This year, the birthday card from my daughter reads: “Another Year More Amazing. Another Year More Loved.”

At the beginning of “Another Year More Amazing”, my son sent me two dozen amazing rainbow roses and my daughter created and published a book called “Seasonal Musings”.

Here is the soft copy of “Seasonal Musings”, which contains 13 bilingual stories that I wrote in the past and which were chosen by my daughter， a select of vignettes from ”Puddle of Gold“

2021-01-13

今年女儿送我的生日卡是：“更惊喜的一年, 被更爱的一年“。

在“更惊喜的一年”之初，我惊喜地收到儿子的彩虹玫瑰生日礼物和女儿编辑出版的一本中英双语书《季节的沉思》。

这是《季节的沉思》的软拷贝，女儿从我过去写的故事里挑出十三个双语故事以春夏秋冬编排而成，短文精选自【金子凼】

Spring ｜ 春：
Birthdays in Quarantine 2020 ｜ 疫情期的生日派 （2020）
A Family Dish ｜ 漂洋过海的家常菜 （2020）

Summer ｜ 夏
International Children‘s Day ｜ 国际儿童节 （2017）
Painted Nails at Half Moon Bay ｜ 半月湾，指甲红 （2016）
Sewing Another Paradise ｜ 玩缝纫机，别有洞天（2019）
Filoli in September ｜ 九月的Filoli花园（2017）

Autumn ｜ 秋
Walden Pond in September ｜ 九月的瓦尔登湖 （2020）
Photographing Fruits｜ 拍秋果 （2016）
Sweet Food Sweet Memory ｜ 美食甜食 （2017）
East Coast Tradition ｜ 尝美东秋季特色甜食 （2020）
Thanksgiving Gratitude ｜ 感恩节感恩母爱 （2018）

Winter ｜ 冬
Custom Short Skirts ｜ 小短裙 （2019）
Hard Boiled Egg Story ｜ 硬壳熟鸡蛋的故事 （2020）

《季节的沉思》书

The book of “Seasonal Musings”

The cover of “Seasonal Musings” is a picture of Walden Pond I took, which is designed by my daughter. The rainbow rose is the birthday gift from my son.

《季节的沉思》书的封面图是瓦尔登湖，那彩虹玫瑰是儿子送我的生日礼物。

On Mother’s Day, many friends happily shared the photos of the Mother’s Day gifts they received from their “tie xin xiao mian ao”. I saw many pretty flowers, artistic balloons, lively plants, wines, cakes, and brunches…

“Tie xin xiao mian ao” is a very popular and sweet nickname for daughters in China. This nickname uses an ordinary cotton jacket to express a daughter’s meticulous care for their parents, its direct translation into English would be “little cotton jacket close to the heart”.

I seemed never heard a similar English expression for daughters. Therefore I wondered about the cause for the lack of a similar English nickname for daughters. Could the cause be the cultural differences between the East and the West in terms of familial affections?

Then I remembered a story told by a young professor in the chemistry department in CUA where I did my graduate studies in the early 1990s.

In the early 1990s, when I was a graduate student in the chemistry department in CUA, our department had a few married female graduate students who had no children yet. At that time, we had a young professor Cindy, who was a mother of two toddler boys.

Cindy was the youngest faculty member in our department. Because of this, she often chatted with us, a group of female graduate students during our breaks.

One year, after Cindy came back from Virginia for her father’s funeral, we, a few female graduate students, went to see her in her office to express our condolences for her loss.

We chatted a bit, then Cindy said to us: “If you have a chance, try to have a daughter. When I went back for my father’s funeral, my mother said to me: ‘Your brothers really did not know how to help me. I am so lucky you came back to help me.’”

Cindy’s story let me know that there are no cultural differences in terms of familial affection between the West and the East. The Lack of a similar English nickname for daughters probably showed that the Chinese language is more down to the earth than English is in cases like this.

Oct, 2020

When rumors about banning WeChat in the USA came out, my daughter setup this web site, http://puddleofgold.org, which is hosted in USA for me. She suggested that I move the Chinese stories I posted on WeChat to the website, in order to prevent my stories from being lost.

After I retired in 2016, when I met my previous coworkers, some asked me: “Jean, what are you doing after you retired?”

I often replied: “I write little stories in Chinese. Sorry, you’re not able to read them.”

Now, I am planning to translate some of my favorite Chinese stories into English, with the hopes of sharing these snippets of life’s joy that I have experienced with others.

While translating my own Chinese stories into English, I experienced the ease of using Chinese, my mother tongue language, and the clumsiness of using English.

Though I didn’t write in Chinese for more than 20 years because I had no chance to while studying and working in USA since 1989, I didn’t feel like my Chinese was rusty when I started writing Chinese stories in 2016. Even unused for more than 20 years my Chinese is still not rusty, this made me realize that youth is the best time to absorb knowledge and expand one’s language spectrum, as I learnt and used Chinese before 1989.

Because English is their mother tongue language, my daughter and my son are reviewing and revising my English stories now.

Reading the English stories that were revised by my children, I thoroughly saw how my English had poor vocabulary and silly expressions. I also found the happiness of seeing that my children are smarter than me now.

I have translated more than 30 Chinese stories into English now.

Comparing my poor English writing to my son’s revised version shows the challenges I faced, as a untrained foreigner, trying to use a foreign language accurately and beautifully.

Mine:
“Sharing remedies across culture boundary may bring sparkle spots often. ”

My son revised version:
“Sharing remedies across culture boundary may bring pleasant surprises often. ”

Snippets of Life’s Joy

06-25-2019

While discussing the change of personalities that come with age, my son recommended to me a book called “The Little Prince”, which is often a required reading in high school (originally written in French).

“The Little Prince” described a few adults who appeared very strange from a boy’s point of view. From those adults, I felt some familiar adult behaviors: in the process of growing up, the hardworking adults who lost their dreams and weakened their desires slowly became inflexible and devoted workers.

The lamplighter in the book tirelessly light and put out the lamp every minute also moved me.

Recently, while reading my father’s blog, I suddenly realized my over 90 year old father is the adult who didn’t lose his dreams, as mentioned in the story: “All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it.”

My father’s path is as follows:as In 1950, my father dropped out of college (ChongQing University) to join the air force in the new China. After he became a member of the Communist Party, he was chosen as a golden boy and became a young instructor to study and teach the theory and history of newly established Chinese Communist Party in the Air Force Academy, in Changchun.

My father had his dream and was very precise. In a series of political reforms in China in 1950s and 1960s, my father didn’t go along with the mainstream, but instead voiced out his criticism and suggestions to some events which he thought were not right, this negatively affected my father’s career, thus losing his golden boy rank.

A few decades hardship in his career did not destroy my father’s dream which motivated him to drop out of college to join the army when he was young. Nowadays, some of my father’s daily pleasures are: reading books, reading newspapers, writing articles to discuss common questions and thoughts related to Chinese social development.

I felt my father’s articles come alive with his patriotic blood and full of his dreams for a better society.

May my father be a role model to guide me to be enjoy reading and writing.

Little Episodes

[Father's Day] My father, once handsome, is very modern now. After his article was published on his official website, my father read his work for the first time from a mobile phone, a advanced enjoyment. My dad is a good role model who never stops learning. (Today, my brother published my daddy’s article and captured dad’s appreciation his work.)

Screenshot from ：50 classics from (almost) everyone’s high school reading list: “In ‘The Little Prince’, a pilot whose plane has crashed in the Sahara desert meets a young boy from outer space. The boy is traveling from planet to planet in search of friendship. On the boy’s home—an asteroid—he lived alone, accompanied only by a solitary rose. Once on Earth, the boy meets a wise fox who tells him he can only see clearly with his heart.”

In my hometown Zigong, on the DongZhi (Winter Solstice) Day, families often stew many herbs with meats to make a special tonic soup.

Though I left Zigong for more than 20 year ago, I still remember the strong herb smell and the slight bitterness of Yeyi’s tonic soup. I also remember Yeyi’s comments on tonic soup: “Tonic soup is not suitable for everyone. Tonic soup can be fatal for people who are too weak to take it.”

In 2016, I was alone in San Jose on Winter Solstice Day. In 2017, I spent Winter Solstice with my parents in Beijing and enjoyed the Zigong’s authentic tonic soup made by my uncle, after many years.

The tonic soup made by uncle contains duck and pork meats along with more than ten types of Chinese herbs, such as: Lingzhi, Tianma, ginkgo, Shihu, ginseng, angelica sinensis, Dangshen, astragalus, Qingui, YiRen, euryale xerox, jujube, and Gouji(天麻、白果、石斛、人参、当归、党参、黄芪、芩归、苡仁、芡实、红枣、枸杞) .

My toes felt very warm right after I drank the tonic soup. Following my hometown tradition, we drank the tonic soup for several days and I felt very warm everyday. Drinking tonic soup is indeed a very enjoyable task for me.

However, my father insisted on not drinking the tonic soup the second day because he felt ill after drinking the soup on the first day. My father grew up in ShanDong, far from Zigong. His body is probably not used to Zigong’s tonic soup. Just like Yeyi said that not everyone can eat tonic soup.

In the next few days, my aunt blended the tonic soup with green vegetables and rice into smoothies for my mother. I watched my mother was getting better day by day. I guessed that authentic Zigong tonic soup had an authentic effect on my mother, as an authentic Zigongnese. After not talking for five days, my mother started to talk when my uncle played with her. My mother said very loudly: “NiZaiFangPi(You are bullish)” and woke me up as I was taking nap near her. I felt my hometown’s dialect is very familiar and sweet to my ears, even the swear words.

Later, while skypeing with my daughter, I told her: “I drank Zigong tonic soup on DongZhi, after more than 20 years.”

My daughter immediately said: “Oh, I know DongZhi is Winter solstice, the day with the shortest daylight of the year.”

When I was little, I drank tonic soup on DongZhi every year, but I didn’t know DongZhi has the shortest daylight of the year. My daughter has never drank tonic soup on DongZhi, but she immediately explained the unique weather characteristics of DongZhi. This got me thinking…

My daughter described the characteristic of DongZhi accurately in one sentence. I used many sentences but only described a small portion of my hometown Zigong’s rich DongZhi traditions.

I feel scientific knowledge by itself is lifeless and plain, lacks rich feeling. Meanwhile our traditions are enriched by our feelings and cultures constantly.

09-10-2020, a Thursday, was both rainy and cloudy.

Shopping is always done on Thursday. I picked up my daughter’s friend, a young girl, to shopping together.

Today, we saw lots of big pumpkins for sale outside the supermarket. When we passed the pumpkins, the young girl said sadly: “I don’t want to see big pumpkins for harvest, I want the summer to stay a little longer.”

Her expression held a familiar subtle feeling which brought me a pure joy on a cloudy rainy morning.

While shopping in the store, I overheard an advertisement: “We sell warm apple cider donuts just out of the oven, an East Coast autumn festival food. The apple cider donuts you eat at the farm during apple picking actually come from here. So hurry and buy your apple cider donuts here! ”

I immediately wanted to buy it, but I could not find it at the bakery section, Because the young girl had class in the morning, we had to leave soon and I could not spend any more time looking for the donuts.

In the afternoon, right after my daughter finished her classes, I asked her: “What is an apple cider donut?” Because the apple cider donut which I had heard in the morning was still in my mind.

My daughter replied: “It is a very sweet donut.”

“I heard ‘warm apple cider donuts just out of oven’ in the store this morning, but I could not find them.”

“Oh, you should try some, it is a very East Coast food. How about we go to the store to get it now?”

We went to the store in the rain. After entering the store, we immediately went the bakery section where donuts are normally stocked. We saw various donuts, but no apple cider donuts.

I asked a store assistant: “Do you still have apple cider donuts?”

The store assistant replied: “Yes, we have them. The donuts are in white paper bags and stocked on the same shelf where the roasted chickens are.”

Following these instructions, I quickly found the warm apple cider donuts which were sold 4 in one bag.

I tried it right after we came back home. The apple cider donut is very sweet with a strong cinnamon flavor.

After crepes, apple cider donut is another sweet introduced to me by my daughter. Now, whenever I think about apple cider donut, I will remember stories about my daughter studied in the East Coast.

Little Episodes

1. 09-10-2020

2. 9-30-2021， Thursday，Cloudy
Today is Thursday which is our weekly grocery shopping day. My daughter brought home a bag of four apple cider doughnuts. As the apple cider donuts were very sweet, I took only half a donut. While sitting in the dinning room eating the apple cider donut, I looked at the porcelain and flowers on the table, thought about the good year I had had in the past, so I couldn’t help taking some photos.

“That there would always be flowers in the vase” was my childhood dream. Maybe I should start to record the days I have “flowers in the vase”, to more frequently feel the joy of fulfilling my childhood dream . What I didn’t dream of when I was a child: going to the West Coast and East Coast of the United States. Now I am very happy for having a few more good friends on East Coast.

Family and friendship are guiding stars for a healthy and happy aging journey. May the stars shine on for the rest of my life.

Because of my late mother, I had a chance to witness the beauty of morning glories in bloom during the late autumn. However, a snowstorm in October killed all the buds on my morning glory. My visual enjoyment of flowers has thus entered hibernation.

While staying at home, I felt my enjoyment of flowers during the hibernation was lacking so I started to look at photos of the unique flowers I took before. One nameless flower brought out a story about California Route 1. My late mother features in this story too.

Bixby Creek Bridge

Along CA Route 1, driving south to Los Angeles from Silicon Valley, you will pass the Bixby Creek Bridge, one of the many iconic sites found on California Route 1.

Bixby Creek Bridge was opened to traffic in 1932. The length and width of the bridge are 714 feet (218 meters) and 24 feet (7 meters) respectively.

Because it is a iconic site on Route 1 and Route 1 is very famous, the bridge attracts tourists during all seasons. However, there is no paved parking lot near the bridge, so tourists have to park their cars in the dust dirt area, if they stop near the bridge.

Nowadays, when I visit Bixby Creek Bridge, I always drive southward while crossing the bridge and stop at Hurricane Point, where the traffic is less crowded and featured paved parking spots. I enjoy watching the natural beauty of the Pacific coastline and the magic of human ingenuity seen in the Bixby Creek Bridge from Hurricane Point.

Standing at Hurricane Point and looking down to Bixby Creek Bridge, the mountains set off the beauty of the bridge and the curve of the ocean coastline emphasizes the spectacular sight of the bridge. I felt it is better to view the bridge at Hurricane Point than from somewhere closer to the bridge proper.

In September 2018, when I stood at Hurricane Point looking down the bridge, I realized that this is the first time I have come alone at a famous site since my mother passed away in May 2018. I could not resist to tell my mother: “Mommy, here is the best place to view Bixby Creek Bridge. You must be able to see this from heaven.”

While chatting with my late mother in my heart, I felt a closer connection to flowers, because my mother loved flowers very much. Small flowers blooming on a big bush on the coast side of the road naturally drew my attention and I was excited to tell my mother: “Mommy, there are nameless pretty small flowers blooming at Hurricane Point.”

The fragile pretty small flowers, ignoring the strong harsh ocean wind, were quietly blooming at Hurricane Point. I admired them for a while.

In September 2018, I drove southward along Route 1, bypassing Carmel, crossing over Bixby Creek Bridge, before stopping at Hurricane Point, a few times. My trips are namely for the nameless small flowers quietly blooming there. This type of effect came as a result of the strong attraction to beautiful flowers I have, a personality trait I inherited from my beloved mother.

Episodes

Standing at Hurricane Point, looking down the ocean, mountains, and Bixby Creek Bridge, on a sunny day and during the fog.

The big bush on the coast side at Hurricane Point, on a sunny day and during the fog.

Myoporum, the pretty little flowers blooming on the big bush on the coast side at Hurricane Point

（Revisited CA-1 again, not for the hills nor the sea, but for a blooming tree, at Hurricane Point. The fragile pretty flower, a year-round beauty at a harsh location.)

July 1st, 2016, My daughter and I went on a day trip to Half Moon Bay in Silicon Valley and I picked up a story about nail polish.

At noon on the trip, we stopped by a restaurant on the ocean side for lunch.

After sitting down, I immediately noticed an older couple who was seated diagonally from us, because the restaurant was quiet with very fewer diners.

The silver haired older woman’s shoulder carried a bright colored small fabric purse which seemed to show the fashionable tastes of its owner. Before the main course, the older woman ordered a light-colored cocktail and the older man ordered a glass of red wine. I could not resist looking at the elegant older woman and the light-colored cocktail she held in a raised hand made a strong contrast against her bright red nail polish which was directly in my line of sight. She slowly sipped at the cocktail and her bright red nail polish was enhanced by the light-colored cocktail and her bright silver hair. I felt her possessed life-enriching elegance and beauty.

Later, I looked at my daughter who sat face-to-face with me, I saw her fingers, with her own colorful nail polish, quickly picking up French fries from her plate. My daughter’s colorful nail polish let me feel the brilliant beauty brought by youth. Thanks to the older woman who sat diagonally from us, my appreciation for beauty was awakened during lunch. I took a picture of my daughter’s fingernails alongside the delicious fish and chips meal.

Actually, my daughter did her nail polish in the morning, right after we decided to go to beach.

While painting her own nails, she also asked: “Mommy, do you want me to paint your nails?”

I said: “No, I have no time. I am busy packing water, sun lotion, jackets … “

When we arrived at Half Moon beach, I took a close-up photo of her hands right as we reached the beach.

Pretty nail polish has the same beauty, whether its hands are picking up fries or holding a cocktail glass.

One needs good spirits and spare time to be able to properly appreciate beauty.

One of my father’s signature dishes is onion fried pork. It’s soft and sweet with a story to tell.

2020’s quarantine provided me opportunities to explore and expand on my father’s signature dish, onion fried meat, far away from my hometown Zigong.

In early Spring, while COVID-19 was very scary and full of unknowns, one of my daughter’s friends who does not eat pork visited us on short notice and I invited her to have dinner with us. In a hurry, I cooked a onion and tomato fried egg dish for her. She liked it.

From then on, I often cooked the onion and tomato fried egg when that young girl has dinner with us. Because I enjoy cooking guests’ favorite dishes very much.

After seeing I repeatedly present the same onion and tomato fried egg dish, my daughter commented: ”Mommy, onion and tomato fried egg doesn’t have meat, it’s probably short of protein.”

Because the guest doesn’t eat pork, I added fried ground beef to the onion and tomato fried egg dish. This new onion dish eliminated my daughter’s concerns also fit the guest’s taste.

Bright colored onion and tomato with fried egg and ground beef dish became one of my signature dishes in 2020. Quite a surprising achievement during stay-at-home quarantine time.

The plain and boring life of staying at home promoted my signature dish HuiGuoRou to more guests. In the meantime, I got lot of feedback about my HuiGuoRou: such as it is very greasy. In response, I remembered my father’s signature dish of onion fried pork and I started to add onions to HuiGuoRou for my guests, because onion absorbs oil well. Then I was told: “The onion inside HuiGuoRou is so delicious.” (soft and sweat onion filled with the special flavor of HuiGuoRou).

In 2020, I often cooked onions with meat. The high frequency let me realize that my cutting of the onions into half rings is different from the traditional Chinese cutting method, because I happened to see the traditional onion cutting style from my classmate’s photos.

Because of my father’s signature dish of onion fried pork, I am very good at making onion fried HuiGuoRou, a family dish that has been enhanced across the world. I was happy to see that I adapted and mastered a family dish unexpectedly in 2020’s long quarantine period.

I felt the core of family dishes is using common supplies to cook delicious food with touching stories. My onion fried HuiGuoRou is my family dish.

BTW, The famous French onion soup is never my dish, because I felt the onion lost the texture, the softness, and the sweetness I enjoy.

Chinese Version

Today, Professor Ye, one of my college classmates, said that my father’s articles exhibited “a strong writing style like that of floating clouds and flowing water.”

Actually, my father possesses not only a “strong writing style like that of floating clouds and flowing water”, but he also has a good mindset about turning big troubles into little ones, and little ones into nothing. I have a personal story about this.

While living at the LouWan Compound during the Cultural Revolution, we shared a public kitchen with a few neighbors. We also shared a big dining table in the kitchen.

When eggs were in season, Yeyi, our nanny, would hide a cooked egg under the hot porridge as our breakfast. She then left the bowl on the dining table in the public kitchen. After getting up in the morning, we would go to the kitchen eat the cooled porridge along with the egg.

One day, I got up earlier than my brother so I went to kitchen alone. I ate my porridge and my egg, then I secretly dug out the egg from my brother’s bowl and ate it too.

After breakfast, my brother told Yeyi that there was no egg inside his porridge.

Yeyi was very angry and immediately went to question the neighbors who shared the kitchen with us: “Who stole our egg this morning?”

As all of our neighbors said they did not, Yeyi got even angrier. At the end, most of the neighbors knew that the egg which was hidden in my brother’s porridge had been stolen that morning.

Finally, I could not stand up to the pressure and admitted that I was the one who stole the egg.

That I was the one who stole the egg became a well-known story among our neighbors, a story which made me feel very ashamed.

Right after the egg episode, my father came home from the army. He told me that other girls also ate stolen egg with a story:

Once upon a time, a little girl quickly ate a stolen egg by swallowing the egg whole. She was choked to death. A thief dug through her grave right after she was buried in the ground. The thief was scared the corpse was still alive so after he opened the coffin, he hit the girl’s chest three times to check whether she was alive. After being hit on the chest, the whole egg went down to her stomach and the girl returned to life.

I was scared by the story for a long time. Recalling this story now, it seems my father made this story for me and to let me know eating a stolen egg could be life threatening.

Nowadays, when I tell my children the story of my stealing Jiujiu’s egg, I no longer feel ashamed, but feel childish joy. As we age, our cognition is altered.

However, when I was little, steeling that egg was a huge scandal in my mind. Big troubles inside an innocent mind require a wiser person to diminish the troubles, so that the innocent mind won’t be silently tortured for a long time.

Today’s big thing will be tomorrow’s little thing.
This life’s big thing will be next life’s nothing.