Forty Years Later……

If you put a group of ‘girls’ who have been separated for forty years in a lock-up, they would thank you profoundly as they would be too happy to be together to chat endlessly and excitedly hoping that tomorrow would never come.

What is more if they are introduced to scenic, serene and conducive environments like the Mengkuang Dam and Cherok To’kun Forest Reserve at Bukit Mertajam. I am convinced that they would be chatting away non-stop like a bullet train going around the world or like a merry-go-round, praying that the Earth would not be spinning so that the next minute would always remain the next minute.

This was exactly what happened to my secondary school female classmates when they met on April 25, 2009. Hardly could I see them not talking to one another for even a split second. Maybe it was how they would made up for the lost time of forty years of missing one another. Nobody would have imagined that this would happen after forty years of leaving school.

The whole story started with a secondary-school classmate, Chew Ee, who was keen to pay a visit to me and Pek Im at Bukit Mertajam. Shirley suggested that either one of us would have to do the 'homework' and to make arrangement for them to visit the place. I was inadvertently dragged into planning this one-day trip.

After numerous alterations to the itinerary, I came up with the final draft as follows:

8.30 am: -Waiting at McDonald's, Autocity (For those guys who are unfamiliar with the 'dim sum'shop)

9.00 am: -Dim Sum at Orient Precious Restaurant at Butterworth.

10.30am: -Stroll at Mengkuang Dam

1.00pm: -Duck feast at Lunas

3.00pm: -Tea chat at Cherok Te’kun Forest Reserve ,at the foothill of Bukit Mertajam Hill.

5.00pm: -Bible Study at St Anne's Old Church

5.50 pm: -Group Photography Session with teachers at BM Country Club.

6.00 pm - 7.00 pm -Dinner at BM Country Club

7.00 pm -Departure.

A total of eleven of us followed the one-day trip with Thean Seng joining us briefly for the breakfast of 'dim sum'. In the evening we were joined by another classmate, Raju, and four other former teachers. Two tables were ordered for the dinner at the BM Country Club with my wife and daughter in the company. My wife prepared two complimentary dishes for the dinner while Chew Ee contributed the fruits for descert.


I was very glad that Ah Nia and Song Hooi could set aside their tight working schedule to join us all the way from Johor Bahru and Ipoh respectively. I knew fully-well that they were ‘busybodies’ as time is money for them.

Jokingly, a classmate was telling, “If you want to talk to Ah Nia, you have to be in her lawyer office with a file opened before you and the duration of conversation recorded. Before you leave her office, you have to settle the consultation fee. Outside the office, she will always keep mum and she won’t be talking to you as it is non-productive to her.”

As Ah Nia had indicated to me earlier that she would like to meet us in the North, I did inform her through email about this event. Later on, in her reply, she wrote, “Well, I have booked my flight back to Penang on 24th and will be returning to JB on 26th. I am eagerly looking forward to meeting all of you again after so many years. I believe we have much to talk about and have informed my family and associates that I would be fully tied up on 25th.”

Another classmate from Kota Kinabalu, Seng Kwang, was keen to join us. Nevertheless, at the eleventh hour, he was tied up from head to toe with his busy working schedule. He could not make it across the South China Sea. He could only hope that CNN or BBC would show a live telecast of the event. He put it in this way, “to start a business is rather easy,but to end it abruptly is extremely difficult”. Like what a famous blogger used to say in his blog, follow my lips closely and say it loudly and clearly in the Hakka dialect, “koi gong yong yi siew gong nan” [开工容易收工难]。
The Bukit Mertajam trip was considered a ‘great reunion’ by Pek Sim, especially at the dinner table where the pupils met their former teachers after forty years. Siew Sim sent us a congratulatory message from UK via email stating thus “Happy reunion to you all……. I am envious but equally delighted that you are all getting together. Like Pek Sim said 'enjoy today because who knows what tomorrow will bring'.”

To be frank, we have to thank Siew Sim as all the gatherings organized by us so far would not have materialized without the 'initiation' of Siew Sim during her last holiday trip from England in 2008. In fact, Shirley has noted that Siew Sim has been doing it since the 1980s. To this, Siew Sim reacted, “You are both very kind to think of me as the initiator of the grand reunion. Like you I felt that life is too short to be miserable and inward thinking. Personally, I shall go to my grave not saying 'I wish I had done' whatever.”

It is interesting to note that on this very day of our gathering many secrets that had been kept for forty years were 'decoded' within a day without bringing them to our grave. Secrets like what were the nicknames of our fellow pupils and our teachers and how the names were derived from; how a teacher fell ill and later died after being unintentionally cursed by a pupil and so on…..

It became a laughing stock when Pek Sim mentioned that the exchange of our SMS and email between her and me during these few days were far more than our conversations when we were at school during those few years combined. In fact she could hardly recall we had ever talked.

Credit had to be given to our 'Brother Hoe Soon' when he acted as ‘Father Hoe Soon’ the moment he took the stage at the podium to conduct a Bible Study for us in the St. Anne Church compound. He explained to us how and why Jesus Christ suffered for the sake of mankind. 'God will bless you to be born with everlasting life in heaven once you believe in Jesus Christ' was what our 'Father' wanted to emphasize.

Finally, I do hope that April 25, 2009 would become a day to be remembered by all those who have made it possible. For me, I will never forget it!

Who knows we may have another gathering again forty years later on.

Seven Day Dharma Assembly
‘打佛七’
In the eyes of a mother, a child is always a child. Even though her child may be of 60 years old, the mother would still adore and treat him like a child. This is how I feel as most people do.

During the formative years of my childhood at the primary school, every time when I came back from school, my mother would be at home to see that I took my meals. As I was a bit choosy with the dishes prepared by her, I might not want to take what she had cooked. It ended up most of the time that my mother would have to give in and give me ten cents to go and buy a bowl of ‘laksa’ or a mug of curry soup to eat with the plain rice.

As I grew up oftentimes when I came home from the boarding school or varsity, I still pestered my mother to fry rice with an egg and some prawns when I found that the dishes were not appetising. Her fried rice had a class of its own equal to none.

Even after I had fathered a child at the age of 31, my mother would still cut apples or oranges into slices for me to eat every time I went home to see her. We would sit side by side with a cup of coffee prepared for me by her. She would talk to me softly and gently and listened to me attentively when I had something to share with her. Likewise,she would tell me her ‘grandmother stories’ which regrettably I did not bother to remember. At times she would console me and share my grievances. I liked the feeling of being treated as a child in the care of a loving mother. Though she was not a trained counsellor, she was the best I had ever seen as she had the golden touch of motherly love.

The loss of my mother had induced an immeasurable sadness in me. She had given me so much love and yet I had repaid her reciprocally so little.

To me her departure after three months from the confirmation that she was suffering from leukemia was too sudden and too bitter for me to accept though outwardly I did not show it to my family members and friends.

As a Buddhist I thought it would be my duty as a son to do whatever I could to repent for my shortcomings and negligence towards my mother while she was still alive and at the same time to perform religious rites to transfer merits to my mother. I contemplated that I should go all out unreservedly to ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī ’ [打佛七] as soon as possible after the demise of my mother. Hopefully by such a deed I could at least help to elevate my mother to a better plane of existence, if not to help her to be reborn in the Western Paradise[西方极乐世界] instantly.

In the following year of 1985, I managed to ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī' twice as I could only do it during the school holidays. I participated in the event from July 26 to August 4, 1985 at the Malaysian Buddhist Association[马来西亚佛教总会] in Penang, and again from November 18 to November 24, 1985 at the Taiping Buddhist Association[太平佛教会].



‘Dǎ Fúo Qī' [打佛七] is a term in Mandarin. It is a seven-day Dharma Assembly[法会] in which all the participants would recite the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha[阿弥陀佛圣号] day and night throughout the seven day period. During that period, the participants had to observe the eight precepts[八关斋戒] and at the same time they had to observe strictly the rule of abstinence from talking to one other[禁语]. Apart from the normal sessions of nine hours of mass recitation of the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha in the shrine hall, participants were encouraged to make a total of not less than one thousand bows to the Buddha every day during the intervals between the sessions. Those older or weaker ones who were unable to perform the bows would instead have to recite the name of Amitabha for ten thousand times daily. Usually, by the time a participant had performed this extra task of one thousand bows, it was already past midnight. The following morning he had to wake up before five to get ready for another day of Dharma cultivation. Due to lack of sleep and strenuous exercise of one thousand bows per day, most participants found it very unbearable for the first two days. Time seemed to crawl relatively slow like a snail for the first two days. The participants would get used to the routine from the third day onwards. Since then time flew. Seven days of Dharma Assembly were over before the participants were hardly aware of it.

I had a peculiar experience in 1985 when I performed ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī' at the Taiping Buddhist Association. Entering the third day of Dharma cultivation, during the first session of mass recitation of the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha in the shrine hall, I was extremely tired and exhausted that my eye lids could hardly open. My legs, though reluctant to move, still had to carry my body to follow the rest of the participants to walk around the shrine hall reciting aloud the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha in unison. It was a real torture for my limbs to act against the will of my mind. But one peculiar thing happened against all explanations of logic and norms. From the second session onwards, I was totally transformed. I was very much afresh and energetic. Fatigue had left me completely. It was hard for anybody to believe that “intense freshness and renewed vigour were preceded by extreme tiredness”Of course there were several inconveniences faced by the participants of ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī ' pertaining to the living conditions during the Dharma cultivation [修持佛法]. As the number of participants reached two hundred and fifty, all of them had to sleep side by side in the dormitories. Sound sleep had become a mere luxury for any participant as all sorts of noises and movements were unavoidable throughout the night although most participants still observed the rules and regulations as listed by the organizing committee.

The use of the washroom presented another problem as the number of washrooms and toilets were few and limited in great contrast to the number of participants. This problem was more acute with the ladies as their number usually outnumbered that of the gentlemen by at least threefold. To overcome this, one had to use the facility at odd hours whence others were still sleeping in the early hours of the morning or during the interval just before or after meals.
In my later years I did ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī’ two more times. Once it was from November 14 to November 21, 1989 at the Taiping Buddhist Association. Another time was from December 22 to December 29, 1995 at the Buddhist Triple Wisdom Hall in Penang[槟城三慧讲堂]. As age is catching up, I think I shall not partake in ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī’ with the vigorous daily bows of one thousand times. I might opt to reciting the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha for ten thousand times instead.

‘Dǎ Fúo Qī’ requires a sound body and mind. It is a Buddhist cultivation that calls for full concentration of the mind and physical endurance of the body. It is better to perform it when one is still young and healthy. Otherwise, instead of ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī’, we would be 'beaten off' by our own age or our own health. Believe it or not, as I was told by a master, one would never die in the shrine hall while practising ‘Dǎ Fúo Qī’. If he does die then and there, he is assured of a 'Lotus Seat' in Western Paradise. Would you like to do that?


Related Stories:
(1)Leaving the Home Life http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2012/01/leaving-home-life-16-december-2011-was.html
(2)Train Journey,Train Mindfulness http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2013/01/train-journeytrain-mindfulness.html
(3)The Three- Steps-One-Bow Dharma Assembly http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2008/07/three-steps-one-bow.html
(4)The Sage Who Never Speaks http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2009/11/sage-who-never-speaks-as-i-see-it.html
(5)从母亲的一个心愿谈起 http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post.html