Q. Peter, You are in mid seventies now,
age-wise. What do you think of your
life?
A. There are two kinds of people: One looking
back at life and find some meaning thereof.
Another looking forward to
the future life when we step across the threshold from this life to the
future.
Q. You are suggesting I am the first kind, and
you are the second?
A. A lot of people are “temporarily” the first
kind, but longing for something to justify them switch to the second kind.
Q. You know I am an uncertain atheist.
A. I like this term: uncertain atheist. I understand.
Often I look back at my life, I love the unforgettable moments I had
with my father, a cousin whom I visited just 2 months before she passed
on. I am looking forward to the day I
can sit at the feet of my father, and tell him stories of what I did. I also have unforgettable recollections of
some of my highschool classmates and teachers too. There I saw the glimpse of the best model of
a good human soul, with unselfish love for others.
Q. Like what?
A. Like the marks of a drop of blood stain, on
our exercise book where we had to write our Chinese compositions in half-inch
squares, with Chinese brushes. Why such
blood stain? The teacher, Mr Man
JongLit, would persevere to teach us about morals and values of life, from the
class called National Literature (Gwok Man), and despite his nascal pharyngical
cancer (uncurable in the fifties), he still struggled on, putting cotton balls
in his nostrils in day time. Now, I see
that is his way of loving us students, unto his last day in life. These blood stains to me are worth millions,
telling us about his soul.
Q. What a story!
Something more?
A. Then one day he was too weak to stand up to write
some notes on the blackboard.
Suddenly
a classmate, Tsang Kwok Pui, raised his hand, “Teacher, let me do it”. Tsang is famous for his award-winning
calligraphy. From that day on, he would
be the teacher’s clerk, writing anything he wishes on the board, with a
calligraphy matching that of the teacher’s.
This persisted until perhaps 2 weeks before the teacher died. Recently I looked up Google for this model
classmate Tsang. He went to Taiwan for
college, came back to teach in some schools in Hong Kong, and some students
wrote something prasing his character and personality. Now he is our age, retired, but I think I
still can pursue on his whereabouts.
Tsang to me is a beautiful specimen of goodness in human character.
Q. Go on!
A. Too bad, I reached my page limit. Next week.
