Later that morning we decide to go play basketball in some playground behind some church somewhere. The "hoop" is nailed to the top of a hallway and there is a tree that is partially in the way of any shot besides a baseline jumper. Despite the conditions, it's fun to play basketball with my little cousins and feeling like Mutombo with every massive block on four foot tall Mason.
My dad coaches little kids basketball in the Bay Area. He started many years ago when I was little coaching for the Fremont Chinese School after class program. He started renting the local gym in Fremont to coach kids on the Sundays and eventually the program got so big that they have incorporated into the Fremont Youth Basketball Club (FYBC), with several teams ranging from as young as 4th grade through high school. Through all of these years, I still find my dad sometimes watching some kind of instructional basketball coaching video in the middle of the night as if to find the holy grail of basketball coaching in order to bring his teams to glory. I tell my dad that that secret code of coaching is held secret in a blood pact between Gregg Popovich, Pat Riley, and Phil Jackson and that they would never tell him. Still, he pushes on.
After basketball, we head back to Ehr-Ling because the kids want McDonalds. On the way there though, we stop for some Lu Rou Fan, essentially a Taiwanese braised pork belly over rice with some pickled mustard greens. I haven't been posting photos because it's been such a pain in the ass to transfer between three devices and then uploading it, but you all need to see this. Now.
This is absolutely delicious. You just order it and they put it right in a bowl and you just chow down on some table on the side of the street. And it costs less than 2 US dollars.
We head to McDonalds so that the kids can grab some chicken nuggets and french fries. The fries taste oddly like potatoes in a way that fries back in the US do not. I order a weird corn soup that is not sold in US McDonalds and it tastes alright. It is strange to think about how McDonalds has expanded throughout the world. Going from that Lu Rou Fan stand then to the McDonalds is not as big of a cultural jump as I had anticipated. In a way, McDonalds here is not so much of an American novelty as it is just delicious food that kids in Taiwan love.
When we return, people have come by and taken the tent outside down and have replaced it with an even bigger one that essentially blocks off the entire street for the next three days. It is something special when you know all of the people in the neighborhood well enough that they are just cool with you just being in the street for a few days. This would never fly in New York. Inside the tent there is a massive portrait of my grandfather on top a very elaborate altar.
Seeing the portrait made me think of him. I first heard that he was unwell a little more than a week ago now. I was just at my apartment in New York when my father called my phone from California. His voice had a bid of worry as he told me that my grandfather had problems using his lungs and that the doctor had said he did not have long left. My dad told me to call a phone number so that I could speak with my grandfather. When I called, one of my aunts picked up the phone and gave the phone to my grandfather. I told him that it was "wei wei" (my nickname among the family) and I heard him mumble some things through an oxygen mask. I did not know what to say and just repeat again that it was me and said "a gong hao" (hello grandpa). He mumbled some more things I could not really hear. After that I just tried to listen to him and hear what he was saying. There was no more, but I could just hear him breathing slowly for a while before simply hanging up. My mother called after me and said that my aunt said he was very happy after I had called. He told my mother to take care of me and even remembered that I had been going to Columbia Law School. My dad took a flight to Taiwan that night, but unfortunately my grandfather passed away while my dad was on the way there.
The altar and the decorations are absolutely incredible. Tonight many more relatives will show up and stay with us here at the home. Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be very busy with a long ceremony for the family and for friends to come by and pay their respects. Although it will be an emotional moment for many, it is supposed to be great celebration of my grandfather's life and a chance for family and friends to come back and be together. Thursday will be the day of the burial and we will take my grandfather across town to a plot of land and lay him to rest.
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