"There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserver. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and rink and be glad. The joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun." Eccl. 8: 14-15
Looking out over Hong Kong from my Uncle's high rise flat in Happy Valley, the clouds swiftly floating by, and the sounds of transit buses and people yelling Cantonese, the sight of buildings growing out of the tropical mountainside of jagged green trees it feels good in this moment to be alive. Going to another country is like being born again, only this time you've got a couple more things learned before hand.
This is good because today I found myself on stage in front of about two hundred complete strangers. My Pau Pau(grandma), and grandpa have a kindergarten and today was graduation. And in the fashion of most Chinese ceremonies this was quite long and very complicated, and well.... totally run, organized, and executed with style by the women. I was told that I'll be handing out some presents on stage and I concurred because it is just rude to refuse the honor. So I walk into this big room full of people and children, decorated beautifully and to the teeth, greeted by the principle (a woman), who says "How are you?" in very good English. She directs me to a seat that is nicely labeled Miss Brenda. Every one else has their proper Chinese name, however this is for my sake because they know I don't understand much Cantonese and figured I could pick out my que if they said Miss Brenda. Let me tell you the level of organization at this thing was dizzying, these teachers could run a country quite efficiently and I’m sure they'd give all the credit to the President or who ever was " In charge". I don't know how they got preschoolers to dance in an organized fashion much less a very complicated choreographed Broadway style dance scene for no less than two hundred children. Goodness me. Needless to say I felt a little awkward and or in a strange dream in which I am in my second day in a foreign country suddenly on stage sitting stiffly and totally out of place. If this was Sesame Street’s which one doesn't belong with the others....the kids wouldn’t have a hard time picking out the odd ball. Strangely enough I wasn't mortified, but I kept telling myself that now is not the time to be timid walk forward and speak loudly. It’s harder to do the speak loudly part. But, I think that will be my mantra for this trip. A lesson in not stepping away because I'm scared and have no clue what to do.
My little cousin Liam is such a sweetheart, he wanted to make sure I was welcome and then was afraid I was lonesome because I couldn't join in conversation with everyone else. I let him take some pictures with my camera and he got really excited and jumped up and down. Then he took a picture of me and said I looked like a princess....whoa girls, those of you around ten yrs old...look out for him when you get older. The look on his face though was that of innocence and pure joy. There was a little girl dancing at the pre-school who was dancing happily waving to her parents and jumping up and down flailing around not caring much what her body did. It was excisite. Pau Pau said I look ho lang, ho gao and tai sao, very beautiful, very tall and too skinny. No matter what I look like, people in Hong Kong always say that about me. Lately I do feel beautiful though...it may have to do with people telling me that I am, and more than that...I feel loved by God and family. In both cases it feels completely unconditionally. I don't really deserve any of this good treatment. But, it feels nice, and all these things falling into place is God incarnate in my life. Even my family’s love, is from him even though not all of them know him. I think you can be Jesus to someone else, even if you don't know him. Where there is love, there he is also.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Night One
My first night in Hong Kong, and I'm so tired I can't see strait really, but I could barely harold the wonders of this city with my right mind and enough sleep under my belt. My body thinks its 9 am Friday morning but it is 11:45 Friday night. It is muggy here but I like it, it makes me feel very full and surrounded. This may feel like claustrophobia to some but to me....at this point it is nice. I saw the sunset over blue clouds that looked exactly like cotton candy, and mountains.
Eric and Anna, my lovely cousins, are now my care takers and have been more than apt to the job. They don't fuss so obviously as uncle Tony and Anita, but we were crossing the street and Anna grabbed my arm protectively and pulled me closer to her saying, "Now we have to take care of little Brenda." This was funny coming from my 5 foot 2 cousin of about one hundred pounds. It’s nice to be cared for so profusely and I just wanted to write that down before I wandered into bed. I prayed for faith on the plane and I didn't know why. I guess I just didn't want to loose it.
Eric and Anna, my lovely cousins, are now my care takers and have been more than apt to the job. They don't fuss so obviously as uncle Tony and Anita, but we were crossing the street and Anna grabbed my arm protectively and pulled me closer to her saying, "Now we have to take care of little Brenda." This was funny coming from my 5 foot 2 cousin of about one hundred pounds. It’s nice to be cared for so profusely and I just wanted to write that down before I wandered into bed. I prayed for faith on the plane and I didn't know why. I guess I just didn't want to loose it.
Flying over the Pacific in an Airbus
Its times like these when I appreciate the little things, like old jazz music and being able to more or less type with your eyes closed. Aside from this splitting headache I am doing will. I feel much better than I had first anticipated. I have this crazy TV screen under my seat that I can pull out and watch whatever I want. So I was watching Grey's Anatomy and its pretty much drama...there's a love triangle, that's original. But something caught my attention, this character who is Asian American, and she's just lost a baby a fallopian tube and a boyfriend all at once, but she still insists on not resting and she wants to work. She becomes obsessed with solving this patient mystery; the patient is being taken care of by her x- boyfriend. IN the end it turns out she was right all along and the guy never listened to her, the last scene I saw was her crying suddenly after hearing the news saying, " I was right, I was right," over and over again .So I was trying to sleep unsuccessfully partly because I couldn't shake the image of this very brave, yet hurting woman break down. And I couldn't figure out, besides the obvious hormonal weirdness that comes from loosing part of your womanhood, and motherhood at once. I think it was that she had lost so much at once and she didn't gain much in return. I started to cry thinking about it, about how it feels to loose all at once, but I think it is also that we gain a lot at once too. When I arrive in Hong Kong, it will be around three o'clock in the morning Pacific Standard Time on July the 13th, but in fact it will be 7 pm Hong Kong time. Its like being in a time warp, I will have lost an entire day. I was thinking about what I could say in Cantonese to my family. In my limited vocabulary I could manage to say, " Ngo ho gui, buk gwo ngo ho hoi sum la," it will probably sound like children talk to them, but it means I am very tired, but very happy. I will have lost some sleep, and an entire day, which is not exactly like loosing part of your body, but its something. Yet, I will have gained an entire city, a moving city crowded and dirty and smells of garbage and dust around. I will have gained more importantly my family. The ones I love but never see. This felt more meaningful actually when it was in my mind and when I was crying and not really knowing why. It is 7 pm my time, the exact time tomorrow I will arrive in Hong Kong. I think I'll attempt to sleep again and hopefully not cascade into weepy a weepy emotional state due to the fact that I’m 35 thousand feet above ground over a vast expanse of ocean at five hundred miles an hour.
Waiting @ Vancouver Int'l Airport
I like how this place is full of so many kinds of people. A French woman helped me at the Duty Free store, a couple sat in front of me at Burger King taking intimately in Spanish, two men behind me are speaking Mandarin melodiously and rapidly, a Cantonese woman instructs her two daughters to eat their candy slowly in distracted bursts, and an old adorable Indian man in a maroon cap is eating his fries and burger silently, methodically yet without heaviness. I like these languages and people existing, and strangely not intersecting. There is something strange, interesting and slightly unsettling about it.
It is reminding me of something an elder, Elizabeth Asahi Sato, said to me recently. While speaking of her formerly Buddhist mother's first time saying the Lord's Prayer she said that there was something so beautiful, as if this prayer was meant to be repeated in broken English. Full of simplicity, innocent like a child, but wise and deep like the vast ocean. Her mother then proceeded to burn her family eairlooms which were prayer books and shrines of Buddha even those encrusted in gold. When Elizabeth tried to stop her, she said, "Your God told me to burn them, so I obey." This feels simple and wise, like these two Chinese girls before me, obeying without question the warnings of their mother. I can see them looking at me with wonder and unabashed curiosity and saying nothing because they've been taught propriety. The little one has a blue tongue from her lollipop. "You m you sic go dee French fries, sic ah!" The younger sister asks her mom with a skip, bobbing on the toes of her orange alligators. Do you want to eat some French fries, she says in Chinglish. We quickly learn to meld worlds in our mouth and create new ones. I ate my whopper with cheese, devouring each bite like a starved carnivore, smiling with my teeth barred. It was exquisite, and I think I've decided Canadians make better cheeseburgers than Americans; it was steaming hot in my hand and melted into my willing stomach, although I was at first glance skeptical of this little round bun.
It is reminding me of something an elder, Elizabeth Asahi Sato, said to me recently. While speaking of her formerly Buddhist mother's first time saying the Lord's Prayer she said that there was something so beautiful, as if this prayer was meant to be repeated in broken English. Full of simplicity, innocent like a child, but wise and deep like the vast ocean. Her mother then proceeded to burn her family eairlooms which were prayer books and shrines of Buddha even those encrusted in gold. When Elizabeth tried to stop her, she said, "Your God told me to burn them, so I obey." This feels simple and wise, like these two Chinese girls before me, obeying without question the warnings of their mother. I can see them looking at me with wonder and unabashed curiosity and saying nothing because they've been taught propriety. The little one has a blue tongue from her lollipop. "You m you sic go dee French fries, sic ah!" The younger sister asks her mom with a skip, bobbing on the toes of her orange alligators. Do you want to eat some French fries, she says in Chinglish. We quickly learn to meld worlds in our mouth and create new ones. I ate my whopper with cheese, devouring each bite like a starved carnivore, smiling with my teeth barred. It was exquisite, and I think I've decided Canadians make better cheeseburgers than Americans; it was steaming hot in my hand and melted into my willing stomach, although I was at first glance skeptical of this little round bun.
Waitng @ Seatac
Its amazing how going through customs is not relaxing at all. Somehow I came out on the other end feeling a little like a being herded like cattle, shuffled through a small space. I felt nervous, like I had done something terrible and I just had to hide it from all the white uniforms in the room. I was embarrassed of my bottle of saline solution nicely displayed in a plastic baggy in my white bin. As if I actually had some sort of liquid explosive hidden there, or that I was about to stick my nasal spray up someone's nose and give a big squeeze to distract them while my accomplice slips some dynamite into a plane. Thankfully I'm not interested into public humiliation or senseless acts of violence.
After recovering from my dizzying experience with security, I caught my breath still feeling that I was in the way of hefty passengers hustling by me with their carry on. I met up with Christine, my sister, and her husband for breakfast and enjoyed French toast compliments of Nintendo. It was our last meal together while they live in Seattle, when I get back they'll be in San Francisco, their destination for today to look for housing. We tend to keep things pretty normal and our sadness or distress hidden away in commonality. As if our deep fears were really hidden behind talking about computer software, parks and the ambiances of the SeaTac Airport. But, really I wanted to say I'll miss you guys so much I can't feel it, but when I do it will be like falling down the stairs into an empty house full of memories. And in these few months we will be stepping forward into our lives, shouldering the weight of change and moving boxes.
Soon I will have lost all three siblings to California. A bit of salt in the wound. I have often imagined myself looking up at the sky opening my hands to the sky and shaking them yelling, “Why God? And California of all places? Must all the good people be exiled to Babylon?" This might be what my best friend would be evidence that I tend to exaggerate. Or maybe California is just a brighter place than here and attracts bright people. And it will be fun to tell Christine to be sure to wear flowers in her hair, if she's going to San Francisco. Up until this point I never imagined I would live so far from my sister, it had never occurred to me that she'd go somewhere where I wasn't able to tag along. But, I know God is taking them there, and that he is helping me remain behind. I know that this season of change will cost us all and it will be worth it.
For now, as I sit in front of this enormous window looking out on the birds flying by, the planes jetting into airspace, and the propellers spinning around and around, life is much more than bearable, it is quite pleasant from time to time. As long as little boys are innocent enough to approach strange women typing on their laptops, able to spin in circles and smile with three fingers in their mouths drooling profusely. Yes, this future and present grief cannot swallow us when there is still the simple imprint of God facing us so blatantly. My flight will take off in two hours and until then I guess I'll give in to this moment of being taken in to my surroundings in wordless noise, in the commonality of humans traveling.
After recovering from my dizzying experience with security, I caught my breath still feeling that I was in the way of hefty passengers hustling by me with their carry on. I met up with Christine, my sister, and her husband for breakfast and enjoyed French toast compliments of Nintendo. It was our last meal together while they live in Seattle, when I get back they'll be in San Francisco, their destination for today to look for housing. We tend to keep things pretty normal and our sadness or distress hidden away in commonality. As if our deep fears were really hidden behind talking about computer software, parks and the ambiances of the SeaTac Airport. But, really I wanted to say I'll miss you guys so much I can't feel it, but when I do it will be like falling down the stairs into an empty house full of memories. And in these few months we will be stepping forward into our lives, shouldering the weight of change and moving boxes.
Soon I will have lost all three siblings to California. A bit of salt in the wound. I have often imagined myself looking up at the sky opening my hands to the sky and shaking them yelling, “Why God? And California of all places? Must all the good people be exiled to Babylon?" This might be what my best friend would be evidence that I tend to exaggerate. Or maybe California is just a brighter place than here and attracts bright people. And it will be fun to tell Christine to be sure to wear flowers in her hair, if she's going to San Francisco. Up until this point I never imagined I would live so far from my sister, it had never occurred to me that she'd go somewhere where I wasn't able to tag along. But, I know God is taking them there, and that he is helping me remain behind. I know that this season of change will cost us all and it will be worth it.
For now, as I sit in front of this enormous window looking out on the birds flying by, the planes jetting into airspace, and the propellers spinning around and around, life is much more than bearable, it is quite pleasant from time to time. As long as little boys are innocent enough to approach strange women typing on their laptops, able to spin in circles and smile with three fingers in their mouths drooling profusely. Yes, this future and present grief cannot swallow us when there is still the simple imprint of God facing us so blatantly. My flight will take off in two hours and until then I guess I'll give in to this moment of being taken in to my surroundings in wordless noise, in the commonality of humans traveling.
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