maryknoll sisters

Had a darn good outing Sunday.

The plan was simple, out to a Chinese delicacy restaurant in LA for brunch with two couples, a stroll in Huntington Library, then a visit to and dinner with some Catholic nuns who had spent their lifetime in Taiwan and recently retired to Monrovia, a little town in the foothills of San Gabriel Valley.

That Chinese delicacy restaurant is an offshoot of a famous noodle-and-dumpling place from Taiwan, 鼎泰豐 (Din Tai Fung Dumpling House). I remember being there once when it first opened shop here in Arcadia 10-15 years ago, and now it has added another site right next to it, and is doing great business apparently--it opens at 10:30, and scores of people were waiting around the front door already when we arrived there around 10:20.

The food was actually pretty good--better than what we remember it was 10-15 years ago. The dumplings were tiny but finely made and tasted delicious, whether it's pork, shrimp, or veggie inside; the chicken soup and hot oil wonton were wonderful too; and the sweet dumplings with red bean or taro pastry inside served as great dessert substitute at the end. The service was exceptional as well (the son of the 鼎泰豐 founder comes in daily and manages this site himself, they say), and the setting and decoration was bright and shiny, unlike some Chinese restaurants that may serve great food but in a dim and dingy environment.

Huntington Library is another place we had visited yet the last time we were there was some 10-15 years ago. It's the same old grand mansions and beautiful gardens as before--like the fine art collections inside, good, valuable things don't grow old, they just grow more gracious with time, like our wives. I felt a bit sentimental when I reminisced one time my parents were here with me, and now they are both gone. We strolled through the gardens, then went inside the mansions and galleries to see all the fine things Mr. Huntington left us. One thing new I found is they now provide audio ear pieces for exhibit guides. I took advantage of that and learned the stories and details behind the paintings, furniture, and artifacts in a more efficient and enjoyable way than the many times I had been here before.

We also visited the new Chinese garden for the first time. Not too impressed, though. The bricks looked so new and tidy; the poles and gazebo too faux; and the overall scenery just seemed barren and without charm. When leaving it and returning to the main campus, I couldn't help but had a surreal feeling that we were leaving a wild New World (China) and entering an elegant Old World (America). Call it ironic, or maybe symbolic of the new economic powerhouse China coming to upstage old guard capitalist America nowadays. 

After a layback chat at the court yard outside the gallery hall under the mellow late afternoon sun, we headed out for the final and main destination of the day: the Maryknoll Sisters' retirement compound in Monrovia.

Briefly, Maryknoll Sisters (http://www.mklsisters.org/) is a Catholic missionary organization founded about 100 years ago in New York State. They are the first US based Catholic nuns group devoted to serving overseas. The 3 sisters we were visiting, Pauline, Andree, and Maureen, now in their late 70s and 80s, all spent the majority of their lives living and serving in Taiwan, and speak fluent Hakka, Taiwanese, and Mandarin. Shining, the girl who arranged this meeting for us, knew them since she was a little girl in south Taiwan when her mom, a devoted Catholic, acquainted them through the work they did together. She had visited them a few times here since she came to the US and knew their whereabout, but this is the first time for us. 

We met them at the parking lot of the retirement compound. After a jolly, open hearted welcome greeting from both sides, we took them to a nearby Taiwanese cuisine restaurant for dinner. Pauline, 87, the oldest of them all, was from North Dakota. Her ancestors were German farmers on Russian land when they were evicted out of there and came settling in America a couple generations ago. She was born Catholic and committed herself to the Maryknoll Sisters congregation when 18. She came to China when she was 23, got jailed by the communist party and kicked out of the country 3 years later. She then came to Taiwan and spent 53 years there, until she retired a couple of years ago.  

Maureen is 79, the youngest one, and was from Georgia State, a Catholic family of 7 children, with a bit French ancestry on her mother's side and a bit Irish from her father's. Like Pauline, she committed herself to the congregation at a young age, and was assigned to Taiwan in 1964, and had since lived and worked there until retiring a couple years ago. I asked what she remembers most about her life in Taiwan, she said during the early 70's, when many young people worked away from home in factories nearby Hsin-Chu where she was stationed, she helped organize a support group for them, along with some Catholic priest, providing living quarters and giving life guidance to them, etc., for over 10 years.

Talking to these old, sweet sisters, you don't hear any boastful things or tall tales from them, though I am sure they have lots of great stories to tell for their life long services in Taiwan. All you get is a sense of peace and contentment, the loving smiles and gentle voices. They are truly humble and happy with what they do for the Lord, I must conclude.  

And, as I commented to them, though I am from Taiwan, 53 years old (probably born a couple years after Sister Pauline first came to Taiwan), I spent my past 29 years in the US, meaning I had only lived in Taiwan for 24 full years, way less than the 40 and 50 plus years these sisters have lived among and done for the Taiwanese people. "You are more Taiwanese than I," I said to them, only half jokingly.

God bless these dear sweet lady angels,

* To read Sister Pauline reflecting on her life long services in Taiwan:

http://www.maryknollsisters.org/catholic-mission/index.php/community/missioners/192-Sister%20Pauline%20Sticka

g. k. chesterton

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) is an influential and prolific Christian writer of early 20th Century England. He's close to intellectuals and artists of his days such as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde and Bertrand Russell and an ardent Christian faith defender. One classic book of his that affects many Christian thinkers to come--one of them none other than C. S. Lewis, another great prolific Christian writer of latter half 20th Century--describes how he came from a pagan and agnostic youth to developing a personal, positive philosophy that turned out to be orthodox Christianity, hence the title "Orthodoxy."

I bought the book almost 6 months ago and never really had time to read it until recently. It is not a page-turner I'll say. It's brain twisting and highly intellectual, if the not-so-plain writing style hasn't mixed you up already. Yet you sense the deep thoughts and sharp wits and great humor right beneath, that he's trying to explain things serious and legitimate in a fun and paradoxical way. I began to enjoy it half way through the book, and going back sometimes to earlier chapters for second reading gave me more pleasure and better understanding than the first time around.

In Chapter Two, titled "The Maniac," for example, he argues the definition of what is sane and what is insane like this: 

There is a notion that imagination, especially mystic imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance... but imagination does not breed insanity, exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do... Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion... The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

And "the madman's explanation of a thing is always complete and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory... that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large... There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions."

Then he explains why materialist philosophy is so limiting even though it claims to be liberating from God/spiritual dominant thinking:

The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle... The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as the sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen... even a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane.

On egotism: It is possible to meet the skeptic who believes that everything began in himself... those seekers after the Superman who are always looking for him in the looking-glass, those writers who talk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life for the world, all these people have really only an inch between them and this awful emptiness.

In conclusion: "This chapter is purely practical and is concerned with what actually is the chief mark and element of insanity; we may say in summary that it is reason used without root, reason in the void. The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end." What then keeps men sane? "Mysticism keeps men sane... The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic... He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them... The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say "if you please" to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness."

He then uses some symbolism and analogy to explain the difference between Buddhism and Christianity: Buddhism is centripetal (向心), but Christianity is centrifugal (離心): it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed forever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms forever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.

"The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers." I really like that!

* Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches and weighing around 290 lb. On one occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw: "To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England." Shaw retorted, "To look at you, anyone would think you have caused it."