Three Loves Seven, Part 2 - "What do you think the Great Prince will look like?"

Dear family, friends, and gentle readers,

Today's installment still has us at the Island Shrine. We get a view on what happened from the "church musicians" on duty while Clete is there trying to make nice with the local gods (whom he thinks are just silly figments of his hosts' imagination, but he's a least going through the motions).

Clete is a Presbyterian, so he has no business being so intolerant of people who believe in unseen things represented by physical symbols, but there it is. That's how it goes.

The spotlight falls back again on the character Feng, Phoenix Guardian Princess of the South. She is sharp in multiple ways. So is her daughter Wen who interviews her. Those who have sharp children know that at some point in their young adult lives they will point that sharpness at you and work to deflate you. They don't mean ill. It's just the blueprint working itself out. How you react to that inevitable attack is the test of yourself. My advice is that you should put up a fight, but let them win.

The next installment will have Clete's recollection of this same morning.

Thanks for reading.

Love,
Pops

U.S. Time:  Sunday, July 29, 2012

Island Time: Dragon, Month 6, Day 11, Xingqi 7

[Recorder’s note: Recorded recollections by Wen, apprentice guqin player and court musician, recounted to the Guardian Princess of History, Prophecy, and Lore, documenting Dr. Wong’s visit to the Shrine.]

Qin Qin:  You have recounted the conversations you had with your mother regarding that day. Go ahead and tell us those for the record.

Wen: Jie came by our home one evening and mentioned that that Dr. Wong said that he would like to visit The Shrine and pay respects to the local gods, as well as to do his own devotion that coming Day Seven. She knew that he was a Christian and also knew that Christians like to use music when they worship, so would my mother and I be willing to provide something for him? I agreed immediately of course, but Mother, she was unsure. That’s very uncharacteristic of her, as you know.

     “We can’t help. We don’t know any Christian music,” said Mother.

     “We know ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Home Sweet Home,’” I suggested.

     “Perhaps, but it’s only two things,” said Mother, “and I’m not even sure that they are religious songs. And their notes do not fall well on the qin, at least not easily. They will sound like mistakes.”

     “I don’t mean to correct you, but Amazing Grace falls perfectly on the open strings.”

     “Oh, I guess it does, doesn’t it? It must be Irish or Scottish.”

     “In any case,” said Jie, “he did not make any requests so do not concern yourself with American religious music. I think he would be pleased with anything you would provide to create a harmonious atmosphere for him.” She went on. “He said he plays the American folk guitar so I’m sure as a musician he understands the limitations and will not hold it against your skill.”

     “Clete is a musician!?” Mother complained, “Wah. That makes it even the worse. I can’t play for him. It will make me too nervous.”

     “But Mother, you play beautifully. How about the Nomad Flute Song Cycle? It would be perfect, since Dr. Wong is a wanderer himself.”

     “Excellent idea. I agree,” Jie said. “Auntie, please don’t underestimate your talent. Anyway we don’t know if he’s any good at the guitar.”

     “Maybe we can find out,” I suggested. “We have that old, four-string moon guitar that nobody plays. We could string it and see if he would enjoy practicing on it?”

     “That IS a thought—he might enjoy that as a pastime. But that’s beside our purposes though,” said Mother. “As for what we play, I suppose he probably won’t know any better. Westerners always think every song on the guqin sounds alike. But I don’t understand American folk music myself for that matter. Much too simplistic.”

     “I understand Christians do a lot of singing, so the simpler the better probably,” Jie offered.

    “I can do any of the ‘Ocean’ series. I think I have them ready,” I said.

    “And just how long do we need to play?” asked Mother.

    “I don’t know,” said Jie. “But I’m pretty sure Christians have long silences when they pray.”

     “How will we know when to be silent?” I asked.

     “I’ll be attending to him. When and if you need to stop I’ll come to you.”

     “Well, the professor can take as long as he wants. I can do improvisations until the sun sets,” I said.

     “WEN. That is NOT the right attitude. You must have humility to be a devotional player,” Mother gave me her blackest look.

     “Understood,” I said humbly. But that’s certainly how I feel. I can just on and on.

Qin Qin: So how did it all go?

Wen: It was perfectly fine. Mother and I switched off a few times. We played without stop. It was fun. It was the first time I’ve played for an audience. In fact he came over afterward and paid all kinds of compliments to Mother. She REALLY liked that—I could tell. In fact, It prompted me to have a conversation with her as we cleaned up and put away things. About Dr. Wong in particular. Especially considering we had been given assignments to observe him and all.

Qin Qin: Oooo. Sounds very interesting. Go ahead.

Wen: I was just curious about what mother thought about the Professor in that regard, but rather than ask outright I thought to take a different approach. We finally put away all of our things and were preparing to go home and dress for work.

     “Mother, the Seconds have been having some discussion lately about Island prophecy and lore. I wonder if I could get your opinion?”

     “Qin Qin has been talking up her history project then has she?”

     “Something like that. The question is, ‘What do you think the Great Prince will look like?’”

     “When that event happens, his coming, it will just happen. Do not spend your time dreaming about that eventuality.”

     “My question is not about me. My question is what you think.”

     She gave me a perplexed look, trying to figure out what I was really asking. She sighed and replied. “As I have gotten older, and especially when you came of age, I have stopped thinking about such things. I have no idea now.”

     “But what did you use to think? Back when you cared.”

     I admit it. It was a provocative statement. Mother did not like being analyzed. “And when did you start thinking it was fine to speak so sharply to your mother? It’s Wong’s influence isn’t it?” I can tell when her emotion is heightened in his regard. She drops his honorific.”

     “If you just want to NOT answer me, that’s fine.”

     She looked up into the rafters of the Shrine. “He would be a great scholar. Versed in many languages. Knowledgeable in poetry and literature. And science and mathematics. Also politics, law, history, and current human affairs. His personal qualities? Confident. Self-assured. Brash. A risk taker. But kind to women and children and animals. An excellent horseman. Good with the sword and archery. A master of the guqin, the scholar’s instrument. Takes care of his parents.”

     “So. A superior man in the traditional sense.”

     “Very much so.”

     “Was he handsome in your mind’s eye?”

     Mother laughed to herself. “In my more immature days, yes. But such outward appearance is not important. What kind of man do you think he is?”

     “He would be my adoptive father then, right? I just see him as being wise and being willing and able to take care of you and me.”

     “Only two criteria? But hard ones. Wise men are rare. Someone who can take care of me is even rarer.”

     “Mother, what would you say if I said that if you are willing to broadly interpret some of your qualities of the Prince, you are describing Professor Wong?”

     She was appalled by what I said. I thought she was going to hit me. “You are out of your mind. He knows mathematics and science, and that’s about it.”

     “This week, he downloaded a study guide he had put together for a group of 15-year-olds at his church for us to use in getting familiar with western literature. He said he originally drafted it in the summer that he was 16 when he decided to read the 100 Great Books of the West since he had 100 days of vacation. He pulled out all the quotable passages that were the essence of the work so that they could be quoted in essay tests. His system works. Our essays are all sounding more facile. He still keeps the 100 Great Books all in his head.”

     “But his language skills are terrible.”

     “True his conversational Japanese and Chinese are very childish and halting. But he e-mails his business associates in Russian, Arabic, Turkish, French, and Spanish. If you count computer languages, he programs in four. If you count calculus and chemistry as professional languages, it’s even more. If you count his math software, it’s even more than that.”

     “Guqin player? He’s not that.”

     “He plays the piano and guitar. And what else did he say? The violin a little?”

     “Horseman. What about that?”

     “He holds international operators’ licenses to pilot boats, small airplanes, helicopters, and tractor trailer vehicles. I think that was all in his dossier.”

     “Current public affairs?”

     “All those credentials he presented at his introduction to the council? There are pictures of him with the rulers of all those countries on his computer shaking hands over energy projects. Qin Qin showed them to me.”

     “I don’t believe it. Anyone can take a picture. It’s not possible with that man. He’s just a part-time teacher. That’s what he said.”

     “Why would the prime minister of Japan take a picture with a part-time American teacher? I wonder that there is more to him. He works on his e-mails and phone calls while we are working on our class assignments. He DOES curse up a storm in all languages he knows. I think he is just responding to the men he works with though. I would count that toward fulfilling your requirements for confidence and aggression.”

     “He is only a teacher. And a self-described failure as an oil finder. What about the other things? Swordsman? Filiality?”

     “I don’t know, but I somehow suspect that if I asked, I am sure he I would learn that he can shoot a rifle or a short gun. A call to that man who is his sponsor, whom I think he said once that he knows him since childhood, would give you the answer to his relationship with his parents. I think you should sit in on our classes sometime, Mother. I think even you would learn something.”

     “This is all impossible. Ridiculous. If you bend rules, anybody can be made to fit any criteria.”

     “Don’t worry Mother. If you reapply your criterion for being strong and handsome, then I think you can feel secure that you have not overlooked him as a candidate.”

     “Don’t patronize me. Maybe he is some sort of confidence man—a swindler or pirate?”

     “But we know those types of people very well. They are our subjects after all? And he doesn’t seem the type to me.”

     “The Great Prince would NOT be such a profane man.”

     “He does not curse at me or in front of me. He is the perfect gentleman teacher. Would you like to know why I think that’s so?”

     “Let’s hear it.”

     “I give him respect and deference that one should accord a great scholar. I decided that I would treat him as if he were the Great Prince. In return, he treats me like a lady. You mother, and most of the other First Princesses, on the other hand treat him as he were just another alien worker. Even though the council has granted him ambassador status. Does he even know that?”

     “Your Aunt Lee is supposed to tell him.”

     “Do you know what he calls you? Behind your back?”

     “No. You tell me.”

     “He calls you ‘the Vice Provost.’”

     “And do you know what he means by that?”

     “It’s not a compliment. It’s the title of his most troublesome boss at his university. He thinks you are a tyrannical harpy of a supervisor.”

     “And he told you that directly? How rude!”

     “Not only that, he told me that he gave me the seat of highest scholastic honor to start with because of you.”

     “That MAN! That is NOT the lesson I want taught.”

     “He said it was mine if I could keep it.”

     “And have you?”

     “Yes.”

     “Well then. How he reacts to a woman who respects standards is his problem. Not mine.”

     “I like and respect him a lot Mother. That’s NOT how I want him to think of you. And I don’t think you want that either.”

     “How would you like me to regard him?”

     “I don’t know. I think you would enjoy one another’s company a great deal if you would resolve your differences. You have a lot in common. Sometimes I think you need a friend to talk to beyond your cousins. And I think you would enjoy a MALE friend.”

     “And what purpose with friendship with him serve? He’s only going to be here a short time.”

     “If we were to move to U.S. territory, he could be a helpful contact. I don’t wonder that he might give you his phone to call you and talk.”

     “What makes you think we are going to move? Anywhere?”

     “So we are staying here then? Forever?”

     “Now you’re being silly.” She dodged my question and I just let it lie. And I stayed silent. “He has his purposes for us and his duties for himself. And I have mine. And these speculations are dangerous. He’s an unknown quantity to us. We can’t be sure he means well or ill here.”

     “AND JUST WHAT danger does he present? What would he plunder from us? A few hundred pounds of fish? As many of your prized fowl that he could carry? That would be six in cages, by the way. Resin from the incense trees? I hear that’s expensive. If there were anything of value here, wouldn’t any of the several protectorates would have taken it a long time ago? And if he were a bad man, wouldn’t the curse defeat him anyway?”

     Mother was silent. I felt I had to speak to fill the air. “It’s all right Mother. You answered my original question. Thank you. It’s only an intellectual question since I know you’ve become an agnostic as far as the belief in the Coming of the Prince is concerned. I am not saying Dr. Wong is The One. But the Seconds are just all comparing notes on the legend of the Prince since the recorded descriptions are so vague and fragmented according to Qin Qin. Everybody has different lists of ideals that he possesses, but the strange thing I find is that he fulfills many of them—not just yours.”

Wen: Afterward I almost felt sorry that we had had that conversation. I don’t know what made me so defensive on the Professor’s behalf. I expected Mother to strike me as she has when I have gotten so verbally assertive. She muttered something about my being grown and able to think on my own and that maybe she was done with this world. I don’t think she realized that I was quite so fully aware of her apostasy. I felt like she had not reconciled herself to her own beliefs about the world and why we were here. She was very quiet and depressed for a long time afterward. It’s her own fault though. She raised me to be observant and to think.

Qin Qin: So where are you now on the issue of Clete as Prince?

Wen: You’ve moved me off of NO. But I’m not on YES.

Qin Qin: Yet.

Wen: Yes, yet. Qin? This is not just a game. Mother was greatly troubled by my just asking these questions. She was glum for hours afterward. Where is this going to go?

Qin Qin: Probably nowhere. But I am NOT going nowhere. I am going to follow truth wherever it takes me. Are we lost princesses in exile or are we just a bunch of girls on a Pacific island? I don’t know about you, but I know what I want to do either way. I am being totally honest about what I want for myself. I do NOT intend to live my mother’s life.

Wen: So what then? You’re going to use Dr. Wong for your own purposes?

Qin Qin:  I am not going make him do anything that he doesn’t already want to do for me. He wants me to go to college. You too, by the way. He wants me to be more than a charcoal maker. I can’t even say that about my own mother. What about you?

Wen: I … I think this conversation is over. Your tone is starting to make me angry. Why do you always do this? Why do you push us to think ill of you? If we go on, I am only going to say something unkind, so I am stopping now.

Qin Qin: I don’t know why you’re getting upset. I just stated my own feelings. And you know what? Even if he isn't The One, I will not be staying here. But I agree, we’ve exhausted the subject for now. Thank you.

© Copyright 2012, Vincent G. Way, all rights reserved.