Looking for the Seventh in the Garden of Eden -- a quest for a lost era

My quest began with a painting. It was housed in the Kasteev Art Museum in Almaty, the sole occupant of the centre wall of one of the main galleries. It was labeled in Kazakh, Cyrillic and English. The artist was one A. Aliyev, Kazakh. The title of the painting: The Garden of Eden, circa 1927.    

The scene was not a garden as most of us would envision, not a pretty, cozy English garden brimful of blooms, or a serene oriental garden with an arched bridge and a lotus pond, or a grand, formal garden of geometrical greenery in well-defined symmetry. If I could attribute pastoral to a garden, that would be the Garden in the painting -- snow-capped mountains in the background, horsemen and cattle dotting the undulating pastures in the not-so-far-off distance, yurts in the relative foreground, those dome-shaped skin-mounted domiciles that were the homes of the nomadic Kazakh people. No winsome flowerbeds – only wildflowers marked by clusters of white and yellow specks in ripples of green. No sculpted sea of undisturbed sand in meditative stillness – only scattered brown blotches where vegetation had eroded. No well-groomed hedges and neatly pruned trees – only clumps of unruly bushes punctuating the wide expanse of grassland. And no greenhouse or gazebo – only the yurts. No, it did not even conjure association with the Garden imagined in the Book of Genesis that had lent its name to the painting. But the Garden was alive!

Men in long robes and fur-trimmed hats and women in long skirts and vests and boxy hats with veils were seated in front of the yurt closest to the viewer. A woman, her face deeply carved with age and weather lines, was threading into a piece of leather. A younger woman was nursing a baby, one breast, a full mound of flesh, exposed, while the contented cherub rested his dimpled little hand on it as he sucked at his source of sustenance. An old man with trenches in his face much like the old woman’s was repairing a saddle. On the left side of the foreground, a young girl, no more than ten, wearing a colorful flowing dress with a vest top was dancing to the music of the lute-like dombra, played by a laughing adolescent boy. The boy had on a vest and loose long pants, and a close-fitted, cylindrical hat. Perhaps the baby's father, and most likely the young girl's, was one of the herdsmen in the distance. The people, inherent elements in the painting, looked very much in tune with their rustic environment and nomadic lifestyle. Happiness abounded in their paradisal environment. Characters and setting blended into each other, in a composition that transcended the boundary between art and life. 

Smitten by the painting, I had to find that scene as it was being lived. Somewhere in that vast land, it had to exist.

John was on an international consulting assignment in Kazakhstan. I, the consultant's wife, was on vacation. I attended every handicraft fair there was in Almaty, visited all the bazaars, lunched a few times with expat wives, and was bored to death after the first couple of weeks. Until I set eyes on the painting.

"I want to find the place in that painting," I said to John the evening after my visit to the Kasteev Art Museum. 

“Which may not exist,” John finished my sentence. “Why the interest?”

“There’s something there that I am not finding here,” I said, trying to articulate, as I looked around at the glass- encased atrium of the five-star hotel. 

John gave me a strange look. How could I explain to my down-to-earth, workaholic, number-crunching husband my feeling for a painting?  

 "I'll arrange for a driver to take us around next weekend,” he said, “but this Saturday, we’ve been invited to a dinner party." 

I was glad of the chance to experience a Kazakh dinner, which promised to be different from the dinners John and I had been attending with expatriates in sophisticated smoke-filled restaurants with European or North American decor. The banquet was in the spacious Soviet era apartment of a local prominent Kazakh on the occasion of his father's eightieth birthday. Horse meat and shashlik of lamb and beef, and a noodle and meat dish called beshbarmak were served, along with cold herring, salads and Kazakh bread, all washed down with Russian vodka and Georgian wines. 

While most of the guests went out to the wide balcony for a cigarette break half-way through the repast, and John seized the free time to talk shop with another guest, I remained in the dining room. A tall glass cabinet stood in a corner. Inside, among other knick-knacks, were several three-inch figurines of ivory color, some men and one woman in Kazakh costumes. As I stood admiring them, our host Aidar came up to me.

"What you see is a set of talisman figurines, called the Seven Companions of Happiness, carved out of camel bone. Tourists like to get this collection as a souvenir.” 

"Do the figurines have names?" 

Aidar nodded. "Ardak, Wisdom," he said, pointing to the figure of an elderly man in a long Kazakh robe, holding a book. "Tleukabyl, Luck, the one holding a big fish, Amandyk, with a cup, is Health, and Sarybay, carrying a treasure chest, Wealth. This old man is Omirzak, who stands for Longevity, and this is Karlygash with her two young children, for Family.”

“They sure are harbingers of happiness.” I was fascinated by the workmanship of the bone figurines, but more so by their symbolic meaning. Seven Companions of Happiness. I counted them. “But there are only six here. Where’s the seventh?”

“Unfortunately we have lost the seventh.” 

John kept his promise and, on our fourth weekend in Almaty, hired a young Russian driver to take us to the countryside. We drove past run-down gas stations, shabby farmhouses, and harvested corn fields. There were cows and sheep grazing in fenced meadows which must belong to the farms nearby. There were horses along the edge of the highway, but their riders were city folk out for the beautiful autumn day. We had yet to see some yurts and their occupants herding cattle. After a while, we started on a climb away from the highway. Our driver took us up a bumpy road as far as his car could go, and parked. 

"Waterfall, two kilometers up," he said in his limited English, pointing up the hill, with a fingers-do-the-walking gesture.  

"You really want to go up, Karen? This is no Niagara Falls." John eyed the gradient in front of us dubiously.

"It's not the waterfall," I said without hesitation. “It’s what may be round a bend or over the top, something of local interest."

John shrugged his shoulders. Our Russian driver led the way up. Brambles and branches caught my clothes as we made our ascent above a deep gorge. 

"Whenever you're afraid of the height, go low," I advised John like an expert, as I went on all fours over a narrow ledge.

"Has it crossed your mind we have to come back the same way afterwards?" asked John, looking a little pale, apparently not enjoying himself.   

I pretended not to hear him. John had no choice but to follow the driver and me. After forty minutes, our driver called from a distance above, "Come up quick! Waterfall! Krasivo!" 

John and I made it to the waterfall, a narrow fifty-foot drop of water splashing into a pool that opened into a mountain stream. A waterfall in a gigantic rock garden of nature’s wild flora. But it was no Niagara. We posed in front of the sprays, to humor the driver. Then came the ordeal of descent. 

"Other side, krasivo," said the driver.

"I think he's saying we can go down on the other side of the hill," said John, ready to try anything other than retracing our steps. 

"And it's going to be beautiful," I interpreted. I was determined to explore new grounds, the Garden of Eden a constant presence in my mind.

The slope from the vantage point of the waterfall to a track that followed the bend around the hill was quite steep and covered with treacherously loose rocks that gave way as we applied our weight to them. At some places, John and I had to lean against the incline to resist the pull of gravity. I was scraping my hands, holding on to tufts of vegetation and protruding rocks. But turning back was as hard as going forward, so we proceeded on. Eventually, we reached the track, where we could stand upright. We rounded the bend, to the side of the hill opposite from the waterfall.  

Clumps of bushes and deciduous trees hid my view of what was ahead, until a valley came into sight, gently undulating with low green mounds that seemed to interlock into one another like fingers of two hands clasped in prayer. A cluster of several yurts was in the valley. The scene before me was as close to the Garden of Eden as I could get. I clutched John in excitement. 

Our driver led us to the closest yurt. He spoke in Russian to a Kazakh woman who had just emerged from it. She had on the same style of costume as the one the women wore in the painting, the long skirt, the vest, the round boxy headdress from which a veil covered her shoulders and neck like a scarf. Our driver beckoned to us to follow him into the yurt. I was becoming a part of the painting, entering it, living it. 

 We entered through a wooden doorframe, bending a little as we did. The floor was covered with red floral carpets. A low round table draped over with a pink tablecloth sat in the middle, on which were bowls of fried snacks. Not far from the table was a burner with a tea kettle on it. The interior circular walls were covered with rug hangings. Against one side was a cradle. Several beautifully patterned and colorfully painted wooden chests were piled up on the opposite side. A dombra leaned beside them. 

The Kazakh woman made a sign for us to sit at the table, on the carpeted floor. She poured a steaming milky liquid into ceramic bowls and placed the bowls before us.

"Milk tea, very good," grinned our driver.

"Spasibo," I said.

Our driver offered to take a photo of us with the Kazakh woman. I had indeed become a part of the painting. After tea, we got up to exit the yurt. Outside, the woman signaled for us to sit down on straw mats on the ground. A young man with a dombra sat across from us, with a circular clearing between us. As he plucked the strings of the instrument, two adolescent girls in colorful skirts and vests danced to its music. I clapped to its rhythm, and nudged John into clapping as well.   

The sun was about to set. I looked across the valley. There were some cattle grazing not far from us, but not as abundant and scattered over the fields as I had imagined. I could not see herders on horseback. Perhaps they had gone off to explore new turf. A horse-drawn buggy pulled up, and our driver signaled to us to get on, for the ride back to his car. Before we boarded the buggy, he asked John for some tenges to pay the Kazakh woman, understandably as a token of appreciation for her hospitality.

 I walked into the Hyatt, gloating with the thought that I had found my Garden. Back in our room, as we freshened up for a party that evening, I babbled to John about our good fortune of finding “the scene in the painting” as I called it. My excitement seemed to have rubbed off a little on my husband, for he said with a smile as we left our room for the party, “Well, Karen, I’m glad we went out there today. The distraction was good for me. It helped recharge my battery for the coming week.”

That evening, when I told an American expatriate at the party about the yurts in the valley, he said, "Oh yes, I've been there. It’s called Nomad’s Paradise by the locals, their idea of a historic theme park."

"What do you mean a theme park?" I snapped.

"You know nomadic life doesn't exist anymore in Kazakhstan. What you saw was for the tourists, like you and me. Good idea though, brings in a few bucks for them."

I was at the Kasteev Art Museum again. I disabled the flash on my little pocket camera, and took a snapshot of the Garden of Eden. I would take home the celluloid memory of it.   

"Salem! Imagine seeing you here," a voice sounded behind me. I turned to see our Kazakh friend Aidar.

"I'm surprised seeing you too. Beautiful galleries you have here."

"Yes, I love this museum. I come here whenever I want some quiet, to think, to get away from the city, to recapture the past."

"The past?" 

"Yes, these paintings of the Kazakh people are reminders of a life that’s gone, no more! Our people are office workers living in cities and towns now, or farmers settled in the country. They don't wander from field to field with their herds anymore." 

"And the yurts?"

"Oh, they are antiques, only souvenirs," Aidar cackled, but I detected bitterness in his laugh. 

"So the expat was right. What I saw was just make-believe." I felt a knot in my stomach. "But why?"

Aidar sighed. "During collectivization in the the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the government took away our pastures to turn them into land for settled farming. They wanted us to be farmers, workers, live on the land and produce. But the free nomadic spirit had been in our blood for centuries. My people starved because they did not know how to be farmers. As a result we had a terrible famine that killed over two million of our people." Aidar's voice broke, and he was silent. 

I stared at the painting of the happy family sitting in front of their yurt, the wild green fields looming all around, the mountains forming a distant backdrop to their Garden of Eden. Tears welled in my eyes.

After a long moment, Aidar spoke again, with a faraway look, "The strumming of the dombra – it's like steppe horses galloping wild and free in the wind." There was a shrill tremor in his voice.  

"So this doesn't exist anymore?" I asked foolishly, pointing to the painting and hoping to hear a different answer.

"No, not here." Aidar focused softly on the painting, my painting. "Nowadays, you may still find some Kazakhs in Mongolia and northwest China, who have continued the nomadic life." 

"They look so happy," I said, unable to turn away from the scene before me. 

My eyes wandered from the beaming face of the young Kazakh playing the dombra to the girl dancing to its silent music, those smiling eyes, radiant cheeks, the swift agile movements of her arms and legs captured in the still eternity of a work of art. 

“As you might say, that was then, this is now,” said Aidar, forcing a smile.  

“I loved this painting from the first moment I set eyes on it. It has something I want, something I’m looking for. But I realize this is just a painting, and I’ve only been chasing a dream. Perhaps that was why the artist called it The Garden of Eden.”  

Aidar and I left the museum together. My foolish quest – the fancy of an arrogant traveler, the whim of a spoiled tourist. Or perhaps just the urgings of a bored wife away from home. I walked beside Aidar along a wide concrete pavement lined with golden birches, careful not to step on the blotches of spittle here and there. We passed the entrance of a college, and I was almost overcome by the cigarette smoke coming from students standing by, girls wearing five-inch high-heels and mini skirts, guys in tight jeans and leather jackets. Cars emitted black fumes while puffing at street intersections, accelerating even before the lights turned green. 

Just before we parted, Aidar hesitated. 

"The other day you were at my home, you asked about the Seven Companions of Happiness."  

“I remember. You had six of them – knowledge, luck, wealth, health, longevity, and family, but the seventh was missing.”

 "Lost,” Aidar corrected. He took a deep breath, and continued, “I should tell you who the seventh figure was. He was a young Kazakh playing a dombra. His name was Kuanysh. He was Happiness itself."  

Dirge of the Aral

Long ago, in secondary school, Hong Kong, I read about the Aral Sea in Asia Minor. To the young me, it was just another inland sea, a big lake, in the middle of the huge land mass of Central Asia, a remote region of the world I would never have a chance to set foot on, nor care to. Then, in 2000, I went with Mike to Kazakhstan where he taught and consulted for an NGO. That was the beginning of our long productive relationship with that Central Asian nation that had just awakened like a sleeping giant to independence as a nation, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union of which Kazakhstan was a member republic. Our romance with the Republic of Kazakhstan and its people has continued to this day.  

Even in the present time, when asked ‘Where is the Aral Sea?’ or ‘Where is Kazakhstan?’ many people would still draw a blank. The more informed would murmur oh yes, we’ve heard of Kazakhstan, but not the Aral Sea. Fact is the Aral Sea was the world’s fourth largest inland sea until human greed and lack of reverence for Mother Nature from the mid-1950s during the time of the Soviet Union drained it to one-tenth its original size within the span of a generation in the second half of the twentieth century, destroyed its ecosystem, killing the flora and fauna in that environment, wiping out the livelihood of the people that depended on the Aral Sea, and causing disease and death to men and beasts in the region. The two main rivers that had since time immemorial nursed the Aral were diverted to quench thirsty money-making cotton fields. On one of our trips to Kazakhstan, in 2016, we traveled out west to the Aral Sea and its once main harbor town Aralsk. I finally set eyes on the Aral, not the grand Aral I read about in secondary school, but a much smaller stretch of water in the heart of desert country that was once its seabed.  

Since the completion of the Kokaral Dam in 2005, built by the Government of Kazakhstan with help from the World Bank, the volume of water has increased in the northern Aral Sea sitiuated in Kazakhstan, and some fish is returning. Life and livelihood are making a comeback to the northern Aral shores although the situation would not be the same again as in the heyday when the Aral Sea was the world's fourth largest inland piece of water. Sadly, for the southern Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, the case is hopeless. The southern Aral Sea is dying. It is a matter of time before the entire southern Aral becomes desert. On that note, I composed the following poem.

        Dirge of the Aral

Once a busy town on Aral’s friendly coast,

Where canneries and markets thrived,

Home to cheery fishermen, souls content,

That famed seaport was the nation’s pride.

The sea beckoned, the west wind blew,

Summer was not too hot, nor winter too severe,

The water was clean, the air pristine,

And living conditions quite superior.

In one single lifetime, all that was the Aral vanished.

Shabby semi-ghost towns dot the once shoreline,

Harbors abandoned, canneries in the rot,

Old folks who had seen the sea,

And children who will not.

Toxin in the water,

Poison in the air

Bring on malady and death,

To the people living there.

Now a desert wasteland

In a valley of death,

Tall and haunting monoliths,

Mourning the Aral’s final breath.

Endless flats of dry seashells

That once paved the bottom of the sea,

Dismal souvenirs, collectors’ items

For the unconventional traveler like me.

A graveyard of sand, salt and toxic dust,

Windswept cemetery for ships left to decay

Horrid skeletons of once proud vessels

That went out for their bounty day to day.

Abashed they stand, broken shelters for lanky camels

From the smouldering desert sun.

Heartrending, gut-wrenching was the day

Their tearful captains bade goodbye and walked away.

The Aral, grimmest victim of human greed,

Nature altered from what it was meant to be,

All for that white gold, cotton,

That drains the rivers feeding the sea.

Death has come to the Aral,

To the once majestic sea and more,

To all life forms in her once nurturing waters

And on her previous affluent shore.

Decreed a mistake of Nature,

By ignorance and self-serving greed,

The Aral received a death sentence:

Nature’s biggest irreversible tragedy indeed.

The dying Aral Sea, once the world's 4th largest inland sea

A Ship Graveyard for abandoned fishing boats left to rot on the former seabed of the depleting Aral. White matter in the foreground is salt from the evaporated sea water.
.   

Writer visiting the skeletal remains of a boat abandoned on the former seabed of the Aral

Shells that once lined the seafloor of the Aral

Something Happened On The Trip Back To Bhutan!

Approaching the traffic circle at the north end of town, I saw a woman in a light coloured kira a distance ahead, of Marian’s height and build, walking with Marian’s gait, and wearing her hair up the way Marian sometimes did. I could only see her back, but what I saw sent my pulse racing. Immediately I stepped into the circle, barely missing a sleeping dog on the pavement, and running almost into the path of an oncoming car. When I looked in front again, she had vanished. Frantically, I scanned nearby shops and side streets in the gathering dusk. There was no trace of the woman who could be my twin sister. In tears, I headed back in the direction of the Hotel Druk.

                                             --Opening paragraph of The Heart of the Buddha

It has been seventeen years since my last visit to the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, nicknamed the Happiest Place on Earth, the setting of my second novel The Heart of the Buddha, published in 2009. My cheeks flush, my heart thumps as our plane from Kathmandu flies into Paro Valley where the only airport of Bhutan is situated. The nostalgia, the yearning to be back, the sight of the green tiled roofs of the airport terminal buildings in the valley nested in the foothills of the Himalayas, the realization that my wish the past seventeen years of returning to the Land of the Thunder Dragon is at last being fulfilled. 

The airport has expanded to include more neat and tidy two storey buildings with white walls and green roofs, ornate pillars and window frames decorated with paintings depicting auspicious symbols of dragons, garudas, and eternal knot motifs. On a huge external wall is a larger-than-life portrait photo of the Royal Family, the handsome young Oxford-educated King, his beautiful queen, and their little toddler son. Kesang greets us with a warm hand-shake, wearing a gho, national outfit for men, and white knee-hi's, just as he did the first time we met him at Paro's old airport nineteen years ago. The difference is this time he is the owner of a reputable tour and trekking company with a fleet of tour minibuses and a team of tour and trek guides. 

Just before entering the busy hub of Paro and ensconced on a gentle slope is the Paro Dzong, with its fort-like white walls, decorative wood windows, and courtly towers of pointed red roofs, embodying government administrative offices, temples, inner courtyards and a monastery, the temporal and spiritual authorities of the Buddhist kingdom connected under one roof. I remember the motor road from Paro to Thimphu the capital, farmhouses dotting the rural countryside, the three chortens at the confluence of two rivers, a popular stopover for travelers along the way. Thimphu has not lost its former charm in spite of the extended and improved infrastructure, lots more houses no higher than five storeys, a more intricate network of roads, more hotels of local ownership as well as foreign funding. For all the apparent modernization and extensions of the capital, a white-gloved policeman still directs traffic in the kiosk at each of the two main traffic circles in town, a rare phenomenon to most of the world, a fond impression from my childhood in colonial British Hong Kong. Hotel Druk, the iconic establishment of the capital where young royalties and foreign businessmen and government officials used to hang out, has been renovated and refurbished to upscale elegance. Outside the hotel, in the little square is the old familiar clock tower no higher than a three-storey building, freshly repainted, a dragon motif guarding it on all sides. That is where the opening page of The Heart of the Buddha takes place. Tears somehow begin to well in my eyes as I stand there under the clock tower. The clock is ticking, registering 4:38 p.m. Perhaps it has never stopped in the interim of seventeen years since I last stood under it as I imagined the scene in my novel. 

I have three copies of The Heart of the Buddha with me on this trip, not that the novel hasn’t been distributed to Bhutan. In fact, an Indian publisher bought the right from me some years ago to republish it in India for distribution to countries of the Indian subcontinent, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan. The cost of the book published and printed in India would be more affordable to the local people than if they were to buy it from a foreign online bookstore. I was happy with the arrangement because I wanted to bring it home to Bhutan and her neighbors on the subcontinent, no matter the cost. Of the three copies I have brought to Bhutan this trip, one is to be presented (better late than never) to the Public Library of Thimphu, one to the National Library of Bhutan for the institution's permanent collection, and the third copy, well, I would leave with our friend Kesang, in the hope it would find its way to the Royal Palace somehow, some day. The improbable is what dreams are built on.  

March 21^st, 2019 is our last day in Bhutan, and the last day of the annual Paro Tsechu Festival, held on the grounds of Paro Dzong. We are there to see some of the religious and traditional dances and performances. An extravanganza of an event it is, ladies in their best kiras of multi-colors, men in their formal ghos. The King will attend the main ceremony that day. A red runner is laid on the ground in the huge courtyard leading to the thongdrel, a large appliqué with the image of a well-venerated Buddhist saint. Young scouts form a human chain on both sides of the red carpet. We stand behind the scouts, the closest spots we can get to the red carpet.

The King of Bhutan finally comes into view. With confident strides, clad in his royal robe and with his golden yellow sash, the handsome young King greets his people left and right as he walks on the red carpet. As he gets close to us, Mike suddenly calls out, “Your Majesty, we are from California!” His Majesty hears him in the crowd, and turns to face us. 

        “You’re from California?”

          “Yes, San Francisco!”

The King exchanges a few pleasantries with us. He even shakes our hands. As he is about to continue on, a voice in my head seems to tell me, “It’s now or never!” The moment is passing and will not come back. With not a second to lose, I call out, “Your Majesty, I’ve written a book about Bhutan!”

            He hears me. “You wrote a book with something about Bhutan?”

            “I wrote a novel all about Bhutan.”

            “Oh, I’d like to read it. I love reading.”

            “I will present a copy to you and Her Majesty.”

            I am in seventh heaven, or perhaps I am in Heaven itself where anything is possible. I bite my lip. No, I am not dreaming. Right after the dashing young king has walked on, the Deputy Court Chamberlain is by my side to get my contact information. 

That very afternoon, Kesang brought the third copy of The Heart of the Buddha to the King’s residence in Paro. A handwritten note is tucked into the book which reads, 

      Your Majesty, 

      I humbly present to you my novel about Bhutan, The Heart of the Buddha.

     Sincerely yours,

  Elsie Sze (California)

The end of an era

Thoughts on the Closing of Toys R Us

Children from toddler age to sub-teens run in and out of the automatic double doors. Inside the store, customers queue up at multi checkout lanes to pay for their lucky finds. That was then, this is now.

Then was about 1984 when Masters of the Universe, Star Wars and GI Joe figurines (early versions) were scalding hot, when our two older sons were seven and eight, when acquiring the latest figures from popular junior action series right after their release into the market was for them a big deal worth showing off and bragging to their peers. Like an indulging, dedicated mom who would go to all lengths in support of her children's grand mission, I had driven far and wide to as many Toys R Us and Kmart stores as I could within a range of over twenty miles in Chicagoland, the more remote suburbs the better, for the chance of spotting that latest figure of a character that had just hit the shelf for the first time. And voila! The joy of accomplishment, the triumph of success every time I marched into the house with my loot! Not only did kids like showing off their highly coveted items to their friends, their moms bragged too to other competitive moms.

"I found Buzz-Off!" I announced to a co-worker mom of mine the day after I hunted down that latest bee-like He-Man series figure.

"Where?" She sounded envious.

"At the Toys R Us in Bolingbroke. It was the seventh store I called, and we drove twenty-two miles to the store when they said they had just received a few. I got the last one," I said, trying to sound low-key and apologetic.

I was pretty sure if we had a daughter, I would be fighting for the latest of Cabbage Patch Kids. Then was a time when entering a Toys R Us store was for kids like losing themselves in Paradise, where they wouldn't mind being lost forever. 

Now is 2018. This weekend of March 17-18, kids and parents flog to Toys R Us stores, loot bags and all, kids emptying their piggy banks and parents Christmas shopping well ahead of the season. Excited voices ring out from the labyrinth of aisles. The lines are long at checkouts. Our sons and wives have brought their kids to the neighborhood Toys R Us, on their treasure hunt. Our grandkids are elated with this Christmas in March, not caring if this may well be their last journey to Toys R Us, that the company with which their fathers grew up is singing its swan song, and tomorrow (though not in the literal sense, as the stores will probably be kept open for another couple of months) it will be no more. As well, many adults don't care if the whole company is closing. At least they will get their bargains before it does. Rip it to the bare bones for those fantastic deals!

Call me a sentimental fool, given to nostalgia. Silently I weep for the death of major giant retail stores like Toys R Us, and the decline of once dominant retail chains tottering on the brink of ruin. I also miss catalog stores with nice showrooms the like of Service Merchandise which I loved to visit when starting our first home as a young housewife. Then there are the bookstores. Neighborhood and privately owned bookstores are relics of the past, having long given way to major retail bookstore chains which in turn have suffered a setback of mega proportions when e-marketing took over the book market, and advancing technology undermined drastically the print format of the written word with electronic and audio books. And not only has book-marketing gone through a major revolution in a span of some thirty years, marketing of all products under the sun have gone the same route by way of online shopping. Hence, the death of stores like Toys R Us. 

We have entered a new age of speed and convenience, efficiency and advancements in the sciences for the betterment of life, an age when dissemination of information has taken on the acceleration, extent and thoroughness that were unimaginable over thirty years ago. We are in an age when robots replace humans in certain functions, though thankfully not in all. Some things still require human intervention and the human touch. Progress is a fact of life, necessary for human survival, as long as what is natural and wholesome is not altered and abused. 

As I pass by my local Toys R Us near its closing time which ends another day of onslaught of crazed and eager bargain hunters, Ecclesiastes 3 comes to mind:

And there is a time for every event under heaven--

A time to give birth, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to tear down, and a time to build up.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance.      

As the Chinese saying goes, "There is no endless banquet under the heavens." Toys R Us which has delighted children of all ages for some seventy years has seen its best of days, but is finally shutting down. What is beautiful in life is not only in the moment, but more lastingly in its remembrance.                                                                

 

 

 

Words of Remembrance: my mother, Elizabeth Chin

This morning, we’ve come together for my mother Elizabeth Chin’s funeral. This is not a time to mourn, but a time to celebrate my mother’s life, to give thanks to God for the gift of her in our lives, in whatever capacity or way we had been associated with her, whether as her children, sons and daughters-in-law, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nephews, nieces, friends, neighbors, former students or her caring attendants in the last years of her life.  While this is a satisfying closure of a life well-lived in our earthly domain, it is also the beginning of an eternal and beautiful life in the Heavenly abode, with God and the angels and saints, and with Dad.  God called Mom home at the best time of year, a time to celebrate Christ’s birth.

My mother was born Liang Sau Hai in Hong Kong on Sept. 6, 1922. She spent her early and adolescent years in Hong Kong but left for China during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in the Second World War. She and Dad were married at the end of the War and returned to Hong Kong to settle and raise a family. They migrated to Canada in 1969, giving up well-respected careers in Hong Kong, in order to give their children, Tony, Joe, Judith and myself, a better life, a more promising future. Our parents had been together for 69 years until Dad’s death two years ago at the age of 97. Mom and Dad taught Judith, Joe, Tony and myself well by their exemplary manifestations of Christian values in all aspects of life, career, marriage, parenthood, grand-parenthood, and in our relationships with family, relatives, friends and acquaintances.  The overwhelming messages of condolence I have received from Mom’s past students at Sacred Heart Canossian College in Hong Kong where she had taught for over twenty years are a testament to how much she meant to them as a teacher, a mentor, and a friend.  She was a pious woman, serving the less fortunate in Hong Kong as an active member of the Legion of Mary for many years, performing works of charity in the true spirit of what it meant to be Christian. Prayer including the rosary was a constant part of her daily routine. God had blessed her with years of relative lucidity after her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease about nine years ago, until the last few months knowing us, calling us by name, remembering people who had been close to her. She was blessed with quality of life made possible to a great extent by the unconditional care of my sister Judith and brother-in-law Gary. As late as end of September this year, when her grandson Tim visited her, she advised him to buy a house soon, for investment.  At mealtime, she loved studying photos of her grandchildren, great grandchildren which Judith had laminated on placemats for her. At the end of October on my second last visit to Edmonton, when I peeked into her room in the hope she’d be awake enough for me to say goodbye before Michael and I left, we found her fully awake in bed. She was clear-headed enough that we were able to share some tears. That was our real goodbye, a moment that will live with me for the rest of my life.

On a small plaque given me by a friend were engraved these words, “When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.”  Our mother, Elizabeth, had graced and enriched with her life all of us present here today, and all those dear to her who are unable to attend her funeral. She has become a living memory in our hearts, a memory that has become a treasure. Let us celebrate her life. 

Words of Remembrance at Elizabeth Chin's funeral, Edmonton, Canada, December 31st, 2016