Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - Part I

104 Pages·2016·2.34 MB·English

"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered"

You may NOT realize that the most valuable thing in life is with you all
along... until you make the journey to Re-discover yourself.
It's a unique and thrilling LIFE experience!

THE GREATEST GOOD ONE CAN DO IS TO
CULTIVATE ONESELF IN ORDER THAT ONE MAY BE OF GREATER USE TO HUMANITY

LOVE NATURE, LIVE FREE & BE HAPPY ALWAYS
MY LIFE RE-DISCOVERED
Part I
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
www.BiganFanli.com
Herbert Lee a.k.a. Bigan Fanli - Nature Artist
Self-Portrait (2013)

DEDICATION
This Book is dedicated to My Grandparents, My Parents,
My Wife Cecilia
Mayor Herb Hays and Marilyn Hays,
All my Brothers and Sisters
and
Lonn Lee, Anna Cheung, Ellise Lee, Aimee Lee, Jason Tablante,
Jonathan Tablante, Justin Tablante, Jacob Tablante, Pearl Lee, Jackie
Leung, Lana Leung, and Crystal Lee

All Rights Reserved 2016

Publisher: Bigan Fanli Group Inc

2
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
Introduction - 2016
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-
discovered" is divided into four parts.
Part I is my First 12 years in the "Paradise" (1948-1960). Part II is
Surviving the "Concrete Jungle" and University Life in USA (1960-
1974). Part III and IV are for the Rooting Saga in Canada (1974-
2016).
Love nature and be happy always.
Between following the US presidential election "wars" of the
Democrats and the Republicans for more than a year, and working
on my own nature stuff, I find happiness by writing and baby-
sitting three of my five grand children who are part of the
inspirations for me to write this Book.
Life can be forgiving but time isn't, my world is vanishing fast.
There is only one certainty in life after you are born, it doesn't
matter if you are the most powerful persons on earth now, the
likes of president-elect Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Bill Gate, Xi
Jinping, Shri Modi, Pope Francis or Angela Merkel, one must die.
Of course, the most influential people will continue to "live" on in
the world history books of humanity. Their deeds or evils will be
judged by many generations to come. They don't have to write
about their own affairs if they so choose, as many people will
write about these exceptional small percentage of individuals
called the elites because numerous lives depend on what they did
and will do. Their powers come from the vast majority, and that
includes me and maybe you. As one of the majority lodged
somewhere in the middle of the bell curve*, I'm not powerful or
influential, not just yet I know.
I have more grey hairs now, as a matter of fact, my hairs and
beard are all white. I think I have more experience and wiser than
I was twenty years ago. I certainly look like it. Again, looks can be
deceiving. I don't want "me" to be powerful, but I want "we" to be
3
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
powerful, so that each one of us can fit in comfortably with
nature, live free and be happy always.
This is the 19th or 20th books I have ever published, many of
them are available from Amazon.com. I have to justify why I'm
writing this book, or the Part I of this book, as none of my other
publishing is on the best seller lists of Amazon. Making some
money isn't one of the reasons. I simply felt that I had something
in my chest that I wanted to say, and the time is now.
America must be in the dump otherwise Donald Trump won't
have to "make America great again". I think America is already
great but compared with many parts of the world, it isn't doing as
great as it can be. I want to see if he is really draining the swamp
or swelled by the swamp in the coming years.
Regardless, the power of the elites cannot be trusted.
The folks in and around the middle of their respective income
distribution bell curves* are the true power of all the peoples on
earth. The world's peace, stability, growth and prosperity depend
on this group of individuals, our children and their children, our
future and their future depend on all of us; the larger the number
of this group can achieve in their respective own countries, the
better the world will be.
This is my way of solidarity with this group by communicating,
first with my family and then you and whoever may be interested.
I think the best way for me to do this is to walk back to my life for
more than 68 years, as I believe I'm always in the middle of
somewhere; and tell you what I went through, first-handed. I
believe the more this group communicate deeply with each other,
the more solidarity will be achieved. The world will definitely be a
better place!
Cheers!
Herbert Lee, a.k.a. Bigan Fanli - 2016 (www.BiganFanli.com)

*I've a lot to say about this in the later parts of my Book
4
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
Part I
My First 12 years in the "Paradise"
(1948-1960)
There was no sight of electricity, no rings of telephones, no noise
of cars, no tap water or flashing toilets around. It was just the
continuous flow of the warm breeze carrying with it the ever fresh
air infused with the occasional rich fragrance from the nearby
blooming flower plants. On a Sunday afternoon nesting among
the gigantic bamboo trees 10 feet above ground and gently
swaying with the breeze, I was trying to take my afternoon nap
with my older brother Doug in one of our most favorite spots in
our fruit Farm. I was disturbed by this little fellow I called Kow-
Mo-Chung* (dog-hair- caterpillar) nibbling a fresh new shoot of
bamboo leaf a few inches from my face. This little guy could be
really mean if you touched him with your bare skin, you would be
itching all over.
We retreated down to the ground, skipped on the benches which
were built circling the bottom of the bamboo trees, in our bare
feet and jumped over a big piece of solid granite stone with a
indentation of a big bowl in the ground, laying flashed with the
ground and a weir looking flat piece of lumber with a stone
"beak" directly over the indentation, and rested on two stone-
column supports, so someone could step on it and raise it, then
drop it. Of course, this was the place where we stone-grinded our
rice grains to make rice flour. We forgot how tired we were that
day since we were up before the sun rose at six o'clock and had
been playing everywhere ever since. our greyish white T-shirts
were becoming greenish and brown... (*my Cantonese translations
throughout the text)
I was about 8 years old and brother Doug was about 13. This was
in the mid of the 1950s and I was in a place called 18-Mu Farm (3-
acre Farm, 1 acre = 6.07 mu) surrounded by vast acreage of fruit
orchards, ornamental flower growers, vegetable growers and rice
paddies situated at the fringe of a place called Fa-Day (Flower-
Land) in the fertile Pearl River Delta, Southern China. Great
5
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
majority of the farmlands, fruit farms were once privately owned,
belonged to the Cooperative Commune. The neighborhood
villagers followed the government guidance to produce whatever
crops required for the year and shared the works for the common
good. Family units could retain their residents and some areas
around their houses to grow fruits and vegetables or to use them
for whatever they needed personally. Our family retained 18-Mu
and some other properties nearby.

Painting #2104 by Bigan Fanli
Limited Edition, Showcase Framed - www.BiganFanli.com

This was what happened around the world in the 1950s:
May 1950 - First Human organ Transplant
Jun 1950 - Korean War started
May 1951 - Rock and Roll began
February 1952 - King George VI died
March 1953 - Joseph Stalin died
May 1953 - DNA discovered
Jun 1953 - Queen Elizabeth's Coronation
6
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
January 1954 - First Atomic Submarine Launched
February 1954 - Report released that said cigarettes cause cancer
May 1954 - Birth Control pill trials began
June 1954 - Racial segregation in America ruled unconstitutional
in public schools
May 1955 - Warsaw Pact signed
October 1955 - Winston Churchill re-elected Prime Minister of
Great Britain
November 1955 - Vietnam War began
May 1957 - Soviet Union launched satellite "Sputnik" - Space Age
began
May 1958 - NORAD Radar System set up to detect missile attack
from Soviets on North America
January 1959 - Alaska became a part of U.S.A.
December 1959 - Antarctica Treaty signed to make it a scientific
preserve.
While the world was bustling with wars and the launching of the
space age, 18-Mu was full of joy and happiness with 9 energetic
kids. Of course that was the impression of this eight-year old,
despite the facts that we had no electricity, no telephone, no
radio, no television, no tap water, no flush-toilet. But we had
basic food from our Farm, clean water and always fresh air, a vast
"playground" for adventures, schooling, laws and orders, and the
feeling of safety surrounded by like-minded simple people...
My family bought this 18-Mu property just for us during the
Chinese civil war, and many other real estate around the area for
investment purpose as we were based in Hong Kong (Fragrant
Harbor) at the time and considered to be foreign capitalist
investing in China, and from the feel of it, my older generations
were full of confidence about the New China because they sent us
7
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
back there to live and be educated. My two oldest brothers were
born in Hong Kong, a British Colony at that time and they were
back to here to attend Chinese universities. Because of age gap, I
didn't have that much memories of them. My buddies were my
brothers immediate above and below me as we were only a few
years apart in age. I couldn't recall too much about my four sisters
either, one older and three younger, as they were very quiet and
tended to stay with my mother most of the time and played
among themselves.
18-Mu fruit Farm isn't really a farm, it was more like a rural
garden resident surrounded by farms. My grandmother and/or
my mother were always there with us. My grandfather and my
father took terms to come back from Hong Kong to stay with us,
usually a short period of time for each visit. I didn't miss them that
much because I was always kept busy by one thing or the others
and they came and went fairly often. Hong Kong was only about
120 kilometers away. A very short distance physically, but
ideologically they were two different political systems with
thousands of miles apart in similarity.
I spent quite a lot of time with my grandmother as she was the
only one really working for the Cooperative and around the
house. She was really kind and never yelled at me. She cooked
meals for all of us every day. There was no instant foods then,
well, maybe except the salted fish and salt-cured pork, salted
bean curds, pickles and dried vegetables and fruits. Every cooked
meal came from this huge wok sitting on top of a large brick stove
fueled by the burning of dried rice plant stalks (hays). I loved my
grandma, she was petite, pretty and had curly black hairs which
sometimes I pulled and made fun of her.
My mother was always busy looking after us especially the little
twin sisters, my father knew how to keep her occupied. With her
Singer sewing machine, my mother made most of our daily
clothing. When my grandfather came back to stay for a few days,
my mother usually went to Hong Kong to stay with my father, and
during her absence periods, everything was usually in big mess.
8
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
We had one big brick building and a smaller structure in 18-Mu.
The brick building was a simple house divided into three equal
sections one next to the other with the middle one as the main
entrance which had a 10-ft tall thick double wooden doors. There
was one smaller front double doors on each of the other sections,
one on the east side and one on the west side of the Main House.
All doors were facing south and we could walk out of the doors
right into a flat and leveled cement ground which was about the
size of two basketball courts. The main purpose of this court was
for drying rice grains and hays after harvesting in the fall.

Painting #2054 by Bigan Fanli
Limited Edition, Showcase Framed - www.BiganFanli.com

Every section of the house had inside doors to walk through and
there were walls and wooden lofts built on the back half of every
section as our "bed room" quarters, and sometimes some big rats
9
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016
also found their ways up there to build their little home too. My
grandparents' bedroom and the big kitchen were on the east side,
all the boys stayed in the middle section with the sitting room
area in the front half of the section. My mother and the girls were
on the west section along with their activity room and an ancestor
worship area.
We used kerosene lamps for lighting at night, wood and dried
hays from rice plants to boil water and cook meals. Inside the
house, we only had little portable toilets for small kids and
portable water drawn from the river ponds for cleaning and
cooking. No bathroom or toilet inside the house but we did have a
big pond for cleaning and bathing and an outhouse for toileting. I
didn't know what snow was until I was in Tennessee, USA. Who
needed snow anyway as the weather was always hot and
comfortable and there were plenty of sunlight to give me the
vitamins I needed. The sun always rose around six o'clock in the
morning and set around six in the evening. With the exception of
a few odd thunderstorms, the weather was always perfect. I
could wear one T-shirt and one pair of shorts day in and day out,
and shoes were an inconvenience as I enjoyed the feel of the
earth with my bare feet.
18-Mu was mostly sheltered by mature fruit trees of which almost
all the fruits were edible and many of them were commercial
fruits like the huge Olive trees, the Lychee fruit trees, Guava fruit
trees, Longan fruit trees, Pomelo fruit trees, Banana and Papaya
fruit trees. We had only a few of each of them in our 18-Mu fruit
Farm. It was truly heaven when any of them was ready for picking,
we usually ate the ripen fruits right out of the tree.
Right off the front court of the house, there were acres of rice
fields and just beyond those rice fields was one of our neighbors.
There was an 8-foot height dike with some fruit trees growing on
it, separating our side with their side. There was a low dike
meandering through the rice paddies for us to walk through as a
passageway going to different villages and towns in the south
side. These rice paddies, once ours, were the property of the
Commune or Co-operative.
10
"Love Nature, Live Free & Be Happy Always - My Life Re-Discovered" - Bigan Fanli 2016