Road to Enlightenment

Late entry

The Road to Enlightenment

With less than a week to go in Hong Kong, why would I assume that my adventures would ever come to a stand still. I don’t know if there is something about my personality or whether God has an interesting way of making my life worth while, but I certainly run into a lot of abnormal yet inspiring people.

After walking through the 10,000 Buddha temple, I thought it would be interesting to visit the bee farm at the end of path because let’s be honest how often do you get to visit bee farms, especially in Hong Kong. So my three friends and I walked through a side path into private property following an arrow that pointed toward the bee farm. By the time we got close enough to enter the bee farm, we were approached by an old man who owned a Bookstore called “Starock Bookstore.” With great excitement he invited us into his house and immediately started giving us a tour. At first we were a little hesitant because some random enthusiastic old guy invited us into his house, but we were comforted by the fact that if anything were to go down, there were four of us and only one of him. He divided his house into different exhibits each displaying his unique artwork. First he took us into his bed room, which had exhibits 1 & 2. Unlike most Western artwork, his pieces of art were poems written in traditional Chinese calligraphy blended with bright colored paint. Each poem possessed a unique story that paved the way for the next, but was uniquely written in a way that if you hadn’t read the poem prior the plot would be unaffected.  Although I wish I remembered the story of each poem, most of them spoke about stars and the journey of stars through their life.

Just to give a little background about this old man, he calls himself Little Star. He claims that he is completely free of religion and political associations. He spent most of his life traveling but now he has settled down and spends the remainder of his life writing. 

After taking us through his bedroom, he took us to his dining room where he showed us the third and last exhibit. After the last exhibit he told us about his books. He mentioned that he’s been writing books for many years.  Within the first few years that he started writing books, he gave over a thousand books to travelers from oversees. Right now he only has a few copies of his books. Similar to his poems, each book was completely exclusive in its message than the first one (each one was different).  By the end of the tour he happily exclaimed that since we went through the whole tour he was going to give us one of his original works. By this point I was a little hesitant to spend more money, especially since I have already frivolously spent a lot of my money on food, but without even having to ask he said that he was going to give it to us as a free gift.

Before giving each of us our poem’s he asked what our occupations were. Since we were students he chose four unique poems for us. (The story behind that question is that he has specific poems based on the occupation of the person receiving the poem. He has written poems for engineers, doctors, and a myriad of different types of people.) Next he asked us who was the oldest as a way to show respect for seniority which is really important in the Chinese culture. Interestingly enough I was the second oldest. The reason this is interesting is because as crazy as it may sound to have a favorite number, mine just so happens to be the number 2.  You can never be lonely when you are with another. Also, I am the 2^nd born of four children, and I was born in the 2^nd month on the 28^th day of the 2^nd year of the 1990 (2/28/1992).

Not to say that I am superstitious, but it was scary how each poem related to each of us individually. My poem told the story of a star going on a journey. My star would be fighting against the evil one. The message for me based on my stars journey was not to give in to the evil ones and not to conform my values.  The reason this is interesting is because as Christians we are always in spiritual warfare against our enemy.

When  I told my best friend about meeting Little star, she told me not to get caught up in the message. Her words were, “of course it makes sense. It’s like reading a horoscope; the message can apply to anyone.”

Of course I’m not going to get too caught up in the message, but this is definitely and interesting story that rarely happens.