The Long Story...

If I am really a well-versed man, my story may be written in a single sentence: “I live and die” Then everything is settled. Not unlike myself, the true story is actually more complicated than the two paragraphs above. As my memory can still testify, it certainly didn't take long for me to recall chapters that were no less than cornerstones of my foundation, since I have this special talent for complicating the simplest circumstances into points of reference. I find that the journey from living to dying remains a subject of interest, and what makes each intersection evermore interesting is the people I’ve come to know. Together, we've woven a tapestry depicting the “wheel of life.” This life has been at times painful or joyous, and at times filled to the brim with pride and love. If hope is the foundation of the future, and fear is the result of experiences in the past, then I am but the fruit of what was and the seed of what will be. What now at this moment if not the wish for growth and evolution? This is my excuse for a contemplation of past and present life experiences.

I Remember China...

Though half of a century has since passed and I was no more than five years old then, the vivid memory of that summer night in China has never faded in time. It was a few hours after sunset. The last of my little friends had gone back to his parents and home. It was then that the street began to expand into the depth of the night, silent rows of old houses gradually darkening in blocks of shadows lining the distance; enveloped beneath the moonlight, there was no one near or far in my little world. Without warning, I began to feel tired from whatever I did during the day. So I threw myself down in the middle of the street. The pebble-paved ground was still warm from the tropical sun. I laid on my back, legs crossed and two hands placed behind my head in the warm embrace of the summer night; above me were millions of stars sprinkling across the dark blue sky. Following the wandering clouds, I drifted into the endless space, farther and farther away between the waking and dreaming states. Suddenly, the silent beauty of the night awakened me out of this limbo with fright, as if the vast open space above had discovered my intrusion and was looking straight back at me. I had this eerie feeling that I was being observed by something vast and timeless; it was at that strange moment that I faintly realized a sense of the “self,” accompanied by a peculiar notion of loneliness, like I was lost somewhere under an immerse universe.

I was living like a wild child, playing in the sun catching giant grasshoppers and soaking in the rain gathering tiny rain frogs. There were no parents and no guardians who cared much about my whereabouts. I was maybe six or seven when I first wandered miles away to places around the Kwang Zhou City. One of the things I most remember is the Five Rams Pagoda. The structure was away from everything and very desolated. With its moss covered rooftop and the strange air of serenity surrounding this five-hundred-year-old tower, it frightened me a bit and took me a few visits before I had the courage to get near the structure. Every day I would walk miles by myself to the People's Square, where music and songs that praised Chairman Mao and communism were broadcast in the air. I loved the huge majestic stone guardian lion pair situated in the vast open terrace. What fascinated me most were these huge bronze flag posts that seemed to reach up to the sky. Again and again, I was always puzzled by what seemingly was so still and straight, yet appeared to bend and move under the puffy white clouds. Though I was often hungry, it didn't bother me so much. The world was new and fascinating like one big amusement park. So each day I embarked on a new adventure farther and farther away from home. Then one day my unaccompanied frolicking took me hours away to the Pearl River Bridge, and I couldn't find my way back. As evening came near, I got scared and started to sob. It was a policeman who noticed me, and he eventually walked me a long way back to the street where I lived. So I thought all policemen were nice people, and still do even now.

The house in which I lived must have been a mansion of late Qing era officials. Three wars within roughly fifty years had reduced its illustrious past into a crumbling dwelling for two families. We were living in a small section in the back of the main house. In the front section there was a spacious hall with round columns. This area was occupied by an older couple I called Uncle and Big Aunt. We shared a large courtyard that had a well of spring water, only to me that well was a dark hole I avoided whenever I walked by. This was the only house I knew in China. For a short while I was living there with a couple and their daughter as my family. They soon left for Hong Kong in search of a better life. Their daughter stayed behind with me in China. She was much older than I, and I avoided her because she was a teenager with a bad temper. I hardly saw her except in the evening. How two little kids managed to live through those days remains a mystery. But without a doubt, I learned to play and do things for myself early on. The circumstance was such that no one would spoon-feed and charm me to eat when I was hungry. Many times I attempted to cook with the little rice we had, only to burn it on a coal stove. Imagine my excitement the first time I succeeded in turning the hard grains and water into a pot of soft, hot rice! That was no small accomplishment for a little boy, particularly during a time when food and clothes were scarce after years of war and famine that had driven the new China into deep destitution. I remembered the rationed food we ate, mostly cakes made from leftover ground sugar cane. Rice and vegetables were available only on the black market. This situation endured for a few years, but it seemed the hardship had escaped me because of the care I received from Big Aunt. I remember that she fed me occasionally, and would hold me close to her chest and rock me like her own baby, the only tenderness I ever knew or experienced as a child. However, her loving attentions for me were soon cut short with the loss of her husband, and when her proud son who was in the air force went to prison due to political mishap, I lost Big Aunt's affection as her life crumbled.

China was dirt poor in those trying times. As a child, I never received a toy, or any other gift for that matter. There were no toy stores and no fairgrounds for children. We all had to make-do with whatever was available in our immediate surroundings. Nevertheless, these dire conditions didn't seem to be an entirely poor circumstance for kids. This is because Guangzhou is a major city of Guangdong, which is a huge province in the tropics. Besides government-controlled resources, there were plenty of goodies in nature that nourished our senses, and plenty more food for the brain in the five thousand years of culture infused in the atmosphere. So the images of China in my memory consist of charming old villages with green hills and swinging willows by the river, where once or twice during my summer visits I bathed with water buffaloes and ate live shrimps directly from the rivers. Surely the diverse weather patterns could have turned me into a meteorologist-- if only our roof didn't leak and make such a mess. There were crickets, silkworms, giant cockroaches, and grasshoppers everywhere; surely there were enough insects for me to grow up to be an entomologist-- if only after I carefully studied these poor creatures I didn't feel so bad about ripping off their legs. On the other hand, I could have pursued a spiritual path in the monastery-- if only they didn't drag out that poor old nun during the Cultural Revolution. You see, I had all of these chances, but I would remain an outsider because I never passed the Door Gods, woodblock prints of mythical warriors that Chinese people customarily posted on doors for protection, which were on practically every family’s door at the time. Many of these posters were printed in color with gold foil. To me, these images were beautiful and fantastic when compared to the revolutionary posters or the photos of Chairman Mao. So whenever I got hold of a piece of chalk, I drew them on the pavement, large and small, side by side, and perhaps humming one of those uplifting socialist songs as I went along.

Time has proven that those starving years have expedited the recovery and growth of China. The memories of my formative years in my motherland are mostly fragmented little events seen through a child's eyes, although no less significant even after all these passing years. For example, I have never seen fireworks more elaborate than those that lit up the sky in China during my childhood. And I still think that the New Year's parade in China has the longest dancing dragons, the most dazzling lion dance, and perhaps the loudest firecrackers in any celebration anywhere. But what is a land without its people? The spirit of China was rooted in the common men. Among them all, a few have carved a place in my heart. I remember the candy vendor who spun cotton candy from his wooden box, which he strapped to his shoulders. It was always loaded with sculpted toy figures of Monkey King and mythic heroes made of colored clay. Many times I would stand by him and watch how he spontaneously squeezed and shaped lumps of clay into fantastic figures. It never ceased to amaze me how artfully he created them, and then handed them to us with a big smile for merely a cent. There also was this humble medicine man who came to our street with his dog and monkey. Three of them used to perform these street operas with bells and whistles for spare change. I heard that a good deal of medicine he sold was made of monkey bones, lizards, frogs, beetles, and herbs of all kinds. To my best understanding, the joy and love for animals he inspired in me was perhaps the best medicine I ever needed.

When I was five, I saw a woman for the first time in my young life. No, she wasn't one of the girls next door, or the sister or mother of some little friends. Those I never noticed; not one ever left me with any impression. In fact, I was barely aware of the distinction between the sexes, and scarcely interested in any girls until she came along in the form of a mysterious woman who hurried on alone in the sunset as I was drawing on the pavement. It must have been the sound of her footsteps on the pebble stones that distracted me from my self-absorbed plane of lines and forms. As I looked up in her direction, I saw an unusually tall woman in a black dress. Under the darkening sky, her lengthy black hair flowing like waves, and her pale skin glowing in the rising new moon, she may have sensed my gaze, for between her swift steps she turned her head and gave me a quick glance, then she was gone like a flash of lightening. Just like that-- she burned into my eyes with all the beauty of a woman, and the boy was left forever infatuated in his soul. So who was she? A lone Caucasian woman living in China among millions of Chinese. Only years later I speculated that she was likely a Jewish refugee who settled in China to avoid the Nazi genocide during the Second World War. She was unreal to me then and she will remain a mystery in my psyche forever. For however brief our encounter, I felt her grief and loneliness that spanned across time and space, and she awakened in me a tender feeling far beyond my age.

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F.O.B. American Hippie