A certain memory passes through, only to tumble down the cascades of clouds…

The memory flies over a pond in that uncaptured moment before the earth acquires colour. The pond remains washed over in a classic grey coating of a refined photograph…as if reminiscing its original Way that once was the most elegant dream. It is the pond’s marsh-home that allows it to experience cyclical reflections of its elegant origin…the eternal song of “once and again”…and just as both sides of the heavenly gateway share each other’s substance as if mirror and ungraspable air were interchangeable, the pond’s surface reflects all that passes over it without the construction of spaces in-between.

A light trail of lily leaves spreads itself upon the pond’s surface into a crescent path of heart-shaped petals…spontaneously adored paper cuts freshly placed upon an endlessly rippling glass sheet. They appear to be in love with their individuality far too much to be stacking over each other in the way forest leaves do…floating close without the complications of entanglement, much like the longest lasting friendships.

The language of the skies never blankets over the same page of earth and air twice. No wonder the mind restless to cling onto constructs of solidity only falls into its own prison of insecurities…when in all ultimate Emptiness, the true comfort can be found in gently observing the immaterial cascades of clouds…

* I love writing about philosophy, spirituality, and cross-cultural issues. So if anyone wants any essays/articles on such subjects or on related subjects, I would love to write them for you. Please contact me at lalipanilubol45@gmail.com

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Thank you.

I feel like I have lost my best friend. Circumstances, both mine and his, have been cruel to me. I always wonder how Countryboy is doing, how life is treating him, is he eating well, sleeping well, how is he coping with the stresses of his work…and of course, I wonder if he misses me at all, amidst all the chaos that he may find himself in from time to time. Does he miss my cooking? Does he miss my teas and chocolates? Does he miss my companionship, my counsel, and my constant care for him throughout all the secret hours that we spent together…if I am to look forward to having that time with him again, it may have to be in the afterlife. For in this physical life, waiting for him is simply not an option.

No man in my life has ever had this much power over me. Absolutely none. Even the men in my family, young and old, have never had the tiniest fraction of this kind of power over me.

Before I met Countryboy, I had always been proud of the very fact that the opinions of men had never once determined my attitudes, my values, and my body image. Never in my wildest dreams would I fashion my appearance to please men. Never would I make myself polite, submissive, or even sweet-natured to please men. I never allowed fakery and pretense to contaminate my character. Honesty has always been my code of honour.

And I still hold to such a grounded position to this day. Even in my selection of male friends, I still hold to the principle that I only associate with ‘nice men’. The slightest trace of bastardliness would instantly cut them off my list of gentlemen friends. As I said, I don’t think my standards are too high at all, because I have met them.

However, it was when I met Countryboy that I came to know how it felt to truly desire to make a man happy. Wanting to make him happy was helplessly spontaneous…nature’s command. It was involuntary in a sense, very intensely driven by that uncontrollable force called ‘love’. It wasn’t so much that I threw ‘caution’ to the wind. Countryboy was a very good man, so there was nothing to be ‘cautious’ about. What I threw to the wind was not ‘caution’, but ‘logic’. It is not ‘logical’ to fall in love with someone whom you know for certain you could never have a future with. Still, it happened.

At the end of the day, it does not matter to me so much how faithful the TVB series is to the original novel by Liang Yusheng. For I am sure the series is the product of a brilliant collaboration between everyone involved: imperfect people creating a television series about other imperfect people of another time and space — characters larger than the imagination, inhabiting an alternative Universe where the beauty of tradition is woven into clans and secret societies like an epic multi-dimensional tapestry, where love at first sight determines the fates of those brave souls who believe unwavering, where lives are saved and destroyed by the most elegant martial arts and gravity-defying choreographies, and where love, duty, and honour are all one and the same…inseparable, meshed ever so intricately. I am of an ardent position that the most magnificent works of art are divinely inspired. The Hong Kong TVB series “The Romance of the White-haired Maiden” is certainly one of them.

Watching, studying, and writing about this series and its associated themes have taught me that there are very few souls in this physical world who can endure the torture of secrecy — for it is the nature of love to be expressed, not withheld. However if you find yourself confined to such a secrecy, you must make solitude your dearest friend. In solitude, that love will be expressed in endless floods of tears. And solitude will never judge. Solitude can only embrace you lovingly as you cry away sleepless nights, even as your stomach feels like it is being ripped apart from your inability to eat anything for days and days on end. The pain of a secret love has the most paralysing effect. Nothing could ever prepare you for it.

To those who share the same Fate as mine, you will survive that secrecy. Life will continue to flow forward with Grace. And I will tell you how I know that for sure. You will survive that secrecy, with indescribable dignity, because you have been “chosen”. As I said, there are very, very few souls in this world that can endure the circumstantial restrictions forbidding the confession of such a tremendous, uncontrollable force of love.

If you give up altogether, forsaking what your heart has helplessly taken on, then it was NEVER love to begin with. If it can be forsaken that easily, then it was only infatuation, NOT love. You must remember that the purest love is a mission, a divine calling…which is why it would never take root in a fast-food throw-away popular culture that treats relationships — romantic or otherwise — like superficial experiments, to be dismissed and rejected whenever inconveniences arise.

True love is not an earthly rose, for the fragrance of an earthly rose eventually fades with the withering of its host. True love is actually a heavenly rose, for a heavenly rose does not wither with the passing of time, and its fragrance never fades. Whatever laws govern the earthly realm, the heavenly realm transcends such laws. Which is why true love may not actually be of the linear earthly realm, as it clearly transcends earthly laws. The earthly realm is subject to evolution brought about by the effects of time. True love is timeless.

As I said, the most secret kind of love is perhaps one of the most sacred…the highest nobility. In so being, to love someone secretly is to embrace an entire bush of heavenly roses. And most certainly, it comes with the greatest cost, the greatest pain. For embracing the most gloriously fragrant bush of heavenly roses also means embracing the sharpest, longest thorns attached to it. If you are one of the rare souls “chosen” to helplessly take on the most secret kind of love, do you have any other choice but to stand the test?

I say this not because I want to brag about being “chosen” and what not. Really. I’m not the kind of person to brag about being torturously spellbound by love, as absurdly romantic as it may sound. If you fall into a situation where you have to keep your love secret, you would instantly come to a realisation that it is absolutely nothing to brag about. It is love that becomes your ultimate source of authority, which is why it should actually be a humbling experience. You would in fact feel ever so small and vulnerable precisely because of the immense power that love has over you. Nothing to be done. Timelessly irreversible.

“The Romance of the White-haired Maiden” ends ambiguously. Lian Nichang has yet to forgive her husband. Zhuo Yihung faithfully sits by the mountain pond, watching over the Yao-taan flower in the hopes that it will one day bloom and blossom, releasing its medicinal properties to heal his wife, to save his soul. In the ending scene, the heartbroken wife watches her awaiting husband from a nearby plateau. From such a distance, she stands ever so high above him, much like a goddess in deep consideration of her worshipper. I so wish there was a sequel. There hasn’t been one yet, as far as I know. However, if there is ever to be a sequel, I too shall await it, just like Zhuo Yihung who awaits the blossoming of his sacred flower.

Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?

~ Rumi

Paper Lily

19 August 2011

And so, she decides to go to a cave and live in seclusion, still leading the lifestyle of a saviour of the poor and victimised, killing off the wicked and corrupt, tyrannical feudal lords, rapists, those who abuse defenceless women, children, and the elderly, those who oppose her ideas of justice. She still takes it upon herself to uphold all the justice and goodness of the world, considering that the legal system of the time is generally useless. She becomes the most famous hermit in the region, a heroine among the oppressed and disadvantaged.

Zhuo Yihung comes to discover a mysterious flower called “Yao-taan” that has the power to turn white hair black again. Hidden away in a mountain valley, the flower grows in a bubbling pond covered in thick swirling mist. However, its healing properties can only be put into use when it blooms and blossoms. And this flower only blooms once in a decade, or it could well be over a decade. The waiting, the patience involved could become torturous.

Of course, as Fate would have it, Zhuo Yihung finds his wife again. Yet this time, despite his incessant begging for forgiveness, she remains indifferent. Her white hair signifies the pain that remains activated deep in her heart after episode upon episode where her husband could not embrace and protect her as he had promised on their wedding night. Each time he finds her, under whatever circumstances, he would try to win her back. Again and again, she would reject and escape him, setting off abruptly by flight and speed. Even after his attempts to persuade her that the Yao-taan flower will heal her, she remains under the intense conviction that physical wounds may heal, but emotional wounds do not. At least, not hers.

I don’t want to retain that metaphorical white hair with me; I am too young to be carrying around that metaphorical white hair, even though it may only be metaphorical. I may not be able to get rid of all the pain I have been through. Yet, I believe I am empowered enough to dilute the pain. My physical reality and my emotional reality must align as harmoniously as possible. That is my intention. Forgetting is impossible. Detachment remains a possibility.

In this physical reality, I could never be with Countryboy, as I was from the beginning forbidden by my morals and principles. There was no way that I could live with his baggage — baggage that is unchangeable and ever-present. Nor would I ever dream of changing that very fact of his life. For without that baggage, he would not be who he is now.

I have accepted it. His life and mine could never join together in the way that the most devoted birds make their nest. I knew it from the moment I met him — the silhouette of an emotionally worn out middle-aged man coming to open the glass door of his house especially to greet me for the first time in our lives. I had accepted it even before I knew it. When he opened that glass door, my Fate was sealed.

Now, even my dreams of being his make-belief wife are momentary ethereal pleasures that I must detach from. For the past 3 years, I have been telling myself to stay as grounded in reality as possible. I kept telling myself that “One day, I will marry someone else. One day, I will have babies with someone else”. And those 7 weeks when I was living next door to Countryboy would become ghostly remnants of my long-lost past.

Of course, telling myself over and over that if I ever do get married, it has to be with someone else, not Countryboy — that really has not helped. The fact that Countryboy was never an option for me to begin with was a fact of life that I had completely accepted from the first moment I met him. Yet the thought of potentially being with another man remains a mental and emotional difficulty. I have now come to a conclusion that it is no use trying to replace the past with the future. Countryboy and whoever it is that I potentially end up marrying are 2 completely different people, divergent as the sweet and the savoury.

Before I met Countryboy, I used to think that the only valid reason I would get married is to have children. And I still do think that way, generally. However, does that not sound so ironic? Story of my life really…ironies.

For as logic would have it, to marry someone especially to have children is to assess the suitability of my prospective husband by way of the checklist method: does he fulfil this and that criteria? Does he meet such and such requirements? In my case, I really don’t think my standards are too high at all because I have myself met them without question.

Not that I mean to brag about my level of intelligence (I am normally quite a modest person); however I really think it quite silly (and in the long term, stupid) to marry someone whose levels of intelligence and morality are too far below mine. And there are great benefits to selecting a potential husband by carefully weighing up the pros and cons, and especially by asking the all-important question: what kind of a father would he be? I do not understand women who end up marrying bastards, not that I expect other women to be exercising my kind of method in their selection process. Afterall, these things are highly personal.

Yet how ironic could it possibly be for me?!! Falling completely and helplessly in love with Countryboy was possibly the most illogical thing that could happen to me. For why on earth would one even look twice at someone whom one knows with absolute certainty that the object of one’s uncontrollable affection is not even a possible compatibility, both by way of lifestyle and by way of certain permanent fixtures in his life that completely conflict with my own values?!! Now, just writing down such a complicated sentence does not even make sense! The sentence structure doesn’t quite make sense. The content definitively doesn’t make sense! So that’s it! This whole thing has been completely senseless!

And I will tell you another instance of ridiculous irony that will always stay with me, although Countryboy may have already forgotten about it as it would not have meant the same thing to him. He told me once that if I ever have trouble dealing with my children and their mischiefs as they are growing up, call him up he told me, and he will give me advice. I could not help thinking: “Yes, children that I will have with someone else, not with you”. And it weighed heavily on my heart. As time passed by, that emotional weight turned into intense pain, until the time came when I felt I was about to collapse because of it. I miss him from the bottom of my soul. And by Heavens, I wish he knew…just how much…

There are such a vast range of reasons as to why love may have to be kept secret. Forbidding circumstances are a common thread weaving through all such reasons. Morals. Principles. Boundaries. Yet even if circumstances permit, there is the question of…is the object of your love ‘ready’ to hear your grand confession? What will happen to your friendship if you do confess? Will you lose them as a friend? I certainly did not want to lose Countryboy as a friend. In any case, he would not have been ready to hear my confession. I must admit that I had in fact fallen helplessly in love with a man who is not quite as spiritually mature as I, even though his physical age is 21 years ahead of me.

After everything I have been through, I am now of a position that love confined to secrecy must be one of the most sacred kinds of love. To love someone from the bottom of your soul, and not be able to tell them for reasons beyond your control, that is a curse and a blessing together. The curse is that the crying may never stop. It may become less and less frequent as time passes by. Yet there is no guarantee that it will stop altogether. The wound burns so intensely like a volcano exploding at the core of an iceberg.

The blessing is that the purest love endures throughout the most unbearable pain and suffering. As cruelly as the pain and despair of the secrecy rage on as though they are determined to torture the fabric of your soul to collapse, the purity of that love will transcend all. Despite being wounded by a thousand blades, the heart that carries the purest love rises like a balloon sailing gracefully through an embracing sea of clouds that remains a finely vapourous blanket — soothing, nurturing, and renewing itself even while immediately below it, the volcano of pain explodes uncontrollably.

A forced marriage with another woman does not sway a good man’s faithfulness towards the one wife of his choice. That is something that we the audience would never have to fear. Zhuo Yihung’s unwavering loyalty towards Lian Nichang is more than admirable. It is actually an exceptionally rare quality for people in general.

As societal beings, we are exposed to societal indoctrination from birth. And that indoctrination, the overwhelming nature of social pressures, can sway even the most devoted of souls however determined they may be to serve their higher purpose. Zhuo Yihung’s indoctrination dictates him to lead his Wudang sect and divorce himself from Lian Nichang. Yet as torn apart as he is, despite all misunderstandings that could have destroyed his love for her, his intention to follow her to the ends of the Earth remains constant…in the end.

Bai Ur-hua is such an innocent young girl with the purest, kindest heart. Considering that she and Zhuo Yihung are forced to marry by the Emperor’s orders, Bai Ur-hua ironically ends up doing Lian Nichang a great service simply by understanding Zhuo Yihung’s undying faithfulness towards the courageous woman whom the Jianghu mainstream has always condemned as a savage demoness. Bai Ur-hua makes an agreement with Zhuo Yihung before entering the marriage that she intends to be like a sister to him, not a wife. It is to be their secret. Wudang and the rest of Jianghu society do not need to know of their agreement to make this forced marriage merely one of external appearances in obedience to the Emperor’s command. They will take care of each other as brother and sister; and indeed she has absolutely no intention to steal him away from Lian Nichang.

So what kind of a father would in the end kill his own daughter only for the sake of preserving his academy’s grand reputation? An urgent situation arises where Wudang’s people are endangered by an old enemy, and Lian Nichang travels to Wudang to save the day. She intends to use this opportunity to confront Zhuo Yihung about his marriage to Bai Ur-hua. In a private moment while he is alone with his daughter, Bai Su in desperation centres the most destructive energy within him upon the palm of his hand. And with that lethal hand he directs his cruel intent upon his daughter’s back, like the most violent piercing of the organs without splitting the outer skin, causing her to vomit blood and wounding her internally; her insides are destroyed beyond recovery. His plan is to accuse Lian Nichang of harming his daughter, especially so that Zhuo Yihung would misunderstand the woman he is still in love with, thinking that she is absolutely evil, and then he would forget her in an instant. Bai Ur-hua, barely alive in a paralysed state, obeys her father’s plan and leads Zhuo Yihung to believe that it was Lian Nichang who had harmed her with a murderous intent. Sure enough at that stage, Zhuo Yihung does not suspect that Bai Su could possibly use his own daughter as a tool for his own manipulative purposes in the cruellest way.

Heart-broken, Zhuo Yihung points his blade at Lian Nichang, asking her why in the world she had to harm such an innocent, loving soul as Bai Ur-hua. Lian Nichang insists that she never laid a hand on Bai Ur-hua, and never had anything to do with her other than speaking to each other. She looks into her husband’s eyes and assures him that she is telling the truth: never in her life has she ever hurt Bai Ur-hua.

Then by complete accident, the point of Zhuo Yihung’s blade cuts into the area just below Lian Nichang’s shoulder blade, near her heart in fact. He is frozen in shock as he holds his sword towards her, in utter disbelief that he had just cut into his wife’s flesh. Lian Nichang looks at her husband in absolute horror. She utters those brief yet monumental words that no woman as devoted as herself should ever have to say to her own husband:

“Are you really set upon killing me?”

Her husband has betrayed her for Wudang. That is a finality that for her is absolutely irreversible. Zhuo Yihung remains numb from shock, still holding his sword at her like a drained robot. Lian Nichang finally performs the legendary act that ultimately expresses the unbearable breaking of her heart. With the point of her husband’s blade still cutting into her flesh below her shoulder blade, she pushes herself upon the blade so that it penetrates straight through her back! One could easily think that she means to commit suicide! In that state of violent penetration, she gazes into her husband’s eyes, the pain of betrayal pouring forth like the most tyrannical force crushing both their hearts. She then pulls herself off and away from the blade that has penetrated her, her blood spilling and splashing onto the stone walls. She turns and leaves him in that crushed state between shock and paralysis. Following that torturous episode, Zhuo Yihung has an emotional breakdown amidst all the external cruelty that has gripped itself so forcefully upon his love for Lian Nichang.

Sure enough, Bai Ur-hua does not recover from the internal damage that her own father inflicted upon her. Just before she dies, she confesses to Zhuo Yihung that it was her father, not Lian Nichang, who destroyed her fragile body now in a state that is about to part from its life force, especially so that the Wudang leader would come to see the bandit outlaw as evil and manipulative. After fits of regret and sorrow, Zhuo Yihung leaves behind all the rank and status that Wudang had bestowed upon him. He becomes a nomad, looking far and wide for the love of his life…seeking, hoping, praying to win her back.

Finality. Yes. These past several weeks have led up my final attempts to shed away that most painful compartment of my heart. I don’t know yet if such attempts will amount to any success. So far, I have managed to detach myself from so much negativity. I wonder if I can be like the cyclical moon, dismembering and disembodying itself in the waning stage, slipping gracefully through the sheathe of the night canvas, shedding its old self, especially to hatch anew making its clean return in the new moon phase. To possess the shedding powers of the serpentine moon would be so wonderful…I can live with memories of Countryboy; I just don’t want to live with the pain of not being able to even be his friend. Bearing around such a pain is too hard for me, even though I have gotten very used to it over the years. I just want to release myself. I want to be free as a bird that has grown new wings.

If there is any metaphorical blood splashed all over the stone walls as is also the case for Lian Nichang, then I think the blood that has spilt from my emotional wounds has now dried. I hope so. There remain the stains. I can live with metaphorical blood stains, reminding me of what I have survived. That is definitely progress. And yet, detaching myself from the uncontrollable love for Countryboy remains an impossibility. I still care for him infinitely, in ways that I never before imagined I could ever be capable of.

Yes, circumstances that have been brought about have changed him so much; I can no longer relate to him like I used to. Since that stringent situation of his had arisen, I could sense that very unpleasant change about him that disturbed me to say the least. It drove us apart. He has never been unkind to me. He is just…brainwashed. That’s the closest description I can come up with. Disconnection may be too drastic a word to describe our relationship; a more accurate analogy would be the tearing apart of the tapestry of friendship that we have woven together over a very long time. There is still hope that the tapestry can be sewn back together. For the time being though, I must accept that it has been torn apart…and live with the rift, just as Lian Nichang must learn to live with the cruellest conditions that have driven her away from Zhuo Yihung. I pray for my constant praying to help me through this.

Today is Countryboy’s birthday. For his past birthdays, I used to send him cards and presents which always delighted him. This time round, I am not doing anything anymore. See, I could never be a wife to him in ‘real life’ as I know it. And so, I used to think of myself as his…make-belief wife…an imaginary ethereal wife looking after him in some kind of ‘floating world’. For a time, whether in close presence or over the phone and even email, I gave him all the warmth and nurturing in the world. That role is now over for me.

Enter Master Tia Fei-long who becomes godfather to Lian Nichang. The rituals of swearing — at times with blood or the exchange of precious tokens — to be godparent and godchild, blood brothers and blood sisters…these are sacred bonds that form the bedrock of the vast network of Jianghu cultures. Any wuxia novel, film, and TV series would feature at least some form of ritual swearing where people who are not related by blood forge a sacred alliance that is as strong as blood, as strong as family. And so Lian Nichang, out of instant respect and admiration, becomes goddaughter to Tia Fei-long whose high-profile noble house has acquired a dignified reputation among the Jianghu societies. Master Tia plays the most significant role in the highly complicated relationship between Lian Nichang — the rebel leader feared and hatefully marginalised by the Jianghu mainstream — and Zhuo Yihung, a gentleman of grand position in the Wudang sect — Jianghu’s leading warrior academy.

Upon seeing her so sad, Master Tia asks his goddaughter who in the world had caused her to be so upset and distracted. She tells him her story of her uncontrollable feelings for the warrior who belongs to a world of strict tradition and order, a society that had for a long time branded her as a hideous enemy. Master Tia’s methods of bringing Zhuo Yihung to his home, especially to fulfill his goddaughter’s wishes, are mischievous and drastic to say the least.

He sends two men — highly trained bodyguards by the looks of it — to track down Zhuo Yihung and capture him at the inn he is staying in. Hearing suspicious footsteps outside his room, he instantly awakens as if meditatively holding vigil in his sleep. The men in black enter his room, and he knocks them unconscious within seconds of a simple and elegant fighting sequence involving a humble table. Master Tia enters from behind the man whom he had confidently targeted to be his godson-in-law, and in turn knocks him unconscious.

Zhuo Yihung awakens in a wedding chamber, finding himself in the red silk coat of a groom’s outfit. As he comes out of the bedroom to meet Master Tia whom he already knew from his childhood, Master Tia presents his goddaughter who is wearing the traditional red wedding gown. Lian Nichang openly gives Zhuo Yihung the option of refusing the marriage; no matter what, she has always been on her own, and she has her dignity to preserve. Yet it does not take long at all for Zhuo Yihung to confess his feelings, despite knowing full well that marrying a “bandit” is a punishable violation of the rules of his Wudang academy.

“Nichang, you know that if you become my wife, you will be faced with obstacles and discrimination. Are you not afraid?”

In all honesty, I really would not mind such a spontaneous wedding as theirs. Not that I ever in my life intended to marry Countryboy. Yet if the sacred marriage can only take place in the realm of the imagination, then I would much rather live in my own imagination and ignore the restrictions of the physical reality that has so harshly confined and oppressed my feelings.

Master Tia as their respected elder witnesses Lian Nichang and Zhuo Yihung bowing down to Heaven and Earth as they take their silent vows. On their wedding night, he tells her that he does not want her to be a Jianghu warrior. He does not want to see her killing anyone, no matter how valid the reason. And she genuinely gives the impression that she would gladly make all sacrifices for her husband. If she had ever been cruel towards those she opposed, her husband has now melted that so-called cruelty. To be sure, I completely understand. A woman with any good sense about her cannot resist the one who has melted the hardness and staunchness that she has built up over a lifetime to defend her moral position.

Perhaps I also share the same Fate as Liang Nichang. The only difference is that Zhuo Yihung would certainly come to know how much she would sacrifice for him. And he would continue looking for her to the ends of the Earth. In my case, Countryboy will never know. At least at this stage, I don’t see how he would. I can only suffer in silence. As for the sacrifices, any recognition for them would dissolve away with the floods of tears.

The day after their wedding, the elders of Wudang come to take Zhuo Yihung back to their sect after condemning him as a traitor for marrying an assassin. After a sophisticated fighting sequence between Lian Nichang and the Wudang elders, the injury of one of the elders causes Zhuo Yihung to accidentally injure his new wife. It was an accident for sure. And the physical injury does not matter to her. She returns to her room where her wedding bed is still fresh, heartbroken that her husband seems to care more for his elders than for her well-being. The elders drag him back to the academy. Now that their Old Master has just died, the elders are intent upon trapping Zhuo Yihung into taking on the role of their new leader.

Circumstances. If we approach them from the perspective of the universal law of attraction, it is ultimately the individual who draws circumstances into their own life. What one holds in one’s mind, one draws to one’s life…the essence of what one holds in one’s mind that is. If you want love, give love. In my case, I gave out anger and bitterness for many, many years of my younger life; and now, I am suffering the burning paralysis that is necessary for all such anger to be cleansed from my own heart. The law of attraction operates across dimensions, and nothing in the entire Universe is exempt from its power.

As much as I would like to blame the Fates for the very fact that I met Countryboy all those years back, I have to take responsibility for my own karma. When I was much younger, I had sown the seeds of all the anger and vengeance of my past; and by God I have reaped the consequences. I know now that Countryboy came into my life because the pain and suffering I was made to undergo from crossing paths with him would come to cleanse my soul from so much accumulated negativity…like the flames that condition the metal that is strong and resilient enough to endure…the golden glow of the great burn…beautiful yet torturous, like the harshest instructions of the most precise, the most power-giving sage.

Zhuo Yihung does not mean to hurt his wife. Yet it is his weakness that hurts her over and over. It is not that he wants to let such weaknesses overwhelm the direction of his life. He is merely the victim of a victim consciousness; and we all go through such phases of playing victim, at least at some stage in our lives. The ultimate intent of a well-meaning individual may be pure and loving. It is the consequences. It is unpredictable, the depth of their imprints.

And what could I do? Those 7 weeks when I was living next door to Countryboy were so very short and limiting. Only in my dreams did I want that time to last forever. In physical reality however, I had to move into Edinburgh in September to start my PhD. So all I could do during that time was pray, meditate, and lovingly condition my consciousness. I told the celestial powers that be that I knew I could never be with him. I only wanted to make the most of the precious time I had left with him while I was still living next door to him. I wanted to make him happy. That was all. And I’m sure I did.

Countryboy is a very good man. Good men like him are one in a million. He has never once done anything to hurt me. And I’m sure he never will. I still insist to this day. I knew from the first moment I met him that he was too pure to make anyone victim; quite the contrary, he would be the one falling victim as others take advantage of his purity. Absolutely, he has made terrible mistakes. And strangely enough, I could not bear to judge those mistakes. For I would not love him this much and this deeply if he had nothing to regret in his life.

And yes, he can also be very weak. I have seen it. He is 21 years older than me, yet I do believe that I am in much greater control of my own life than he is of his. I fear for the situation that he has now gotten himself into. His current situation has forced me to cut off my usual contact with him. He does not seem to realise this, as we still email each other on and off. Yet we can no longer talk on the phone for hours and hours at a time like we used to. He has fallen into a controlling situation, and I could psychically sense that ever since I came to know about it. I would say he is brainwashed, in much the same way that Zhuo Yihung is brainwashed by the elders of his Wudang sect. Countryboy has yet to awaken from the habitual patterns that have brought about the confinement of his lifestyle.

Days and days of taking shelter in the same cave do not cause Zhuo Yihung to be even slightly suspicious of the possibility that this 10-year-old girl may be something much more than an orphaned child who only survived the unimaginable deprivations of her childhood because she had been taken in by a mysterious sect that he hardly knows anything about. He simply feels a need to take care of her; and as neither of them have siblings, he instantly considers her to be his little sister. Taking her to the nearby street market, buying clothes and dolls for her, taking her fishing, telling her that he is very fond of her, and even giving her an affectionate name would indeed come quite naturally to him.

There is this particular scene where he makes her bed with straw and dried weeds on a flat piece of rock in the cave where they are both taking shelter. And the 10-year-old girl looks on with innocent admiration. For sure, other adults in her life had looked after her in a similar fashion. Yet it is completely natural that Zhuo Yihung would captivate her spirit without the slightest need for any so-called ‘objective’ analysis of the situation. For this is what happens with ‘soulmates’. The energy fusion is not so much explosive as one would normally expect with passionate romances. It is more like…brown sugar melts…

There was also this once when Countryboy made my bed for me. Of course I could have done it myself. And it was logical that I would prefer to do it myself. He still made my bed for me nonetheless. Which is why that scene made my heart race further than the lightest wind when I watched it for the first time. For I am quite sure now that I looked upon Countryboy in much the same way…without being aware of it at the time.

So when it comes time for the little girl to transform to her normal state, it would necessitate that Zhuo Yihung does not witness it. In meditative trance, she metamorphoses back into her womanly state while he is sleeping. Upon completion of her metamorphosis, she spreads a blanket over him and kneels beside him as he sleeps. She smiles secretly…helplessly perhaps.

I keep rewinding that bit of the DVD, especially to watch that smile over and over. And I can’t help observing…that really is the purest that a woman’s love can possibly be…that smile. Lian Nichang does not even seem to be aware that she is doing it.

And then, suddenly, her awareness comes back to her. It appears that she has come back to that tugging awareness that she has a duty to go back to, her role as leader of the rebels. The Imperial Court had sent soldiers to raid her sect. The raid had forced her to escape while wounded, pushing her to transform into the guise of a little girl to protect herself. Now that she has come back to her senses as a warrior woman, she could no longer spend her days with this gentleman whom she had befriended. And so, she quietly slips away from the cave that they had shared so very happily and peacefully.

I have in the past repeatedly caught myself smiling unaware in much the same way. And didn’t I keep judging myself for it? For I knew from the very beginning that Countryboy and I could never have a future together. It was not even a question of whether I actually wanted to or not. The fact remains that it was never an option.

We were both free and unattached at the time. By societal standards, by moral standards, there should not have been anything stopping me from confessing, especially since I was always alone with him. He said himself that “Maybe I’m destined to be single!”

“And that’s fine!” I said, as positive as ever! Finally, I had found someone who was just as content and peaceful about being unattached as I was. Does that not sound like bliss?

However, there were certain essential elements about his life that were permanent fixtures — unchangeable, irreversible, living, breathing. And it was those very components that conflicted with my own values. For sure, he had done nothing wrong. However, I could never live with the bonds and fixtures that had come to completely and utterly define his life. And if I tried, I could never live with myself. Now that I have been through so much, I remain firm in my principles…that if I had to choose between my conscience and my own heart, I would choose my conscience…always, every time.

So how did it happen? Initially, I tried to avoid him. Quite impossible really. You can’t actually avoid someone you’re living right next door to.

And then, time and time again, we found ourselves coming back home at exactly the same time. It just happened that way. Synchronicity had orchestrated it so perfectly…as if to lure me into submission. And I could not control it. Helpless. Carried away. Spellbound even. And so it was. We began spending more and more time together. It couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t my fault. To this day, I still insist.

Upon sunrise, Zhuo Yihung looks all over for the little girl, yet she is nowhere to be found. He calls out to her in his search. He does not know that Lian Nichang is hiding just around the corner amidst an enclosure of trees, carrying with her the tiny doll that he had given her in her previous state of vulnerable innocence.

He finally realises her true identity after she saves his life from a royal execution. She simply tells him that she is trained in the sensual arts of metamorphosis, and that when she first met him she had regressed into a temporary state of a little girl in order to disguise and protect herself from those who meant to harm her and her sect. He could not help himself from gazing at her, trying to detect the essence of the little girl he had befriended within the warrior woman before him. She had only just performed a sweeping battle on the execution grounds, killing off soldiers and royal guards without so much as a second thought in order to save his life. For him to envision that she had metamorphosed from a young innocent to a specialised killer is quite a stretch to swallow.

Being the blunt and direct personality that she is, she tells him exactly how she feels about him. And he is astonished. For she had disobeyed all the rules of traditional courtship.

Heavens, I am forever envious. That kind of blunt confession was never an option for me. Never. My boundaries were clear. Still are. I have never betrayed my own principles. Of that, I can still be proud. Countryboy and I could never be together. As far as I was concerned, that would have been wrong. Confession would have been pointless, perhaps even destructive. Time and timing seemed to be all muddled up. I felt bullied by forces beyond my control.

What I find fascinating and even refreshing about Lian Nichang is that during the initial stages, she and Zhuo Yihung would exchange rather strange ways of communicating. She’s actually quite rude! I love it! Conventions are useless excesses that she snobbishly throws away by the wayside. Very abruptly, which is her usual style, she would simply disappear out of the blue, regardless of the nature and length of her interaction with Zhuo Yihung.

I would also try to disappear abruptly in much the same way in the beginning when Countryboy and I started…should I say ‘spontaneously bonding’? Because that’s what it was. However, there was this particular instance when I was turning around to leave him at his doorstep, and he would try to hold me back, wanting me to talk to him some more, asking me…yes, asking me…And I simply couldn’t resist. It was so unfair.

I ended up presenting him with luxury teas and exotic chocolates. And after that, night after night, I would stay up waiting for him. He was a workaholic afterall, and his work required him to travel around visiting people’s homes. Sometimes, he even had to drive down to England, he told me once. And so when he got back home, he would make a fire, put the kettle on, and we would talk through much of the night until he would start yawning. We were both night owls, although he needed much more sleep than I did because his work was always so stressful and over-demanding. So when bedtime came, I would go back to my cottage next door. And I would look forward to another night with him where he would tell me about his day and his problems (both personal and professional). The best part was drinking opulent herbal teas that I got at the Edinburgh Food Festival, experimenting with new chocolates, philosophising all sorts, although we never once argued…to this day.

It must have been the shifting heights of nocturnal enchantment. It always felt as though we were the only two people in the Universe…us and the fire before us. Much like them…when they are both trying to restore each other’s souls.

And so, in an instance where Zhuo Yihung is severely wounded and near-dying, Lian Nichang readily performs an energy healing ritual. Through intensive meditation and the power of her hands, she transfers floods of positive energy to his injured body as he remains unconscious. The healing process causes his body to become a vacuum-like receptacle feeding off her wholesome energy, much like a parasite. Yet can this method of healing be considered parasitic, seeing that we know for certain that it is purely motivated by love? After they both recover, he begs her to stay with him, profoundly grateful that she has saved his life all over again. This time, has he now reached the point where he desires to worship her?

As she kisses him ever so tenderly, she bites his lip, making him bleed. She smiles confidently as she says, “So that you will remember me for eternity.” And with that, she turns and leaves him, shocked and trembling.

How did the white-haired maiden lead her life before white hair came to seal her Fate? During the Ming Dynasty in the reign of Emperor Wanli, Lian Nichang is considered a ‘bandit’ by the mainstream Jianghu societies because of her icy ruthlessness in killing off those whom she sees as corrupt and evil. The Imperial Court orders her capture, evidently for her absolute and aggressive disobedience of the legal system at the time — a completely dysfunctional legal system by any standard. She is very much a female equivalent of Robin Hood, robbing from the corrupt rich and distributing their wealth to the poor. As she is also leading her own sect of female warriors — a sect set up especially to rebel against the oppressive bureaucratic system and to radically reform society, she comes to acquire a reputation of savage mystery, certainly an intensely violent revolutionary force that the mainstream system is determined to annihilate at whatever cost.

In the 1995 TVB production of “The Romance of the White-haired Maiden”, Ada Choi (Mandarin name: Chai Sao-fen) takes the title role of Lian Nichang. She was only 20-21 at the time, yet on-screen she clearly looks and acts much older than her age. I only just read that Ada’s mother was a compulsive gambler who had incurred millions in debt. Ada started paying off her mother’s debts since she was 17 with all her earnings. The Wikipedia article that I read does not say whether her mother ever stopped gambling. It just says that because Ada was unable to pay off any further debts, she had to severe relations with her mother.

According to Asian tradition, severing relations with one’s parents would certainly be considered unfilial, even sinful, regardless of the kind of people the parents happen to be. Brainwashing? Certainly. That is the way we have been taught. Asian rules of obedience have always been that rigid and dogmatic.

The parents may be as oppressive and tyrannical as they so choose; the children may be abused physically, mentally, emotionally, and there are even headlines where parents abuse their children so violently that the children die pitifully in the process. And yet, Asian tradition insists upon victimised children worshipping undeserving parents. I have struggled with that my whole life. To those who have never struggled with this contention between tradition and freedom of thought, I am very envious. How unbelievably fortunate to be able to blend such divergences so harmoniously.

And thus, I came to learn how and why Ada Choi on-screen, at only 20, looks and acts much older than she is. The upfront elegance she embodies layers over the complexity of an unknown pain. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to have a compulsive gambler as a mother. It goes to show even further that there are plenty of parents out there who do not deserve to be so. Back in those days when my thinking was much more aggressive than it is now, I used to think that mean and horrible parents, especially parents who are downright cruel to their children, should have been made sterile. And I still do think that way, to a degree; now that I’ve suffered so much myself, I am just not so aggressively vocal about it anymore. Such is the ironically cleansing effect of the wounds of love.

Much like the assassin Lian Nichang, I also used to think that corrupt and evil people are a waste of earthly space. Do I still think that way? Not sure at the moment. My efforts at cleansing my own wounds over the past several weeks have in the process cleansed away the emotional aggression that had long accumulated in my heart since childhood.

The ‘after-pain’ has had a surprisingly soothing effect. Actually, I should expect there to be countless other ‘after-pains’ after this one. The length of the healing process is unpredictable. And I don’t know at this moment when and where other portions of the hidden pain will push themselves to the surface, causing me to drown away in my tears again for the ‘nth’ time.

Zhuo Yihung is the noble gentleman who melts the heart of the ruthless assassin. The nobility of his birth is completely beside the point. His exceptionally gentle heart, inherent kindness, and generosity of spirit are consistent qualities recurring throughout the entire series. The strictness, rigidity, and eventual corruption of the Wudang Sect to which he belongs would come to destroy him in many ways. Yet he would prove that nobility is acquired through transcending the artificiality of class, status, and hierarchy, as opposed to being reduced to conform to such discriminating structures.

Timmy Ho (Mandarin name: Hur Bao-sheng) takes the role of Zhuo Yihung, an accomplished warrior and royal bodyguard. Timmy was only 26-7 at the time of this role, which he performed with poise and composure unusual for a young man of that age. Like Ada Choi, he also looks and acts much older than his age. Little has been written about Timmy Ho. I only just read that he recently became a monk, which does not surprise me. The character Zhuo Yihung has an aura about him which is quite removed from this physical world; and this untouchable purity clearly emanates from the actor himself, naturally expressing itself through the character.

When I was living next door to my Fate 3 years ago, he was also quite removed from mainstream society and carried about him a similar kind of untouchable purity. We were living in a remote village with no routes for public transportation, except for a post bus which I took regularly. What further magnified his uniqueness was that even though he had been living in the Scottish countryside for 20-something years, he was a first-generation Maltese who grew up in London and Surrey, making him British Maltese — a Mediterranean of ethnically mixed ancestry who came to make his home in the North…a living melting pot, much like myself, although he is not as nomadic as I. At the beginning of our conversations, he humourously called himself “Countryboy”; and he called me “Citygirl”.

And I knew he was suffering from the heaviest emotional wounds. I could tell at first sight that he was very worn out; he had fears that he was focused upon ignoring. He had a way of concealing his accumulated exhaustion. His outward exhaustion was less of a concern for me. It was the patterns of hurt within that I was worried about him repeating.

Significantly, Lian Nichang meets Zhuo Yihung while she is wounded. As her late teacher had trained her to practice the arts of shape-shifting and age-regression, her attempts to heal her wounds through meditation and energy channelling simultaneously cause her to mysteriously transform into a 10-year-old girl. And so, the little girl meets Zhuo Yihung in an open field and falls unconscious in his arms. He carries her to a nearby cave and nurses her back to health. As would be expected, his gentleness and kindness melt her heart. She has grown so used to fighting a wicked and cruel world, that his genuine and attentive care for her is an unusual contrast. Her physical vulnerability clearly brings out his protective instincts. And so, their relationship is nurtured within an enclosed atmosphere of complete innocence. For he does not know that this little girl is a warrior woman in disguise.

The Hong Kong TVB television company released series after series, both wuxia and modern, that stirred my childhood imaginations. And I became a devoted fan of Chinese movies. Throughout my years of living in different countries across the globe, and being completely deprived of Chinese movies for various reasons, my love for Chinese movies never faded.

Finally in 2003, I came across this website called ethaicd.com that provided many of my childhood favourites. And so, my dreams came true! Ordering online became the greatest excitement of my life. And throughout my years of working on my Masters dissertation, the Chinese movies that I found on that website made me profoundly happy. Nostalgia, sweeping action, drama, cinematic art all combined into a dream capsule was true bliss!

Firstly, I should say that the books, the films, and the TV series that I come across often contain within them content and themes that are a direct reflection of my own experiences at such respective times of my life. Synchronicity has always ruled my relationships with all things artistic. If you are open to it, if you just flow with it, the Universe will deliver the knowledge that will help you to resolve your issues, whether such issues are ongoing or are especially activated at the time. I always find it delightful that the solutions I seek become revealed through artistic media and other forms of entertainment.

The past several weeks for me have been all about nurturing emotional wounds. And so I started seeking again. On the most profound level that I could not articulate at the time, I believe that I sought a Hong Kong wuxia series from my childhood that I had long overlooked, one that would help me find the answers to the state of emotional upheaval that I had found myself in, one that would help me to release so much accumulated pain especially so that I could come to a realisation that the unbearable suffering I had been through served a higher purpose…that the divine may indeed also reside within the hammer, the sharpener, and the flames that together forge the finest blade.

And it was synchronistic, as one would expect. My ardent obsession with old Chinese movies led me to spending hours of pleasure on Youtube, seeking out soundtracks that I loved as a child. I don’t understand any Cantonese. All the Chinese TV series that I have ever seen in my life were dubbed in Thai. And yet, I spent much of my childhood listening to Cantonese songs, especially those featured in the TVB series that I so loved. Actually, not understanding Cantonese helped me to develop my ardent imagination of what the songs truly mean…at the very depth of the unspoken poetry I could always intuit. I’ve always thought of Cantonese as being so much coarser than Mandarin. Yet, none of that mattered in my passion for conjuring stories upon stories that would flow forth from my musings, from listening to those songs over and over and over. The concept that the language should be socially comprehensible to me was something that I almost completely ignored. I simply loved those songs…pure and simple. Yes, one day I will learn Cantonese. Ultimately though, my poetic understanding of those songs will always transcend socially constructed language.

And so I came across the title theme of “The Romance of the White-haired Maiden” posted as a video on Youtube; the video also features a prologue narrated by the leading characters. The prologue was all dubbed in Thai, especially so that the effect it had on me was much like a mini-earthquake in my heart. It was about an assassin who could not forgive her lover for breaking her heart over and over. It was about a gentleman who so admired and fell in love with the pure heart calling powerfully beneath all the violence and aggression displayed by the assassin. And it was sign. I had to get hold of the series online.

The DVD set finally arrived in my post box 5 days ago. And this time, my anticipation was burning fiercely through the longing aching of my heart. I wondered how the Universe would help to heal my emotional wounds this time round.

The TVB series “The Romance of the White-haired Maiden” was released in Hong Kong in 1995, and then distributed to Thailand. I remember well that it was showing on Channel 3 just before I started my first year of university. I was on holiday in Bangkok, and got to watch it on and off, although I must say that being only 16 at the time, I did not think much of it. I had so many other things on my mind, like catching up with old friends, spending time with various branches of my extended family, and of course getting all hyped up that I was finally going to be a University student, as opposed to a high school student.

I didn’t like high school. Freedom from it was long-awaited for. My family had high expectations of me. My old friends shared in the hype. Such excitements distracted me from my childhood love of Chinese movies. For a time anyway. That is part of growing up: being distracted, exploring other options, straying into extreme insecurities especially to return to the Source to rediscover where true security lies, assessing the value of the contrast between wanted and unwanted, discerning the difference between what is genuine and what is less than that or not that at all, and then finally coming back to the realisation of what is truly important, what would nurture one’s greatest dreams and carry forward one’s highest purpose.

Throughout my first year at Victoria University, I would keep hearing the title theme of “The Romance of the White-haired Maiden” being played in Chinese restaurants all over Wellington. I appreciated getting to listen to the soundtrack over and over again, yet I never thought much of it. I was so obsessively occupied with silly teenage problems and tantrums, stupidity of all sorts imaginable, girly cattiness, hormonal mischief and what not. My love for Chinese movies was put on hold for while. It never faded, just temporarily put on hold. And at the time, which was 1995-6, I hadn’t the slightest expectation that both the TV series and the soundtrack of “The Romance of the White-haired Maiden” would come to have such a profound effect on my life some 15 years later. Even if I had taken an interest in the series when I was a teenager, it would not have meant up to the tiniest fraction of what it means to me now…not even the tiniest fraction…for I had no wisdom when I was a teenager; and even if I did, that channel of wisdom would have been severely blocked from its Source.

Of course throughout my twenties, the story of the white-haired maiden would come to be re-adapted into other TV series. And still, I never developed an interest in them, as I was always falling in love with other Chinese and Korean historical series — “Princess Returning Pearl” (Taiwan/China; 1998-9), “The Conquest” (Hong Kong; 2006-7), “Dae Jung Geum” (Jewel of the Palace) (Korea; 2004-5), “Seo Dong Yo” (Song of the Prince) (Korea; 2006-7), just to name a few. I was so devoted to becoming a film expert — an expert of cinematic masterpieces that are constantly raising the bar — that I would seek out material of the kind of exceptional quality that would diversify and elevate my visions as an artist and a writer who would move freely between the fantasy world of multi-dimensions and the ordinary everyday world, so much so that the boundaries between the two worlds would become fluid, shape-shifting, and ambiguous. I was determined that what I watched and what I studied with endless curiosity would inspire and develop my highest hopes and dreams, much like the tools that a sculptor would use to mould and carve out the finest masterpiece.

My twenties were full of struggle and turmoil, failed experimentations (artistically, socially, philosophically), some triumphs (2 of which were getting New Zealand permanent residency and citizenship and, after that, accomplishing a Masters dissertation of a Distinction standard), dealing with unresolved anger and arrogance, some resolutions achieved…some. Throughout the unpleasant drama of my youth, I never lost sight of my dreams, even though their magnificence remained in the world of my imaginations…embedded as seedlings of potentiality, fermenting and gestating pre-manifestation. And my favourite books, films, and TV series (usually the DVD/VCD sets that I loved collecting) would provide me with much comfort, inspiration, and wisdom. Objects of knowledge, people of knowledge…how would one assess which of the two is of more value? How can objects normally considered inanimate actually be inanimate when the content they display clearly has a life force of its own? A wisdom-bestowing, transformative life force. Nothing common by any standard.

So sure enough, when it came time for me to contemplate my PhD, film art was the central subject that I was set upon. Film is a modern medium that contains within it the capacity to portray ancient, even timeless, themes. And I’ve always been an expert on the ancient and the timeless. There was no way around it. I now specialise in film and the sacred, the sacred being that timeless quality that would provide ineffable insight into the notion that the ancient never ceases to be in this modern world. And thus, it has certainly been a turbulent, long-winding road for an intellectual pioneer. I can only walk forward with Faith.

* I love writing short stories with fantastical or fairytale themes. So if anyone wants any short stories along those lines, I would love to write them for you. Please contact me at lalipanilubol45@gmail.com

All rates negotiable.

Thank you.

How can a substance seemingly black reflect carved out silhouettes swaying forward all the blacker? Any odd soul would know that the water in the basin is in fact forbidden to be black…sitting silently at the bottom of the hollow especially to wash the hands of morning-gatherers. The black appearance only serves to break the construct that a dark canvas cannot accentuate a dark subject. For Baby Well’s ink-like composure is an illusion…as that which appears dark is not necessarily absent of the powers of translucency. On the contrary, there is such a secret at the bottom of the garden as a darkness so sensitively reflective that that ever-reflectiveness becomes its own purity…constantly reflecting back, yet reflecting away, never storing the reflections as such impermanences only pass over the ungraspable surface…

Throughout the changes of hands the water from the basin has washed, it must not be forgotten that Baby Well contains time, all the while reflecting away its fleeting events…a pool of detachment immemorial. From the spaces between the stones composing the walls of the hollow, tribes of greenery flourish forward to cradle Baby Well in a nest of a thousand herbs — some yearning to compete with the size of palm leaves, some remaining content with being as squirrels’ tails, some waving the graces of feathery fans…yet all are as brushes held back by their roots within the stone walls, fragrantly desiring to soak themselves into Baby Well. The allure of the great pondering remains a treasure of the silent…

* I love writing short stories with fantastical or fairytale themes. So if anyone wants any short stories along those lines, I would love to write them for you. Please contact me at lalipanilubol45@gmail.com

All rates negotiable.

Thank you.