My friend Rita and her husband Henry’s son Frank is a talented young man and a gifted painter and is now working in Germany as an architect.
One day when discussing just how “wonderful” our children are Rita invited me to her home to look at a few of Frank’s paintings, some from the portfolio he had to submit when applying to Cornell university.
In the style of Emily Carr.
The painting that most caught my attention was the one of his paternal grandmother he painted at 16 years of age working from a 2.5 X 2.5 black and white photo.
The painting is so realistic that on his next trip to China his father Henry carefully rolled the portrait and in China had eight hand painted copies made and gave one to each of his brothers. These paintings now hang in each of their homes in Guang Dong city to honor their grandmother.
While we were looking at the paintings I noticed some beautiful wooden boards and when I inquired Rita told me they were boards for playing Go. She casually mentioned she is a champion player representing Canada in international amateur contests, one in Japan in 2018.
The beautiful bowls and the semi-precious playing stones were a wedding gift from her parents
To complete this story I have to mention that as a child Frank followed his mother around the kitchen, making notes and learning to cook.
When he first took up his position in Germany in 2018 his employer won a major contract to renovate and upgrade one of the then luxury hotels in Beijing and Frank traveled there frequently to work on the project. Being a creative young man he took the opportunity to make friends with the hotels head chef and added greatly to his own international culinary repertoire.
Last year, 2023 for the birthday of a friend, a young lady who is Korean-German, I love that detail, as a gift designed the menu and prepared her a meal served by himself, the master chef.
During my recent 20 day train trip in May from Vancouver on the west coast to Halifax on the east coast of Canada with two day stops in various cities along the way I saw a few interesting things.
The most striking was the Titanic passengers graveyard in Halifax, visited by tourists from around the world.
When the Titanic sank the White Star line hired boats from Halifax to sail, two days to the area to help with the recovery of the bodies.
The bodies identified from wealthy families, ergo the first class passengers, were returned to England or forwarded to New York.
The rest were interred in Halifax, those identified have a name on their tombstone and the those not, a number.
The most bizarre are the tourists who according to our tour guide confuse the movie Titanic with the reality of the sinking of the RMS Titanic and place bouquets of flowers, movie ticket stubs and photos of themselves, periodically cleared away, at the tombstone of J. Dawson. Apparently the name used for the male hero in the movie.
In truth he was a coal trimmer on the ship, his body identified by the number of his National Sailors and Fireman’s Union card he had thoughtfully placed in his pocket.
He was an Irishman from Dublin tying to get to America.
He and his below decks colleagues were permitted topside after the lifeboats were launched.His body was barefoot when found, having like other below decks crew removed their work boots to make it possible to swim – briefly.
Observed listing in the Halifax public park, and much appreciated by yours truly.
First I hope you are well and in good spirits and I threaten to call you soon.
A number of months ago Frédérique my friend and neighbor in Saint Denis, he had built house one field over, emailed and told me his ostéopathe Mme B. was planning to immigrate to Vancouver and would I please be of assistance to her.
I exchanged emails with Mme B. over the months responding to her questions and giving her advice e.g. ensure he professional qualifications were recognized by our local medical authorities etc. I also advised her that living in Castelnaudary, the home of the French Foreign Legion 4e Regiment there is probably a steady demand for osteopaths but the profession is not well known hereabouts.
L. arrived three weeks ago, located her Airbnb downtown and sent me a note saying all was well and she was off looking for employment.
A week later I emailed her saying I was arranging a monthly lunch with some friends from our local community centre, all of us elderly and she was welcome to join us. That later I would walk her around Kerrisdale letting her see life in my suburb as opposed to her AirBnB in downtown Vancouver. She replied she would be happy to join us.
We met as arranged at a bus stop on the corner of 41st Avenue and East Boulevard in Kerrisdale and having been told to look for an old man with a cane she found me and we walked to the Golden Ocean Restaurant where she was to try two new things for the first time, brunch and dim sum.
Her English was fair, she made the effort to address and converse with her new a acquaintances, counter clockwise, Khanh from Vietnam, Wei from South Africa, Helen and John from England, Grace from Hong Kong and Pauline from Malaysia. The ladies were much taken with her and she received immediate chop stick instruction.
Having only communicated with her by email I was astonished to learn she is 25 years old, has already found employment 3 days a week in a clinic adjacent to the Vancouver General Hospital, is here to get work experience, become fluent in English and plans to go to medical school in Montreal.
While I went home for my postprandial nap L. got on the R4 Express bus to explore the University of British Columbia.
The world will be OK.
John
PS I am leaving next Saturday for a one week train tour of northern BC.
Herewith a few words about some folks I met on the train.
On our trans Canada group train tour from Vancouver BC to Halifax NS I was returning from the second dinner service when I noticed a very depressed looking lady, as they say in France of a certain age, sitting alone in the bar car appearing or well on the way to being drunk. I stopped and asked why she was looking so sad.
She told me at his request she had flown to Vancouver to see her son George, he was working on a large construction project in northern BC, in order to let her know, in person and face to face he had been diagnosed with a cancer that had metastasized and he had 18 months to live.
I commiserated as best I could and listened a lot while she told me about her heartbreak and desperate anger. She told me they both had Fuck Cancer tattooed on their left breasts above their hearts and showed me hers and told me George should be back soon, he had just gone to his cabin to fill his glass, CN Via Rail was providing the mix.
Our conversation had skipped platitudes and spoke directly to and acknowledged her situation and we both found a place to be friends. With that in mind and to lighten the mood I proposed that when George returned we should tell him that we had just met, that our attraction was both mutual and immediate and at our age had decided to skip all the intermediate hoopla and if not marriage at least wanted a romantic relationship. She thought this was a very funny idea, in her defense she was a bit inebriated, terribly sad and obviously needed a laugh.
George arrived, a very large and heavily muscled man, he also operates a lobster boat in Nova Scotia, I later learned he boxes, arrived and inquired “who the fuck are you and are you flirting with my mother.” I told him I am Irish and relatively harmless and he told me he was a fan of Connor McGregor the Irish world Ultimate Fighting Champion.
I told him his mother and I had just met but there was an instant attraction, she had even shown me her tattoo, and in consideration of our ages and the time remaining decided to skip all the preliminary hoopla and move directly to the planning our future. He was immediately in on the joke and told me he liked the Irish and was OK with our plans and showed me his tattoo.
I told him there was no need to feel threatened as his mother and I had agreed I should adopt him and we were for now not planning on children. At that he laughed and asked ‘just who the fuck are you Irishman ” and had another drink.
The next day the train stopped as scheduled at Jasper in Alberta. The hours ticked by and the train manager finally announced that due to the massive forest fires along the track we were going to wait to see if it was safe to proceed, that we could leave the train but should stay around the station. When I joined George in the station he presented me with an Irish flag, the last one to be found, he assured me in the small station. It is now on my balcony.
I thanked him and scoured the stalls and the best I could find at the charity second hand book stand was a copy of The Little Mermaid which I endorsed to my new friend George, signed and hid in his backpack.
Later the train manager advised us that due to the fires we would be returning, another 24 hour overnight journey, back to Vancouver. Next morning while waiting in line at the Canadian National Via Rail counter in Vancouver for reimbursements or rebooking I saw George and his Mom, George laughed and said “you shit, I found the book and knew it had to be you.” He was putting his mother on a plane to Houston to attend her granddaughters graduation while he was going to lay up in a hotel and call family and friends, and now having told his mother personally, give them his news. And would then return to Nova Scotia, take his boat out and set some lobster traps.
We hugged, wished each other well, took these photos and said our goodbyes.
We did not exchange email addresses.
If you pay attention when you least expect it life sometimes presents you an opportunity to meet wonderful people.
Stay well, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else.
