In the Water

Day 15

"Shui Li" is the same sound for the words that means "in the water". From a dream study perspective, the element of water represents emotions.

This week started with my ride down to Shuili with my cousin. In the car he told me about his wife's brother who died in the military. He was a military officer serving his military duty on a small island off JinMen. He was reported missing gone A-wall, the official military procedure for anyone who is not accounted for. He was on a small military island for military use only, where could he have gone, swimming? The journals and letter he kept noted how he was psychologically and emotionally under distress. He lead a platoon and was not getting along with his superiors. On the day of which he was last seen he was physically stripped of his officer rank off his shirt while on duty in front of his platoon by his superior. Nothing else was reported for that day. Another military service man said he saw him walk alone at night with a backpack on. This was all the family was left with. I was informed by my cousin that this plagued his in laws for a decade. Only recently have they let things go and is no longer in need of finding out what really happened to their son and where is his body. They have finally embraced the fact that no matter what the truth is of what happened that day, that night, regardless of where his bones lay, they cannot revive their son. I was instructed to not mention anything of this sort during my stay so they can hold their peace. I was sadden by this story and their grief. I wondered on my car ride, maybe I am to learn of how to let go of sadness maybe this is my life lesson for meeting them and staying with them.

Within 36 hours of staying with the Lees, while meditating I heard a voice, a male voice asking me to pass on the message, "he is well and is sorry for their sadness." Being very tired, maybe out of jet lag, maybe just tired from life and living in general my sense were flutters of images rapidly firing. How reliable is this voice and who am I hearing? I have needed a lot of rest and naps and have been doing so. I decided to follow my cousin's instructions to me and respect what I have been instructed to do. I thought back to the male voice and said, "you should tell them directly in a dream they would love to see you again, I am sure they miss you. It is better to not go through me, it is not appropriate, I think this is the better way."

I dreamed this week of my mom thanking me. I woke up thinking about the last time I was in Taiwan how it was night and now it is day. The last time I was here the winds blew night and it was about how I failed as a daughter. This time she's proud to have me as a daughter, day, the winds blew day. Life is just so, it is best to not take things so seriously. Night becomes day and day becomes night. Winter, spring, summer, fall, all come and go.

I think it is unwise to do harm with body or mind. You would have to do time and toil along until the pain is healed, until you have healed the pain you have caused, it could take life times until conditions are in match to meet up again so you can have the opportunities to do so, and even then we blow it, we may mess it up by creating more pain more harm, on and on we are locked in to do time in the future. It's also wreckless to create pain, creation of pain only gives birth to delusions. Stuck in delusion is just the same as stuck in the six realms of birth and death.

It's been a dream. I have only been in a dream. I haven't lived. I have only been in a dream. I have only been in fantacies of others and myself confused and lost frustrated, running away from shadowy things, chasing after bubbles, constantly in distress, constantly thirsty, hungry, craving, never satisfied, always hit and always miss. Lots of time and resources wasted on me. Feels different now. Feels good within. Feels grounded, feels light within, feels like a good home. The past no longer chases me like a dark scary sticky monster shadow. Feels really different, feels really good.

My cousin Wensen's wedding last weekend was fun. This is the first wedding I got to just be a guest and not work. I enjoyed it and don't miss any of the stress of being the photographer. I got to eat everything and hang out with family I haven't seen in years. I wondered what made everything feel so great. Was it the wedding ceremony itself? Was it all the blessing everyone came with that made it so wonderful? I don't know what is this wedding magic, and what makes it magical. I sure did benefit from it, soaked it all up and I am grateful.

This week I have been bathing in good hospitality, welcomed, respected in dignity, honored, and heard. I've had a glimpse of old age, time and use of time and energy. I should do things now that I can't do in my old age. I should start now things I can still do in my old age.

This week, I have had the opportunity to live a week of my life in the "what ifs". What if I didn't move to America, what would my life be like? What if my parents didn't move to America what would their life be like? What if I did not grow up in my family but was adopted at birth. Having lived this week allowed me to live these what ifs. I no longer have the these particular what ifs ponderings. I feel I have pulled my foot out of the past and the what ifs. Now I can plant them in the next steps of future.

Thank you ShuiLi

Good bye to Shuili,
Good bye to being in the water,
Good bye to being in the waters of the past emotions.

Grandpa Lee's Words

Day 14
Today is the official Children's Day Holiday. This is one holiday I think America should adopt and elder's day.

I went to the morning market and bought more sugar cane juice from the same push cart grandma. I liked the flavor of the purple sugar cane juice. I bought one for the road tomorrow since we plan to leave early and I won't have time to shop at the morning market.

Today I helped out with setting up the alter on the top floor. It's a lot of work for them to haul the things up all those flights of stairs. There was a main alter with vegetarian things and Mrs. Lee has followed the instructions of five items and five colors. All the ceremony affairs had to be finished by 10am.

There was another table set to the side of nonvegetarian items for ancestors. Mr. Lee lit incense, three for reach of us totaling nine. We faced the sky and bowed and then we turned to the alter and he said his blessing, like one would at a dinner table and a big part of his blessing prayer was on me wishing me safe travels etc... I was surprised at that, in such a big event as today that he'd be concerned with my welfare for the rest of the month and my life.

During lunch I was served with Daikon soup. I found a fresh dived mosquito in my soup. It was too late to save it from the burning soup from the looks of it's limp corpse. I had a decision to make here. Do I make a scene by not drinking my soup and throw it away or just pretend I am at a restaurant and I didn't even know about the mosquito or whatever they fished out of my food and then served it anyways. I decided to not upset my gracious hosts and ate my soup after fishing out the mosquito.


In the afternoon we went to the wood work exhibition hall and looked at beautiful wood work. I like weaved baskets.











I like bamboo floors.







We went to look at a two thousand year old camphir tree. It was beautiful and magnificent. On the way over we passed by lots of farms, mushroom farms etc.. Mr. Lee was fascinated on how the plaque for the tree was done and was examining it to learn from it's beauty. Mr. and Mrs. Lee enjoy learning new things and appreciate many things.

We also stopped at the YuShan National Park office. We arrived after closing, I starred into the glass door and the staff opened and let me in anyways to pick up a flyer. I ended up getting info on how to go about climbing the peaks. Actually I'm not too hot on climbing the peaks. I do want to stay there for a night or two. So the manager helped me arrange a bed for the night there on Friday.

I made a request to go to the popsicle shop one last time. I had two and both were taro they were delicious like how I remembered when I was little, creamy, sweet, flavorful. I actually had to take breaks from eating to thaw my tongue so I can taste the delicious popsicle.

We took hikes around the area to digest. This is a papaya tree.




Mrs. Lee told me this is what you use to burn to ward off mosquitos.

We don't know what this tree is, but we like the flowers growing from it. The whole hiking trail was full of things from nature to look at and and the aroma from the flowers, herbs were so sweet, just amazing!

This is Grandpa Lee's words and advise for me:

Old age hits you by surprise and the decline is fast and steep. You can't imagine or prepare for it.

Money, it is something you save up when you are young, not waiting till when you are older. Put 50% away in the savings.

Friends determine the luck in your life. Bad friends take you down the path of destruction and there is no return. You become who you are with. Same is true with good wholesome friends, they lift you to better places.

Call your parents so they don't worry about where you are, what you are doing, don't make your parents worry.

Plum Factory MeiZi, Er Ping Bing

Day 9
I got up at 5:30am to go do Tai Chi with my cousin's mother in law, I shall refer to her as Grandma Lee, up the temple in the mountain called WenZiGong. It felt good just to stretch and do some tai chi. It felt really good to watch the sun rise at 7am and see layers of the mountain ridges appear, including YuShan "jade mountain". It is the 15th of lunar calender so people visit the temple and make offerings. I really need to get back into doing tai chi everyday for an hour or more. Feels really good to do tai chi, I've missed doing tai chi, just get really lazy about getting myself going on doing tai chi.

The tai chi here, they do it to music. This requires getting used to for me.

This is the view down below from the temple.

I got to go to bed early last night and had a good 7 hours of rest. However I haven't been able to sleep straight, I have been waking up every two and half hours incriments. So I feel naps are a must to adjust and make up. After tai chi I laid down for another hour to rest some more. I didn't fall asleep but laying down felt really good. I have been really busy last two weeks and had very little rest. It felt good to rest. I am glad I am not sore from the bike ride. It's been a few years since I rode one. We went up hills and I actually had to get off the bike and walk it.

Then I went to Plum Factory and was introduced to the process of plum preserve making, cripsy crunchy plums, chewy plums and dry plums. I made it in time to watch plums getting smashed after the wash and salt. The air was filled with beautiful plum aroma. Plums are picked in the month of April. I arrived before the massive picking season that lasts the entire month of April, which starts next week.

This is where all the salted dried plum preserves are being dried, out in the sun. It takes about 3 to 4 months to finish the process.

This is a photo of plums after first wash before salt.


This is a photo of plums after salting and ready for smashing. Each plum gets smashed once with a wooden mallet.

One of their products is Mulberry juice concentrate.

We went up to ErPingShan where the classic flavors of popsicles are made in a famous factory. It's sunny today, I was hot and did put on lots of cedar oil on my body to repell bugs. This is the trail up to the factory. There are said to be snakes and monkeys. I didn't know about that until we were half way up the trail. If I had known ahead of time I wouldn't have taken the path. These were steep steps.

This is the view at the shop. The path to the shop is full of beautiful trees. I like classic flavors or peanut, red bean, green bean, taro. It is only 9NT per stick. I had two. I may have to come back on my own and eat some more. It really is delicious in flavor and texture.

This place did not get their name registered and trade marked but another company did and took their name. So all those who think they are eating famous delicious popsicle sold as "Er Ping" are not actually eating the real thing.

CheCheng

Day 8 Left early for the trip to Shuili. My cousin drove me and we stopped at various rest stops to get me educated. The rest stops in Taiwan is fun and very comfortable.

This was taken at the parking lot of the rest stop. People come here to sit and watch the night view.

The food is great and the place is a mini mall. I like all the road snacks you can buy and all the gift boxes you can buy.

The food is good here and so is the entire set up. There is also a mini aquatic aquariums in the mall. This place is set up better than most airports. Here are jelly fishes in this tank. I have not seen jelly fishes of these colors. My cousin told me about jelly fishes in Green Island where there are good snorkel sites. Well, I have heard many jelly fish stories and I prefer not to swim with them if they are everywhere. So I guess I will scratch out Green Island then. Snacks! Dried DoGan is popular in Taiwan.

People here don't go to places with empty hands, always carry gift boxes. The gift boxes have delicious goodies in beautiful boxes.
We got mushroom chips. I like these things they taste good. I wonder if they are fried then freeze dried. If so then it's not so good for the health. I may have to not eat any more of these delicious wonderful crunchy snacks.
My cousin and I decided to try this one that says stinky DoGan. We wondered if it would be stinky if you open the bag. We did and it wasn't stinky. I read the label carefully it's just named stinky that's all. And it wasn't very tasty. What am I doing to do with this entire bag of DoGan?


We met up with his inlaws who were at the monastery and we had lunch there. The place also had the most delicious sweet potato I've had so far, it tasted like there was honey in the sweet potato. Here is the sweet potato man and he is roasting the potato in classical oven.

















I rode the bike, called "iron horse" to CheCheng. I rode with his father inlaw, I will just refer to him as Grandpa Lee and a cousin in law Ding Hong to CheCheng. It's a cute place. Most of all, it felt really good and beautiful. Not a big place but just wonderful feeling. Makes you slow down your foots steps and slow down the gears between the ears.

We took the creek route to get to CheCheng. There were hills of which I couldn't climb with all my might and all my body weight. I didn't know how to shift gears and so I had to get off and walk my bike while Grandpa Lee made it up the hill just fine.
We also stopped by a peice of real estate for sale off the trail. Grandpa Lee decided it wasn't as valuable of a purchase. I told him it wasn't all play today, he squeezed some business in.



I was introduced to the wood factory, cedar wood mill. I like the feel of cedar wood and the feel of it. It's a beautiful wood. The mountains in this surrounding area is pretty and wonderful to look at.

This is my cousin Joy's cousin Ding Hong.





This is the train station preserved from it's original built.

Grandpa Lee is in the MeiZi business so he sees MeiZi everywhere.

These are old buildings still standing and being used as living quarters.

These rice buckets are sold with your rice bowl combo for 400NT.

Grandpa Lee runs into people everywhere. This is the son of a man who was his friend for years. He said at his age, people drop left and right, and then only the younger generation is left.



This man, another grandpa is only a year apart from Grandpa Lee. But look at the difference. He was in the Beetle Nut business and made a lot of money. He has one tooth left and looks so much older.

This is the water pond where all the cedar logs were soaked in. Now it's a wonderful place to sit and just enjoy the beauty.

This is a cedar wood mill museum plus cafe.

In Taiwan the trash system is dump trash every day. When the truck comes, run out with your trash and toss in the truck yourself.

Mosquitos are everywhere, I am bit all over. I am not cold because I was buring from all the bites. I was handed cedar wood oil to repell the mosquitos. This works better than deet. A lot more organic and not toxic for you. I may have to rethink my stay here due to mosquitos and my possible plans to southern Taiwan and to the tropical beaches may have to cancel because of the mosquitos. Definately not going to camp.

In the evening I was not hungry at all. People came over and talked about the wedding they are having etc.. It was quite an education on things, how people do things and the significance of the reception in people connection and etc...