Goodbye 2012, you've been awesome.

Happy new year's everyone!  I'm sad to see 2012 go because it has been such a great year for me.  It was a year for taking a break and doing some soul searching.  In fact, I feel I've done more personal development in the last 10 months than I have since graduating university.  My eyes have been open to new experiences, awesome destinations and evaluating my strengths and weaknesses.

It was this time last year that I made this life changing decision.  Stepping away from my career and taking some "me" time was an out of the box move for me.  In writing that resignation letter, I experienced such a mix of raw emotions.  Looking back on it now, all of those emotions had been repressed for a long time and had just begun to bubble up to the surface.  In putting my career ahead of everything else in life, I was becoming a very unhappy individual.

When I boarded the plane in early March, I was still not used to the idea that I was leaving a very comfortable life for the uncertainty of new experiences that were ready to challenge everything that I had learned in my 28 years on the planet.  Being thrown into uncomfortable circumstances really makes you ask yourself the tough questions and come up with answers you might not like.  These truths were a shock to my system but it was a wake up call that only helped me to progress and improve.  Here are some of the things I learned:

It is okay that I let myself be emotionally exposed.

Everyone has baggage.  From failed friendships, bad relationships, the loss of loved ones and betrayal by people you've trusted - baggage comes in all shapes and sizes.  My solution has always been to repress those experiences or ignore the issue.  For example, there have been countless times I've just alienated a person that I have had a fight with as opposed to being direct with my feelings and showing how hurt or upset I am with their actions.  As much as I thought it was an emotionally mature way of dealing with things and by keeping up appearances, it was the most immature thing anyone can do to resolve (or not resolve) conflict.  Other moments have challenged me as well and it has led to a lot of tears, both good and bad.  The last time I cried this many times in a year was when my mom passed away back in 2000, but it felt good to let it all out.  Keeping it all bottled up inside was making me into such a miserable person, I was barely able to look at myself in the mirror.

I can be a know-it-all but that I have so much left to learn.

This is something I've struggled with all my life.  The combination of being stubborn, a lot of education and an A-type personality has amounted to an ego with a terrible "I'm Right, You're Wrong" mentality.  In traveling to new places (ten new countries, with three more in 2013!) has really helped me understand that I should shut up once in a while and listen to what other people have to teach me.  

That with traveling, everything works out if you just don't stress about it.

I've always thought I was a decent traveler but it turns out I can be a bit of a stress case (especially when traveling with certain personalities).  In any case, a big area of discovery comes from letting small things go and allowing yourself to just play with the cards that you're dealt when traveling.  If you miss a flight, there's always a next one.  If you lose something, it can always be replaced.  You'll lose more out of the experience if you latch onto the material things you're missing out on rather than living in the moment.

I learned that I am extremely proud of my cultural background and cannot wait to share it with others.

Having left Taiwan when I was just four years old, I didn't have much of a chance to absorb what it meant to come from this background.  I shunned my Taiwanese side after my parents' divorce because of my then dislike for my father.  In the last five years, I have come to really appreciate this tiny island off of the coast of China and that there is a whole side of my heritage that I have to be proud of.  I've embraced my mother tongue this year and have made great strides in relearning Mandarin.  Although I'm still at a 6th grader's level of comprehension, I'm impressed at how much I've learned in four months.  I fell in love with the food as evidenced by my 10 pound weight gain and a softer belly than when I left Toronto (it does not disappear no matter how hard I work out).  I find myself fascinated with the history that is Taiwan, not only from my fathers' ancestry (Chinese from Fujian province) but from my mothers' side (Nationalists from the Mainland that retreated to the island back in 1949).  In fact, I find myself being a better Canadian for embracing my Taiwanese background because it allows me to share with others this vibrant culture and incorporate it into the mosaic that is Canada.  

I learned that my family means more to me than I've let them or others know.

In living with them for about five of the last ten months, I've come to love being a part of a family again.  I chose to close myself off from family after my parents' divorce and my mom's passing and quickly forgot what a great feeling it is to have people who truly love you around you 24/7.  

As much as I love making fun of my dad, I find his emails to bring a smile to my face each time I read them.  The one above was sent to me the day after I came out to both him and my mom - it was an email that I sat reading for almost an hour even though it is six simple lines of text.  It has taken me a while for me to share this aspect of my life with them and almost two weeks of sleepless nights to craft the right thing to say in person.  Finally, after three bottles of beer, I finally worked up the courage and blurted out what I've been holding in for a very long time and all before the clock hit my 29th birthday.  Their reaction was nothing short of extraordinary.  Having worked up so many different scenarios in my overly active imagination, ranging from the bad to a complete and off the handle rejection, I was astounded by how easy it was for them to look past my sexual orientation and say that they love me no matter what.  It was a good hour and so of talking, of crying, and of repeating some of the same things over and over again, but I felt more loved and an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders.  As much as Taiwan is a liberal society, there's still a lot for my parents to learn on the issue.  But I am so very lucky to have parents who are willing to learn with me as I grow more comfortable in my own skin.

So that's it for my reflections on a wonderful year.  I want to thank all of you for being on this journey with me.  I want thank my friends from back home who've shown me so much support in my decision to get out there and travel.  I want to thank the friends I've traveled with this year for sharing in the laughter, talking through the difficult conversations, and drinking our worries away.  I want to thank my new friends that I've met this year for allowing me to get to know you and to share our stories.  And I especially want to thank my family for taking me in and making me feel completely okay about being a 29 year old unemployed man living at home with his parents for a year.  

My wish for all of you is that you make 2013 a year in which you have an AHA! moment about your life's direction and I look forward to reading your retrospective at the end of next year!

Cheers!

The Jous go to Tokyo

It has been too long since I've properly sat down and put in the time to do some blogging.  Part laziness and part distraction (Mandarin school was getting quite intense with the workload) attributed to what was a two month hiatus of typing my little heart out.  Time to catch up on some of the things I've been up to in the last couple of months.

For anyone who have been on my Facebook page have seen at least a post or two about my Grandma Jou.  In her mid-70s, she is the matriarch of my Dad's side of the family.  She was born in Taiwan when the island was under Japanese occupation, and was one of the few thousands of children lucky enough to get an education all the way through to high school.  Having been educated by the Japanese, she is fluent in the language, which allowed her to work as a tour guide for Japanese visitors in the 50's and 60's.  She is a woman who is fiercely independent, something I greatly admire, and when she's got an opinion on something, well, she lets you know it.  (I guess that's where I get it from.)

What's most impressive is that she raised five kids in a time when Taiwan was one of the poorest countries in the world.  Under military rule and still mostly an agrarian nation, there was little income for any family to work with.  She and my grandfather were able to send all of their kids to school and see to it that they all received university degrees.  Furthermore, they all were sent to Japan to receive Masters degrees and today, my Dad's siblings are all pretty successful - two work in business, two are doctors and one is a pharmacist.

The Family Jou in Ginza.

Recently, my grandmother has been diagnosed with lung cancer - her third time battling this disease.  Unfortunately, the prognosis doesn't look great this go around, but she has a positive outlook on the situation.  Her optimism comes from her deeply rooted belief in a branch of Buddhism called Nichiren Shoshu, something she acquired in her youth when the Japanese influence on Taiwan was still very strong.  This school of Buddhism comes from Japan from the teachings of a 13th Century Buddhist monk named Nichiren.  It's main temple is found at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, and my grandmother was determined that her entire family was to go on a pilgrimage with her to say a prayer at the Mecca of her religion.  Of course, everyone obliged.

It is a shame we didn't get a chance to do more things in Tokyo due to our limited amount of time, but we did spend an entire day in the Ginza district, another epicentre of sorts for those who adopt shopping as a religion.  Since my grandmother has to use a wheelchair, it took us most of the day to get from one end of Ginza to another.  The street is the 5th Avenue of Tokyo, lined with shops after shops of luxury brands and department stores that rival that of Harrod's and Saks.  I could barely afford anything on this street, but I wasn't doing any window shopping - I was mostly people watching.  This is where the best dressed residents of Tokyo come and parade their fashion sense for visitors to see.  Tokyoites are much like their Parisian counterparts, due to their overwhelming appreciation for food, fashion and culture.  At one point, we were even treated to a conga line of classic cars, driven by men clearly going through midlife crises with passengers being either their daughters or second wives (cough...mistresses).   Ginza was buzzing - and to think that there's a recession still going on here.

The vintage car parade.

I have to give my grandma props - she went a whole day almost 10 hours of sitting in her wheelchair and shopping while I was about to drop from exhaustion at around three in the afternoon.  Even after this amount of shopping, she was still up to having a family party in her hotel suite - the eight of us feasted on food and wine bought at the fancy department store earlier that day.  In Japan, the premium department stores all have food stalls in the basement selling incredible looking (and tasting food).  I basically ate with my eyes walking through the various displays.

I want to go to there.

With no rest for the wicked, we headed out for the temple the next day at about 7am in the morning.  It was a three hour drive to get there, and I'm pretty sure all of us, except for my grandmother, were slightly hungover.  We get to the Nichiren temple two hours late due to the horrendous Tokyo traffic.  Like most of my traveling companions know, whenever I'm in a moving vehicle, I behave like I've just been roofied - so I was mostly passed out the entire way to the temple.

To say that the temple is nothing short of impressive is an understatement.  With Mount Fuji serving as a backdrop, three large gates lead up to the main temple - which is about the size of a football stadium.  Once inside, you are led through hundreds of pews to your seat facing a gold plated wall.  Upon the ringing of the ceremonial bell, hundreds of monks stream through the doors on either side of the altar and the panels of the gold plated wall start to fold back to reveal the most elaborate altar I've ever seen.  Standing three stories tall, there are two smaller altars that need to be manually opened by a monk before the formal prayers could begin.

The Nichiren Temple.  Incredibly big.

If this didn't impress, then the full hour of simultaneous chanting was something to experience.  Everyone had a small book of scripture that they have memorized and chanted to rhythmically for the full hour.  I had no idea what they were chanting, even though I was able to make out a few of the Chinese characters in the scripture.  With a string of beads wrapped in their hands adding in clicking sounds as they rubbed against each other, the prayers sounded like a hypnotic piece of music.

Mount Fuji appears after an afternoon hiding behind clouds and fog.

And just as it began, it ended in the same fashion, the altar doors were closed, the wall panels folded back into place and the procession of people exited quietly.  Strolling through the temple's expansive gardens and monk dormitories, the experience was enchanting.  This being the third religious holy site that I've visited in my lifetime, it was equally as breathtaking as the Vatican and the Potala Palace.  There is a sense of serenity in the gardens, plenty of places to go and meditate, away from the noises and sounds of the city.

The gardens of the temple.  Super serene.

Most of all, my grandmother was truly happy with having her family accompany her to this holy place, you could see the energy in her eyes.  I've never seen her so happy.  I was very lucky to have had the chance to travel with my family, especially my grandmother, since this will most likely be her last trip overseas.  I learned a lot about the sense of one's duty to your family, the importance of caring for those who gave you so much.  I was grateful for the lessons learned and being able to observe the interactions of this dynamic family with very different personalities.  While they didn't convert me to their religion, I could see how this faith has shaped the foundation of their life.  I am impressed with the amount of faith they have in the Nichiren - it's something that I don't think I'll be able to achieve with any religion.

Goodnight Tokyo.
Strike another item off my bucket list of things to do: this Jou family trip is something I'll treasure. 

Me and My Dad: Learning to Appreciate Our Similarities

Recently, I was reading an article about written by a guy who wants his kids to know 25 key things about life and his love for them.  It also featured a few videos of awesome dads - some have built roller coasters for their kids in their backyard, and some dress up as Spiderman to go trampolining with their son in public.  After a few laughs and some tugs at the heartstrings, I reminded myself about how lucky I am to have my dad and how he's given me way more than just 25 things to remember about life through his everyday folksy Taiwanese parent advice.

Not sure my Dad would have done this when I was 5, but then again, he likely doesn't know who Spiderman is.

It has been a while since I've blogged about him.  In fact, it was about 5 months ago in which I wrote a blog about my shortcomings as a son and how I was looking forward to traveling with him in Tibet this past April - you can read it here.  Now that I finally have my life back to normal after several months of traveling, I had better put some thoughts down on "paper" about our always growing relationship.

On the Tibetan Plains.  With our shades.  Rockin' it.

Compared to six months ago when I landed in Taiwan, I've been able to check my attitude and speaking tone with him better than before.  Still, there are a few slip ups where I let out an outburst, usually it is after one of his moments of advice where I feel like I am still a 8 year old child in his eyes.  My mom once told me that his parental nagging will never change - "your parent will always treat you as if you were still their baby and that their love for you can never change in that respect" - and then she bluntly told me, "You're just going to have to live with it."

Well, ain't that the truth.  As much as I see it as an annoyance at times, I was completely blinded to the fact that these little tidbits of wisdom he's been trying to pass down shouldn't serve to irritate me but to show me how there's someone out there who loves me so much that they would take the time to pass on advice that he would never share with someone else (I believe one of his commandments is to never trust restaurant chopsticks and bring your own disposable ones.  He's pretty OCD about germs and dirt.)  And if anything, it provides constant entertainment for me as I learn more and more each day about how his mind operates, that we're not so different in personality and that I have so much left to learn from him.

My dad and I are alike in many ways.  A couple of years ago, on a trip from Ottawa to Guelph, my brother pointed that out to me and I spent about two hours of that car ride trying to convince him how I wasn't but failed to convince anyone.  Here's a rundown of how similar we are:

- My father and I are both the first borns in our family, which has resulted in an ability to be somewhat dictatorial and critical over how our siblings should behave.  However, he has mastered this and his siblings very rarely question his authority.  My brother, on the other hand, disposed my rule long ago and sometimes treats my advice as how I treat my dad's (oh, karma.)

- My father and I are pretty OCD when it comes to cleaning and organizing.  I realized this when I organized my table before I left for my European adventure only to come back to see that he organized it in a completely different way.  He's also a great suitcase packer, I mean, I'm pretty good, but he's Olympics level good.

- My father and I are hopelessly impatient.  We both walk at a pace that's twice as fast as regular people and always want to be the first in line (I noticed this as we were always the first to hop off our tour bus to get the best photos when we were in Tibet.  And yet, he somehow always gets his way where as I've been slapped on my hand several times for my anxiety.

First off the bus = first to get this picture of the Tibetan mountain ranges.  #Winning.

I'm happy to say we've been able to find things that we can bond over - our love for photography, drinking beer and weird news articles.  His high praise for some of my photography made me feel really good, as it's been a while since I've received a compliment from someone I truly care about.

Over the past six months, I've had the chance to appreciate the time I've spent with my dad and to learn what an great man he is.  I'm sad it has taken me so long (almost 18 years since my mom and dad divorced) to realize this fact, but the truth is that there are dads out there that would have given up on his children after a divorce and start a new family elsewhere.  After all of the shitty things I've done and said over the past 18 years, this is a man who's been able to let all of that slide.  He's picked himself up off the ground from every emotional punch I've thrown at him and refused to hit back.

My dad never gave up on my brother and me, even with the huge number of barriers that some threw up in his way to connect with his children, he never let us go.  This is why to him, we'll always be children - it's the memory he's held onto to get to this point.

A rare photo from our time in Taiwan.  This, as my mom says, is how I will always look in his eyes.

So with this post, I am saying with a blog that I've never been able to say in person, which is to say that I love my dad.  With 18 years of catching up left to do, I'm happy that at 28 and with him at (almost) 57, we will have our remaining years to try to fill in that missing time - it's something I'm looking forward to.

Celebrating Three Anniversaries that Changed My Life

There's something refreshing about the beginning of September.  It's the beginning of the school year  and having been a geek all my life, it was always something I looked forward to.  It's the beginning of fall, my favourite season, especially in North America; the air is crisp enough to wear a jacket (I have an unhealthy obsession with jackets) and sleeping with the windows open requires that extra blanket so you don't catch a cold.

This September marks some important anniversaries in my life.  One involves gaining independence, one involves a loss and one involves a journey of discovery.

It was ten years ago this September that I packed up a minivan full of my possessions, drove down the 401 past hundreds of farm fields to a small city called London, Ontario.  Here, I would attend an amazing university, the University of Western Ontario.  Here is where I would gain independence - no one was accountable for my grades, my bills or how I lived my life except for me.  While there's not much of that Orientation Week that I remember (most likely due to the copious amount of alcohol that was consumed), I remember meeting a floormate who would turn out to be my roommate for the remaining three years and still an incredibly good friend today.  More friends were gained along the way, some were lost, but overall, I was lucky enough to meet some fascinating individuals, some of whom I have had the great fortune of traveling with on my trip around the world.

It was two years ago this weekend that I talked to my grandmother for the last time.  Having battled lung and bone cancer for over a year and a half, she died shortly after collapsing on her way back to her room at the hospital in Los Angeles.  Luckily, I was fortunate enough to have planned a trip to visit her that Labour Day weekend and had a nice chat before she passed.  It was my grandmother that really encouraged me to reconnect with my father's side of the family.  It could have been guilt from all of the mean things that were said and done during my parents' divorce, but her one message to me throughout the entire time she was battling her illness was that I needed to patch things up with my dad.  If it wasn't for her urging and what I believe is her continued guidance on the matter, it wouldn't have led me to where I am today.

And it was six months ago today that I quietly sipped on a gin and tonic while watching Toronto disappear from my window as I sat on my midnight flight to Taipei.  Half excited, a quarter drunk and the remainder anxious, I had no idea what was in store for me in my year off.  I had left a comfortable life for the unknown and having always been the person with a plan, not having one made me feel empty and lost.  It never occurred to me that I was pretty empty and lost all along, even with my plans.  What I was missing was family and having had the chance to be with my dad's side of my family 24/7 for two months made me realize how much I needed these people in my life.  It also marked the start of an incredible journey that would take me to new places I had never seen before like Tibet, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Portugal, Spain, Croatia and Scotland.  I've experienced some great moments like celebrating with thousands of Spaniards on La Ramblas after their Euro Cup win or taking a dip in Loch Ness while the sun blazed down on us sipping whiskey on the beach.

This weekend has certainly been a time for reflection - this perfect storm of anniversaries have made me appreciate that saying, "everything happens for a reason."  Within the last six months, I've learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses - these next six months will be about how I take that knowledge and determine what I want to do moving forward.  May more eureka moments occur, and may more truths shed light on paths that need to be followed.

Me and my Dad

"I know, okay!" - that's what I'm used to saying to my dad whenever he tries to share some of his fatherly knowledge with me.  Ever since I was young, I've had this strange way of talking back to my father that most kids would never dare to do.


After being back in Taiwan for over a month now, and living under my dad's roof, I've had to check myself a couple of times before I lashed out at him for trying to teach me something I already knew.  In fact, if I was anyone else watching myself behave this way, I'd likely slap the shit out of me already.


I had a great discussion with my stepmother tonight (we bond over several drinks at dinner) and she and I talked about this very issue.  She's always found it hard to address this with me, mostly because she never felt it was her place to do so.  However, it's great to get your ass kicked once in a while when you really deserve it.


My dad and I have always had a strained relationship.  After my parents divorced, he was villainized by my mom's family, he ultimately left Canada because he had no income left to support himself, let alone my brother and I, and we  had a stint where we didn't talk for two years between when I was 15 - 17 years old.  We only reunited after he learned about my mom's passing (he found out two years after she passed) and it's been a long road to trying to patch up our understanding of one another.


That should not be an excuse for my poor behaviour.  What's been great about this time off and being able to interact with him everyday is that we're literally reclaiming the time we missed out on when I was a child.  He's in a way trying to parent without over parenting, I'm trying to be a son without acting too much like a child. 


When I told my father of my decision to quit work and leave Toronto for a bit, he didn't hesitate to support my decision or to offer up the fact that he would like me to go to Tibet with him.  For all his overbearing qualities, he is one of the kindest people I know, and I have much to learn from him about how to care for others.


What I'm more grateful for is that I have a chance to still work on our relationship, spend three weeks with him in Tibet with nothing but the scenery and good conversation to fill our time, and hopefully years left for us to make up for the time that has been lost due to silly actions in the past.


Countdown to Tibet - 11 days.

Today marks 1 month in Taipei.

30 days have past since I left Toronto.  It's crazy to think that I've been over on the other side of the world for all of March, it feels like it has passed by so quickly.  Life in Taipei has been a series of little challenges but great opportunities to learn about myself and my family.  


The great things about Taipei are as follows:


Eating is a sport.  Ever since landing in this wonderful city, food has been the number one topic of discussion with every one of my family members.  Every street is filled with pastry shops, restaurants, and food stalls.  There are regular meals and then snacks.  It's so bad that I'm pretty sure I've gained 10 pounds in the first weeks here.  I've developed a strategy.  Knowing that dinner is pretty much the time where I gain the weight, I have a decent breakfast, a light lunch, a small afternoon snack and then eat like a starved fat kid at dinner.


Transportation around the city is so easy and cheap.  Not only is the bus and subway network around this city expansive, it's super cheap.  15NTD (or $0.50 CDN) for the bus and 16 - 20NTD ($0.55 - 0.70) for the subway, it makes the TTC look even more like the joke that it is.  With about 8 subway lines in operation, all the main tourist attractions are reachable by the clean and reliable system.  Another two lines are planned to be open within the next year or so - including one to the airport.  There's something to be said about a city that embraces public transportation.  And if public transportation isn't your thing, cabs are even cheaper.  A 30 min cab ride in the city costs about $15CDN.  Blows my mind.


Spending time with family.  I've always been used to having a small family unit in Canada.  For a while, it was my mom, my brother and myself, then it was my grandmother, my brother and I.  Now it's just my brother and me.  Here, I'm exposed to a different part of my family - with two living grandparents, my dad and stepmom (and her family), 3 uncles, an aunt and a whole bunch of cousins and great uncles/aunts that I have dinner with every other night.  I've heard some great stories, learned a lot about my family's past and really felt the bond that holds this family together. 


The not so great things:


A limited social network.  Back home in Toronto, I had a great and stable social network.  It's hard to adjust to not having any friends in a new city and without having a workplace to meet new people.  I've tried starting random conversations with people at Starbucks, but have been met with weird looks or giggles.  I swear, I'm not trying to pick you up - just trying to have a conversation!  Hahaha.  To be fair, I can see why they are taken a bit off guard, I would be too.  Thankfully a few friends have tried to connect me with people in Taiwan, slowly but surely, I'll start building my network here.


Bad driving.  The stereotype that Asian people are bad drivers has always bugged me because I feel like I'm a pretty good driver.  But having experienced some near hits from scooters and sideswipes from other cars, I understand where this stereotypes come from.  Signalling, lanes and looking before you merge is rare here.  Driving here requires a strong constitution and being a passenger means gripping firmly on the handles near you.  Buckle up.


Navigating around with my limited Mandarin abilities.  So my Mandarin has never been all that great.  I'm able to speak conversational Mandarin and even that is spotty at best.  I can read as many characters as a 5 year old kid and writing is even worse.  Slowly but surely, I'm starting to build my language skills and once I'm done the majority of my travelling, I'll be returning to Taipei in September to study Mandarin full time for three months.  


I hope to post more about my time here in the next couple of days.  There's only 18 days left before I take off to Tibet and then do some travelling around southeast Asia.  That will be an experience of a lifetime.

The Sins of the Grandfather

During my time here in Taiwan, I have had the opportunity to really bond with members of my dad's family.  I love that  I've had the chance to learn about this other part of my identity and now that I'm older, I can have mature conversations about my family's past, no matter how upsetting the information might be.


I've posted about my mom's side of the family before and also the fracture that happened when my mom and dad decided to divorce.  When the divorce happened, I really didn't realize how much everyone on both sides were invested in trying to keep my parents together or split my parents apart.


Over the years, I've been able to dig up more and more information, mostly through my grandmother (mom's mom) who in her last couple of months of her life decided it was important for me to know some truths about the divorce.  The news was shocking to hear (that my grandfather, my mom's dad, really wanted my parents to divorce) and that my grandmother's regret was not standing up to him and encouraging my parents to stay together. 


This was confirmed by my other grandmother last night at dinner.  She and my father's family was always a big fan of my mom's mom, but never of my mom's dad.  There's a bit of an unspoken hatred between Mainlanders and the Taiwanese, not just because of the civil war stuff, but more of a status attitude.  Since my grandfather was from Shanghai, he had a hard time equating the Taiwanese Chinese (my dad's family) were the same level as him and his family.  How sad that this causes such family drama.


But the bigger shock was the revelation that my grandfather was an informant for the government.  The only thing that helped lighten this shocker was the fact that my grandmother thought "tattletale" was the correct English term for it.  God bless her, she was so close.  When she revealed the news, my mind started spinning with questions - who did he work for (I'm assuming it was for the Kuomingtan against the Communists since he had to flee China in 1949), how long was he an informant, why was he an informant and (shudder) did his actions lead to anyone's imprisonment or death.


My mother's side of the family had never explained what my grandfather did and to be fair, I doubt his children would know anything about this either.  The only people that know the truth have both passed, and I only have the account of my dad's mom.


I've always had fond memories of my grandfather.  He took a lead role in raising myself and my brother before he passed in 1997.  It's hard to believe that the man I used to watch hockey with would have a past as dark as this.  The times were much different back then.  Living through the 2nd world war must not have been easy and my grandfather was an orphan.  By passing on information and collaborating, was this the only he could survive?  On the one hand, it is hard to judge him for trying to survive, but the thought of how many people were impacted by his actions causes some internal conflict.


When the conversation with my dad's mom ended, we agreed, that the past is the past, but that it was important for me to know and absorb this information.  Family histories are never pretty, and plenty of people make mistakes.  In the end, you love your family members no matter what and forgiveness comes with time.  But knowing what I know now, it's hard to forget the sins of my grandfather and how much sadness his actions created for an unknown number of people and their families.

A Reminder of Why I Made the Right Decision

Just under a week ago, those of Chinese decent ushered in the 4710th year of the Lunar calendar and the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. Chinese New Year, the most important day of any Chinese household, was celebrated with everything decorated in red, pocket envelope money and hours and hours of eating meals with family. In fact, it is so important to Chinese people, it causes the largest human migration on Earth every year - when migrant city workers in China travel back from major cities to their home villages for their once a year visit with their families.

Like all new year's celebrated by cultures around the world, it is a time for throwing out past grievances and looking towards the future. It couldn't have come at a better time for me as I start this new leg of my journey in life. On CNY day, my family called at 10pm on Jan 22 (it was already CNY half way around the world) to wish me a happy new year. It was one of the first times, that I got choked up talking to my family. (Note: that's them all at my Uncle's house in Taichung right before they called me. They like printing out signs on the computer - they tell me that's how much they know about technology. I giggled.)

A few people know my family background - ironically, I'm not one to share a lot about my personal life (I can hear you scoffing: "um, that's not what my Facebook newsfeed says."). My family, my relationships and even my friends from different social groups have been kept separate and out of the public limelight. It's not that I don't love any of those parts of my life, I just have a tough time expressing my love for those people. My hope is that with this new year, my new adventures, and this new blog, I can start sharing some of that with you.

My family has always been divided. The one thing Asian families don't do well is talk about problems openly with one another, rather, they all like to gossip to others, which causes more drama. Confrontations are explosive, excommunication is common - your run of the mill soap opera (with chopsticks). My mom and dad's relationship in the beginning (from what I've been able to piece together from various family members and momentos) had been a happy one. What I've determined is that when I came along, and the strong duty that they felt to provide me with a better life than the one they had, eventually led to them drifting apart and carved out my families journey to the present.

My parents and I landed in Canada on Feb 28th, 1989 (fatefully, I am leaving the same day for Taiwan 23 years later - SIGN FROM ABOVE!). We moved in with my mom's parents until we found a home in Scarborough, at the corner of McCowan and Finch. Life was good, until I was in grade 3. My dad hadn't adjusted to Canada as the language barrier was causing him to have trouble finding work in his field, and he missed his family in Taiwan. My mom, who had all of her support system here, couldn't bear the thought of returning. These factors, added with the stress of my brother just being born, caused a fracture - one that they were never able to repair. They divorced, Dad left Canada for Taiwan two years later, and my mom became a single mother, determined to raise my brother and I by herself and do whatever she can to give us the tools to succeed.

I've written about my mom before. She was, and still is, my hero. Not a day goes by where I don't think about what she sacrificed to give my brother and me a better life and everytime I think about it, I can't help but miss her and cry. We lost her 12 years ago to cancer and to see her fight the disease because she was so determined to see my brother and I reach 18 was truly inspirational and sadly, heartbreaking knowing she wasn't able to do so.

It was my close connection with my mom and her family that caused a rift with my dad. As I've grown and matured, I've begun to understand how much that rift has caused my dad to be upset that he doesn't have a better relationship with my brother and myself. For a while, my dad and I didn't speak, and he actually didn't find out about my mom's death until two years after she had passed. To this day, he is heartbroken, both at the fact that he found out so late and that he wasn't able to say goodbye to the woman he still loves.

Divorce is always a tough situation and it is one of the worst things to happen for children of a young age. I certainly didn't have the full understanding of why it happened (and still don't to this day) and with parents who act like children through a divorce as they battle it out, it's the children who come out as the losers. I don't blame my mom for what what her and her side of the family did during the divorce - they were protecting their own. But sadly, what they took away from me and my brother with their actions was getting to know and be closer with my dad and his family.

Some of my earliest memories have been happier moments with my grandmother (my Ahma - or my dad's mom) who has made me her favourite since the day that I was born. Whenever I go back to Taiwan, she and I always go for lunch and she tells me stories about what I used to do as a child - always the attention seeker, but always well behaved. Her stories help conjure up hidden memories of when I was 3 or 4 years old and how she took me to her mahjong games and to temple. But I've always wondered how many other memories I could have had if everything worked out between my parents.

When I heard my family's voice over the phone last Sunday, I couldn't help to think about what's left for me here in Toronto. Everyone on my mom's side of the family is gone - my uncle, grandfather, mom and grandmother have all passed. I only have my brother, who's doing great at U of Guelph, and my aunt is in Los Angeles. It wasn't until speaking to my aunt about my plans to travel that I started getting a quiver in my voice when speaking about how sad I am that there's really no one left here except for my brother and I. It was a hard truth to face, that all this time, one of the reasons why I was unhappy was that I felt so alone and apart from my kin.

Their photos and love from across the Pacific reinforces my decision to take off and spend more time with them. I've only been back to Taiwan four times since my family immigrated here. Each time was only for a week or two, barely enough to connect and understand that there are so many other people who love me, half a world away. I am so grateful for this chance to be able to go back, this time for a long period of time. I will laugh, eat and drink with them and try to catch up on all of those memories I haven't been able to capture until this point in my life. I cannot wait to see my Ahma again, who at close to 80 years of age and with 3 surgeries under her belt this year, is as spry as I am. I cannot wait for the chance to go to Tibet with my dad and one of my uncles, and have them point out random, crazy facts they know because it makes them feel happy doing so.

Wow...that was a lot to share - I think there are things in this posts my closest and best friends don't even know. I hope to share more of my fun times with you about my family in my adventures this year. Like everything since 2012 started, this blog has been difficult to write - tears were shed, it's been edited several times and time was spent flipping through old photo albums. I hope all of you take the time to appreciate those family members around you, who have added so much to your life experience to this point and take the time in this year of the Dragon to connect with those you haven't had the chance to. Take this opportunity before the chance to do so slips away.