A Friday afternoon with mother Hsiao

PREFACE TO "A Friday Afternoon With Mother Hsiao"

Mother Hsiao passed away on January 12th, 2009. I attended her memorial service at Saint Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Redondo Beach, California on January 17th. She was honored, praised, and remembered with love, respect and fond memory by her family, friends, and people who had received her help. When Peggy asked me whether I, who had the honor and pleasure to know her mother, would write an article in remembrance of mother Hsiao, this writing jumped into my mind instantly. I respectfully dedicate this work to late Mother Hsiao and her family.

Peggy was devastated when her father, Dr. Hwachyuan Hsiao slipped into coma in his sleep on June 27, passed away six days later on July 3 at age 92. After the funeral, she wrote a moving, heartfelt account of his passing, how everyone in her family survived the loss, and how they celebrated his life. Peggy has such a a stout heart and is such a caring soul that in her grief her only concern was the well-being of her mother and her family.

I met Peggy in Hopping church when I was away from home to college in Taipei. At age 18, I didn't know a thing about the world, didn't know how to take care of myself, was very confused and very unhappy, and was very much homesick as I was never left home before that. I struggled through most of my college years, got invited to Hopping church, though I stayed there until graduation I didn't quite grip the significance of the role and work that the Hsiao's family served for the church.

It was when I had an acute episode of diarrhea that Dr. Hsiao treated me free of charge and Isa took me into her home for care that planted the seed of my friendship with Peggy, to my delight, that got developed years later in America, and to my regret, that I didn't have the chance to develop it with Isa.

After Graduate School in the early 1980's, I took my first job at Hamilton Sundstrand, an aerospace company, in Rockford, Illinois. In the meantime, Peggy's husband did his residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison medical center. I got reconnected with Peggy then and visited her often as it's only an hour drive from Rockford to Madison.

Two years later, I took an offer with American Airlines, relocated to its technology center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I lost contact with Peggy until in 1986 when her husband started his practice in Southern California, and Fireman's Fund offered to move me to its headquarter in San Rafael, a lovely town north of Golden Gate Bridge. We met once again when I drove down to LA in the Spring of 1987.

As it often happened in life that people meet, go different ways as life demands cares that leave little time and energy for anything else, then reunite again by divine intervention. I lost contact with Peggy again until in the Autumn of 2004 when my second-cousin Shirley invited me to her church retreat in Southern California over the Labor Day long weekend. I didn't know that Peggy and Shirley have been attending the same church, Peggy didn't know Shirley and I were related, and Shirley didn't know that Peggy and I had known each other since I was 18. What a wonderful reunion! I was ecstatic! Since then, whenever I was down in LA, be for leisure of for business, I paid visits to Peggy's parents in Torrence.

I sent my condolence to mother Hsiao when Dr. Hsiao passed away, spoke with her over the phone a few weeks later. When Peggy told me that her mother was coming up north to Palo Alto to stay with her daughter and son-in-law (Bernice & Wenjai) during the last week of August, I called Bernice to plan my visit with them in a Friday afternoon.

Mother Hsiao, Bernice, and Wenjai received me warmly when I got to Palo Alto. Seeing mother Hsiao, my heart ached as I did when seeing my own Mom after the passing of my Dad in 2005. From my Mom, I understand how trying it is for woman who lost her beloved husband of more than sixty years. I just wanted to do something to cheer her up, to spoil her, just like I have been doing for my Mom.

I inquired about her health, made a fuss of her needing to gain a few pounds, just trying to find something that I could do for her. To my surprise, Mother Hsiao took my hand, walked over to the dinning table, sat down with me side by side, started inquiring me about how I have been doing, about my family, and about my marital status, the one thing that I don't talk too much about. Obviously, she cares! even in her own grief! So, I started showing her the pictures that I took for my nephew's wedding in Taiwan in May on my digital camera. I was so animated, happily explaining the scenes and people in the pictures, thought that it would be entertaining to her. But I wonder now whether I did the right thing then.

Mother Hsiao also talked about the events that led to the passing of her late husband, how they met, the obstacles that they had to overcome to get married, how they worked hard in their life together, her outstanding children and grandchildren, the joy of having great-grandchildren, and of her concern for her son's family since her late daughter-in-law passed away last year. As a matriarch of the big Hsiao's family, she cares about everyone while still grieving quietly in silence, thought I. I couldn't help admiring her for her strength and her deep faith in God.

Time went fast, two hours had passed since I arrived. Her granddaughter Janet took a picture of mother Hsiao and me, and the fruit tart that we all enjoyed very much.

I lingered a little longer speaking with Bernice and Wenjai, had a 20-minute chair massage, visited their yard, finally bade my farewell, mother Hsiao took my hand and walked me over to my car.

Driving home to San Rafael, the image of mother Hsiao and what she said kept playing back vividly in my mind. What an amazing lady she is!

Reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina is the second of two masterpieces written by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. His first vast work is War and Peace. With The Cossacks, Barnes & Noble included these three novels, complete and unabridged, in its Library of Essential Writers Series published in 2007. I just finished reading Leo Tolstoy last week, Anna Karenina is my first reading of his works.

In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy started with the most quoted line in literary world, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.", which I first saw in my youth without knowing where it was originated. This quote leads readers into a web of complicated love, relationships, families, the moral transgressions and the violations of social norm of Russian high society in the nineteenth-century, and in consequence the tragic death of Anna.

Anna Karenina was unhappily married to Alexei Karenin, fell madly in love with Alexei Vronsky, left her husband and son for Vronsky, gave birth to an illegitimate baby girl by Vronsky, despised by Vronsky's mother, and shunned by her friends in the high society. In the end, she threw herself down a train track, killed, when she perceived that her love for Vronsky was misplaced.

Prince Stephen (Stiva) Oblonsky, Anna's brother, was instrumental in obtaining a favorable divorce term from Alexei Karenin for his sister without much success. Stephen was married to Darya (Dolly) and cheated on his wife throughout most of their marriage. Darya chose to stay for the sake of their children, though unhappy yet secured a respectful position in the society. Darya was sympathetic and very kind to Anna while she was in an agony of despair for her position and was shunned by the society.

A sharp contract to the violent death of Anna was the joyous, honest and solid relationship of Levin and Kitty, who was Darya's youngest sister. Kitty rejected the proposal from Levin when she first met and fell in love with Count Alexei Vronsky. When she learned that Anna and Vronsky were together, she became very ill, went through a deep spiritual transformation, finally accepted Levin who always loved her. They lived a family life in the country, in sync with the social properties as understood by the nineteenth-century Russian high society.

If literature imitates life and the sociopolitical environment at the time of witting, Tolstoy definitely was the master in his time. I was awed by his ability to weave so many complex characters and events into seamless plots in the novel.

My copy of Anna Karenina is 832 pages long and it took me six weeks to read it during my daily commutes on the ferry from Marin to San Francisco in the months of April and May. This novel served me very well as my crash course into Tolstoy's works as it became easier for me to read his War and Peace later. I probably will read it again when I have all the time in the whole world in my retirement.

Library thing

When my collection of books couldn't fit into the bookcase, they were all over the house and in the boxes. For a long time, I kept thinking that some of them must go, those that I won't read again, and I needed to get a new bookcase, preferably one with glass doors to keep the dust off.

I also wanted to catalog them so that I know when I acquire them, what I have read, what waiting to be read, how I feel about a specific book and the author's writing style, and so forth.

With these two aims in mind, during the Christmas holiday last year, I started shopping for a new bookcase cabinet, finally I settled on the Curio Cabinet in the Townhouse collection from Ethan Allen.

But how am I going to catalog them? I didn't want to use the old-fashioned Excel spreadsheet with its limited functionalities as it has to be stored on a hard drive in my home computer. I wanted a Web application that is accessible from anywere with rich functionalities. The technologist side of me knew there must be something available with Web 2 technology, so I searched the Net. Sure enough, there are quite few web sites offer the services, but I chosed the LibraryThing for its library-quality catalog and its capacity to connect me with people who read the same books.

Now the fun part began, I sorted out all my books into different piles, sent Salvary Army 6 shopping bags of books, and started adding books into my library. As of today, I cataloged 108 books and I am not done yet.

I have the entire collection of Library of Essential Writers published by Barnes & Noble since 2006. It's a collection of classic masterpieces by 28-writers, dated back to the 17th century, whose writings had not only greatly influenced generations of readers and writers, but also had profoundly impacted the Western clutures. It's my goal to read them all, and I found out that I am not alone through LibraryThing.

LibraryThing was developed by Tim Spalding in 2005. The online bookseller AbeBooks bought a 40% share of it in May 2006 for an undisclosed sum, and subsequently in July 2008, the world largest online retailer amazon.com acquired AbeBooks.