Zheng De Temple: Twenty Years of Solitude

I armed myself with a thin bamboo cane as we walked up the stairs and deeper into the forest. The colorful flags hanging along the railing on our left resemble the Tibetan prayer flags except for its triangular shape and lack of religious scribing. After a short but sweaty ascent, Lamma-Gung and I arrived at a chained-up black gate. Above us, the four characters engraved in gold against a black wooden sign read 正德仙觀, which translates to Zheng De Taoist Temple.

I shook the gate lightly to create some noise and called out to the person inside. This set off a chorus of fierce barking. Two well-built black dogs, unused to the presence of visitors, greeted us with growls and barks from above us on the hill. Thankfully they were leashed this time and the sole purpose of my bamboo cane was to swat mosquitoes. This was not the case during my first visit when I arrived unscheduled after hearing distant chants on a hike down from the Mt Stenhouse pavilion to Sok Kwu Wan. An old nun, the person we came here for, walked down to unlock the gate and welcomed us into the premises of the temple.

The Taoist temple houses three single-storey buildings. The main temple sits at the bottom of the premises and faces Sok Kwu Wan. It is the worshipping place for the many immortals and deities of Taoism. As this particular temple is under the Quan Zhen (全真) branch of Taosim, the key immortal worshipped here is Lu Dong Bin(吕洞宾). Legend has it that Lu, over eight feet tall, saves lives with his magic healing pills and possesses a flying sword that is able to decapitate victims from thousands of miles away.

As we took our time quietly appreciating the well-kept place and the lit lanterns covering the ceiling, a very pretty cat with fur looking like a leopard's joined us. It playfully rubbed against our legs and looked contented and relaxed. Workday begins at night for this cat when the mice run amok. To our surprise, this peaceful cat lives amicably with its bigger and less friendly canine companions.

The second building is diagonally uphill from the main temple and is where the nun resides. Nun Wong is the sole resident and caretaker of the temple. She moved to this temple over ten years ago after receiving a calling from the gods. At that time, the temple was deserted after the nun who founded the temple sixty years ago passed away. Nun Wong then was a widow with a daughter in her twenties. Her daughter and friends tried to visit the temple but could not enter as a fierce puppy stood guard and refused them entry.

A week later, Nun Wong came with them and this time round the puppy made a roundabout in front of her and then docilely led them to the altar of the main temple. Upon seeing the state of dilapidation of the temple, Nun Wong kneeled down in front of the idols and broke down. For every day over the next two years, Nun Wong took on the responsibility to burn incense and maintain the temple. She would take the 720am ferry to Sok Kwu Wan and leave on the 405pm ferry. She refused to live onsite due to a phobia of darkness and snakes, some of them falling from the trees.

After two years of daily commute, Nun Wong had a strange dream one night: she was on an old boat approaching the shore and standing on the shore was an old man who asked her: "Why are you coming here? There are too many snakes here. Are you not afraid?" Nun Wong shouted valiantly: "The worst that can happen is that I get bitten and die! Come what may!" She then landed and walked up the shore. As a Taoist, Nun Wong believed that dreams are messages from the gods and took this particular one seriously. She moved into the temple and resolved to stay for twenty years. Strange enough she no longer sees many snakes after the dream.

The temple is in a much better state today as you can see from the photos. Nun Wong's day starts at 5am when she burns incense and pray. She does the same at 11am and 4pm. Other than that, she does housekeeping for the premises, walks down to Sok Kwu Wan for a chat with friends, and prepares her vegetarian meals. Her days are free and relaxing except during the preparations for the Taoist festivals like Lu's birthday in April and the upcoming Yu Lan festival. Surprisingly she does not celebrate Tin Hau festival, the key Taoist festival for the Lamma fishermen.

Nun Wong seldom leaves Lamma Island and relies on visiting friends and worshippers to bring supplies that she cannot get from Sok Kwu Wan. The temple does not get many visitors and worshippers and as such donations come scarce. Nun Wong uses the pocket money that she receives from her daughter for the upkeep of the temple and a nominal rent she pays to the government for the land.

The third and smallest building sits the highest along the hillside. It was a surprise for us to see a portrait of the founder of Buddhism Siddhartha Gautama at the centre of the altar with Buddhist chants playing in the background. Nun Wong explained that Zheng De Temple worships both Taoism and Buddhism. This might be a surprise to some people (imagine Christians and Muslims sharing a place of worship!) but perhaps it is more common in Asia. I remember from my trip to Nepal that many there worship Hinduism and Buddhism simultaneously.

Perched somewhat precariously on top of this building is a massive rock that Nun Wong claims to have healing abilities. She led us to the top of the rock through a short path from the back and demonstrated agility that surpassed our expectations for that of an old lady. The climb to the top offered a great view of Sok Kwu Wan. Nun Wong carefully picked up a small beautiful stone lying face up on the big rock and dusted it with her hand. The special stone was picked up from a very sacred mountain for Taoism in Jiangxi province and now absorbs the moonlight every night on top of the big rock.

She affectionately rubbed the stone on my back and shoulders like a massage for good health. After we left the temple, I wondered why she did not do the same to Lamma-Gung who was standing right next to us. Am I in more urgent need of better health than someone twice my age?

Lamma-zine would like to express thanks to Nun Wong for her hospitality and would like to wish her the best for her secluded and spiritual life in the mountain!

Posted by fieadmin on Sunday, August 19th, 2012

HONG KONG'S LAMMA ISLAND, which looks like an upside-down, frisky puppy on two legs biting a strangely shaped, dead bird (not difficult to imagine at all) is a leading character in "Kiss Me, Hadley", due out in March. I made a day trip about a year ago to remind myself of the finer details and not a lot had changed. It is a busy island of tiny homes, bars and restaurants famous for a power station on its best beach, a terrific walk across to the other side of the island, an expat community of mums, dads and kids which lives happily in the tiny houses and apartments, with kids' games on that same beach. It is also famous for an expat community of middle-aged, single expats, many of them journalists, who can no longer afford the rents of Hong Kong Island or the monthly subscription to the Foreign Correspondents' Club.

I walked down the main street, actually a path, in Yung Shu Wan, or Banyan Tree Bay, past the noodle shops, air-con repair shops, property agents, bars, holiday lets and an incongruous boutique full of bangles, beads, Tim Hardin CDs and various hippie Zen crap, stinking the place out with incense. At a corner, there was a cheerful man with a long grey beard and wearing nothing but shorts. He had a pile of books on one side and a dog on the other. In the ten seconds or so that I was within earshot, I saw another elderly expat, this one surly and glum, walk up to him and say goodbye. The man with the beard was taken aback and started to twirl his moustache with his fingers.

"You're not going for good, for heaven's sake?"
"No. I'm just going into town to have my nipples pierced."
"You had me worried for a minute. No one ever actually leaves Lamma."

This is a true snippet of conversation (except for the bit about having his nipples pierced). Either this guy with the dog said that to everyone, or I had witnessed, in a snapshot of conversation that could have blossomed any time over the years, a chilling exchange in which the two men's fates were sealed.

My Famous Neighbour Chow Yun-Fat

I do admire Lamma-Gung who still has so many stories to report about Lamma. After reading so many articles in local magazines and watching TV documentaries about Lamma, it seems that there is nothing more left than having Chow Yun-Fat as its local-born celebrity and the Western atmosphere that has drawn many Hong Kong tourists from the city and whose main purpose in coming to the island is take a look at the "Westerners" living on Lamma. I am not joking. I have overheard many times quite a few first-time visitors talking to each other in excitement, yelling "Look, there are so many Gweilos living on Lamma!" and "That's cool to see so many Gweilos here!" as if they were exploring a new continent or going to see aliens from outer space. Maybe some local westerners should consider collecting donations from visitors just for being looked at.

On the evening that the Hong Kong Observatory raised its second Typhoon Signal Number 8 this year, on July 23, I turned on the TV to check the weather news and happened to see a programme called "Big Fun on Little Rocks" on TVB's Jade Channel, introducing different islands in Hong Kong. [Click on any picture to watch it.] Give me a break, I thought, it's about Lamma again!

Maybe I have been living on this island for too long, and having experienced the bitterness of running a small business here and suffered from a certain local hostility in the past nine years, I see Lamma from quite a different perspective. All the one-sided stories about how nice Lamma is clearly doesn't satisfy someone, such as myself, who has a special appetite for digging into the dark side of human nature.

The programme, like many other programmes of the same kind, began with the most famous resident of Lamma, Mr. Chow Yun-Fat, the locally-born TV star turned Hollywood movie star. But Mr. Chow did not appear in the programme at all. He was "represented" by his older nephew, another Mr. Chow named Ma-shing. He claimed that it was Chow Yun-Fat's wish to turn Lamma into a tourist destination. "Everyone wants this to happen," he said. I personally have reservations about this comment. It is not "everyone" who would be happy with the idea of turning Lamma into a tourist paradise. Certainly few of the city dwellers who moved to Lamma years ago because it was tranquil; and not these days when Main Street is like Nathan Road on a busy weekend afternoon; when people have to wait for an hour to be served in the restaurants and the price of many foods, let alone the rent, has gone unreasonably high for the locals. Sometimes, to the local people a tourist paradise can be a nightmare.

Next, Mr. Chow bragged about the power of fung shui from Chow Yun-Fat's home in Wang Long Village, adjacent to where I live. Frankly I didn't know the exact location of Mr. Chow's home until the programme was aired that night, although I had been asked about it by several visitors from time to time. "It is possibly the ‘Bat' that is embeded on the corner of the wall of Chow Yun-Fat's house has helped him to become so successful," he explained. In Cantonese, "bat" is pronounced as "Pin-Fook" in which "Fook" sounds like "luck/good fortune".

As the programme progressed, the presenter, a former Miss Hong Kong runner-up, seized the opportunity to flatter (a skill she probably learnt through the Miss Hong Kong pageant) the elderly Mr. Chow by saying he was good-looking like his younger uncle, Chow Yun-Fat. Seemingly very pleased with the comment, he humbly said it might be due to having drunk water from the same well as his charming relative when they were still little. I think TVB should make another series of "Believe it or Not!"

However, the elderly Mr. Chow did say something less fictional about Chow Yun-Fat's success - that his passion for acting had been growing since he was a student at the local primary school. He often volunteered to play in school dramas during school anniversary celebrations.

In my opinion, merely good luck and fung shui do not make people successful. A person like Chow Yun-Fat has worked very hard to achieve stardom, even though he was once labeled as the "poison of the box office"! He was nearly forty when he started to pick up the English language before starting a new venture in Hollywood. It surely took a lot of courage and determination to overcome all these hurdles, especially when he could no longer drink the magic well water on the island, which he left a good many years ago, to keep his good looks.

So it is my secret dream that one day, when I come across a visitor asking for directions, instead of wanting to see Chow Yun-Fat's home, they ask me where the famous writer of "Memoirs of an Ice Cream Lady" lives. Will my landlord regret raising the rent and forcing me to leave someday in the future?