Kung Hee Fat Choy! What I Learned from Clara

Happy Chinese New Year! According to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, this is the first day of the new year containing a new moon, and thus the year begins today, February 07, 2008.

Today also kicks off the Year of the Rat, and you have to admire the Chinese for being among the very few to honor this rodent which makes most of us squirm so uncomfortably... not only do they honor the Rat, they have given him the distinction of being the very first of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. The others are the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.
Photo credit: Twin Lions on Flickr, Yufo Temple, Shanghai, China by think cink.

No offense guys, but I keep thinking of the Rat Master Splinter for the Teenage Mutant Turtles for some reason, and rat just naturally comes out as a "him" for me. However in the spirit of full disclosure, my daughter was born in the Year of the Rat; she's a Wood Rat. Alongside the 12-year cycle of the animal zodiac there is a 10-year cycle of heavenly stems. Each of the ten heavenly stems is associated with one of the five elements of Chinese astrology, namely: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The elements are rotated every two years while a yin and yang association alternates every year. The elements are thus distinguished: Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, etc... 2008 is the Chinese Year of the Yang Earth Rat. (Wikipedia is a goldmine of information about all of this by the way; take any of these links and you'll find a bunch more. If you want to find out your year, element, and yin or yang, this is a good page.)

And hey guys, after you read what the Chinese think about the attributes of the noble rat, you may be okay with my gender liberties...

Being the first sign of the Chinese zodiacs, rats are leaders, pioneers and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Rat people are endowed with great leadership skills and are the most highly organized, meticulous, and systematic of the twelve signs. Intelligent and cunning at the same time, rats are highly ambitious and strong-willed people who are keen and unapologetic promoters of their own agendas, which often include money and power. They are energetic and versatile and can usually find their way around obstacles, and adapt to various environments easily. A rat's natural charm and sharp demeanor make it an appealing friend for almost anyone, but rats are usually highly exclusive and selective when choosing friends and so often have only a few very close friends whom they trust.

Yes, there is another side to the Rat's character, but why go there, right?

Now me, I'm a Wood Horse, and they say that traditionally, Rats should avoid Horses, but other than a period of time when she was in the 6th grade that we both prefer not to remember, my daughter and I have gotten along just fine, so who knows... maybe we got the yin and yang part right!

So how is it that someone best known for teaching Hawaiian values has the authority with which to write our Joyful Jubilant Learning entry welcoming in the Chinese New Year?

Well, more than authority, there is something I call Sense of Place and the universality of our values. Bloodline does enter the picture a bit.

For starters, my dad had some Chinese, though only about an eighth or so. However that's enough to make my meager contribution to my two children being half Chinese: Say is the way that my husband's Chinese ancestors decided to respell their name when they arrived in Hawai'i five generations ago.

This year, hubby and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, however that's the red date on the Chinese moon cake; growing up in Hawai'i I have celebrated Chinese New Year for as long as I can remember, mostly in the spirit of the two F's whatever the animal yinging or yanging at the time: Food and Fireworks, which often accompany most of our island holidays, come to think of it.

As I prepared this salutation to the day for us here on JJL, I wondered what I've learned from any Chinese books, and there are two that I thought I'd tell you about (though neither was written by a Chinese author). One was published in 1992, and it was a gift from Clara, my Chinese mother-in-law, for my birthday a year later. The second was published in English for the first time 46 years before my daughter was born, and both my children will tell you it is their favorite Chinese story ever —without admitting that though their grandparents told them others, this one is the only one they completely remember because of the pictures, and this is the one they both can tell you completely by heart.

The Spirit of the Chinese Character

After I started dating the man who would become my husband, the second person in his family I fell in love with was Clara, his mom. Not every woman can say that about her mother-in-law, and I constantly counted my blessings with having this wonderful woman in my life... even during the thirty days she would not let me leave the house after each of my children were born, ensuring that I had the ginger soup that each mother in the family ate every. single. day. of it to "clean the birth away."

My fascination with values-based management and the behavioral sciences really kicked into high gear after I was married, and so Clara was fully aware of this, and we would talk about the Hawaiian values in comparison to their Chinese counterparts. If I were to sum up the years of those conversations we had, I could do so choosing one word: Grace, for that was what Clara represented for me. She lived and breathed it. She was it.

Clara had often told me that she felt the Chinese characters were the best way to explain values, for there has to be a spirit that comes from the heart and soul to the calligrapher's brush to get them exactly right: It is the spirit which moves the brush. There must be care, you must be patient, and above all else, you must be calm and at peace. As this beautiful book explains:

In the Chinese culture, writing is a sacred art form. School children are taught to regard calligraphy with reverence, and are encouraged to practice it only during moments of calm and tranquility. Only after years of practice can students begin to express their personal style, and embark on becoming masters of this scripted art...the art of calligraphy is seen as a matter of letting the true spirit within flow free, without hindrance from the striving that is so uncharacteristic of nature's actions. It is said that the artist Wang Hsi-chih, having once written the best calligraphy of his life, tried to copy it dozens of times yet failed, because he was trying.

With Clara, I never had to try, just be with her. We read this book page by page together, forty characters altogether, depicting words or concepts connected with the human spirit. We didn't force it, just found the right time for the next page, going in the order of the author's spirit because that was the respectful thing to do. Spirit (Shen), The Way (Tao), Virtue (Te), Tranquility (An) and so on, never reading more than one page on any given day so we could sit with it, accepting the gift of spirit in grace.

Clara and I would talk about how several concepts can take expression in a single character, so similar to the Hawaiian concept of kaona, and storied hidden meaning. She helped me appreciate so much more fully that claim I so confidently make on my own book's cover, that our values are universal, binding us together in one humanity of aloha spirit no matter our heritage, traditions and ancestry.

Clara passed away a year ago this month, thirteen days after her 81st birthday. This book is the one I now reach for whenever I want to visit her again and feel her grace continue to teach me. Within the book, "masterful calligraphy by Russell Eng Gon crafts the character stroke by stroke, while a page-size portrait illustrates and glorifies the completed work." I will now trace my fingers over the strokes the way that Clara did when she explained them to me, and I will remember what I learned from her as the book sat in her lap, for I had never traced them then as she did. I listened. Listened and felt her grace.

There are seven kinds of stroke, known as the ‘seven mysteries.’ Each requires a particular movement of the hand and arm... The person who has mastered all of these is able to write the character for ‘eternity,’ whose seven strokes represent each of the seven mysteries…Just as the sun never ceases to rise and set, or the moon to progress through its cycles, so water never ceases to flow, down from the mountains, into the ocean where it foams and ripples, vaporizes and condenses, and again pours down as rain into mountain streams… —author Barbara Aria

The Five Chinese Brothers

What a delight this book is! My children never tired of it, and I never tired of reading it to them. It starts,

Once upon a time there were Five Chinese Brothers and they all looked exactly alike.

They lived with their mother in a little house not far from the sea.

The First Chinese Brother could swallow the sea.
The Second Chinese brother had an iron neck.
The Third Chinese brother could stretch and stretch and stretch his legs.
The Fourth Chinese Brother could not be burned. And
The Fifth Chinese brother could hold his breath indefinitely.

The pictures in this book, illustrated by Kurt Wiese, are priceless. I wish I could show them to you. He only used the three colors you see on the book jacket, and they are not too little, not too much, but just right. They are Chinese rightness.

The story by Claire Huchet Bishop, of how these marvelous talents are used is one of resourcefulness and what can happen when a family sticks together. And which child, listening to their hapa-haole (of mixed-up ancestry) mother or Chinese father shouldn't learn that lesson exceptionally, and repeatedly well?

“Can we read it again mom?”
“Again?”
“Yes, again!”
“Okay, yes, let’s read it again.”

Kung Hee Fat Choy! What will you learn about the Chinese culture on this very special day? They are an amazing people, and I am so blessed I am able to say that they are family. What have you learned from the family that you have become a part of in some way?

This posting will also be contributed to the writing project at Middle Zone Musings championed by Robert Hruzek for February: What I Learned from ...People. Click in to Robert's on February 11, when he will have a full listing of contributions.

Chinese Moon Cakes on Flickr by miss karen.

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Post author Rosa Say is the author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii's Universal Values to the Art of Business, and she currently writes for Managing with Aloha Coaching, Value your Month, Value your Life. Her Value of the Month for February is Kuleana, the Hawaiian Value of Responsibility.

For all of Rosa's writing aggregated in just one place, visit her Tumblr, Ho‘ohana Aloha.

Comments

[Robert Hruzek]

Rosa, it's wonderful how you've been able to incorporate your values into your entire life-system. Thanks for sharing a wonderful story of your mother-in-law; she sounds like a beautiful lady!

By the way, today and tomorrow (7th & 8th) at MZM is a 2-part post recounting my experiences while living in Hsinchu during the Chinese New Year celebration back in 2000. Check 'em out!

[Robert Hruzek]

Oops. Forgot to say that Hsinchu is in Taiwan! :-\

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Robert. Yes, Clara was beautiful both outside and in, and people like that make our whole view of the world beautiful when we are with them.

Great article at your place for today! That sounded like such a kick... I have been to Hsinchu Taiwan too, but it was during the summer and I was all of sixteen years old, furious at my dad for pulling me away from the rest of my friends during a July when I only wanted to be with other people who were my age, “…and they don’t even speak English Dad… this place is so backwards.” Not the right perspective at the time for the gift he was trying to give all of us!

I'll be back tomorrow to read the next installment of your Travels with Bob :)

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, you are always teaching us something new!

I was most interested in the section on calligraphy:

"Clara had often told me that she felt the Chinese characters were the best way to explain values, for there has to be a spirit that comes from the heart and soul to the calligrapher's brush to get them exactly right: It is the spirit which moves the brush."

Lessons here for the way that we write.

Joanna

[Rosa Say]

Joanna, this is what I have gotten out of Julia Cameron's teaching of writing morning pages for "stream of consciousness writing" and others like Carolyn See, Walter Mosley, and so, so many others who say that wannabe authors (i.e. those who want another kind of mastery) must write every single day to connect with their muse --- just as Chinese children are taught the discipline of calligraphy practice.

You may remember this from last August (I'll add the link to my name in this comment):

“… a novel is larger than your head (or conscious mind). The connections, moods, metaphors, and experiences that you call up while writing will come from a place deep inside you. Sometimes, you will wonder who wrote those words. Sometimes you will be swept up by a fevered passion relating a convoluted journey through your protagonist’s ragged heart. These moments are when you have connected to some deep place within you, a place that harbors the zeal that made you want to write to begin with.” - Walter Mosley, in This Year You Write Your Novel

[dave]

Rosa - when I read this, "This book is the one I now reach for whenever I want to visit her again and feel her grace continue to teach me." Something inside tells me that you are probably beyond "reaching for the book" to make this special connection with Clara.

Your sense of place vibrates with radiance throughout this essay Rosa...matter of fact, it vibrates all the way over here to Fla.

Joanna & Rosa - I cannot tell you how many times the very thing in your writing that connects with Joanna is also connecting with me. The absolute sentence that you comment upon Joanna is also what I found of interest. So I bop to your comment Rosa, and whose name do you mention first?? And you wonder where the awareness to Al is coming from...

[Rosa Say]

Not really Dave, I don't wonder anymore... I just enjoy these Aloha connections now, just sit back and enjoy them. From Edinburgh to Florida, stopping to chat with Al and Angela in Iowa, and then clear over here to Hawai'i, drawing in deep breaths everywhere in between (those Jubilation Way rest stops).