qigung

Not until the robin perches on a high branch
does it realize that
it has flied too high.
Unanticipatedly, it begins to miss
the dew on the grass
down to the earth......

Believe, before seeing God's deeds
Fly, before grown full-fledged
Love, before being in love

Miracle is your name and ever shall be.

Imagining autumn in summer,
imagining daytime in the night.

Longing for hills at sea,
longing for ocean in the land.

The surface sinks,
the hidden emerges.

The past is the future,
the future has gone passed.
For we've always left something behind and been
left behind...

He sits there, in a bookstore's cafe facing the river, struggling to write a start of a poem. He sips his third cup of coffee which is not impressive at all. He prefers stronger coffee but well, this cafe only provides two choices. It doesn't mean to make profit by selling coffee but books.
His Muse never befalls, he wonders whether a cigarette would help or not. He is going to write a poem that has been sold to a publisher previously. He got paid for a poem not yet exists and has spent the pay before he sits in this cafe.
He has consumed his poem, he tells himself, or instead, the pre-paid poem has consumed him.
He sits there, struggling to put a start of his poem, in a bookstore's cafe facing the river...
Much time has passed, he finally struggles to put:
"He sits there,
facing the river in a bookstore's cafe,
struggling to come up a start of a peom."

(Image is from proj.moeaidb.gov.tw/.../download4.asp?id=568)

A Story of Our Fathers

It's unusual for a Taiwanese writer to write stories about those who
fled to Taiwan from China since there were so many misunderstandings,
conflicts and confrontations between local Taiwanese people and people
coming from Mainland China after the Communist Revolution. The
accomplishment of The Fragrance of Peach Blossoms is meaningful on two
levels: it provides insight into people who are exiled from their home and family,
and it offers forgiveness for historical mistakes.

This story is especially important to me because it's the story of my
father, and of the fathers of so many of us whose families were torn apart by
war, by the stupidity of humankind. Reading through this story, I get a feel for
what my father might have endured during the tumult of those times.
My father hardly talked about it; the trauma was irremediable, the
sorrow unspeakable.

The hand-written manuscript of The Fragrance of Peach Blossoms wasn't
discovered until after the much-too-early decease of its author in the
Spring of 2004. Mr. Huang Wu-Chung might have started the writing as
early as 1981, but even his beloved wife and children were not told
about it. Some researchers suspect that the story is yet unfinished, and
Mr. Huang's intention and plot have become an eternal puzzle for the
literary world and his readers. Nevertheless, the mystery does not
compromise the completeness of the composition.

Mr. Huang was the Director of the Second Division of the Council for
Cultural Affairs. In that position he initiated the publication of Taiwanese
literature in English, which has, at least, helped Taiwan to be more
known by international society. Probably because he had foreseen
that there was something missing in the spectrum of Taiwanese literature
that might result in an incomplete knowledge of Taiwan by English
readers, he plotted this story to provide a crucial background
to Taiwan's peculiar political and social situation today. The Chinese
title of this fiction is pronounced Tao Hsiang, meaning "Escape
from Hometown," and nostalgia, the essential element throughout this
fiction, is cleverly and delicately embodied by peach blossoms.

The lives of the three leading characters of this book constitute the
epitome of Taiwanese society during the political and social sea
change of that era. The candid descriptions of the clashes and blending
between local Taiwanese and mainlanders are familiar to everyone on this
island. While the debates over the truth of history are still boiling
and the enmities between different groups in Taiwan are still
exploited, we find forgiveness and peace in literature.

As the director who oversaw the selection procedures of the publishing
business in Taiwan, Mr. Huang selflessly avoided publishing the English edition
of his own works. It would be a loss if his literary achievement were to
pass into oblivion. I am honored to be the translator of this
outstanding work, and I am in debt to Tina Huang, the author's
daughter, who generously authorized me to take on this challenging task.
My special thanks also to Ms. Ginny Jaramillo, who carefully
polished my writing. If readers find any fault in this book, the
responsibility is no one else's but mine.

The translation of this book is sponsored by Taiwan's National Culture
and Arts Foundation.

By C.J. Anderson-Wu

Carol is often described by her friends with indefinite words, such as insensible, smart, aloof, trendy, respectful, interesting, proud or brainy among many other adjectives that don’t help profile a person at all. But undoubtedly one can easily conclude that Carol is a fantastic character.

One morning she was on her way to visit a friend who did not feel well. In this respect Carol is a caring person, she stays with friends when they are mentally, physically or emotionally in need. Though saying so, you got to be her friends first and you got to be respectable enough to be her friends. But how one is recognized to be respectable enough by Carol is unclear. She has friends belonging to highly privileged class as well as those are extremely deviated and nearly qualified to be called social rebels.

She had stayed up almost all hours the night before because of jet lag. She had traveled to New York for two months. Now she was happy that in a dry winter morning in Taipei one literally can go somewhere on foot. All her lucid hours last night were spent in online shopping websites and at one of which she found a chaise longue attracted her greatly. It curves sleekly with iron-gray cushions, looking very comfy and the size fits perfectly to the alcove next to her dinning room. Its price was 43,800 NTD, she almost ordered it right away but thought better of it. She told herself to wait for another twenty-four hours if she still desires it she buys it. In many occasions she’d regret what she had bought on an impulse. Not that the money has been inappropriately spent but the space of her apartment has been tastelessly occupied.

Carol feels she wanted a chaise longue because one of her friends, a writer, just asked her to read his latest novel. This task is heavy for her because her writer friend inevitably will expect opinions from her. Carol made quick comments on many things that made some of her friends think she is a sharp and insightful critic, which is not how Carol sees herself at all. She just let out how she feels to entertain friends. Nine out of ten of her comments on something are released without more than one second of thinking. Nonetheless her friends are convinced that such prompt response is closest to the truth. Carol even did not remember what she had said about the writer friend’s earlier books that made him convinced she is capable of giving review of his unpublished work. She must be damned if she says something, anything that makes her friend mistakenly believe he needs to make change of his writing. But he had sincerely asked her, even implored her to be the first reader of his new work “A Suicidal Day”. Just the title disturbed Carol immensely. What the consequence he suggests if she turned him down?

Carol decided she needs a pleasant ambience for this heavy reading and an exquisite chaise longue will suit such a purpose. She was sort of convinced that she was to be punished by this writer friend for something she had said about his books recklessly. She tried to recall what she must have had said but she couldn’t. She even couldn’t believe she had been so careless in expressing her opinions. Some times a comment about a friend’s work, especially writers, will be taken as insult first, then transformed into challenge. He wants to pay back, Carol thought to herself.

She imagined herself lying comfortably in the iron-gray chaise longue, reading her friend’s novel about suicide. Alas. If she does buy it for such a mission, will it remind her of death afterwards whenever she sits in it? She has no idea what the novel was about, maybe it’s not really a gray book after all, but she was still hesitant to find out. She even began plotting a compliment before starting reading the book that doesn’t mean anything so it won’t risk her friendship with the author.

She thought of a paragraph Franz Kafka wrote to a friend:
I think we ought to read the kind of books that wound and stab us…we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests, far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside us.

Carol told herself that she did not really mind the sea inside her is frozen forever though she had been impressed greatly by Kafka’s determination. She was afraid her friend’s work wasn’t the masterpiece Kafka had expected but still stabbing her badly.

There is only one way to find out. Carol sighed. If she was to be challenged, she would admit defeat immediately. If she was to be punished, she already suffered.


Several days later, when she has mostly gotten over her jet lag, Carol decided she should start reading the “A Suicidal Day”, with or without the chaise longue. She turned open the pages her friend printed for her and found one thing very intriguing. There were nineteen chapters in total, and the title of the first chapter was “Burial”, same as the nineteenth chapter. She never read a book like this, but was sure it’s not a mistake by her friend. He must be trying something experimental but didn’t want to get too far. Provoked, Carol read along while leaning against the piled pillows in her bed:

"Alice was lying on the grass next to her mother’s grave. She did not attend her mother’s funeral that had been held one day before because she couldn’t pull herself together to see the proceedings of burying her, with dirt. Alice did not know how long she has been lying there, may be only several minutes; may be hours have passed. She remembered before the sky turning overcast, there had been birds hovering in sunlight.

She did not know why her mother had to take her own life. As a girl of thirteen, Alice has been more confused than sad. She kept asking herself that since death comes anyway to anyone and since you can’t undo it at anytime in life, why her mommy was so hasty to do it. Her mother was thirty –six years old, except a baby boy died in his first year, she was the youngest buried in this cemetery. Why she could bear to leave her dears forever? What could be worse than death?

Alice did not cry for the death of her mother once, instead she vomited many times. Somehow she felt she couldn’t go back to the old trail of her life before thoroughly emptying herself first. Before the pouring rain started she threw up again, badly. When the storm attacked ferociously and symbolically, Alice decided it should be the last time she vomited for her mother.

She moved on, leaving everything about her mother, legacies or traumas, behind. When turned to her adulthood, Alice has nothing resembling to her mother. Somehow she attributed her mother’s tragedy to her cowardice. She should have had chosen to fight, whatever she had been facing.

Nonetheless Alice did not grow up right away. After thirteen she has to drag on her fourteen, fifteen and another many years before adulthood finally came. Her bewilderment, loss, sense of guilt among many other shadowy feelings were not solved but covered up or faded out over time.

Alice wondered if her mother’s survivors ever talked about the real causes of her death they might get the puzzle more cleared up but her father, aunts and other relatives never ever brought it up during these years. It only suggested, Alice knew, that the truth was more insidious than they wanted to face.

Therefore to Alice, growing up means gradually accumulating enough strength to defend herself from the tragedies she couldn’t prevent, consequences of the mistakes adults have irresponsibly made, and the scars carved by unspeakable scandals. "

Carol got up from her bed and went to kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. “I knew Jonathan is a gay gay who feels guilty of being a gay gay.” She swore. “Being a gay but not damned by his parents made Jonathan despite himself compared to other gays.” She added.

Carol poured coffee from the coffee maker to a tall white mug she brought from New York and took it to her study. There she sat down in front of her computer to write a letter to her outstanding author friend. “Dear Jon: Undoubtedly A Suicidal Day is the most successful work among your novels…..” No, how should I know? I am just a humble reader plus a victimized friend, not a literature critic. She started over again: “Dear Jon: I am flattered that you let me read your unpublished work, however, it saddened me enormously. I think it will take me much longer time to finish it; therefore you should not let me delay any time for its publication. I am sure it will be a triumph both in the literature world and in the market…” Carol began feeling she was as hypocrite as people from the Victorian Era.

She went back to her bedroom, took the manuscript from her nightstand and threw it into her closet. Hearing the chunky roll of papers drop heavily on the wooden board behind her overcoats, Carol felt satisfied.


Carol’s satisfaction did not last more than twenty-four hours, her curiosity overwhelmed her. In the next morning she picked up the manuscript from the bottom of her closet and turned to the last chapter “Burial”:

"Susana’s cremains was spread in the grass around Alice’s mother. Both the deceased were thirty-six. Their time froze there. Alice, now eighty-seven years old and wheelchaired, feeling the confusion and rage seventy-four years back has returned relentlessly.

Susanna committed suicide in Vienna, where she studied German literature and fell in love with a man who broke her heart. You can’t plant courage in your children and grandchildren, Alice told herself. But there must be something gone so wrong so that her granddaughter would express her most severe protest by killing herself.

She remembered when Susanna was a little girl, she was sent to take ballet class. The classroom provided tutus of three colors for girls to choose; white, pink and sky blue. Most of the girls chose white, and Susanna tended to take white, too, but her grandma told her: “You should pick other color than white so you will stand out from other girls.” Susanna picked pink, as her grandma suggested, but she dropped ballet class after several months. Maybe Susanna did not want to stand out, maybe being outstanding was too much for her.

For all her life Alice tried so hard to correct the faults of her family and she still lost the battle after all. It’s like the curse on them has been passed on generation by generation, like inheritance. It’s so ironic to recollect all the confrontations she had with her daughter Katie, now sixty years old, throughout their lives. All their efforts, attempts, arguments and schemes for each other or against each other have turned to the ashes now.

Alice finally realized that Susanna had been the battle field of her grandmother and mother from the first day she was born. Compared to the pain the two women brought her, the heartbreaking romance in Vienna was just an episode of her life.

She and Katie were left behind, a mother whose mother took her own life and a daughter whose daughter took her own life. The surviving mother and daughter were like standing on the opposite side of a mirror, their agonies repeated.

The weeds by her feet would be nourished by the ashes. There had been robins dancing under sunlight before the clouds threatening a storm. "

Carol put down the printout of Jonathan’s novel and decided she has done enough for her friend. She went to kitchen to make herself coffee then sat down to write Jonathan an email: “Dear Jon: A Suicidal Day definitely is an impressive work, I congratulate you. Nonetheless because I am turning thirty-six next week, I decided I should skip reading your work for one year until I turn thirty-seven years old.” Clicking, and the email was sent.

Carol went on searching in the Internet, found the chaise longue and ordered it. Then she called and woke up her mother in New York, telling her with a sleek tone: “Mommy, I just decided what you should give me for my birthday.”

~September 2007