The Magic dress

I slowly woke up this morning pondering religion and Kung Fu. I've been tying these things, specifically the Catholic ideas and Lion Dance into my new novel and was day dreaming about starting a lion dance group at St. James, which may or may not happen. Anyway, in my imagination I thought about what would happen if people of different religions decided to join the team, specifically this other Sifu, Uncle Gai. I don't know why he popped into my mind, but he was ostracized unfairly from an organization (and then let back in later) in sort of a microcosmic way that some early members of the Church were excommunicated you know back when the Roman Empire still existed. Why did this pop into my head? I don't know. But I imagined explaining my Faith (which is probably different from the Catholic Church's platform but  there is more variation I think than people let on.) Anyway I running through a martial arts, religious argument in my head.

"Do any of you have any proof that any God or gods or Buddhas or angels exist in the way we pray to them? Real proof. Scientific proof. The answer is no. In fact that  is why faith is important. If it was just proof then it would be science and not religion. So to bring in people to your religion you don't have to prove that you know the TRUTH or that yours is the best religion. You just have to show that your religion is as good as the other, and that since you know us and hang out with us, you might as well be part of our community."

And then I ran through some criticisms I had in my mind of Christianity, even though I now consider myself to be Christian.

"Let's look at it from a martial arts perspective. Here is a White Crane punch. The basic one where we train to turn our waist and not our stance. Here's a Choi lei fut punch where you turn the stance. Here is a Hung Gar stance where the waist and the stance do not move and the arm is not fully extended. Here is a Wing Chun stance where the hips turns but the punch is short. If you are a student of any of these systems you might think that your way is the best way. But you don't have to. You could agree that there are other ways that may or may not be better but you are simply practicing your system because that is what you were raised in and that is what you are familiar with. You can have friends of other systems and visit other schools, but ultimately if you are a Wing Chun Sifu, even if you take up another system it doesn't necessarily mean you convert if you are part of a long lineage and tradition. But to say that only your punch works and no other punch is even valid or possible is ridiculous."

Well I woke up out of this horrible day dream because who day dreams about nonsense like this? And I saw Grace holding her phone. She held up a picture of a dress and asked me what color it was.

"Blue and green."

"What!?"

"Well okay I guess the green is a darkish brownish color what would you call it?"

The story of the dress is already widespread. At first I thought it was some sort of trick where a program created a different image to be seen by different people, but Grace and I were looking at the same screen and she said it was blue and black. Not just a little black, but straight black.

There are a ton of explanations, some scientific, some probably not so much. But here is the thing. I was upset at the way Grace said, "No it's..." I wouldn't say it like that. I see it this way, if you see it a different way okay. Maybe it's because of that Buddhist story of the elephant that I always think about. Maybe it's because I'm mixed race. But I have no problem with seeing it one way and immediately acknowledging that there is another way to see it, even if that's not how I see it. The fact that people got angry and in a huff about it is so telling of human nature.

A pile of Hong Baos

Noah woke up early this morning and just went downstairs. After a while I was curious as to what exactly he was doing because he usually calls for me or Grace. I came downstairs to in a pile of red envelopes playing by himself. We have two special stuffed animals, one a rabbit, to represent Jonah, and one ox to represent Noah. They were flying over the treasure of red envelopes. I laughed and Noah laughed when he saw he had been caught playing in his own world.
"I just came down to play!" Noah said excitedly.

Actually as I right this I realize that a pile of Hong Baos, as some sort of treasure is a cool idea. I will have to put that somehow into the book I am writing which is a fantastical representation of Lion Dance, borrowing heavily from non-Chinese myths, but in a Chinese American worldview. I.e. you can tell the fantasy world sprouted from my head as opposed to say J.K. Rowling's or Tolkein's imagination.

Creepy Snowman

Noah has really been enjoying these giant snow banks. He makes me follow him into the yard to "go on a journey." I considered building an igloo with him out of the giant block of ice that we hired someone to hack off of the roof. But we settled for a giant snowman with eyes made out of one piece of a yellow envelope that happened to be nearby. When you look out the bathroom window it looks like he is staring up at you. I thought it would be cute and funny but actually it's kind of creepy. In retrospect, it's probably bad Feng Shui. I should have made the snow man facing outward to protect the house. But I built the guy for fun and I figured we should have some interaction with him from inside the house.

Cardinal O'Malley's Chinese New Year Sermon

Today was St. James' Chinese New Year celebration. It was not as crowded at last year. Not even by half. When Grace heard that it was Cardinal O'Malley who had spoken she said, "Not the famous guy. Him? He's a big deal. There should have been more people this year." But snow vs. famous speaker only if you know Catholic Politics or I guess you could say God vs. Church. Well nature and God win.

He mentioned in his sermon that one of the ways to get people to be Catholic would be to behave in a way that would make people say, "If that's what being Catholic is about then I want to be Catholic too."

Well, I was there at St. James for that reason. Because the people I knew from that church behaved in a way that I wanted to emulate and I wanted my children to emulate. But that also meant that when I heard he was coming to speak, the name rang a bell but I didn't much care. But I am glad I decided to listen to his sermon because I did enjoy it.

Mostly he started listing comparisons between Chinese New Year and Catholic traditions and focusing on the Zodiac and animal symbolism in Catholicism. I'm not sure if most people cared for or understood this subject, but as it happens, I as a Half Chinese kid that went to Nativity Prep, did this sort of thing in my head during class, all the time. So thanks.

I even learned something. The Cain and Abel story was brought up because a ram was sacrificed by Abel and Cain gave fruit as a sacrifice. (Interestingly spilling blood on Chinese New Year is a no no, but all the Ram/Lamb reference were pretty gruesome and indeed since a lot of Christianity is about Jesus' sacrifice, like blood spilling as an offering, well Christianity is pretty bloody and gruesome too.

 He could have went with just talking about the color red over your door, and how that was done in Exodus with blood but Chinese just use red paper, but blood is too important in Catholicism.

Anyway, I learned that one interpretation of the Cain and Abel story was that some people wanted to "have faith in God to provide for them" and be nomads. as opposed to farmers. That was Abel. And then others like Cain, wanted to be like the Pagans and build cities and farm. By this interpretation, the most Godly were the nomadic Native Americans of the plains like the Lakota Sioux who worshiped the Great Spirit and followed the Buffalo. And the missionaries who Christianized them were making them more like Cain and less like Abel. In the story God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's. Cain then goes ahead and murders Abel, who is is brother. Hmmm that happen with us and the Native Americans too. Anwyay, I had never heard that interpretation of the story, and I also thought it was an interesting interpretation coming from a Catholic priest or any group that built things (like churches) and lived in cities.

Mot of the rest of the sermon focused on Lent and he told the joke about the priest and the mugger who gave up chocolate for lent but was in the process of mugging the priest.
Not sure if his sermon was really appropriate for the mostly Chinese audience.
But I liked the little tidbits of scriptural knowledge, even if it turns out to be Catholic exegesis. But that's because I'm a story interpretation geek.

Happy Chinese New Year Cardinal O'Malley!

Watching Peggy Sue Got Married

This movie by Francis Ford Coppola was on after we got back from Grace's Lion dancing, the feast that followed and other errands where the kids fell asleep n the car. and it entranced me as the kids just zoned out on a device. It was so strange. A similar plot is made into a movie about every 5 years by Disney, but Coppola's version had you on edge the whole time like you are watching a horror movie, and yet, the horror never comes. In fact the scary part is the whole idea that you can live your life differently and make drastic changes to your destiny, and yet, unlike the Back to the Future series there is no dystopian future. It's almost like an adult Wizard of OZ too. I couldn't stop watching it. And ultimately, it helps you to realize how important your children are. That you wouldn't change your children for other children. At least I wouldn't. Not for being president of the United States or Emperor of the Galaxy. Grace mentioned that he did this movie after the godfather so people were kind of like, "What the hell?" and Coppola was like, "I just wanted to make a cute movie okay." But all the cinematography is real Hitchcock like. Well maybe not, but it was all creepy even though all the scenes were heart warming and there is no monster jumping out.
There doesn't seem to be much discussion about it on Wikipedia. It's treated like any other 80's movie, but I had never heard of it. Another weird thing is Jim Carey is in it. Anyway, it's worth checking out. Better than the Godfather III for sure. Not exactly the Godfather but imagine a cute 80's movie but with strangely philosophical and disturbing themes lurking in the background of an otherwise quaint little "return to high school" type plot. For real check it out.

Hey your Lion Dance didn't work! We have Ice Dams!

I saw pictures of friends posting their accomplishments cleaning their roofs of and breaking their ice dams and I am beginning to feel pretty useless in this respect. I mean normal Dads are taking care of their houses why can't Kung Fu Dad? The answer is either those dads are abnormally useful or that Kung Fu Dad is abnormally useless. I won't say I am useless, but the truth is a mixture of both. I am afraid to go on the roof, I lack the ladder and I don't know how. I know my friends just did it. But I am beginning to see why people who can just do it don't take to Kung Fu. Because if they got into a fight that would just win... without training. They would just get it done. It is the cautious afraid type that is more drawn to training and dedicating one's life to various exercises with no pay off, in fact often paying.

Our downstairs neighbor upon luckily finding a guy to do the roof, who is probably around my age and very courageous looking and simply goes up, ties himself to the chimney and gets it done said to me, "Hey it's Chinese New Year, aren't you supposed to be blessing our house? It didn't work! We have ice dams now!"
Not only that but the heater is also leaking so a plumber must be called.

I suppose if I was earning a living I wouldn't mind as much, but actually Grace is the one who earns the living so what is it exactly that I am doing?

I am beginning to see that it was time I learned a trade. I could have should have would have done it earlier. And to tell the truth I can't even start NOW. Before I go off doing something full time or even part time, Jonah needs to be in school. But when he is, I have to learn something, and get into being the stereotypical American Dad who hangs out at the hardware store and can DO things. Maybe I should ask these roof guys if they will accept apprentices or interns, or whatever I would be called to start over at the beginning of usefulness on my journey to mastering a craft other than punching and kicking the air.

Chinese American New Year

Success! In a crazy and interesting way. I was getting ready to head out when the door bell rang . Yay!! People actually came. It was Noah's friend L and his  Mom R and also the younger sibling N was in Jonah's playgroup. The mother in the family is Japanese and she told me some of the traditions for New Year's there. R said that actually they even celebrated Chinese and Japanese New Year depending on which sect of Buddhism you followed, and they also gave out lucky money and had lion dance. This was pretty cool to hear about since a lot of the people from Japan I met through college and high school hadn't been exposed to this side of the culture. But I suppose the same is true of people I met through school who were from Hong Kong or Shanghai.
Anyway, I don't know how we would have done the parade without her help. She ended up taking the Lead Role of the person who leads the Lion head because otherwise how could I play drum while I carried Jonah and how would Noah know where to go?
We did a full on lion dance for our house and the neighbors who were pretty impressed with Noah's "Dramatic pausing" which comes from the big bow. It is one of the reasons why I taught him the big bow instead of the small bow. In a way the small bow is more economical and makes more sense. But as a beginner, bowing is about the only thing you know how to do, so it might as well be a long ritualized event in and of itself. However, but the third house, we were down to the small bow.

We navigated snow banks higher than me let alone Noah (who is 5) and at one point the Lion head and L got in the sled that R brought along and I carried Jonah. I continued to play my toy drum and honestly I was actually getting tired. Maybe this wasn't 5 hours long, but it was still hard. Maybe we stayed within a couple of blocks of our house. But this really felt like an adventure!

The third house was was in Noah's classmate K and the younger sibling B was in Jonah's playgroup. Jonah snuck into her house and just started playing with toys. I almost left him there. The tail was tucked into Noah's sash. And at some point, Jonah wore the head while on my shoulders and I played the drum. Going against tradition, there were times when I just had to stop playing the drum because what could I do.

We went into the house and I made Noah back out just like he would have to on Chinese New Year and here is the best part of this whole adventure for us. The drums weren't as loud and there were no firecrackers, but in a lot of ways, for the people doing it, it was just like the Parade in Chinatown where we were going up and down flights of stairs. In other words, Noah is being trained for that event now, in a smaller scale event than that he can actually handle.

The last house, was another of Noah's classmates M who also happened to be in my Lion Dance and Kung Fu class. He played cymbals and followed the beat pretty well. I think the dance seemed short to them but Noah was wiped out, as was I to tell the truth.  R passed out Chinese New Year Popcorn to each family! This is such an ingenius idea. It was homemade popcorn in a paper bag with the words New Year written in Kanji (which is basically Chinese) on red construction paper. The kids loved it and of course avoided the Chinese New Year candy at all cost. Chinese New Year popcorn may have to become a thing at our house even though R had just made it up. If you think about it, the idea of a Chinese New Year goodie bag with something like homemade popcorn is so American and so JP and at the same time more cultural than the candy that kids don't like and are manufactured elsewhere. I'm telling you, Chinese New Year popcorn could catch on as a thing, like Halloween candy. (after all it was bread and water that was left out for Samain)
Chinese New Year really has potential as a mainstream American holiday. The only house we visited today that was remotely Chinese was our own. But everyone thought it was cool that we stopped by, Why not?
I definitely couldn't have done this without R's help though. So before I get a real drum, what I really need is a real team. Of course I am part of a real team in Chinatown. But for a real team for this house to house thing I need a real local team.

A lot of people seem to privately own real heads and drums and equipment. If you do you should totally go door to door in the neighborhood you live in too. In Boston Chinatown businesses often complain about too many teams. The truth is that you can grow the audience by bringing this holiday to non-Chinese households. Of course you won't get any cash up front in red envelopes. But if you already have the equipment who cares? You will form bonds and connections while celebrating this holiday. Maybe you can pass out New Year's popcorn.
I'm pretty excited for the potential for next year.

Anyway, Noah went with R and L to go sledding while I dropped off equipment with Jonah and picked up our sled. The kids tore into the Chinese New Year Popcorn and we had a fun time sledding. After ward, R and L came over to our house since it was on the way to theirs and it was snowing pretty heavily. The kids played and ate lunch and drank hot chocolate. At some point crankiness started to set in. But it reminded me a lot of what we will do in Chinatown on March 1st, except on a smaller scale. On the Facebook Group, Chinese Lion Dancers, there are videos Lion Dance in Hawaii the weekend before Chinese New Year. Maybe I will do that next year and hopefully recruit more people to help. At least Grace right? We could even do the big head. And we really should get a real drum. Anyway, I have a whole year to think about it.