My Books Arrived!

Venerable Yin Shun’s Miao Yun series (印順導師的全套妙雲集) that I had ordered from Bodhi Bookstore (維摩詰書屋) arrived today! Frankly, his books are not the easiest ones to digest, since he started writing this series about 70 years ago. But he is one of the two old masters that I respected the most who brought the true Buddhism to Taiwan in 1949 and influenced Taiwanese Buddhist world ever since. (The other one is Master Nan Huai-Chin [南懷瑾大師], who is still teaching in China at age 90.) Without him, the current Chinese Buddhist world would not have thrived like now. I don’t know when I’ll be able to finish the whole series, but I’ll slowly work my way through it and hopefully gain a tiny fraction of his knowledge and understanding of Buddha’s thoughts before I die.

P.S. 請按這裡來閱讀印老的全部著作。

Sunset on 01/26/2009

After days of rain, it was about time to have a beautiful sunset.

Happy Chinse New Year (新年快樂)

Today is the Chinese New Year’s Eve (除夕), which all members of a family will gather around a round dining table, eat a banquet, and stay up until passing midnight.

When I was a kid, this was a day that my whole family had to clean up the house from top to bottom to prepare for a new year. So by the dinner time, everyone was exhausted and waited around the dining room table. My mom would bring up all the tasty dishes (usually twice to three times of what we usually had) to the table and filled up the table. The meal would last past midnight, the only time that my sister and I could watch TV and didn’t have to go to bed by 9pm. And we got red envelopes! It was the best time that I could have for a whole year by all measures!

Before I turned 6 and still lived in the countryside of the Southern Taiwan, that was the only time that we could eat meat and have new clothes. As you could imagine, Chinese New Year was my happiest time of the whole year. But as I grew up and the economy got better, Chinese New Year lost its glamor. It was impossible to avoid meat even at road stands, we had new clothes all the time, and my mom would give us pocket money every week.

Sunset on 01/22/2009

It had been raining for days, but the sun came out unexpectedly. Didn’t it look like a water color painting?

不尋常的美夕陽、、、像不像幅水彩畫？

Funny Baby (好玩寶寶)

This morning a friend (淑娟) forwarded me this email; apparently it had been forwarded a few times before it finally reached her. We don’t know who they are, but this super cute baby (girl?) apparently played along with her silly dad and gave everyone a good laugh.

今早朋友淑娟送這封<<殘忍父親>>的 email 給我. 因為信件已經被傳送了好幾次, 所以我們也不知道影片中的主角是誰. 不過這個超可愛的娃娃 (女生嗎?) 很順她傻爸爸的心, 非常配合, 讓大家都笑得合不攏嘴!

P.S. 這個爸爸長得有點像宗達, 但是宗達又不可能幹這種蠢事…

Taipei Panorama (台北上河圖)

When I was in Taiwan, we saw that my dad had this very cool photo as his computer screen background, and my sister immediately asked my dad to send her the photo. Today she forwarded it to me with her notes as follows. She seemed to find out who the photographer was but somehow didn’t tell me his name.

I don’t know how much time the photographer spent on the mountain top to painstakingly take all the shots and then attach them together on his computer. But, boy, he surely did a wonderful job to present the beautiful Taipei!

Click the photo to see the original size!

妹妹說:
夜景很漂亮喔!
“攝影家手札 “一位會員的作品.
從相片看不到任何的蛛絲馬跡, 不僅修得很用心,
拍的時候水平也費了一番時間, 抓得非常準!!
照片由左至右, 從內湖區開始, 一直到士林區, 三重市,
可以看到中山高速公路以及市民大道貫穿整台北市,
比較顯眼的建築有:
麥帥一二橋
台北101
誠品旗艦店
國貿大樓
遠企飯店
松山機場
新光站前大樓
美麗華摩天輪
大直橋
圓山飯店……

Breakfast at Home

Finally I got back to the States after almost 6 weeks in Taiwan!

Last night I intentionally stayed up until almost midnight and thought that this time I could adjust my jet lag in no time. That was what I thought… I woke up at around 1:30am and dozed on and off until 4am, but after that, I just could not fall asleep again. Finally, when it was about 5am, I quietly turned on my light to read my book. Even though my movement was pretty quiet, I probably still woke up David even though he denied it. Eventually, David got up to make us some biscuits and coffee.

Well, my first breakfast at home was just perfect! Check out the photo to see that I wasn’t kidding!