sizes of washer, glue gun, PVC gutter glue, hand tools for repairing electronic device", four or five items totally, but as I walked through the aisles, I was wanting more other items than those in my shopping list. The new design of tools and hardwares on display were challenging my temptation. Obviously my DIY spirit was being childish and ambitious.

On the way to the plumbing section, I saw multi-purpose rope, then my thought went to those overgrown branches of the tall tree in my garden. I should have one of this rope for pulling the branches to be felled to the desired direction. I saw a big range of plastic rollers, then I thought of the sliding doors of our cupboard that needed a new set of rollers to ease the open and shut operation. Now I came to the hand tool section, the desire to buy items like --drill bits set, gutter cutter, plastic welder, plumber's clamp, vice, glue gun, mechanic's tool set, multi-function hand-tool and etc.

I ended up picking up an electronic tool-set priced at $14 and quickly walked away from that section so as to shake off the annoying temptation.

I finally came to the plumbing section, the main purpose of this trip. I searched for washer. If possible I'd like to have a single pack of assorted sizes. There are rows and rows of products displayed on the shelves. I wondered how many stockists will be required to manage hundreds of thousands products of the whole company. Soon I had found the items that might be required by the leaking tap.

If I was not in a hurry to go home to undergo the repair, I would like to spend more time to browse around in the building till they close for the day. Perhaps I should spoil myself by spending in Mitre 10 a whole day in the near future.

I paid for the purchase at the checkout point and walked out of the building unwillingly. Nearby the entrance was a sausage sizzle stool emitting the lovely sizzling onion smell. it was a cloudy day, a cool day, a day suitable to have sausage sizzle, so I thought and walked toward the sausage stand to buy one to please my DIY spirit. And that's concluded my day out in Mitre 10.

Ps. The repairing of the leaking tap went smoothly and was successfully done.

Will the world be better off by 2020?

One of the papers that Chenny chooses to study this year is business ethics. Not long after the term commenced in March, we had a spontaneous chat during the dinner time. Very seldom had we had long, formal and academic talks, but this one was. The chat gradually drifted to his further study on Business Management, then he raised a big question "Will the world be better off by 2020?" and invited my input of thoughts about this topic.

I read quite a lot of news reports relating to this topic in recent couple of years. Most of them predict a worse one, and so does mine. I had a compulsion of writing an essay type document on this subject at the moment when Chenny raised that question. The next day I worked out a 750 word report to at least prove the logical part of my brain is still functional although it lacked supporting statistical figures..

Below is my writing.

The world will be worse generally by 2020. So I believe.

My conclusion that the world will be generally worse by 2020 is based on the following arguments. 1) dysfunctional consumerism, 2) worldwide moral backward 3) technology over dependence.

Consumerism has a bad image nowadays. People seem to have realized consumerism is the cause of destruction in many ways, such as the threat to ecological balance; overuse of natural resources; encourage unnecessary consumption. These are a few examples of the nature of consumerism.

Almost no exception, when any country experiences an economical downturn, its government always turn to the remedy of consumption stimulation. During the worldwide financial crisis in 2008, in order to slow down the recession, Taiwan government issued agreed amount of consumer voucher. Taiwan Pres. appeared in the TV, using the voucher to buy food and goods to stimulate consumption in an attempt to alleviate the impact on small businesses. Other countries in the world also adopted similar ways, though differently, to seek for a solution from consumerism.

Apparently most of the free countries in the world adopt consumerism as an instant remedy of economy stimulation. As a result, this approach to economy stimulation causes a lot of waste on their national resources, and perhaps still see the recession worsening.

Because so far in the world all the capitalised countries have no other solutions than the consumerism approach, and we know what it will lead to. That's why I believe it will not be better off by 2020.

The second point that supports me to believe the world will not be better off by 2020 is the fact that the worldwide moral standard is going backward.

Overall moral standard has a great impact on the country in terms of social cost. If corruption is commonly found in the government, this country will see no future. A nation's social security will be fragile if the moral standard among the people is too low. Read in the news you will see what the overall moral standards is like in a country. Police was attacked; infants were killed; shops were robbed, and etc.

Although it is impossible to erase all crime or corruption from a society, what we are looking at is the tendency of its increase and its severity. And the statistic reveals the worry is not wrong.

And the consumerism will make the issue of moral standard a lot worse. We all can tell this by common sense.

The third point that makes me believe 2020 will not be better off is our over dependence on technology, especially the IT technology. We know that today everything we do is depending on computer and Internet connection. When there is any accident occurred, chaos follows immediately. We all experience traffic jam due to the failure of traffic signals; the long queue in supermarkets check out point; top secrete information hacked, all these result in social cost rocketing.

My arguments sound pessimistic, but I'm only reflecting the truth and facts. The solutions I can think of are on the following.

Setup a ministry of moral education. Teach people to live simple lifestyle.

Largely increase the spending on fine cultural promotion and cultural related tourism development.

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 Baby Boomer's Memory

Born in 1951, I am a baby boomer. Recently when I get a chance to be meeting with friends of my age group, the chatting topics are more or less related to the planning of retirement. Indeed, the baby boom generation has entered their retiring stage of life.

What a shame, time has to pass by so swiftly that all of a sudden I am turning 60. Now recalling my childhood memories in 1950's, it feels like just a short moment ago. From time to time, I fall into the dream-like past. I think I should pass these bits and pieces of my childhood memories onto my children.

Taiwan of 1950's was still in its agricultural economy. Being an agriculture island, the living style in those days was simple and hard. A rice farmer worked so hard whole year round in the paddy with his water buffalo could only expect to feed his family without much surplus for saving in the bank. If there was a typhoon hit unfortunately, then the whole family got to cut their food in order to make end meet. Sometimes, the loss was too big to fix, selling child was not unusual. My mother was actually an example of this misfortune. Her story is accessible in this link.

We owned some farming land in my grandfather's day. During 1950's, KMT government launched Land Reform program aiming to improve farmers' living and divert the landlords' asset to investing in other industrial projects. This program, as I had heard vaguely from my father when I was young, made a lot of farmers cheerful and many resentful landlords at the same time. I could sense what my father felt about the Land Reform from his admonishing to me a few times that I should never get involved in politics.

Before all our lands were transferred to the farmers, we managed a small piece of land by our selves. That was my last impression of our family's farm land. One day, I think it was an autumn afternoon, I was brought along to that land.

It was the harvesting day of our rice paddy. We hired a couple of farmers to do the job as none of our family members was able to do such tough task. To local customary, the employer was supposed to provide daily the three meals plus two refreshments for the breaks in between the meals.

I was not yet at the school age, but I have retained a vivid memory of that day's field visit till now, so I should be around four or five years old then.

Three of my elder sisters hand carried the lunch to the harvesting site for the farm workers at the mid day. The sun was scorching hot. When we arrived, sister ran to ask the farmers to stop for a lunch break. I saw them walked out of the rice paddy with a broad rimmed cone top bamboo leave hat on their heads and a thin shorts only on their body. Their skin was almost dark brown. They smiled, and their eyes beamed at the food placed on the ground attentively as if they had been starved for a long time.

We waited nearby under the tree shade for the farmers to finish their lunch. While waiting, I felt the pleasure radiated from the farmers. The surrounding was very quiet only now and then saw some wild ducks flew high in the sky chirping back and forth. I was fascinated by the birds' singing. I listened so tentatively that my 3rd sister also joined me in watching the flying birds in the sky and mimicking their sound. Their tone sounded like huu-huu-gei-gei....huu-huu-gei-gei...repeatedly. I asked my sister what was the bird saying? Sister said, "they are saying 'look, look, I am getting married, I am getting married'." At that moment I thought sister was very smart that she understood bird's language.

Another bit memory recorded during this paddy visit was rather embarrassing to mention, but it reflected the hygiene level of that era. I suddenly had a strong urge to toilet when I was playing. I told 3rd sister my need. She looked around the surrounding to make sure no one was coming toward us and then she asked me to poo right at that spot. She proceeded to pull my shorts down. Feeling embarrassed for being exposed to others' eyeshot, I held my shorts tightly. Sister said to me, "I cover you from their viewing and you be quick!" Her tone was rather anxious.

So I pulled down the shorts myself and squatted down and did a quick poo. Then, another problem came up, no toilet paper. In 1950's Taiwan, the toilet paper was as abrasive as the packaging tray of eggs. It looked like they were made of rice stalk because of its yellowish color and the stem chips were visible. But it was reasonable for the lowest grade of paper being used to wipe the bum clean. The problem was sister did not bring toilet paper along on that day.

She searched with her eyeshot on the ground and picked up a stone as big as a golf ball with the smoothest surface to give to me. I think I was pretty smart then as I got what she meant with that stone. I grabbed it and gently scratched my ass hole, threw that stone away, and pulled up my shorts. Felt relieved.

As a post World-War II baby boomer, we have witnessed and experienced the dramatic changes and improvement of living standard.

I am most impressed by the evolution of toilet happened during our generation. Until mid 1960's, almost all of the toilets, my home's, schools', bus station's, were of the type as shown in the sketch. On the center of the raised platform is a ditch with a slop leading to a big cavity in the ground outside of the house, and you know that's where all the shit and urine go to through that sliding slop. When you use the toilet, you firstly step up the two stairs and enter the cubicle, turn around, step one foot across the ditch, squat down and then you are ready to go. Oh yes, remember to close the door. Outside at the back of the cubicle is a wooden lid that covers up the waste storing cavity to prevent people from stepping into the hole.

Naturally it is always very stinky even though the toilet cubicle is usually built with maximum ventilation openings on the top. So it is normally located seprately from the house. Summer in Taiwan is hot and this makes the smell in the cubicle terrible.

Who empties the waste for you? Expensive?

Well, no fee charged for the removal of the waste, nonetheless, now and then, we even saw a bunch of vegetable was left by the lid of the waste storing cavity for us. The kind farmer who fetched the waste to use as fertilizer for his farm land did this as a return for using the free fertilizer.

So because of the nature of this kind of toilet facility, the stinky smell makes every user only occupies it as short a time as they can. In contrary to modern toilet which some users bring their books or newspaper in to read while the major task is being done. So I suppose that was why constipation was rarely heard of in the olden day, because everyone can not wait to run away from it as soon as the feat is done.

Once, when I was about 10 years old, I used the toilet early one winter morning. I heard some noise from outside of the cubicle when I was only half way through my bowl movement, suddenly a good blow of wind carrying the most vintage odor of the waste hit my buttock and my smell sensor. I realized that was that kind farmer doing his respectful deed. I held my breath, skillfully stopped at where I was, rapidly wiped the butt clean and rushed out of the cubicle, almost suffocated.

Then in 1963, we moved to live in a new house which had two toilets both were of the flux type of modern standard. What a big leap of toilet evolution.

I also saw a calculator as heavy as some 10 kgs. I used it myself actually, when I was in my military service at the Cadet Training Center in 1974, for summing up cadets competence assessments. Within just 4 years, in 1979, I was shown by my colleague his pocket calculator powered by one AAA battery, doing faster calculation than the one I used earlier.

Then the baby boomer saw many other things changed in rapid modification process: mobile phone, computer, television, data storage device, recorder, video camera, and such and such, the list goes on. All are appealing to make our life easier and happier. But are people's life easier and happier now compared to 1950's?

The baby boomer say: nope! Pursuing only the material pleasure is not the answer for happiness, there got to be some other stuff we have overlooked.

Mind Chatter - Self-talker in the mind

I can not recall the approximate time, now, when did I begin to notice there was a chatter inside me. The chatter I am talking about here is not a hallucinative one which whispers into our ears, but the one that comes out of the ego from our minds. Or may be I should term it the mind self-talker.

For a brief experiment on myself. I stop writing this post at this point. I close my eyes with an intention of still my thought and see what goes on during the following one minute.

Now I recount what have arisen in the mind. First of all the chatter started "Gee, it is chilly today" "it is cloudy" "what am I doing" "a mind chatter experiment" "what is Robbie doing? on the web? He got a good job." "why my mind is so busy?" "what to write in the blog?" "something that I have experienced." "Chenny promised to broaden his guitar teaching a bit, to include classical guitar music".

To my personal view point, the content that flashed through my mind in the one minute experiment is like a mass of entangled thread. It is possible to be guided toward a desired topic, but once there, it freely jumps onto something else, and just a short moment later it is gone to another one. It is like a curious wild monkey being put on a leash, but never settles down at any time.

If we look into our mind closely we will only then realize our mind is constantly talking and chatting all the time till we fall into sleep. Or perhaps even most of the time during sleep, the mind is still restlessly talking itself into the dream. This incessant mind chatting may result in poor productivity, inefficiency, chronicle fatigue, and eventually become a stubborn part of us that we find it annoying but we just tightly embrace it and react to it. And many of us, unfortunate enough, end up having to rely on sleeping pills, to take anti-depressant, or to consult mental health professionals.

Don't scare me! It is not that serious!

But it is true. I have heard of an estimated figure that one-fourth of the world population will experience some form of mental problem in any given year.

May be you will argue that you only think about happy stuff. Your mind chatting topics are all surrounding good and peaceful notions. Then, I congratulate you that you may be put in the lucky three-fourth world population.

However, according to law of impermanence, there is just nothing that will remain the same permanently. At least we all have to go through the major life issues - aging, sickness and death, each of which will throw us into pathetic mind chatting for sure.

I suppose that 2500 years ago when Prince Siddhatha found the way of ceasing the wandering thoughts and achieved Buddhahood, he realized the cause of suffering was this constant mind chatter that sooner or later leads us into thoughts of craving, hatred and ignorance if we don't get them under control. He decided to walk into the world to teach all the beings the technique of genuine awakening.

Recently I came across this passage when I was searching for discussion group on this topic in Chinese web pages: "狂心若歇﹐歇即菩提" which means "Once the wandering thought ceases, the wisdom emerges." (Please forgive me if my translation is off the original meaning too much.) This text is said to be originated from Surangama Sutra, and has made me ponder on how to tame the wandering mind.

So in the past three years since I was introduced to the Pure Land path, I have been at the same time in quest for the possibility of putting this wandering mind, or mind chatter, at ease, hoping to gain at least some happiness if not the complete awakening.

All the techniques had been tried. Sitting Zen, sutra chanting, visualization, walking meditation, mindfulness training, observing precepts, guided meditation and some mundane methods were adopted at different stage of the quest but the anticipated outcome was dim.

Finally came Master Chin Kung's persuasive explanation about why Buddha most recommended the method of chanting Amituofo to followers of this era.

Because the mind chatter has evolved to be far more stubborn and polluted by today's worldly temptation than the one in ancient days. Now that it is almost impossible to cease its constant chatting, we can coax it into chanting Amituofo. When the chanting becomes the whole thing of the chatter, that state is equivalent to enlightenment.

The logic is convincing to me. What about you?

DIY - do it yourself

Do it yourself - DIY, has been part of my everyday living since we moved to New Zealand in 1992. Not only because I am passionate with it, but also because I need to. When your mere income is the sole support of the whole family, you can become a DIY man more easily.

So as I recount now about what projects or repairs I have done in the past 17 years, I feel great, pride and awesomeness in me.

Compared to other giant DIYers who are able to build their own garden shed; construct their own BBQ area; lift the car engine, fix it and put it back, my DIY projects are nothing, but the passion of doing it myself is the same considering I can only do it after work and have to spend time with my small children.

As far as I can remember, the list covers: leaking taps, burnt light bulbs, leaking toilet flush tank, washing machine blocked, broken gutter, TV antenna connection gone loose, interior wall painting, motorized window of the car stuck, tire gone flat, repairing children's toys, repairing lawn mower, making working bench, felling a tree, and the list goes on.

The one among the repaired list that brought me the most self-satisfaction is this Ryobi brand petrol powered edge trimmer.

A few years ago, I convinced my wife that we needed a petrol powered edge trimmer as our previous one, a Ryobi brand also, an electric model powered by a rechargeable battery was not powerful enough to do a good job. She nodded.

I went to the garden tool section of a big hardware shop. Dear me! The cheapest model of the petrol powered range was from 300 mark. The electric range was much cheaper, around 150 mark, but my friend commented it as wasting money. Ryobi was priced at the low end and its design looked smart to me, so I selected it, made payment and came home excitedly.

The next day was a weekend. I unpacked it, read the manual, filled the fuel tank with the right petrol mixture and walked to the garden anticipating an easy start-up and a good job done.

Unfortunately it didn't respond to the first pull. "Never mind, this is normal." I thought to myself. Second pull, no response. I made sure I primed the carburetor, and set the choke fully closed. Third pull, no. Fourth pull, no! I began to be anxious. Fifth, sixth, no, no. I began to pant, I began to feel frustration. It ended up with a frustrated day.

The next day I returned the machine to the dealer. The person on duty that day was a senior staff. He seemed quite experienced. Having heard of my complaint, he rolled up his sleeves and had a try himself. One, two, three, four, I could see sweat started wetting his face, oooops! the string would not retract after the last pull.

He agreed something was wrong with it and gave me a replacement of the same model. He tested on the new one. Within four or five pulls, the machine roared. That was normal. I thanked his assistance and went home.

What happened after the new one arrived home? Not an enjoyable trimming experience! It stopped before the whole round was completed, and could not be started again. The second and third time of using it were nightmare, too. And the fourth time was the last time I failed in getting it work and decided to give it up.

Why I didn't return it to the dealer for another replacement this time? Well, when I recalled how that technician sweated and panted in trying to get it started, I felt sorry for him. And I thought my DIY talent might sort it out myself one day.

Every time I mowed the lawn, my mind went to that trimmer. Now and then, I took it out to try my luck to revive it, and it remained no hope at all. So I had been dealing with the messy tall grass along the fence with my bare hands since then.

Once I chanced upon a garden tool dealer in a shopping centre. I told him my trimmer's problem. He said it was a very common problem to trimmers and suggested a service to it for 100 bucks. I was reluctant to accept his offer having had the start-up problem ingrained in my memory.

The other time, I passed by another garden equipment shop in Mairangi Bay. I asked the shop keeper if they repaired engine trimmer. He asked what brand was my machine. I gave the name. He smiled mysteriously and said "we only service those serviceable brands...".

One day, I had this idea of servicing this machine myself, DIY! I searched on the web for information about repairing trimmers and luckily landed on the page which carried this savoir video. This video gave me detailed knowledge about the trimmer, most of all it reminded me of my DIY spirit.

On the next day, I set out to remove the carburetor from the machine and dismantled the whole thing according to what I had learned from the video. Soon all the parts were laid out on the working bench. The main body of the carburetor is like a bee hive having many tiny holes on all sides of the cube. A rubber cap, a membrane made from plastic film, a diaphragm attached to the bottom of the unit. I imagined how the petrol was pumped into the cube by the dome shaped rubber cap, how it then flew to the bottom part in the small reservoir, and how the movement of the piston of the engine sucked the fuel through the tiny hole from which the liquid fuel turns into mass of droplets like mist and finally into the combustion chamber of the engine.

Wow! the design is really amazing. Any part in this small mechanism fails will simply make the user frustrated. My trimmer had only been used three or four times since purchased, so why it just could not be fired no matter how I hard I tried?

I bought a can of WD40, a solvent based cleaner spray, to cleanse all the tunnels in the cube till I was sure not any dirt blocking in the veins. Then, I assembled the unit and attached it back to the machine carefully after thorough study on this important mechanism.

I couldn't wait to go a test. I filled up the tank with petro, manually pour about 20cc of petro through the carb into the engine. And pulled. One pull, two pull, urmmmm. It roared beautifully. A big smile came up my face and my heart beats hiked. But it stopped after two or three seconds. I supposed the fuel I manually poured in had run out and the supply from the carb was not immediately followed.

I repeated the same process a few times and saw the same problem persistent.Then I guessed the ratio of fresh air and the petrol droplets could be too low and caused the stop. So I turned the choke lever to the middle setting which would reduce the fresh air flow by half the volume. Then, one pull, two pulls, third pull, Urmmm---, hurray! it worked continually. Dreading it might stop at any time, I used it to trim the edges of the whole garden and it still ran.

So this was how I revived my edge trimmer through DIY. And this one is ranked the top one of my most unforgettable DIY accomplishment.

A memorable Transistor Radio

The fine music from Concert FM is in the background while I am writing this post. This red portable Panasonic transistor radio has been with us, the Chen family, since 1982. It is very old to a radio and yet it is still working nicely.

It is very memorable to me because it has witnessed quite a few important events in the Chen family since the day it was 'adopted' by my father in 1982.

In an early morning walk in the summer, my father and mother heard some sound from the roadside where they were passing by on the way home. Tracing where was the sound from, they found this lovely red radio lying on the roadside like a crying baby. My father picked it up, tenderly dusted off the dirts and then 'adopted' it.

It brought news, music and other entertainments to my father and mother while they sewed umbrellas for the factory as a passing time job. The sound quality was perfect. It loyally accompanied dad and mum when we were away at works.

In September 1982, not long after it was 'adopted', my daughter was born. This was the first baby that Chen family had longed for since Jean and I married 5 years earlier. My father sometimes used his 'adopted' radio to entertain his beloved grand daughter by turning to the right volum and placing it by Tessie's pillow to accompany her through a sound nap.

In October 1987, this radio witnessed the most joyful event of this old couple, the birth of our son Chenny. This boy baby of Chen family was one of the wishes they had been prayed for since our marriage 10 years earlier. Having a boy born to the family is a very important thing according to Chinese tradition. Mum and dad ever commented that this 'adopted' radio did bring the family luckiness.

In September 1988, dad was sent to hospital due to a serious stroke. The attendant whom I employed to look after my father during the wrok days in the hospital complained that it was boring in the ward. I thought of this radio and lent it to him. Thus, he got some form of entertainment and my father could see his 'adopted' radio sitting on his bedside. During the weekend, it was my turn to look after father at the hospital, and I could experience the importance of this radio to both the patient and the attendant.

Father died of some complications after 5 month hospitalization. In February 1989, his doctor discharged him from hospital so that he could pass away in his own home. This is a tradition held by my parent's generation. So this radio followed father to our home and was kept silent for some time after father's death.

It must be such a memorable item that when we were packing up for immigration to New Zealand, we put it carefully in the seafreight parcels. And here this lovely radio has been with us in New Zealand.

In the last 3 years, I have been working from home as Programme Advisor for an organization called Kiwi Ora. Working from home can make one feel quite isolated, so I unconciously found this radio from the cabinet and set it up. Ah! it is still sounding perfect, and it has accompanied me through the days working as a Kiwi Ora PA.

Recently, my son showed off his high tech i-pod to me in my home office. Without hesitation, I pulled him to the desk side where this radio sit and told him the history of this red machine. He remained silence for quite a while, looked as if he had relized the value of time and caring.

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.