Butterflies, please come in. 推窗時有蝶飛來

It was dawn on a street of Chang-Hua city, Taiwan.  An elderly couple was walking on the street as a morning exercise routine before the sun came out and the day became too hot to do anything outside.  Suddenly, a truck came behind knocking down this elderly couple to the ground.  The couple was rushed to a near-by hospital; the wife was pronounced dead, and the husband survived.  

That was March 27, 1972.  The couple were my parents.  My mom died on the impact, but my dad survived.  After a few weeks in the ER, he went through a few months of rehabilitation.  Because of the rehabitation, he could not even attend my mom’s funeral.   

Heart broken, he went through a long grief process to heal his emotional wound.  My dad taught us that to every problem, there was a solution.  Now he has to live up his words to solve his own problem—his  emotional grief. 

At first, he wrote journals and collected all the stories about the day of the accident.  The journal was called the Broken Heart Journal (断膓集). The Journal temporarily helped his grieving process.

Then at the suggestions of my siblings in Taiwan and his friends, he went through extensive traveling.  The places he traveled  included Japan, Korea, Hong-Kong, China, United States and Europe.  Traveling gave him temporary reliefs of sorrow.  But, traveling itself was taxing his many resources, both financial and stigma.  Additionally, the friends he met during traveling,at most, were acquaintances.  After the traveling, feelings of emptiness and loneliness could quickly come back once again to his heart. Traveling to ease his pain was not sustenable. 

Then in April of 1990, I received a couplet (對聯) from my dad.  The couplet has 4 phrases written in Mandarin with a typical Chinese Calligraphy Art.  The couplet is displayed in Figure 1.

Fig. 1  A couplet that I received from my dad in April of 1990.

  Literal translation is as follows.   

手培蘭花七八載. It has been 7-8 years of hand cultivation of  the orchid flowers.

曰暖風和次笫開.   With gentle wind and sunlight,  the  flowers bloom one by one

坐久不知香在窒.  Unaware of fragrance which is all around after staying in the room too long.

推窗時有蝶飛來.  Butterflies flew in  when the windows were pushed open.  

The couplet was written in 1990.  If he had cultivated orchids 7-8 years before,  then the year he began this new hobby was approximately 1982, or 10 years after he lost his wife and I lost my mom.  When I visited him in 1987, I noticed a few things had changed  in my old home- the front room became a greenhouse for growing orchids.  When I grew up in my old home, we had a very typical traditional Taiwanese room arrangement; the most front and the best room was the  Spirit Worship room.  In Taiwanese, it is called the Shin-Meng Ken (神明間) .  Shin-Meng Ken faces south, ideal sunlight for growing orchids.  

Nothing disrespectful, my dad removed Shin-Meng Table (神明桌) and remodel the Shin-Meng room (神明間） into his work room for writing calligraphy, growing orchids and serving tea to the guest.  He just felt impractical and absurd  that spirits 神明 could occupy a whole room while the living people had no place to work.  

We also had a small piece of land on the side of the house.  Dad converted this piece of land into a tropical garden with guava tree, papaya tree and Bandai garden.  This garden had a lot of shades; it was a great place to get cool air on hot summer days.  Dad liked to show off this garden when he had visitors.  In 1995, Meeilei took Victor home and had photos taken in this garden. (Figure -2) 

Figure 2.  Dad was showing off his tropical garden to Victor and Meeilei in 1995.

The old Shin-Meng Keng (神明間), because of facing south, had plenty of indirect sunlight which is required to cultivate orchids.  Dad knew about the water and fertilizer requirements for the plants.  The biggest issue for growing orchids were the bug issues.  Just like the insects or bugs of any plants, those bugs only came out to eat the plants during the night while everyone was asleep.  Thus, if chemicals were not used, dad had to get up at night to catch and remove the bugs from the plants.  This is what my sister said.  My sister lived in California.  She and her husband visited Taiwan very often.  My brother, Ting-KAi, had one semester sabbatical leave in Taiwan in 1997.  On the weekend, Ting-KAi stayed with my dad.  Ting-KAi also said that dad got up at night to catch the bugs from the orchid plants.

Dad had brought his orchids for exhibit.  Dad’s orchids often won prizes.  Friends near and far began to know about his orchids and bought his orchids.  Because dad also wrote beautiful calligraphy couplets, neighbors and friends often visited dad, drank tea, had good conversations and bought either the calligraphy cuplet or the orchid flowers.  When my dad received money from his customers, he would take his grandson, FanJong (煥彰) , to the night market and enjoyed a treat at the market. Fan-Jong often came to my house to keep company with A-Kong at night.   Figure 3 is the certificate that dad served as a consultant of National orchid exhibit in 1991.  

Figure 3. Dad was asked to serve as a consultant for Taiwan National Orchid Society and Exhibit

In October of 1999, he had pneumonia, and was hospitalized.  It only took 2 weeks that pneumonia killed him on October 24 of 1999.  Dad often said to not worry about death, because death would eventually come, sometimes, sooner than you would like to expect.  However, he also said that be mindful when you are alive, making sure you live your life fully.  Dad certainly lived his life fully because of his full efforts on his orchid cultivations and writing couplets.  Figure 4 is another couplet he wrote to encourage us to get in the habit of being and staying healthy. 

Figure 4. A couplet that I found from his remaining in 1999.

Despite that, dad still missed mom when he was ill.  He still had the Heart Broken Journal (斷腸集)  on the side of his death bed.  I took the journal home in1999.  In 2008, when I had a sabbatical in Taiwan.  My brother, Wen-KAi, (文楷） took me to the tomb of my mom and my dad (they were buried together).  I presented the journal and paper money.  In a very respectful manner, we burned both the paper money and the journal.  We said a prayer to both dad and mom, saying that it was a closure for everyone affected by this truck accident. 

What had happened to those orchids and bonsai trees?  My eldest brother Mo-KAi (模楷) thought that because he was the oldest, he should have inherited everything precious from my dad. Mo-KAi  took all the orchids back to Taipei.  Unfortunately, those orchids died within 6 months.  None of my siblings had green thumb.  I should have said that none of us have the patience gettting up at midnight to remove the bugs from the plants.  None of us write calligraphy let alone write poems for couplets.  But all of our siblings have learned a big lesson from this orchid growing stories.  Even if it is just a hobby, doing the hobby with your best effort. Doing that, it makes life more pleasant and more meaningful.  In the end, it healed my dad and we have learned a big lesson. 

Grandpa, Smoking is not good.

 When my dad visited us in New Jersey in 1982, Victor was 5 years old and Leo was 3 years old.  Because both my wife and I were working at the time, Leo was sent to the nursery, but Victor stayed home with A-Kong.  In that sense, A-Kong was the babysitter with Victor  at home.

Victor got along with A-Kong very well.  Victor was learning Taiwanese from grandpa while my dad was learning English from his 5-year old grandson.  Victor was learning to say grandpa (A-Kong) and “How are you ?” ( li hó bô) .  We lived at 4 Barbara Street at the time.  I have seen my dad working very hard trying to say and write 4 Barbara Street.  In our backyard, we had an apple tree.  The apples from the tree were not anything special.  But to my dad from Taiwan where he rarely saw apples, those apples were very tasty to him. Thus, my dad was working hard with his grandson to learn to speak and write apples.  

My dad stayed with us for about 2 weeks.  Before he left to see my older brother, Ting-KAi, my dad planted a tree with help from me, my wife and Victor.  The tree was about as tall as Victor, a 5-year old child.  The tree was about 2 feet tall.

In 1987, Taiwan removed the martial law.  I took my family to Taiwan in the summer of 1987.  Victor was 10 years old while Leo was 7 years old.  When we visited my dad in Chang-Hua, he took my family to a hill where my mom was buried.  My mom died in 1972 by a drunken truck driver.  We went to her tomb to pay our respect.  We went there by foot.  

My dad smokes all through his life.  On the way to my mom’s tomb, he smoked one cigarette after another.  Of course, the second-hand smoke bothered all of us.  But everyone was quiet, until Victor finally spoke with a broken Taiwanese.

“A-Kong, jia hun  bô-hó “. (Grand Pa, smoking is not good). 

My dad pretended he did not hear the words or did not understood what Victor said to him. He continued to smoke.

A-Kong, jia hun  bô-hó “. (Grand Pa, smoking is not good). 

Victor said that phrase 2nd time and said it louder than the first time. 

“What did you say ?”  Grand-Pa pretended that he did not understand.  However, he relented a little bit and smoked much less often.  

After approximately 2 weeks of visit, we flew back to Wisconsin and did not think of anything about my dad either continuing to smoke or quit smoking until one day I received a letter from my dad from Taiwan.  In the letter, my dad explained that he knew he had a very bad habit of smoking.  Many times he had tried to quit but did not succeed.  This time, he was reminded by his grandson, Victor, to quit smoking.  And he was determined to quit smoking.  He did and he succeeded.  

My dad quit smoking in 1987, and continued to live a healthy life for another 12 years at the age of 93 years old (1906-1999).  I flew home to attend his funeral and his memorial ceremony.  The ceremony was arranged according to the Buddhist tradition with a Buddha portrait.  Besides the Buddha’s image was a portrait of Victor and Leo with the words “I love Grandpa”.  My dad treasured the loving relationship with his grandsons, Victor and Leo.  

Ten years later, or approximately 1997, I had a chance to visit New Jersey on a business trip. With a rental car, I drove back to see my old home of New Jersey at 4 Barbara Street where I saw my old home and the tree that Victor and grandpa had planted 25 years ago.  The tree was approximately 5 ft and 7 inches tall, as tall as Victor who was then a growing young adult of 20 years old.