Top Ten Cheung Family Christmas highlights.

Greetings reader,
Let's have some audience participation. I'll write a top ten list of stories to be told about our family Christmas vacation, and you can vote on which story you would like to hear first.

1) Condoms and Lube


2) Frog Legs at Wang's House.

3) Sugar cubes and dim sum.

4) Mice!!!

5) Getting Strong Now!

6) Winter Wonderland


7) Genghis Khan and Wesley Snipes


8) Family Tree

9) Reveal yourself

10) Pho Le Lai

Here's a bonus one.


11) Portuguese alcohol and guns


Choose wisely. I'll eventually write about all of these (probably) But vote for which one you would like to take precedence.

Rational versus Irrational.

This weekend I watched a ton of movies. It seems to be the thing to do over vacation. Santa Claus, Santa Claus 3, Far North, Ashes and Diamonds, and then I went to the Harvard Film Archive and saw some vintage Christmas stuff.  It's weird looking back at what society was. I mean things haven't changed that much. It's more like how it was represented was changed.

I actually first watched the Santa Claus with my Aunt when I was "too old" to believe in Santa Claus but did anyway. But I will tell you the truth right now. I still believe in Santa Claus. I also think that when the movie came out the world was more "rational" because their were all these explanations about how magic couldn't possibly exist and you have to be rational etc.

Look at how the world's changed (sort of in a bad way.)

Nowadays the mainstream accepts devout religion much more readily. I mean Heaven and God and Jesus are really not that different than believing in Santa Claus. (I believe in all of it by the way. But I separate my poetic creative side from the literal. Duh I know that Grace bought the presents and I put them under the tree and then we unwrapped them. Does that mean that Catholic priests don't believe in the Eucharist, or better yet some other Church where they actually make their own bread? No. We all know that in one sense. It's just a different understanding. Just because something isn't literally real, doesn't make it fake.)

But now you have suicide bombers who believe in a Pardes (I mean they must right? Otherwise why not just kill people without being a suicide bomber. Or better yet rob a bank or sell drugs or something. That way you have a chance of living, You get stuff, and you make people afraid for whatever reason you are motivated to do that.) The world is so not rational right now. People totally believe in Magic and that God can stop global warming or this or that.  But what's scary is that they believe it literally.

In the Santa Claus movie they want to send a kid to the Psychiatrist because he believes in Santa. I can't imagine that being so nowadays, when politicians and world leaders totally believe in crazier things than gifts. I mean there are adults that believe the earth is flat and that evolution is a hoax.

What's bad about believing in Santa (Odin) as a poetic representational spirit of Christmas? If my kids told an elaborate story about going to the North Pole, first off, nobody would care, they would just tell him to write a book about it and capitalize on imagination. Secondly, if I had trouble at school, I would just explain that there is stuff you can tell other people and stuff you can't, because they will think you are nuts and it's just easier that way to function in society.

Well I'll cover the other movies at some other point.

Fiction: The Hello Kitty Nutcracker knockoff I-Phone 2060

Marie and Claire were twin sisters and were turning 13. Marie looked mature for her age. She was heavy and well, could be mistaken for a woman. Claire was bone thin and looked like a little girl ballerina. Both girls envied the other's appearance.
But the got a long okay other than that.


Their mother was a Chinese billionaire entrepreneur in her 20's and decided to have children in her 30's and tend to the Chinatown Community in Boston. Her boyfriend had grown up here and after he died in a motorcycle accident she decided she would raise her children them in the community where he was raised to be closer to him. Although she was a newcomer and an outsider, money talks and so did her shrewd business abilities.

 This year she had been elected CCBA president, and being uber-Christian even when she was in China she decided to throw a giant Christmas party at St. James. She wasn't Catholic, but she wasn't into denominations. To her Christmas was just about the look and the style and being good to your neighbor in general, mixed in with a belief in a Free Market and the American Dream and a conservative version of democracy that the Founding Father's had in mind.

America and Christmas and the Kingdom of God were all rolled into one fairy land in her mind as a child in China. And now that she had made it big and made it here, she decided she would try to make the thoughts in her mind a reality the best she could.


Her daughters her well known in the community and everyone was trying to give them gifts and get on their good side. When you are rich like that, more riches will just come to you. It was like they were goddesses being offered tribute.

Marie hunched over into herself trying to make herself look smaller and Claire pranced around like a ballerina.

Suddenly Mother recognized someone. It was Uncle Wo Tan. The man had a Chinese name but a very distinctively western look about him. He had introduced her to Church as a child and her family had invited him over all the time. He had given her the connections and inspiration for a lot of her business ideas. He wasn't a blood Uncle, but mother considered him family. They embraced.

Uncle Wo Tan went over to Marie and Claire and gave them each a smart phone. They loved them. They had matching cases with a Hello Kitty like cat dressed as Nutcrackers. There was something about even the cases themselves that caught the eye, and the feel of the phone in the hands had a feeling of classiness and high quality. They looked in a way like any other smartphone. But the girls knew they were somehow better.

They hugged Uncle Wo Tan. One boy tried to take Claire's phone away at some point but Marie stepped forward and punched the boy in the nose. Marie was quite heavy and she had gotten her body weight behind the punch. The boy fell on his butt and had a bloody nose. His father took him away quietly which made Mother, who had witnessed the whole thing kind of nervous. She knew the boy and the father. They were not trouble makers politically. But she knew the father, was the type not to complain, but also was not to be trifled with. She ran over to the father and asked if the boy was okay. He was not the type to sue. But he was the type to hold grudges and take revenge.

She scolded Marie but the father said that she had acted right in defense of her sister.

****



Later that night the girls went to sleep putting their phones on the dresser in between their beds. Mother was a billionaire, but she saw no reason to live in a mansion. They lived in Chinatown Tower in a small apartment. She owned the building of course, and they made money off ..

Fiction: Hong Dao Chan: behind the curtain.

"Where are we?" We Wei called out to a Hong.
"This is behind the curtain. You know that, you come here all the time."
"In my sleep?"
Hong nodded and it came back to her and to Michael Jai and to Chun. They knew where they were. They were home in a way. In their own world, but it overlapped with each others.

"Hong is flying by sir!" screamed someone from a ship below.

"Fire at will." said Captain Napin nonchalantly

Bulltes whizzed passed and cannon fire and shells. A whole fleet opened fire on the children.

Hong circled and sliced through the air. His flaming sword made a mark through the sky that slowed down the bullets (but did not stop them.

"Nia get them to the Water Margin!" called out Hong. Nia the blue bird glowed brighter and brighter until the blue ball enveloped the children and Wei Wei. The energy helped the children fly faster (although Nia was slower and used more energy.)

Hong stayed behind and flew on the other side of the fleet where he cursed and spit at them.

"You filthy drug dealers. Cowards all of you. Come and fight you punks!"

The truth was that Hong knew a great deal of these smugglers. A good deal of Hong's playmates boys would join up with them and began to grow up. They had mixed loyalties. The ships provided a way back into the real world, and money, and fantasies not available on the island. And Hong didn't blame them individually. Most of the gun fire missed by a wide margin because these guys didn't actually want to hit Hong.

But there were others who had never known Hong and just followed orders. Captain Napin, hated Hong but being a gentleman, never picked up a rifle himself.

Eventually Nia got the children and Wei Wei to the beach. They were a long way off from the mountains they were headed too but Nia was worn out. All of them were. To go fast they used up all their energy somehow. The way they flew was like swimming, flowing through the air this way and that. It wasn't efficient. It wasn't steady. An so they decided to walk tup the beach and through the forest. That way at least they couldn't be so easily spotted by the ships. But the ships were distracted by Hong at the moment anyway.

"That was so cool!" squealed Chun "I want a sword just like Hong."

"I want a gun so I can shoot back at those jerks."

Wei Wei wondered what she had gotten herself into. Was this the dream world? What did Hong mean by behind the curtain? Wei Wei wondered if her thoughts could be controlled. She knew she was in this world, which isn't always the case when you are asleep. Was there a way to make herself more powerful? To control her surroundings? Was this just like one of the stories she told the children where she was the author of her fate? Or did she have less control? If a bullet hit her.. would she die? She was suddenly mad at Hong for putting them in danger like this. The thought froze her to the ground and the world swirled around her strangely.

"Don't do that." Nia looked at her.

Wei Wei paused and looked at Nia again. The bird glimmered and blurred until she was a beautiful young woman. Wei Wei stared at her. Nia looked familiar and strange. Simultaneously a bird and a woman and a fairy. Simultaneously ravishingly young, and anciently wise.

"Enjoy the moment where you are. Just be where you are. on the beach. The boys know that naturally. You'll ruin yourself, thinking the way you are. We're going into the woods now." And Nia flitted ahead with the boys.

Wei Wei walked slowly, and then skipped along more joyfully into the woods. Yes Nia was right. This was much better. The woods were magical. The trees, the mushrooms, the animals, butterflies. It was magical as anything you could imagine and more so, because it was as magical as everyone else could imagine too. The minds of everyone joined here, the beautiful and the awesome. The light shone glowing so brightly because the shadows were so dark and mysteries, and all of it was wonderful and beautiful and filled her heart with awe.

Poems: Karate

Dojo sweatshirt, jeans

 Market Karate easy

Gifts, I wear, for dream.

Poems: The Means

Wise one's say the journey not the goal
is what Life's answers are really all about.
For sure, the end ain't guaranteed at all.
But the present journey? Bam! Right here. No doubt.

Success then, might not be as good,
As the road to that success. The road itself.
If you don't care HOW you get there, then you should.
The MEANS are guaranteed. The ends? Who can tell?

"Silence" By Thich Nhat Hanh

Every time I read something by Thich Nhat Hanh I feel better during it and after I'm done. The first book I ever read by him was a gift from Madame Stanton, a French teacher and advisor to the Alliance for Student Harmony, a diversity club at a New England boarding school. Yes, believe it or not, I went to a New England boarding prep school.

I found the parts about life experience helpful, like doing the dishes mindfully, etc. But the chanting while meditating.. I wasn't into that. Actually I am still not. I even skip those parts. But, whereas when I was a teenager I found them fake, and gimmicky, now I just feel like it's something genuine and helpful for someone... just not for me.

I felt a pang of regret that I didn't, after reading that book, suddenly take every opportunity to do Thich Nhat Hanh type stuff. For instance there was a retreat at the College I went to. Why didn't I go to that? Because I was so into my own way of thinking and following my Sifu. It was a sort of loyalty that in a way was too much. Then again, because of that I have a very strong base when it comes to Kung Fu instead of being sort of this and sort of that. I am completely and totally me.


The parts of Hanh's writing that I still tend to skim and skip are the chanting parts.

The closest thing I've come to chanting recently are various songs or "OM" and I notice whatever I am reading... I always end up doing it my own way. Not that my own way is better. It's just better for me.


In "Silence" though, Hanh talks about the harmony of a family. Having a meditation corner, having a little meditation bell with a cushion on it... and I realized that this was the sort of thing I was looking for. I love Christmas and the traditions I grew up with. But Church hasn't worked so far... and neither have Our Father's or Hail Mary's. The kids liked them... but the bell thing. It's so much simpler. Just ring a bell and everyone smiles for three breaths. So simple and so great.

When Hanh talked about his experience making friends with a French soldier it also was sort of a reality check. The Buddhism I practice (if you can even call it Buddhism) is more like a Buddhist flavoring that remained in the Kung Fu after it left Tibet and Shaolin and developed in the secular world Chinese villages, families, bandit groups, pirate groups, rebels, gangs, and American Kung Fu schools and cultural clubs.

We meditate, but we don't chant. We bow to Buddhist monks, because they are our lineage, and we would bow to them whether they were enlightened or not. And we Bow to Kwan Yu, because that's something Chinese people tend to do. Bowing and honoring has similarities to praying. But there are also differences.

But in a way we are still Buddhist, at least philosophically.


So when Hanh writes about the monks at the temple meditating when the French crash around and search for rebels it impresses me. Part of the philosophy of Kung Fu is to find that balance. The origins of our system are in Buddhist Philosophy. And yet the movements can be used for violence. But the violence is and antiquated sort. What if you are faced with the bombs and guns and anthrax that have been around for 100 years already?

That's why Hanh's experience is so valuable. He is a monk in the middle of war. In some of his other writing he talks about how temples he set up were even persecuted recently in Vietnam and that during the Vietnam war, when he set up a hospital, they were suspected by both sides.

So in Silence when he talks about making friends with a French soldier, and telling him about another friend who is fighting french soldiers.. it's really something. And then you compare that with what is going on in the Middle East now.

Some of Thich Nhat Hanh's friends had set themselves on fire in protest. It is interesting to compare and contrast that act with that of a suicide bomber.

I don't agree with everything Thich Nhat Hanh talks about. He mentions Buddha converting a serial killer. Not only that, the Sangha actually protects this horrible serial killer. And that killer becomes a devout practitioner of Buddhism. But.. would that fly even in Massachusetts for say someone like Zohar Tsarnaev who did a horrible thing. But from the story, the serial killer that Buddha saved is worse.

Part of me enjoys the gods that dish out cruel justice themselves to teach a lesson. But I respect Hanh's and the Buddha's stories and teachings because actually they lived in a much more violent environment than I can even imagine.


Long story short. Silence, by Thich Nhat Hanh is worth a read.