Being frank

We sat down to lunch at a rather posh restaurant. Mum has been insisting that we go out to eat together and savour the many delights Taiwan has to offer. To me, just the fact that we are together is enough. The food and whatever that comes with the food are just extras.

Brother began the conversation, at a time which was poorly chosen and which dampened the whole atmosphere of eating out. But then again, it has to be done sometime, somewhere. It was a bit blunt, but basically came down to asking mum what the exact extent of her illness is. Both brother and I have a slight suspicion that mum is not telling us some things for fear of influencing our lives too much if we worry about her her condition.

Mum was quiet, then said that she really isn't hiding anything. " I sometimes don't even know myself," she said, looking down and averting our eyes. "I am also torn between whether I should do chemo or not. I really am..." And I know it... I can see it in those moments when she is alone, sitting and staring into blank space. I can see it in the way she looks tired and worn, even though she has not been doing much.

A few moments later, mum admitted she didn't want us to know too much, that she can take care of herself and that we should go off and do whatever we have to do. Go build a career, go live our lives, go be successful.

"That's the problem," I said, "Because I know so little I am not at ease. I've been putting a lot of things on hold, been afraid to commit to anything because I don't know how you are. Finishing my thesis, starting a career, applying for Canadian residence... How can I do anything if I don't know what will happen next?"

Perhaps they are harsh words, and I did not want to place blame on mum, but it felt necessary that I tell her how I feel, and what predicament I am in. I really do not want to push her, do not want to give her more pressure than she already must bear, but I feel I am buckling and breaking...

There was no conclusion, no decision made, no new development, and we eventually continued eating as we had planned to down.

But at least things have been said.

Call

I'm not sure why I'm so reluctant or afraid to pick up the phone and just call. I know that this friend of mine is unwell, and she would be very happy to hear from me. But I just don''t know what I could say to make her feel "better"... Again, like with my own mother, what could one possibly say to make someone who is undergoing terrible chemo therapy feel better?

She is a dear person. When I was growing up alone in the Netherlands, she would call or visit me to see how I was doing. Not only that, she has always been ready to lend a hand when my brother needs help, and every time I would go back to Europe, she is one of the few people that I still keep in touch with and visit.

A few months back, brother told me that she discovered she has ovarian cancer, and she has since then undergone surgery and chemo. All her hair is gone, her voice is weak when she speaks... so I have heard from third parties.

I have written to her, cards, emails, sms, to encourage her, to let her know that my thoughts are with her, but I dare not call for some strange reason... Maybe I'm afraid to hear again that yet another person dear to my life has been struck down by cancer... maybe I'm just afraid to face reality and the suffering of someone close, after having just lost a friend recently, and now seeing my mum tormented by her illness...

I know I should call, because I know how much a voice on the phone can mean to someone. But why do I not have the courage to...?

Truth about the Dalai Lama

China's propoganda mouthpiece the People's Daily offers this interesting account of the "truth" about the Dalai Lama.

Actually, the fact is quite simple. The Dalai Lama always pretends to be a religious, learned and merciful Buddhist leader who has experienced a lot of hardships but has strong will.

So the fact the Dalai Lama and millions of Tibetans were forced to flee Tibet after the Chinese invasion is all pretentious play-acting. China claims that it has tried to talk peace and tried to reconciliate with the Dalai Lama and his representatives, but in fact the Tibetans are "double faced":

Our patience and sincerity have become bargaining chips for him to continue his tricks in international communities, and has allowed him to create a false impression: as long as he can maintain contact with the Central Government, he will always be able to possess his "magic ability" for hurting China.

Therefore, the Dalai Lama has become much crazier and more insane. The collusion between the Dalai Lama and the U.S. government during the "Dalai Round" was nothing but another futile effort. For the Dalai Lama, it also exposed once again his plot of splitting the motherland and his true intention of selling the interests of China.

The role the Dalai Lama plays in the international community not only disappoints the Chinese, but also will bore people worldwide. The "political market" gained at the expense of ethnic groups and the nation will become more and more lonely and dangerous. Luckily, the current condition in Tibet gives the lie to the Dalai Lama's lack of imagination, and China and the world will learn the history and future of Tibet in a more realistic and objective way.

China however remains hopeful and conciliatory and offers an olive branch:

[...] we wish the Dalai Lama who is drifting away from his country can find his way back while he is still alive.

And in yet another "childish" bully-tactic, China has removed official accreditation of the University of Calgary after the Canadian university granted the exiled Tibetan leader an honours degree:

The Canada Tibet Committee (CTC) has denounced the delisting, saying the Chinese regime “chooses to bully rather than reason in order to resolve differences.”

“That a foreign power should be so out of touch as to believe that they can intimidate a Canadian university through such tactics would be even more astonishing if it were not the Chinese government doing the intimidating,” said CTC Executive Director Dermod Travis in a statement.

The decision to delist the University of Calgary is only the latest illustration of the authoritarian measures that the Chinese government will attempt to export to Western democracies unless we make it abundantly clear that we will not be bullied by authoritarian regimes in our own countries"

Ridiculous that a dictatorship and self-acclaimed world-power thinks it can behave in such a manner. I wonder why China does not de-recognise Canada or boycott the city of Paris for giving the Dalai Lama honarary citizenship....

Strands

It was so shiny and fine it looked like a thread of the most precious silver. I held nimbly the strand of mum's fallen hair between my finger and thumb and examined it closely. The dim daylight reflected on it and the hair seemed to glow.

On the floor I often see strands of mum's hair. Sometimes, there is but a single strand, at other times, there are a few strands crisscrossing one another in random patterns on the beige tiling. I'd try to quickly kick the hairs aside to a corner, and, whenever mum is not watching, frantically try to pick up as many strands of hair as I can. Even so, there is simply too many to pick up, and the worst region is around her pillow after she wakes up in the morning. It pains me a little every time I try to pick up the strands, and wonder to myself whether hair grows quicker than it falls.

Maybe it's an utterly pathetic and pointless endeavour. But this way, however few hairs I quickly throw away, I can save mum the disappointment and hurt whenever she sees that more of her hair has fallen. She told me that she feels afraid and ashamed of her hair loss, that other people will look at her with strange eyes. Unsure whether it was meaningless words of comfort, I told her that nobody would think less of her. The monk in the mountains has no hair and nobody looks at him in a funny way, I said. On the shelf lies a bandanna that she bought recently, should that day come.

If she eventually sheds all her hair I may well do the same.

New year's visit

The letter singed, curled up like a crumpled leaf, then charcoaled. From the large open fireplace, smoke and soot rose skyward like an aboriginal smoke signal, mixing with the constant fall of rain and the fast-moving blanket of mist that swept down from the mountain top. The normally blue, blue Pacific hid behind the dense, dense cover of the fog.

Next to the letter was a box full of paper money, gold coins and bank notes, as well as a pack of Marlboro's, which at my urging, brother had thrown in to offer to the ancestors and dad. I stood there for a while, listening to the fire crack and pop, sensing the scent of burning paper sticking to my clothes and skin, and feeling warmth of the fierce flame against my cheeks. Dad must be happy to receive word from you, mum had said earlier. "He will feel proud of you, and of the fact that you spent so much time writing to him".

Other people gathered around the burning heap and poured in stacks and stacks of paper money to offer to the deceased. For a moment I thought perhaps I had offered too little compared to what they were giving. But then again, they did not seem to have a letter with heart-felt words of gratitude and expressions of love.

Letter to dad...

Asked why I am spending a few hours handwriting a letter to dad, I said because it is something I　want to do, something that I feel I must do.

Whether dad will ever receive it, will ever read it, or whether dad even exists in the afterlife, does not really matter. In my mind, he is still around, he is still there when I think about him, when I recall his smile, his words, his smell. He is still alive in the way that I write so beautifully (...if I may say so myself...), in the way I am introverted, in the way I care about others but have a hard time sometimes expressing directly. He is me in many ways, and I continue to live and carry on living because of dad.

When the letter incinerates in the fire together, maybe the words, ink and paper will just vanish into ash and dust, and maybe all the time and thought I put into writing will have literally gone up in flames. Maybe dad will "receive" it, and be happy to receive news from me.

But I am glad that I managed to write down my thoughts, my feelings, and my worries.