Sidney in China and More ……..

My Eastern Canada trip. 5th – 19th June – 2013

I must confess that I haven’t exercised due diligence in putting up travel journals on my blog in the last little while, partly due to my daily humdrum routines, partly due to human nature’s inertia in starting or restarting old routines or work habits. And the last reason also it was because I haven’t done any long distance travelling for two years since 2011.

I returned home to Vancouver in the winter of 2011 after a three months root finding in China. I was satisfied that China did provide me with a certain degree of belongingness during my stay there, it also remind me with a certainty that although China is my ancestral homeland, my heart has settled for Canada a long time ago. There are emotional tie regarding things Chinese of course. I wish China all the best.

As some of my new Chinese Canadian friends jokingly mentioned the following two liners in a social get together, loosely translated, it meant the following contradiction between China and Canada: “Such chaos, such filth, such excitement! – China. Pretty mountains, pretty waters, pretty boring! – Canada”

For those who understand written Chinese, the following two lines say the same thing: 真 亂 真 髒 真 精 彩. 好 山 好 水 好 無 聊. It rhymes actually. It is not terribly complimentary of the new adopted country that they found themselves in, but given time, they will find themselves falling in love with the new environment.

At first glance, it feels funny and humor for the difference between the two countries. But in a deeper level, don’t you think it is only fair for us to spend more time with our newly adopted country before writing a comment like that?

I will return this October to Ningbo, China for a visit after a high school reunion in a Malaysia resort. China is a big country, the humanity, the vastness of the land; and the contradictories always put people at awe. I am one of them.

Let me pull back a bit for now, I want to report a recent seven days bus tour in Eastern Canada which highlights Princess Edward Island and the Maritime Provinces.

My buddy Ramon and I departed early morning from Toronto on the 9th of June to the 15th of June on a large air conditioning bus with Wi-Fi service on board. Together with 53 other passengers, our fast talking tour guide was originally hailed from Cambodia – a self taught Chinese Canadian in his 40’s.

I admire and give him all As for his efforts in having to please and inform all passengers on board in two languages and two dialects, English and Chinese, Mandarin a Cantonese.

The first day saw us driving through heavy morning rush hour traffic from the eastern township of Markham to Kingston. Kingston is best known for its penitentiaries, the men’s and the women’s. It is really nothing to look at or worth mentioning, because no one is ever allowed into the prison compounds.

The tour bus just drove by them and the famous Queen’s University, had lunch by Kingston City Hall, and off we went to Quebec City, Quebec City is the only walled city in North America, it is rather nice, well kept and well preserved by any standard.

I have been to Quebec City three times, frankly the first time was the best, and we did the usual touristy thing, buying souvenirs, taking snap shots, the second time, I did some sampling of local cuisine, the third time, I just did a bit of walk about and waiting for the bus to pick us up to our hotel for the night.

I might be jumping the gun here, but for a seven days bus tour, one must have six nights of staying in six different hotels. Luckily Ramon and I were very compatible travelling companions; neither of us snores, so we both claim.

We are early to bed and early rise type. Come to think of it, who wouldn’t? After routine 12 hour days of being bused from one tourist attraction to another. That said, bus tour is still the best way to see the country side and the city, if one can spare the time.

We stayed in a pretty decent mid size hotel in a suburb near Quebec City called Lakeview, we got there pretty late, around 5:30pm in the evening, funny thing is, and there was still a lot of day light outside.

Unfortunately the whole neighborhood around the hotel is commercial and industrial, we walked around for about an hour to no avail, and we just couldn’t find an eatery that feels right. Finally we settled for the first restaurant we saw, a steak house.

The next day 10th of June, the bus took us from the hotel to a little town on the south shore of Quebec City by the shore of St. Lawrence River.

The whale watching boat can safely accommodate about one hundred people, if safety floating devices were adequately provided for all aboard.

But I have a bad feeling that about one hundred and fifty people (tourists) were on board that morning, because we departed late to wait for another bus load of people to come on board. Finally the boat parted the dock half an hour late.

Lo and behold, half an hour into the pond, our boat returned to the pier to pick up another load of passengers. No body complained, as Canadians, we are accommodating and docile.

As the boat moved away from the dock the second time, the over capacity situation of the vessel became quite evident. Some passengers sat on flimsy plastic garden chairs while the vessel was steaming towards the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, where sea water and fresh water meet, and that’s where different kinds of whales come to feed.

Ramon and I chatted amicably with our fellow passengers on board, may be the touring season is still early in this part of Canada, the boat load of tourists were mostly of Asian decent, to my best estimate, the majority spoke Mandarin Chinese, not that it matters, it just showed that Chinese tourists or Chinese Canadians really enjoy touring by bus.

There were some South Asian Canadians on board as well, I strike up a conversation with a fellow by the name of Tony, he was a retired electronic engineer resided in a suburb of Metro Toronto called Mississauga, and he spent years working in Saudi, and this trip saw himself and his extended families on board with him.

His sister who works for the City of Toronto, and so when the subject of their mayor came up during the conversation, I was quite surprise to hear that he still has a lot of supporters among the citizenries.

Anyways, the much boasted whale watching cruise turned out to be a big disappointment, I think the whales are just weary of the boat and the noises we humans made, even though the boat’s captain did his best in turning the boat into a quiet idling speed when ever the whale spotter on board announced that there is a pod near by. All we managed to see were some little humps far away half submerged.

Anyways, lots of pictures were taken by my fellow passengers; the morning sky was over casted and grey, there were hardly any contrasts or reflection of any kind, so I did not take any pictures for the beloved whales, or bits and pieces of them.

Afterwards we say good byes to River-du-Loup and going onto Moncton – which is in the Province of New Brunswick. NB in my opinion has the second largest French speaking Canadian population next to Quebec Province. I found that so long as one make a honest effort to speak French in social situations, everyone will response in English and make you feel welcome.

We pulled into an almost brand new NB Casino Hotel at dusk in the City of Moncton; the front lobby is spacious and modern, staff friendly. It is almost a norm that in every bus tour, there will be one night that the hotel accommodation is out standing, and the NB Hotel Casino is no exception, the room is spacious, we got assigned into a twin double unit, enough room for quad occupancy.

After a short rest, we decided to hit the casino to try our luck. The casino floor combined with the restaurant, wet bar, snack counter etc probably come to about ten thousand plus square footage. It is bright, airy, non smoking, and quite high tech.

We dropped by the bar, and stayed there a while, reminisced the by gone days when we were dirt poor students trying to balance school, part time jobs, and perhaps some social life if and when time permits. An hour and two pints later, feeling no pain, and there was no need to drive home, we hit the casino floor with our ten dollar coupons in hand, Ramon burnt his in no time, while I hit beginner’s luck, I perched on a slot machine that stimulating picking a seat inside of an airplane. For some reason, the bells and whistles never stopped, and I walked away with forty three dollars and change.
Our aging beat up bodies were begging for rest at 1:30 am, so reluctantly we went back to our hotel room for a much needed sleep, for our tour guide has told us that we would be marching on at 7:30am sharp next morning.

Next morning the bus took us into the Province of Nova Scotia, it was a drizzling day, and we inched towards Peggy’s Cove – quite a nice corner of the world only if the weather would be a tat more cooperating.

The cove is a large piece of rock face with a light house built on it. Legend has it that way back there was a ship wreck near the rock face, and when local fishermen found a lone survivor on shore, the young lady was very hysterical and the only word she managed to say repeatedly was “Peggy, Peggy.” Since the area had no known name at that time, so locals call the cove “Peggy’s Cove” since.

Near the light house there were a bunch of souvenir shops and a nice restaurant attached to the biggest shop. We took a bunch of snap shots, since there was nothing else to do, weather was terrible, everyone piled into the shops to get warm up, and at the mean time, do the touristy things.

An hour later, the tour bus started for Halifax, the foul weather and grey sky followed us all the way to Halifax, by the time we got to Halifax; it was around 4 pm in the afternoon.

There was a harbor tour that utilizes a land-water vehicle that cruises the inner harbor, we didn’t sign up for it, and so we took a short hike to the famous Citadel Hill, which is only a fifteen minutes walk from the water front. On the hill there is a clock tower that was gifted to the Dominion of Canada by the Prince Edward, around the top of the hill there is the ruminants of the old armory on top of the hill. We took a brisk walk around the paved road way, and you can pretty much see and sense what Halifax was in her glorious days.

These days it has a few government buildings, CBC building, tourist centers, and a few large insurance head quarter buildings. In some ways, there is no difference between Vancouver and Halifax but Halifax seems lot more subdued and quiet. I guess in a gloomy day, everything looks down casted and depressed.

Our optional lobster dinner was scheduled around 6:30pm in a near by sea food establishment called Murphy’s, we started piling into it around 6:15 pm to get warm up, and get ready for a feast.

Yes, they provided you with a half size plastic bib at the table so you don’t make a mess of your self while feasting on the salacious lobster. We all have the one pound variety that evening; the lobsters were steamed rather than boiled, the plate came with melted butter. It was an experience that any travelers might want to try.
By the way, there was a graduation party boarding a harbor boat next to the sea food restaurant. Looking at the fresh faces for sure reminds me of the days gone by.

Day 4 saw us taking a ferry ride across Northumberland Strait, about an hour and some later, we arrived PEI (Prince Edward Island), this is the second time I visited PEI, and the first time was in 2005.

I must admit as far as travelling is concerned, the first visit is always mysterious, exciting and fresh. Physically PEI is the smallest province in Canada; one can drive the length of the Island in about two hours tops, and the width of it in about two.

The Island is of course made famous by Anne of Green Gable House and the potatoes the island’s red earth produces. There are many old churches built in the turn of the nineteen centuries.

We of course visited the must see like the Cavendish Beach, Charlottetown Provincial Building, Anne of Green Gable House, coming from a large metropolitan center like Vancouver and Toronto, I and Ramon felt that PEI is a lot like a country cousin to Vancouver and Toronto.
The highlight of this PEI trip was sampling the Cow Brand Ice Cream in Charlottetown; the town needs tourism in the summer, we were told by our tour guide that during snowy winters, sometimes even the world famous Confederation Bridge would be closed due to extreme weather, so the island is effectively isolated from the rest of Canada.

At night, we dined at the Fisherman’s Wharf for another good feed of lobster in a restaurant. Ramon and I figured that we will put the concerns about diets to the back burners for the time being, we have been eating fast food for lunches and smorgasbord dinner for a few days now, so we figured that another plate of seafood is not going to hurt.

Day 5 our tour bus took us back to New Brunswick via the Confederation Bridge which connects PEI and NB, the full length of the bridge is around 17 KM. We stopped by a place called Shediac – at the town center there is a huge fibreglasses lobster mounted on top of a little hill – it lays claim being the world’s biggest lobster statue. I was at this little town in 2005, little has changed, everywhere you go, and every restaurant in town offers the World’s Best Lobster Dinner.

The thing about bus tour is, “One never really has much time to sample or taste anything in leisure, and you are always ushered from one place to the next. But you do cover a lot of ground at the end of each day.” And you have a hot shower and a warm bed is waiting for you.
Our bus took a little detour to a tourist attraction called Magnetic Hill; then we hustled off to see Hopewell Flowerpot Rock National Park, this sea side park features the tides that rush in and out from the Bay of Fundy four times a day!
The high and low tides differ about forty feet within four hours. We got there after twelve pm, the beach area was easy to walk on and plenty of people took pictures of the soft rock formations on the beach. I spoke with some tourists, apparently they were on the beach around 7 am in the morning, it was high tide and they couldn’t walk down for safety reasons, and there was water marks on the hill side cliffs to prove it too!
Any ways, Fundy Bay provides lots of fine sills and micro organisms for local wild life habitats, too bad that sills are sills; all one see is one large mud flats as far as eyes can see.
Afterwards the bus hustled us off to the City of St. John (Not to be confused with St. John N.F.L.). We got to St. John around mid afternoon to see Reversing Falls, it is another one of those illusions that the city tourism industry devised over time to attract tourists.

During tidal changes, people can actually witness water flow reversing directions of flow mid stream if you perch on a strategic location like the observation tower they built for the tourists. I am say tourists comfort is their number one concern inside the visitor’s center. Weather on Day 5 was a bit overcastted, not a great day for photos, but adequate. We then rushed off to Fredericton in the early evening; on route we visited City Hall, to be frank, having visited quite a few City Halls in various cities during this trip, if I were to rank facilities for the top two spots, I will rank of the facilities in Ottawa the best.

After the 9-11 tragedy, Canada also stepped up security and safety for all her public building. Ottawa’s Parliament Building is no exception.
Even though it was quite a stroll from the bus drop off point to the bath rooms in the main building, it was worth the trip, so to speak, they are clean, bright, and well maintained.
The East Block is going through major exterior cleaning for the upcoming Canada Day celebration, a lot of public areas is now off limits to foot traffic.

Day 6 saw us stopped by briefly at the Hartland Bridge while we were on the way to Montreal and Old Montreal City.

We dropped by the Notre Dame Basilica by early evening, unfortunately the Basilica is closed, but we tourists nevertheless do what tourists do best.
More picture taking sessions, I am sure among all those snap shots, a lot of them are going to the recycle bins once we got home. We had 45 minutes of free time to roam around the vicinity, wouldn’t know it, when the bus started loading, we were short one, 10 minutes later, the missing person finally showed up, as a group gesture we all gave this missing person the one minute applause as she sauntered up the bus.

Day 7 started early at 6:30am, as we would have a full day, we pretty much had a full day of riding in the bus minus road side bath room breaks, we finally arrived Thousand Islands in the early afternoon, Ramon and I had previously took the boat ride, so this time around, we just relaxed in the sunshine, took some pictures and relaxed.

An hour went by quickly, and we by then were all itch to head home to Toronto, the weather was sunny, but we were all worn out by seven days of touring, and could hardly wait to head back to a routine and familiar routines.

So, is bus tour worthy taking, definitely, but one must travel light, there was a family of three, a young couple with a five year old boy, they carried as we say tongue in cheek, “ Everything but the kitchen sink!” I feel sorry for the young father – who had to lug the very large suit case in and out of the hotels we stayed every night.
Anyways, our world has becomes smaller, people not only share our life experience on line, we also share our emotions through social media, we had Wi-Fi on board the bus, people were constantly in touched with their loved ones and friends in their own communities back home.
I am about one month late in putting up this blog. My apology, I hope to report to you all again sometime in September when I will travel to Saba, Malaysia for a holiday, then back to China again for some more cultural education!

It has been a year and then some during which I have not posted anything. In order to keep my brain from turning into mush, I do solemnly swear that I will post at least two new postings every days.
Since I am in North America now, my write ups would naturally be having a local flavor and setting. So looking forward to it, talk to you all soon.

The difference between an official receipt and a receipt (發票和收據的分別)

When I was in Ningbo, I noticed a lot of patrons in restaurants and other places of business wanted official receipts when they were paying their bills – an official receipt issued will have the customer’s company name on it.

I was told that with an official receipt one can charge the expanse or expanses against his business’s annual income, just like we do business in North America.

From my casual observation and with the information my contacts and acquaintances told me, people running a business can pretty much claim or charge anything against his income – for example – entertainment expanses, it could be broad and vague in some instances.
Wining and dinning is nothing new in business practices, but karaoke expanses are routinely being lumped together with other legitimate expanses, and that could be a stretch, because the bills could easily came to thousands of dollars, with all the inflated prices in a night club.

The taxmen are pretty smart and updated with all the tricks businessmen played, and they must have filtered the word down pretty thoroughly to all the business outlets under the charge of each taxation district, some business/restaurants will give ten percent off the top of the bill if the patron does not demand an official receipt from the business establishment.

A regular receipt will cut a lot of book keeping and paper work off the business’s accounting department. And it will probably be a lot less hassles for the restaurant or night club in the future if a patron runs afoul with the tax man and his books are under scrutiny, it can go back quite a few years just like in North America.

The taxman just might want to know a few years down the road from the day the “official receipt” was issued to so and so patron for a few thousand dollars expanses, so why bother, give them ten percent off, and eliminate future potential hassles.

China is a big country, has many populous cities, many souls living in these cities, and many kids going to schools daily, as is with any other parts of the world.

In the last few years, there have been reports of deranged men barging into some local schools, waving axes or large knives, intending to do innocent children harm, and in some instances, kids were maimed or even killed. Parents of course were heart broken and feeling hopeless and grieving helplessly when the carnages happened.

Things started changing in terms of entry security measures, all kindergartens within the city limits that I see all have one or two uniformed security guard guarding the school entry ways. Some more expensive school even issue access card to parent(s) who accompany their little ones to school in the morning. No access card, no entry, that’s what I understand.

To school of a lesser caliber (I mean on a school fee scale), there would be a guard standing by the entrance way for sure to ensure no strangers are allowed beyond the front gate of the school. Whether these securities have any past experiences in the public safety or security field that I don’t know, I doubt it very much. Some carry a small wooden baton together with the green or blue uniform on their backs. Some just have the uniform on. In some ways, I think they just act as ear and eye for the school during school hours.

Electric gates are very popular in Chinese school compounds; the gate is operated by an electric motor controlled by a remote button in the guard house, delivery truck and other vehicles will have to stop in front of the guard house to gain permissions for entry.

China has a quarter of the world’s population, and there are a lot of students, competitions for a higher education is fierce, a lot of them opted for opportunities to study aboard, news last week indicating that in the Province of BC Canada alone, we have roughly sixty four thousand Chinese foreign students study here.

Sixty four thousand!

In my mind, I can still see and hear the little kindergarten students assembled in the school yards in the mornings, singing the Chinese National Anthem…

I give you this one thought to keep
I am with you still – I do not sleep

I am – a thousand winds that blow
I am- the diamond glints on snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain

When you awaken in the morning’s touch
I am the swift, uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am the soft star that shines at night

Do not think of me as gone
I am with you still – in each new dawn.

I came across the above poem engraved in a New Glasgow graveyard stone in the Province of New Brunswick during a trip a few years back.

In the last few days, I tried to think of something to write about China, my ancestral homeland, something upbeat and progressive, something people in North America can and will feel the resonance and identified with, somehow, I came to a writer’s block. My mind is a blank.

Then I remember my pal in China told me that as much as Chinese people revere their ancestors, and they have two days a year that they will go to the tomb stones of their families long gone to pay respect.

Tombstones and graveyard have gradually become a thing of the past in cities, particularly, because land has become precious, cremations are the thing to do now when our dear beloved one parted with this world.

I understand and appreciate the need to remember our parents, our grandparents, our families long gone. But let’s face it, the dead are dead, they couldn’t care less. It is how we choose to remember them. We walk a mile in the shadows of our parents – always.

I know people who keep an urn in their house, some people would fulfill their departed last wish, have their ashes spread in the ocean, in the mountain, in a place where the departed treasured the most when they were alive.
With our advance technology, survived family member can even have the deceased compressed into a “diamond like” substance, and shoot it off into the universe – never to return to this earth!

Some will have the body quick freeze into a very brittle substance, and return it into fertilized, thus fulfill the prophecy of “what came from the earth, return to the earth”

Apparently this last method has gained approval from the nod of environmentalists – it does not pollute, cremations use carbon fuels. So you have it.

In my short three months in China, I have come across a few grave side stones here and there near the mountains. Obvious in where land value is not so expensive like the country side, the traditional way of paying respect to the long departed is still being observed, and that’s how folks there like to remember their beloved ones.

In Canada, in the old days, there are always graveyards next to some old churches – I saw that all the way across this land. Religion deals with life and death – still does. These days churches and religions gradually lose the dominance over people’s lives. It is neither good nor bad, it just is.

The few times I was in a public Chinese hospital in China, I saw the saline drip procedures being carried out rather commonly in public waiting corridors, hallways, and patient waiting rooms. The age of the patients or potential patents varied. Some were youngsters, some were adults.

They were not inpatients for sure, because they were not wearing patient garbs, or home brought pajamas, they were just out patients waiting to be seen or treated by a physician.

I understand that before most surgeries, saline is administered to prevent dehydration, since saline is a neutral fluid, and not a medication, it sometimes is used to compensate for minor fluid or blood lost during surgery. For major surgeries, of course it requires blood transfusions.

The thing I saw baffled me. I actually saw a young lad no older than ten had a medical valve-lock inserted in his right wrist vein in a super market check out. The bandage held the drip valve on the lad’s wrist looked soiled, probably been on it for a few days.

I commented to my shopping companion. His response was, his parents probably did it with the following intentions: Their hospital physician probably advice them it might be prudent to leave the valve-lock in place, instead of have it removed once the medical requirement is resolved.

The sales pitch is,” You never know when the kid might need it again!” Saline drip is like any other medical procedures or medication dispensed in any Chinese hospitals these days. They are users pay, and users pay first, before treatment is received.

So the parents whom I saw in the supermarket check out probably figured it is more efficient and economical to leave the valve/lock in place with the lad’s vein. But somebody forget to tell them that there might be a very good chance of getting skin infection, and not all mechanical devices are fail proof. There might be a remote chance of the air lock being bummed open. If air leaks into a person’s blood stream via the leaky device, there will be dire consequences.

Kids are kids. They don’t know any better. What about us adults? What do we do to protect our precious little ones?

The gift that keeps on giving!

It is Chinese New Year over the other side of the pond, according to oriental believes, Year of the Dragon is a good year for a lot of things, like getting married, having babies, anything happening in this year will be positive, because of the Dragon, we – the Chinese – are the decedents of the Dragon – so the folklore has it.

One thing though, through time eternal, has never changed; societies everywhere operate better and more smoothly through personal contacts and relationships.

This phenomenon is all the truer and more acute in times like New Year holidays in China.

My contacts in China mentioned an interesting new phenomenon in China, mind you this is not an exclusive Chinese anything, it is just we Chinese, treasured “connections” and view “smoothing out the kinks” in festivity times more seriously.

In old days, we called them “red packets”, nowadays “red packets” there have been replaced with “gift cards”, just like way back when, when gifts of food or anything tangible were replaced by “red packets.”

Gift cards are easily carried and transferrable, I was told there are virtually no monetary limit one can purchased a gift card from any available vendor, it can be the value of a new vehicle from a dealership, if I treasure my future working relationship with a certain person seriously.

It could be for two thousand dollars worth of seafood from a famous seafood supplier. You don’t even need to hand over a conspicuous looking red packet anymore when you pay your respects to your contacts. Just a discreet little gift certificate or gift card, to be used at a later day. How convenient!

Reading local papers around Christmas and New Year holidays, there were reports saying that a lot of the gift giving in North America involved giving gift cards, and a lot of the gift cards given as gifts were never put to use, and over a period of time, charges or deduction were made in terms of servicing fees.

I have never been given a gift card as a gift in China, yet! It would be interesting to find out what the annual amount of gift card giving amounts to in the world’s most populous nation, and how do they handle their gift card phenomenon?

Near our factory there was a bridge overpass that crosses a small river, fresh water, not too big or swift, nevertheless it is a pretty river. Sometimes, you saw anglers fishing in the morning or mid afternoon, never stayed long enough to see if anyone caught any fish, or if they were good sizes. The bridge is not very big, mind you, but it was a four lane, two going west, and two going east.

From time to time, I noticed there was vendor or sometimes vendors, selling what appeared to be swimming fishes in plastic containers. Curiosity got the better of me, and I asked my walking companion if these fishes are indeed freshly caught from under this bridge?

My friend looked at me with half a smile, said,” Sid, if they are caught right here, this bridge would have to be the hottest fishing spot in all of the China! And there are many hot fishing spot in this city! If you would believe me!” (more smile)

“What do you mean? “ Like a dump tourist I asked.

“The fishing rods that hanged out over the bridge are just a come on, vendors are just saying that these fishes are freshly hooked, but they are not caught here! They are from the markets. They can fetch better prices than selling them in fish markets. People think they are buying the freshest!”

‘Wow!” I marveled at the ingenuity of my fellow Chinese brothers. ‘Good on you!”

Buyers beware! – This one is for me!

Just want to relate a humorous experience to you all out there.

So this one time, we were passing through flower supermarket in one of those tourist must
see stops at the tail end of our touring day. A very spacious and well lay out walk through market place with stall upon stall of various species of flowers, the fragrant, the colors, the varieties, the everything a green thumb from North America would dream about – you name it, this market seemed to have it.
We were at the end of our tour, in two hours, we will have to board a plane to fly back to Hong Kong, we wanted to buy something, but fresh cut flowers were out of the question, pretty as they were, but they were delicate, they were perishable, but most important of it all, they were not allowed on the plane continue reading this. I have never seen flowers on the plane, have you?
Anyways, like magic, we saw some stalls near the Exist selling “Orchid Seeds”. Now, I didn’t
mean seedlings, I mean seeds. Different sizes, different colors, all carefully pre-packed in some little plastic bags – ready to go.
Wow, as we know, orchids are pricy in Vancouver, the smallest one stem varieties goes for $ 9.99, it can go up to $ 29.99. Depends on who you want to please, and how bad you want it!
So we – the tourists bought them, in bagful, some of us even managed to bargain down the price a bit. Hallelujah! And we got through customs as well!
Fast forward two years, those precious orchid seeds sat in my desk draw for two years, all the while I was contemplating how to go about planting them, nourishing them, watering them, taking care of them from seeds to blooms, just like those I saw through the flower shop windows.
I would be the proud gardener, the envy of my neighbors, the Mr. Green Thumb of the Year!
I carefully planted them in seeding planter indoors on the window sill, the windows are north facing, but it matters none, because the seeds are in a temperature controlled environment.
One week, two weeks, as Mother Nature would never let us down, the seeds sprouted out into different size and forms. With the instinct of a parent, I know it is time to perhaps transplant them out doors, as I recalled in Singapore, I saw orchids grew and flourished outdoors, that summer Vancouver was blessed with warm weather, may be I should give it a try? And try I did. I moved them out side.
The plants grew and grew, but there were something odd about the transplanted greens, they looked awful lot like the vegetable patches I grew during summers gone by. As a matter of fact, one with long stem looked just like green beans; others were just Chinese greens in waiting!
I called my pals in the States who bought the same stuff from the same stall, and he said.” I would have told you if you called me sooner, we found that out last summer!”
Ha-ha, I made a promise to myself silently, next time when I play dumb tourist, I will buy stuff that I can feel in my hands, and they will be finished products, like those beads they sell outside the monasteries in China. Like food, like steaming hot buns, I am not buying a promise no more!

I was in the hospital Sunday doing my shift in the unit.

That’s what I do during my assigned shift as a volunteer; I offer refreshments such a coffee, tea, or any other thing the patient or family might like, such as getting a book from the library, adjusting the bed side table for breakfast purpose, anything.

If the patient or the family is up to it, we will also engage them in light conversations; it is very natural for people wanting to connect at trying times. No man is an island. We all wanted to be loved and understood.

It was under such circumstance that I strike up a conversation with a male patient and a lady I first thought was his wife, for they seemed very tuned in and comfortable with each other.

The gentleman appeared rather frail, but he is a fighter. Has a wonderful smile on his face all the time I was chatting with them.

During the brief chat, the lady I assumed was his spouse turned out to be his ex-wife; they have lived in the same city all this time after going separate ways.

But after the confirmation of his terminal disease, with the blessing of her new husband, they invited him to stay with them, so they can take care of his needs as a patient, because he has no immediate family in the city.

We walked him back to his room together after awhile, because he needs his rest. I am most impressed with what she said,” We could not live together as man and wife. But as good friends, I like to walk with him in this stage of his journey.”

My deepest admiration for this lady and her new family, she does it not because she has to, but because she wanted to. A selfless soul indeed.

As a volunteer I still have a lot to learn.