Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Daily Grind
After the mid-lesson break, my student came back and dropped this comment - "Isn't it sick? It's past 7pm and half of the office is still here.""Half?" I looked up, across the glass window that separates the conference room from the office space partitioned into mini-cubicles (a rare scene for a Japanese office, I tell you). "But it looks like most people are gone!" I said, seeing only a few lone bodies still glued to their computer screens - 3 computer screens, to b precise, for each of them, yes.
"Well, just go around the corner and see the other side of the floor. Most foreigners sit on this side."
"Ahhhhh ... Now I got it. For the longest time I was going to ask you how come your company seems to keep everyone out by a reasonable hour," I said.
"Yeah, b/c most foreigners do want to get out by 5:30pm and go have dinner with their family or kids. This is a foreign company so I guess they don't care. But you know," my student drew himself close and lowered his voice, even though the conference room door surely was shut tight. "I used to work in a Japanese company and people had this weird notion of needing to stay late. Yet the productivity was SO low."
Later at dinner, I was told that the trip plan might need to be called off.
"There's an event the night before and the an appointment at noon ... If I don't go, I'm probably going to lose this deal."
Lose it then.
"But it's a deal that concerns next year's business with this client."
Right, and this is one that concerns the marching forward to the 3rd decade of my life.
"Well, it's really just circumstantial, you know. I have little control."
I know. It's also just circumstantial that my b-day is set on this particular date. Go ask God for the reasons and I have little control too.
The bottom line is, I'm just sick and tired of this "work comes first" mentality. On your death bed, it's not going to be work or your colleagues or your clients or your boss who are going to accompany you until the final moment.
But we all seem to have forgotten that. Or we seem to be so good at finding excuses for forgetting that.
梅ちゃん at 12:50:00 AM
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Grass & The Straw: Bordering-Crossing 2
Perhaps it was the very first chilly touch of the slightly damp grass beneath my bare foot or the tasteless, plastic chewiness of the straw in my mouth that made me remember that moment.I was barely three yet had grown to be a head taller than S. S is the daughter of Mrs. Irv. who was born only a few months ahead of me yet with whom I shared a complete different physical feature. S was blond, petit, white, and soft like a marshmallow who melts in your heart. I, on the other hand, was tall (compared to the other kids in age), broad-shouldered, round-faced, and hung above my head (really) the ugliest (yet typical) boyish haircut that only the Asian moms seem to be too fond of fixing for their kids for the sake of 方便 (convenience) and this whatever notion called 清爽 ("a refreshing look"... so my mom says).
(and yes, all the way until 5, I remained in that so-called convenient and refreshing haircut)
Standing next to S, I looked like a dwarf-sized giant wearing some plain, striped shirt and black pants. Standing next to me, S looked like a picture-book little princess dressed in Cinderella-like pretty dresses with delicate ribbons tied onto her long, silky pony tail.
That afternoon, when the sun has pretty much sunk under the horizon and the remaining water drops from the sprinkler began to chill on the lawn in front of Mrs. Irv.'s house as the temperature began to drop, S and I went out to the lawn, waiting - for S, perhaps for her dad to come home and for me, for mom to pick me up from work.
We began to toy with the thick, plastic straw that either someone had somehow handed over to us or perhaps we had secretely saved from the afternoon Kool-Aid break.
Barefooted, the thick grass underneath me first felt like a tickle; soon, it turned into discomfort. Perhaps the early-evening breeze had begun to blown, brushing against my bare arms and signaling the arrival of the night and the closing of the summer. I started to feel a bit antsy - the same kind of antsyness that I felt years later when I arrived in New England to start college in the fall, tasting the loneliness of being away from home for the first time, and feeling the same way for every autumn/winter to come in grad school when daylight disappears shortly past 4pm and the brisk wind from the coast starts blowing as soon as the sun goes down.
Subconsciously picking up the straw in my hand, I started biting and chewing the tip end. Seeing me doing so, S picked up her straw and started chewing too. Tasteless, I discovered for the first time, when no ice Kool-Aid or early-morning orange juice runs through that hole. Tasteless still, I double checked, but stubborn I thought, as the straw began to form an interesting and sensational battle against the teeth in my mouth.
Barely three, I had not learned about what plastic is or what a straw is made from. But for the first time I discovered that there is such a thing in the world where you put it in your mouth after a hard bite, it remains intact rather than breaking into pieces or exploding into flurry balls of cotton or thread.
The tickle underneath my feet subsided, for for a while I was too absorbed in the act of biting and chewing. The sun set even deeper, and there was still no mom in sight. In the distance, crickets began to sing, pine trees began to sway, and the grass beneath started to grow colder.
In Taiwan, there is always a brown, squarish album tucked on top of the rest of the family albums in A4 size. This odd-sized album bound in leather was a farewell gift that Mrs. Irv. prepared for us before we left.
In the last page of the album, there was a picture of S and me, standing next to each other in disproportional heights, looking not at the camera but far away to the distance waiting for something. Barefooted, in summer short sleeves, with two straws half hanging from our mouth, we barely noticed the cameraman nearby.
"This is taken in your last fall in South Bend," mom says.
Ah, so it wasn't a dream. Once again, the picture and mom's comment confirmed that I have remembered it correctly.
That first and perhaps last touch of the cool, damp grass in late-summer wind, which I would have to wait till 15 years later to feel it again back in the U.S. when taking a walk on campus, and the bland yet chewy sensation of the straw that did not return to me again until mom and dad took me to McDonald's for the first time in Taipei and I sipped empty every drop of the strawberry milkshake that night, aged of 5, when the first McD's appeared in Taiwan.
You see, McDonald's straws are always thicker and sturdier than the thin, flimsy family-use straws you can buy in the Taiwanese supermarket. And the grass in the U.S. is always meant for walking on, rolling on, taking a nap or picnicking on, rather than just for looking.
The grass and the straw - the random, tiny, yet unforgettable memory of mine of my U.S. childhood.
梅ちゃん at 1:46:00 AM
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Border Crossing Chapter 1
Mom likes to tell the story of my young young childhood age, when I was just slightly over three years old and came back to Taiwan with the rest of the family as dad decided to take upon a new job post back in his own home country finally, after 15+ years of residence abroad.Having been taken care of during the day primarily by my next next door neighbor, Mrs. Irv., English was my only means of communication even though my ability to speak itself remained somewhat limited to a mere 3-year-old.
"But your grandpa loved you!" mom always starts her story like this. "At that time, you were still very tiny, always sitting quietly like a little barbie doll on the high chair."
Barbie doll? Mom, I thought you told me in another story that I suddenly became this rowdy, short-tempered kid after going back to Taiwan 'cuz my world had suddenly turned upside down, with all of my closest playmates and Mrs. Irv. disappearing out of the blue?
Anyway, the story goes on.
"You were a very well-mannered kid. Mrs. Irv taught you to say, 'More please,' whenever you want to have more servings. So each time, grandpa would purposely put just a little less than the usual amount in your plate and then expect you to hand in your little plate after awhile and say those magical words - 'More please!'"
How would grandpa know what that means?
"Yeah, I had to explain what it means to him." Mom put in the addendum. "But he was SO fond of that little you, speaking in those pretty, perfect English tones."
Right. Grandpa probably was SO fond of me and see me as this strange, little Chinese-looking yet American-born/raised "barbie doll" who speaks in this funny language called English.
Of course, some other stories of mom go like this -
"You were a naughty little kid, always fooling your grandpa around."
Alright, mom, you just contradicted yourself. You said that I was a good barbie doll always sitting on my high chair, well-behaved?
"I can't remember how many times I spotted you running fast ahead of grandpa on the way home after he picked you up from daycare. Grandpa's leg had already started to develop problems at that time, so he couldn't walk very fast."
Twinkling tears begin to circle in mom's eyes.
"Did I know that grandpa had trouble walking?"
"Of course you did! Kids know everything! That was why you would purposely run faster than him and let him chase after you. You knew that grandpa would never really get angry at you."
The thing about human memory is, you sometimes remember the most random yet forget the most important. The "More please" story and the fooling-grandpa-around story never remained in the parameter of my memory.
But I do remember one thing, a flash of a scene that for the longest time I thought was just a scene from a vivid dream until I confirmed with mom that it actually happened.
That cold, winter night when showers (or snowflakes?) were pouring outside our house in South Bend, Indiana and our whole family packed up and bundled up like Eskimos, waiting for the car to pull into the driveway.
In my fragmented memory, I remember vividly the car that slowly pulled into the driveway, the beams of rain reflected through the headlights of the car, and, most oddly, the completely darkness in the house. Had my parents already switched off the lights knowing that the car has arrived, or was the image of the reflected rain stayed so strongly in my mind that the rest of the world around me seemed so much darker in comparison?
The next scene, we were on a small, dimly-lit little plane on our way to somewhere. I was still shaking in the cold even though I was already buckled up in my seat and supposedly no in-flight temperature could be that low. But for some reason, the dampness of the rain and the cold air blown out of my nose and mouth never left me.
Years later, I saw a picture in the family album. There were the four of us, standing in front of a Christmas tree in an airport-like public space. There was me, dressed up like a chubby eskimo in my khaki-colored winter coat. I had only a slight smile on my face probably b/c I still couldn't get over how cold it was.
"Where were we going, mom?"
"Oh, this is the day when we left the U.S. to go back to Taiwan! This was taken at the airport at South Bend. We had to first take a small plane to Chicago and then transfer from there."
So that was definitely more than a dream.
"Was it really cold that day? Like it was showering or something?"
"Yah, how do you know?" Mom was surprised. "It was right after Christmas day and the weather was terrible. Come to think of it, it probably wasn't a good idea to have the whole family of four riding on such a small plane like that ..."
Could I have somehow felt that it was more than just a regular going-away on the weekend and thus my brain made a mental note to itself, asking the memory to stay?
What about the rest of the lost memories? Could they have stayed in the memories of others and be retraced now, or have they always remained deep inside of me, exerting influences in other ways, such as maintaining that perfect English accent of mine even though all the grammar rules and phrases had slipped out of my communication system just months after moving back to Taiwan?
My first leaving home experience, going to a land of unknown though a land called home for my parents. My first "cross-cultural" interchange with my dear old grandpa, and my first encounter with meeting people who are not foreign but act and speak and behave like foreigners to me or me like a foreign doll to them.
"Border-crossing" - it has and will never remain just an academic jargon or theoretical debate to me. Nor will I ever allow it to be.
梅ちゃん at 1:02:00 PM
Sunday, October 04, 2009
行千里之路共嬋娟
吃了不多的月餅，却意外地看到了一輪明月。與幾位甚或是近十年未見的表兄弟姐妹們相聚一堂，共聊近況與愿景。所謂來台之家族第四代，生動活潑地在眼前跑著，跳著，嘻嘻哈哈著。一回头，仿佛看到了二十多年前那個身影矮小，被所有表哥們欺負嘲笑的年少的我。「但願人長久，千里共嬋娟」。能不能長久倒是從未仔細想過，但是每一次的相聚確實是在行了千里之路之下才能實現的。一晃眼，下回看到的那個在頭頭是道地和爸媽爭論冰淇淋該吃多少的，可能就是上回在口中還含著罐頭蘋果泥，嘴裡嘰裡咕嚕不知說著啥的奶娃。
又或自己下回也要成為個抱著奶娃的媽？
古人或沒有時差之覺吧。要不然他們不會不知道，不行個千里，欲求抬頭一望共嬋娟也並非易事了。
又，曾幾何時，與家族相聚之樂，必定是要在跨過了千里之後才能享受的呢？
行李收拾的差不多了。只是，回到一人居住的東京之後，塞满了carry-on的月餅，仍能保有今夜的香甜嗎？
梅ちゃん at 4:45:00 AM
Monday, September 21, 2009
Dialogue with the City
People usually associate nostalgia with the concept of home. "哇，好懷念喔～" ... "懐かしい〜" ... "Wow, the last time I did this/ate that/saw this was bla bla years ago", so do people say.But sitting in a rather uncomfortable chair typing this blog entry, surrounded by boxes/bags of junkies in this now-storage but ex-room of my brother's, I cannot feel more foreign (if not uncomfortable) than anywhere else in the world.
The only thing in this surrounding that evokes any tiny sense of nostalgia is probably the dial-up internet connection that I used all throughout high school to complete all my essays and reports and ICQ chatting. Mommy refuses to upgrade so the daughter who only comes home once or twice a year have no reason to voice opinions against.. I refuse to call it "懐かしい〜" though, *sigh*, 'cuz it's plain inconvenience.
What is it about home that people miss and desire to return to? Is it friends? family? the food stall down the street? or the familiar intonation that you once call it your mother tongue? The thing is, even though the shabby grocery store down the alley of my house remains standing (except shrinking in size as the owner apparently wants some extra income by renting out half the space to a real-estate agent), the 7-11 simply has moved from across the road to this side of the road, and the buildings in the neighborhood are gathering more dirty water marks on the outer walls and some old trees grow older and taller, nothing has changed much around here. Yes, more cafes and more newly built apartment buildings have sprung up, and deserted cats and dogs are no longer in sight. But, it's the same, old neighborhood that I grew up in, the same, old house that housed me till I became a young adult, and the same old Taipei that I still refer to as my home city yet I no longer know what that means.
Perhaps I've "outgrown" this city or the city has outgrown me. Whichever process came first I'm not sure. This city has its own sense of rhythm and change, and so do I. But the two rhythms no longer match, the experiences have differed, and worst of all, not enough contacts have been made between the two to rekindle the sense of affinity if not familiarity. My impression of the city stays in whatever it was like 12 years ago, but the city has outgrown that impression. Meanwhile, what I have expected of the city, it no longer responds or cares.
I return to Taipei and recognize that this is no longer the city that I'm used to anymore. My accent has changed and so has the accent of the city. My expectation remains high but the city would rather take a pace of its own. I wish I could simply take the perspective of a true foreigner who just comes and intakes everything as it is, remaining on the outside and just respecting everything seen and tasted, no judging no questioning no feeling of bother. But I cannot. Because everywhere I go I see with a perspective of the past lingering in the background. Where goes the whatever-whatever, I want to ask, or why does such and such remains this way, I want to shout out loud.
But girl, you no longer live here, so no judgement no questions and no feelings of bother please, I hear the city talks back to me. You mean, I no longer belong? I want to probe further.
Silence, that's all I hear.
Perhaps that itself is the best answer to that question, I realize.
It's only going to be a few days anyway, I murmur.
梅ちゃん at 11:23:00 AM
Monday, August 24, 2009
Lessons that Mt. Fuji Taught Me
It was the 3rd hour since we started our 2nd-day of climb at 5:30am. My eyes started to get watery, visions blurry, nose running non-stop like a broken faucet, and my feet no longer felt or walked like my feet but simply robot legs trying to keep up with the pace and steps programmed from the beginning. I panted and panted, no longer caring about how loud I may sound - like a hunched-back old lady struggling with the subway stairs in Tokyo or a furry golden retriever or some sort dying from the summer heat - and how scarily short of breath I still felt after each intake of breath. For every 5 steps I took I had to give myself a few seconds of break. Then another 5 steps, then another, and another. B took on a faster pace than me and was kind enough to stop every so often to wait for me to catch up. No pain in the chest, no headaches, no heartbeat racing too fast to start making me panic like how I once experienced in Tibet. Thank God, I thought. Yet when B and I glanced at the roadside sign that read, "900 m/60 min till the top", I realized the longest 60 minutes of my life are yet to come."Well, let's think of it as a very long subway transfer," B suggested. I sighed, and my mind began to think of the very long subway transfer that I sometimes do run into in Tokyo. Would it be from the Tozai-line subway station at Iidabashi to the JR platform, or would it be from the B7 subway platform of Oedo-line to the south ticket gate of Shinjuku south exit? Or maybe the walk from the south exit to Park Hyatt Hotel? Or perhaps just twice the distance from the subway station to the W Univ. library?
It was one of the longest and most painful 900 meters of my life. Painful not b/c I was experiencing any physical pain per se, but because I was engaged in a battle that perhaps is harder to fight than one that evokes physical pain.
The battle of the mental will.
The day before when the 3.5-hour of climb brought us to the steepest rocky slope right before our 8th-level station, I came close to the brink of losing that battle. It wasn't a battle against the rocks or the slopes or the G*D**m gusty wind that swept you off balance per se. It was the battle against the limit of your mental will, when in a blink of a second you could suddenly just snap, and lose it, that mental will of yours, which all together would bring down all sense of confidence, control, and composure in life that you are usually way too familiar with.
Had it not been that stretch of hand from MS or the encouraging words of R following right below me, I think I would've broken down right there, half-hanging between the rocks and swaying off-balancedly from the gusty wind that just would not G*D**m stop blowing.
So in a blink of a second you snap back, restore to your original senses, pose and control, and you keep your mental will intact. I'm ok, it's ok, I can do it because IT'S ALL JUST IN THE MIND - you have to tell yourself that.
An hour later when the 4 of us were all sitting down, warm and cozy and stomach-filled with a tiny Japanese hamburg (not hamburger) in the little 8th-station cabin, MS and R proposed wanting to climb non-stop throughout the night in order to make it to the summit just in time for sunrise.
"Guys, I appreciate you having the confidence in me. But I know my limit. I came very close to having a breakdown on that slope earlier, and I know that if I go with you guys - in pitch-black darkness - I would for sure have a breakdown moment somewhere in the middle of climb. And you will ALL be cursed, SEVERELY, as well as the Mt. Fuji will be, by a non-sensical me. I'm sure none of you want to see that happening."
So we decided that MS and R would continue on after 2 hours of nap, and B and I would be content with enjoying the sunrise at 4:40am at the 8th level before resuming our climb the next morning.
You don't fight with the mountain - lesson one that I learned from this trail. Lesson two - you don't fight for the stupid pride or meaningless face issue while on the mountain. It's about knowing your limits and be readily willing to be humbled by them. It's about knowing your limits and learning to be comfortable with them so that you don't lose the whole journey all together. The point of the journey isn't about competing to see who could get to the top the fastest. Nor is it about how heroically one could accomplish the climb. The goal is simply to get to the top and still to have a good time, period. And one should, and is entitled to - judging upon one's own limit - make that climb as fast or slowly as he/she deems suitable by keeping the spirits high.
(Does this in any way resonate with the truths of life?)
In fact, when hours of fatigue compounded by the lowering of oxygen begin to really wear you down, it is nothing but that simple goal that keeps you going. Your mental will knows that it can't selfishly impose something beyond your body limit - when you just need to pause in order to struggle for one sufficient oxygen intake, your feet naturally stop and your body adjusts. Yet, in the meanwhile, it is also the mind that encourages your body to go further. "I only have one goal, that is, to keep moving this heavy body weight forward, even just by one tiny step at a time," your mind keeps telling you. And then your body follows.
The sun kept blazing, the wind kept blowing, and my feet and legs and arm muscles no longer felt like my own. I couldn't see beyond the immediate 2 footsteps that I was trying to make. But maybe because there were only 2 footsteps that I had to concentrate on, it became all the easier. Just 2 steps, then another 2, then another 2. Forget about the 900 meters. Just focusing on the 2.
When we finally reached the summit, unlike what was expected, I didn't experience any instantaneous euphoria. It felt like we had just come up to another station that could lead to more climbs behind. The shops, the ramen, the oden that we had, the little bit of shopping mood that returned to us, and the momentary of rest were all great. But if you asked me what had left me the greatest imprints of all from this trail, it wasn't the time spent on the summit but that very last stretch of hour, struggling with the 2-step, 2-step rhythm, that would never leave me.
Because it was then that I saw how my mental will was all that mattered and what kept me moving forward. It was the 2-step, 2-step self-chanting, not my physical muscles or strength, that kept me going.
And when the goal vanishes - when the summit has been reached and the seemingly hardest part of the trail is over - we find ourselves having a even tougher time descending. The descending route is meant for sliding, not walking, esp. when you are trying to accomplish the same distance that took you a total of 8 hours to cover upward in merely 3-4 hours downward.
So lesson 3 that Mt. Fuji taught me - how you get to the top, that's how you should get down. If we had completed the climb up in strong will, we should have been able to descend in the same, unyielding spirit.
Unfortunately, all the mental willingness had been lost to allow me for a graceful descend. The innate slope-phobia was unexpectedly confronted and challenged and pushed to the limit. Before the insanely long and slippery slope came to a temporary halt, I lost the faith (that this would ever end) and had a breakdown right there, in the middle of a terrible slope descend with my right hand still holding onto the wooden stick and left hand clutching to B's backpack. I had nothing spare to wipe my own tears.
I cursed at Mt. Fuji and hated it with passion. Lesson one rang harder in my mind - you don't fight with the mountain.
So we stopped fighting for this desire to return as quickly as possible and just concentrated on descending in the least harmful way to our knees and toes. At each turn of the downward slope when we saw more slopes ahead of us, we allowed Mt. Fuji to humble us, again and again. The road signs sure know what it means to not fool people. When it says, "60 min to the 7th-level public toilets", it means 60 min. There is, again, no need and point or possibility of rushing or proving that we could go faster than anyone else.
"How you get up, that's how you come down, kid," I felt like Mt. Fuji saying this to me behind my back, over and over again, with a condescending laugh each time. No shortcuts no bargains no negotiations no mercy no exceptions, regardless of how scared I was at first, resentful after a while, and relinquished of all the idea of "control" at the end.
When we finally came back to the 5th level and walked down that seemingly never-ending walk to the entry of the route, we met many newly arrived visitors beginning their journey to the summit, walking in big strides and saying "Konnichi-wa" to us in beaming smiles.
"I can't decide if I should smile at them in return in order to fool them further into believing that this is going be an experience as easy and merry as if they are having a casual picnic in the local park, or should I exaggerate my fatigue on my face to provide some kind of pre-warning to their innocent excitement?" I turned to B and asked.
B's face showed an ambivalent look that offered no answer to my Q's. "I just can't be bothered, at this point" - that's all that B's face was saying.
So continuing on we go, trying to complete the very last stretch of the very long, 26-hour journey to the top of the Mt. Fuji and down. We passed by the place where we encountered the rare mountain goat just the day before, and we wondered how come the long stretch of road leading to that place seemed so short 26 hours ago yet tortuously long now.
As the old saying goes - "He who climbs Mt. Fuji is a wise man; he who climbs twice is a fool" - for now, I'm happy to be the wise man. And I'm not ready to risk being a fool anytime soon.
-----
Addendum 1: We learned later that it took MS and R 6 hours to come down with MS having terrible chest pain (most likely evoked by altitude sickness) while descending and R, the old-time Yosemite camp volunteer and semi-experienced rock climber, calling this a trip of unforgettable "torture".
Addendum 2: Perhaps one of the sweetest memories of the journey was sending out postcards from the summit to the beloved friends/families. I figure that since none of them would ever attempt to be a wise wise man like me, I might as well take the honor to send *for* them postcards from the highest point and post office in Japan. Sorry B, for dragging you down to the post office, another 30-min, not-so-easy walk from the summit shops.
Addendum 3: A quote from R that perfectly sums up the whole experience - "I did not climb Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji climbed me."
Addendum 4: Do get yourself a Japanese/English award certificate that testifies to you making to the submit. As cheesy as it could be, at least it's one form of vanity-filled bit of memory that I could savor for the rest of my life out of this very long journey of unforgettable suffering.
梅ちゃん at 6:47:00 PM
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Mid-Summer Ruminations
今年東京的夏天雨特別多。And it hasn't been as hot as what I have remembered of a typical Tokyo summer. Last year around this time, I was sitting in the mid-town garden with YC dipping our bare feet into the cool summer stream, chatting about life, school, the meaning of getting a doctoral degree and some of the new, frivolous developments in the love department of our lives. This year, I've been so busy that I didn't realize that 隅田川花火 has passed, the month of July is almost over, and I missed all the 朝顔・ほおずき festivals in town.Missing out on the seasonal changes is a very sad thing to me. More reasons for me to embrace the rest of the summer harder till it slips away!
At least I'm gearing up for the 高円寺阿波踊り祭り even though I still can't imagine dancing in 下駄 for 3 hours straight. The Japanese 我慢 spirit is no longer a surprise to me, but how to 我慢 on that painfully tight pair of 下駄 remains a puzzle still to me. Should I wrap my toes with extra layers of band-aids or should I try to somehow pull those straps apart as hard as I could so that they could allow for more room and less blisters?
Will also be attending a friend's wedding party in a week. Having known him since the beginning stage of his relationship to now watching him busying himself with wedding preparation, I can't help to still be amazed by how two human beings with drastically different upbringing and past could come together and vow for spending the rest of their lives together. Just like the U.S., people in Japan too like to show a collage of pictures at the wedding reception that show the grown-up process of the bride and the groom and the magical point in time when God or whatever invisible hand (or pure forces of nature as some may believe) orchestrate that meeting and that spark of affection. Seeing M putting that collage of pictures together and how each of them grown up so differently and having embraced so many different experiences in life before coming to meet each other and forming a new life together, there was no other word to describe how I felt but the word, "awe."
Then given the request by A for her little bro's wedding also coming up in 2 weeks, I emailed Prof. W for advice on a suitable Chinese poem/prose to be read out at the wedding. In less than a day, Prof. W wrote back suggesting the following from 詩經:
《詩經·邶風·擊鼓》
擊鼓其鏜，踴躍用兵。土國城漕，我獨南行。
從孫子仲，平陳與宋。不我以歸，憂心有忡。
爰居爰處？爰喪其馬？於以求之？于林之下。
死生契闊，與子成說。執子之手，與子偕老。
於嗟闊兮，不我活兮。於嗟洵兮，不我信兮。
執子之手, 與子共著.
執子之手, 與子同眠.
執子之手, 與子偕老.
執子之手, 夫複何求?
And according to 『詩經釋義』:
契，合也。闊，離也。
成說，有言在先，約誓也。
偕，俱也。
In order words, to translate the line「死生契闊，與子成說。執子之手，與子偕老」into modern Chinese language - 「不論生死離合，我皆與你有誓約。與你攜手，直到與你一起變老。」
Romance, love and commitment - who's to say they are only modern-day products?! Apparently people back in the 11-6 centuries BCE had already known what they are about.
But have we truly understood what they mean? And does everyone have the privilege of meeting that very special one to enter a sacred covenant as the Book of Songs spells out?
梅ちゃん at 12:15:00 AM
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Stroll
It was a really hot day today. Really really hot.Till mom reminded me in her email that Taipei is currently 35-36 degrees and has been that way since 2 months ago. How did I manage to grow up in that country for 15 years of my life?!
Compared to the frazzle of running around all day running errands and carrying my 10kg-worth of laundry back and forth between home and coin laundry (still, a nicely heated and fluffy towel/sheet makes all the sweat worthwhile), I much enjoyed the nice little stroll home from the station after a long day coming to an end.
A mid-summer night walk beats it all.
Popping in 溝口肇's music with my earphones, I took my time to walk. I walked past the 24-hr RH, the Doutor that I only occasionally visit ('cuz the smoke always drives me out of the door within 40 min), the bakery where I like to get a freshly baked mellon-pan, the Korean obento-ya that I recently started to frequent more after a long day of working, the supermarket that (thank god) opens till 11pm, the yoga club that I haven't visited for almost a month.
Then the Taiwanese dinning place - not necessarily a hole-in-the-wall place but certainly a ma and pop store - where I too have become one of the 常連さん. Perhaps due to the heat, the two pans of door were slid half open tonight, and the small, 10-person country was almost full. I could see A-san busy fixing someone and O-san quickly filling up a pitcher of nama-biru. I could also see the little haze created by M-san's chain cigarette smoke and heard bits and pieces of laughter from someone trying to tell a funny story. I decided not to stop by for a quick 挨拶; with such a nice summer night breeze out, I'd rather leave the party undisturbed inside.
Out of the blue, I thought about my friends from Penn - T my then little brother and M now his wife; J helping A fold up her laundry like what real bro's and sis's would do; my Argentine roommate J who gave me my very first salsa lesson; A my first Thai roommate whom I'd never seen an angry thought crossing her mind. The Sept showers that blew my umbrella away and wetted all my freshly purchased textbooks; the snowstorm night trekking through half a campus trying to make it to b-study; many many 10:20am rushing down locust walk with only half of my Japanese vocab list memorized; and many many more late-night study time with coffee from X at S study hall.
How did those bits and pieces of memory suddenly appeared in mind? I'm not sure. But knowing that I can somehow recall them with crystal clear images years later offers nothing but sweet comfort.
Perhaps one day, I will be talking a walk somewhere, on a cool summer night, with some warm summer breeze blowing and roadside scenes entertaining to watch. Then, I'll think of tonight, this night when I walked down this little 商店街 in west Tokyo and past a one-bar-large TW restaurant, and realize how much I've been blessed by God to have travelled this far. Despite loneliness sometimes, yes, and despite the unknown certainty of where the next stop may be.
I looked at my songlist on the iPhone - 「ふたり」, the song name reads. A really really song.
梅ちゃん at 12:19:00 AM
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Equipping
At school, I was given the greatest time and wildest space to think, to ponder, to contemplate, to wrestle, to write, to listen to my own voice and the voice of others. I wrote a lot, reflected a lot, struggled a lot, but remained hopeful despite periodic restlessness and constant questioning of the meaning of it all.Now in Tokyo, I've thrown into the world of reality - both work for a future career and work for the present daily living; stress of dealing with a foreign language and living like a foreigner in a gigantic city; the physical challenge of pushing through walls of people on any given platform or roaming across half a city at any given time of the day; the encountering of people beyond school walls and handling of the most guarded, less transparent, further convoluted human relationships. I got to see a lot, experienced a lot, shocked and surprised and rebuked if not offended a lot more. In the end, I come back to a house of darkness with a beat-up body that is too tired to write up much.
But the mind never stops running.
I hope this is just the process of finding a better place between ideals and reality, between what is to be hoped for and what is to be practical for. To find that exact shade of color between the blacks and whites.
I feel like the real battle has yet to begin. But I hope that at least I am more and more equipped when the real battle comes.
梅ちゃん at 1:54:00 AM
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Makes me wanna sing ...
永遠にともにコブクロ
心が今とても 穏やかなのは この日を迎えられた意味を
何よりも尊く感じているから
特別な事など何もない ただ いつもより少し
シャンとした服を着てるだけ 君はとても綺麗だよ
何かといつも忙しく まだまだ想い出は多くないけど
やっとここから踏み出せる未来
始まりの鐘が 今 この街に響き渡る
共に歩き 共に探し 共に笑い 共に誓い
共に感じ 共に選び 共に泣き 共に背負い
共に抱き 共に迷い 共に築き 共に願い
そんな日々を描きながら…
気付かぬ間に二人 似たもの同士 仕草も笑い顔も
そこに生まれくる命には 何よりも尊い 二つの光を
ぶつかり合う時も来るさ 綺麗な事ばかりじゃないだろうから
全てを君と越えてゆくと決めた
始まりの鐘の音を いつまでも忘れない
偶然という名の運命 そんな出逢いだからこそ
何気ない瞬間を 今日からは かけがえのない瞬間に
共に歩き 共に探し 共に笑い 共に誓い
共に感じ 共に選び 共に泣き 共に背負い
共に抱き 共に迷い 共に築き 共に願い
ささやかな幸せが 木漏れ日のように
やわらかに降り注ぐ そんな日々を描きながら…
いつの日も どんなときも
梅ちゃん at 12:24:00 AM