Joy

Some­thing to bring oth­ers a bit of cheer

Beach Day

It is Father’s Day week­end and this morn­ing as I sit in front of my par­ent-in-laws urns, my mem­o­ries of them begin to pour in. I remem­ber the sum­mer when Cameron was about 2, we decid­ed to go to the beach with my in-laws.  It was the first time I had Read more…

By Laurie Tham, ago
His calligraphy for this chinese new year

Love of Chinese Characters

My father in law loved the chi­nese lan­guage in many ways.  He espe­cial­ly loved the tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters. I remem­ber over the years, he would com­ment that each stroke of a Chi­nese char­ac­ter would have mean­ing. This shaped his pref­er­ence for tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters to the sim­pli­fied ones.  He also loved cal­lig­ra­phy. One year, we got him the Bud­dha board and he hap­pi­ly prac­ticed and demon­strat­ed his writing. 
 
When each of our kids were born, their pater­nal grand­par­ents had the hon­or to choose each of their chi­nese names. It was with hope and care for their future gen­er­a­tion that each of their names were thought­ful­ly cho­sen. Cameron– 駿 (guin) – fine horse / steed, and Wil­low- 埼 – pre­cious jade – (chee). 
 
I’m so grate­ful that Wil­low and I hap­pened to be play­ing with a Chi­nese cal­lig­ra­phy set on a rainy Sun­day after­noon before Chi­nese year this Jan­u­ary. My in laws hap­pened to be in the neigh­bor­hood and made time to share with us these trea­sured writings.
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By Laurie Tham, ago
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