Monthly Archives: March 2009

Finding Love For Two Bachelors

The fact that my dad and I are the eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors in the fam­i­ly means we get a lot of advice around the din­ner table. They bring up avail­able women. Friends of friends, daugh­ters of dance part­ners, or this-per­son-I-know.

It’s strange to come upon the sud­den real­iza­tion that my dad and I are at the same point in life. Does that make me old, or him young?

They ask us our tastes: Looks? Personality? Older or younger? I say, “Money”, but they know me well enough to know I’m jok­ing. A joke to hide my answer, for to reveal myself in this way is to expose a cer­tain vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. So they side­step the ques­tion and ask me if I’m after any­one, think­ing that if I describe a per­son I’m inter­est­ed in, they’ll be able to fig­ure out what I’m look­ing for. It’s com­pli­cat­ed, I think to myself, so only reply with a “No”. They ask me if there’s any­one after me. “No”. That’s even more com­pli­cat­ed.

Last week, my grand­moth­er asked me how old I was. “28”, I told her. “Already! You’re almost 30. It’s time for you to get mar­ried.” She says if I stay in Hong Kong all the girls will be after me because I have some kind of gen­tle­man schol­ar look. My dad too; he’s the man’s man, who’s always been fun and pop­u­lar. And we have Canadian pass­ports. Apparently, we’re in demand.

But they also want to make sure we’re not get­ting involved with the wrong type of women. Someone who will take our mon­ey once we’re mar­ried, or force alimo­ny once they trap us with chil­dren. They tell us to keep an eye on each oth­er. I say that my dad does­n’t need my approval if he wants to get mar­ried, but I don’t need his approval either. So they tell us to bring our girls to meet them, to be sure they’re okay.

I won­der; is love this easy for oth­er peo­ple? Something oth­ers can con­trol, when I can’t con­trol it myself?

Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery

Nan Lian Garden

Perfection Pavilion

Thumbnail: Banyan Grove
Thumbnail: Coy
Thumbnail: Garden grass
Thumbnail: Garden overview
Thumbnail: Lotus pond
Thumbnail: Lotus pond
Thumbnail: Nan Lian rocks
Thumbnail: Trees
Thumbnail: Pavilion bridge
Thumbnail: Petrified wood
Thumbnail: Silver strand
Thumbnail: Small trees
Thumbnail: Small tree leaves
Thumbnail: Small tree roots
Thumbnail: Tree weave
Thumbnail: Unique tree
Thumbnail: Gift shop
 

Nestled in the con­crete jun­gle that is Hong Kong is Nan Lian Garden, a new­ly-built park that fea­tures dis­tinct green­ery and build­ings. The archi­tec­ture was mod­eled after clas­si­cal Chinese build­ings, and con­struct­ed using wood that is inter­locked in a way that no nails or glue are need­ed. One thing that I noticed was that it was very qui­et inside the gar­den grounds, when most of Hong Kong has the con­stant sound of traf­fic (unless you’re on a moun­tain). It turns out that sound-damp­en­ing bar­ri­ers around the perime­ter have been erect­ed to cre­ate the peace­ful atmos­phere. It’s quite amaz­ing to see sky­scrap­ers so close and all around, when there is such a calm place here. There must be a tremen­dous amount of labour involved in keep such a place, as guards, gar­den­ers, and grounds keep­ers were always around. I wish Julie was there; she would appre­ci­ate the hor­ti­cul­ture so much more than I could.

There’s a dress code, des­ig­nat­ed eat­ing areas, and vis­i­tors aren’t allowed to take group pho­tos, so as to not dis­turb oth­ers try­ing to enjoy the sur­round­ings. More places need to imple­ment rules like this.

Unfortunately, the areas of scale mod­els and exam­ples of inter­lock­ing wood were not allowed to be pho­tographed. I tried to do so sur­rep­ti­tious­ly and shoot from the hip when the guard was­n’t look­ing, but the pho­tos did­n’t turn out.

Chi Lin Nunnery

Lotus garden entrance

Thumbnail: Lotus pond
Thumbnail: Shrine
Thumbnail: Bronze piece
Thumbnail: Incense holders
 

The Chi Lin Nunnery is a Buddhist tem­ple direct­ly attached to the Nan Lian Garden. Most of the areas were off-lim­its for pho­tog­ra­phy, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, a pic­ture is the only way I could describe the many colours and stat­ues in each of the shrines. One thing to note were the many bowls of fruit at each shrine, unlike Taoists or oth­er non-Buddhists, who also offer meat because they’re not veg­e­tar­i­ans.

It’s inter­est­ing to see peo­ple kneel­ing by each shrine and bow­ing their heads three times, even when they’re not Buddhist. Sort of like mak­ing the sign of the cross when enter­ing a church, I sup­pose.

Comfort In Each Other

I’ve been get­ting to know one of my aunts.

Aside from annu­al hol­i­day par­ties where the fam­i­lies would gath­er, we nev­er spoke. But then again, I nev­er spoke with any of the “grown-ups“1, as they offered lit­tle of inter­est to some­one my age.

We’ve become sound­ing boards for each oth­er. She tells me about how she’s approach­ing my grand­moth­er’s treat­ments — the types of ther­a­py, the med­ica­tions, deci­sions on when to go to see the doc­tor — and I tell her about my rela­tion­ships with my mom and dad.

I find it quite amaz­ing that she’s so aware of the influ­ence of Chinese cul­ture in her life. She seems to be adapt­ing to the gen­er­a­tion gap and cul­ture dif­fer­ences, or per­haps keep­ing them in mind, when it comes to treat­ing her own Canadian-born daugh­ter, which is far beyond what my par­ents were capa­ble of. Until I real­ly start­ed talk­ing with her, I believed that all Chinese par­ents were the same; too blind or too stub­born to under­stand how to raise first-gen­er­a­tion Canadian chil­dren.

It amazes me how strong she is. She’s the one who makes sure my grand­moth­er eats, drinks, takes her pills, sleeps, and walks. The one who cleans up after grand­ma when she has to go, but can’t make it to the bath­room in time. She dropped every­thing — her hus­band, her daugh­ter, her real estate prac­tice — to be here indef­i­nite­ly, and has tak­en charge of all my grand­moth­er’s care.

I tried to tell her that I admired her for every­thing she’s doing, but she would­n’t let me con­tin­ue. She’s hav­ing a hard time keep­ing it togeth­er, and is afraid that grand­ma may see her cry­ing and real­ize how seri­ous her sick­ness is. I wish I could give her some relief, a hug even, or just 15 min­utes to let it all out. I guess there will be plen­ty of time for that soon enough.

For now, we have each oth­er.

  1. The par­ties were a chance for adults to sing and talk, so the kids did their own thing. [↩]

Model Cat

Model cat

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Vivien bought me this mod­el cat from Taiwan. It looks so real that I thought it was stuffed at first glance. It’s life-sized, though on the small side, so appear­ing to be a kit­ten. You can only tell that it’s fake when you look clos­er at it’s nose (plas­tic, with­out the same tex­ture as a real cat’s nose) and ears (too much hair — I’m guess­ing mem­branes are too dif­fi­cult to fake). If I was­n’t a cat lover, I’d def­i­nite­ly be fooled.

I’m going to put it in the back win­dow of my car; I’ve been look­ing for a dec­o­ra­tion ever since I got my car a year ago, and this is per­fect. Hopefully no one will smash my win­dows in an attempt to save it.