We were supposed to meet with Aunt Connie, a long time family friend since the 1990′s. I’m not sure how she first met my parents but she was a regular at the Lu household for a number of years. Aunt Connie was visiting her younger brother in Keelung and she had invited us to join them for dinner. Uncle Lai and Aunt Connie have become good friends as well.
The drive to Keelung was dark and damp, it actually rain quite heavily at one point. I have no memories of this harbor city, zilch. The drive took close to 50
minutes, our sons had fallen asleep within minutes after they were in
the car. We had been on the go ever since we arrived in Taipei. Nearly 4 hours of walk in Shih Lin the day before. From Taipei 101 to 地下街 , another 4+ hours on foot, no wonder they were completely out.
We had to wake the boys up, still dazed, they managed to walk up the short hill leading to Mr. Lin’s house. Aunt Connie looked exactly the same as I last saw her, that would make it about 2-3 years. She gave each of us a big hug, she couldn’t believe how big our sons had gotten. Our boys were still too tired to explore Mr. Lin’s place. He was kind enough to offer one of the rooms
so our boys could sleep.
Needless to say, it was our first time meeting Aunt Connie’s brother. They do share some resemblances, most noticeably, they both speak with a big
voice and are very animated. As we looked around I found myself completely in awe! What a place Mr. Lin has! Wow! I don’t know how in the world he has accumulated all the art pieces, many of them of Buddhism religion. (Some say that Buddhism isn’t a religion but a philosophy, let’s not get into a debate on this.)
Mr. Lin holds a great wealth of knowledge in Buddhism, as well as Chinese history. He tirelessly explained the background of each piece to us, there were easily hundreds of art pieces. Status of Buddhist Gods, Goddesses,
architectural pieces from old temples, buildings (三合 / 四合院) , handcrafted
headboards, dressers, chairs, filled up much of the living spaces. Mr. Lin told
us what we had seen, was just a tip of the iceberg. Apparently there are two
other large rooms also filled with art pieces he has collected over the years.
It’s not an exaggeration that Mr. Lin owns a museum of his own. Mrs. Lin
was the chef of the evening and what dishes she had prepared! Every dish was carefully assembled, the elegant presentation made everything even more mouthwatering.
滷豬腳 高麗魷魚 蔥薑魚 醬鵝肝 雞捲 炒米粉 臘腸 素雞 白切章魚, I hope I didn’t miss anything. If I did, my apology to Mrs. Lin.
The conversations over the dinner table were great. Most of the time, my
wife and I listened. In between Aunt Connie and her brother, with Uncle Lai
filling in from time to time. It was as if we were sitting in some cultural
seminar, the topics were engaging and very interesting. The "elders", not including myself this time, continued with their own storytelling. The drinks flew and the food kept coming! We were getting quite tired so we thanked the Mr. and Mrs. Lin for the feast. We toured around the house as the dinner table conversations continued.
This seemingly endless banquet finally ended at just before 9 pm, I was
barely able to keep my eyes open by then. Guess what, there was yet another group of people (my cousins) waiting for us once we got back to Shih Pai. Oh the price to pay for having so many relatives! It’d be great if I could round them all up and hit them with one shot. Oh well, at least we have remained close after all these years.
No comments:
Post a Comment