Seeker

by Rita Pomade

  Bernard researched the shipbuilding market and his findings matched her observations. “The prices are good,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “I’m all for it,” I said.

  Bernard got a job on a dam site in the far north of Quebec. I looked for a school I liked for the boys and then got an apartment nearby. Once we were settled I found a teaching position during the day, and re-established my palm reading business in the evening. We lived on my salary and saved Bernard’s to pay for building the yacht. During a respite from work, we drove to New York City to buy equipment — a VHF radio and a depth sounder.

  “I’ll never forget your help in this project,” Bernard said during a break in our shopping spree. “I owe you.”

  “No, you don’t,” I replied. “This is a joint venture.”

  Back in Quebec, Bernard read books on the technical aspects of sailing. I read cookbooks and techniques for storing food on long journeys. I also went to an astrologer who assured me I wouldn’t drown at sea.

  I had never sailed.

  “You’d better see how you like it,” Bernard advised.

  On a warm summer day, we joined friends on their yacht and sailed for a few hours on Lake Champlain. A light breeze eased their ketch through rippled water with no more than a slight tacking of the sails. Lively conversation and an endless profusion of succulent treats filled the hours. After a few glasses of good Chardonnay, I told Bernard: “No problem with sailing. I’ll do just fine.”

  Instead of investing my time in sailing lessons, I decided to invest it in building our savings. I didn’t want to be too old to sail by the time we had enough money for this adventure. One afternoon in a neighbourhood magazine store, I found an article on gold in an investor’s magazine. I sent away for a newsletter that sang its praises and was seduced by the editor’s enthusiasm. Fast track to the future, I thought.

  “Totally irresponsible,” my businessman uncle blustered, when I asked for his advice. “Get yourselves a home before you start fooling with what you don’t know.” I was deflated but undefeated. Gold felt right.

  I got out the yellow pages and discovered that, at the Guardian Trust on Rue St. Jacques in the business district of Montreal, I could buy and take delivery of gold. The first time I walked into the building I was scared and thrilled. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I was going on nothing but my faith in a contrarian newsletter.

  Sometimes I bought South African coins called Krugerrands. They carried one standard ounce of gold and wouldn’t have to be assayed when exchanged for other currency, a practical consideration when travelling. At other times I bought small bullion pieces. I was awed by the refined delicacy of one ounce bullion and had even for a time thought about putting a piece on a chain to wear around my neck. Pure gold was beautiful. But my practical side prevailed, and I opted for investing more in Krugerrands than bullion. I stashed my hoard in a cloth pouch that I kept in my underwear drawer.

  After a while, my confidence grew, and I started to dabble in mining stock. For the most part, whatever I bought went up, but there were some minor corrections.

  “You’re losing my money,” Bernard shouted at me during one of those dips in the market.

  I wasn’t that sure of what I was doing, but I had to think fast to defend myself. “Don’t worry,” I blurted out. “The day we’re ready to leave, gold will go through the top.” I have no idea why I said that except that I wanted to protect myself from what could have been a terribly irresponsible decision on my part. If we lost it all, I’d think about it then.

  But I didn’t have to. When I started buying in 1974, gold was $250 an ounce. The day we left Montreal, gold shot up to $850 an ounce. In today’s dollars that would be about $2,582 an ounce. We heard the news on the radio. “Gold has gone through the top,” the announcer said. I couldn’t believe it. Those had been the exact words I used to defend myself.

  “We have to stay,” Bernard urged. “We can’t let it go. Let’s buy more.”

  “No, no,” I pleaded. “We’ve got to go. It won’t stay there.” Bernard was sceptical but he listened.

  Saving for the yacht took seven long years. By the time we left, we had accumulated twelve ounces of gold bullion and a bag of Krugerrands. Our stash took up less space than a pound of butter, so Bernard carried it to Taiwan in a beat-up old-fashioned doctor’s satchel that had belonged to his father. We sold the mining stocks. I cashed in my school pension and retirement savings plan, and bundled my assembled liquid capital with Bernard’s cash savings into a combined checking account to await its transfer to Taiwan. Once our streams of income were combined, we discovered we could build the yacht without touching the gold.

  The gold bullion and South African coins kept us going for a long time at sea. There wasn’t a country that didn’t recognize gold as currency.

  From Tapei-Kaoshung to India-Cochin

  Chapter 3

  WEST MEETS EAST

  Winter 1980: Montreal/Taiwan

  Imagination is life’s preview of coming attractions.

  — ALBERT EINSTEIN

  Late December Bernard answered an ad for a drive-away car to Edmonton, Alberta. From there, we planned to take the train to Vancouver where a friend would drive us to Seattle for our flight to Taiwan. Three of us set out: Bernard, my son Jonah, who was sixteen, and me — each with one suitcase, plus the doctor’s satchel with the small stash of gold and South African coins.

  Stefan, now eighteen, was enrolled in a two-year junior college in Quebec that included the last year of high school and the first year of university.

  “I’m not going,” he announced after some deliberation. “I’d rather finish school.”

  I felt anxious about leaving him behind, but respected his decision. The years it had taken to save for the yacht was a long time in a child’s life, and his desire to stay behind wasn’t unreasonable. Earlier I’d received a letter from Laura who had also backed out of the adventure. She and Benjamin were now married with children, and had a small farm in Oaxaca. In the time it took for us to put together the money for our vision, they had moved on with their lives. First Laura and Benjamin, and now Stefan’s backing out of the adventure brought home with a jolt how many years had passed since we’d first dreamed of this adventure.

  We found Stefan a room in the house of a friend, whom I knew would look after him. Jonah had a half year to go in high school and was looking forward to the adventure of sailing. I contacted the Quebec government and was told that, because I had teaching credentials, he could get his high school diploma if I tutored him. They offered to send his sealed exams to a local high school in whatever country we were in. His high school guidance teacher suggested he apply to Middlebury College in Vermont before we left.

  “They’re interested in applicants who’ve been raised unconventionally,” she told me. “It demonstrates to other students that alternative ways of living can be successful.”

  On January 2, 1980, with Stefan’s and Jonah’s immediate futures settled, we left Montreal in the car we were to deliver to an address in Edmonton. By the time we reached Ontario snow started to fall. Once in Saskatchewan, the storm intensified into a full-blown blizzard with zero visibility forcing us to crawl through a landscape so flat we couldn’t distinguish the highway from the surrounding fields. It was clear why the car’s owner had chosen to fly, but I didn’t regret the drive. I got to see a large swath of Canada I didn’t know, and who knew when we’d be back.

  Our delivery in Edmonton was timed to catch an Amtrak train to Vancouver the same day, the ride over the Rockies being the highpoint of our cross-country trip. But as soon as we boarded, we were again hit by a blizzard. Snow billowed up through the toilets and settled in small mounds alongside our seats. Black porters in white jackets spent most of the journey shovelling heaps of it through the train doors far into the night. The visual impact and rhythmic movement of the men held us spellbound and kept our attention for a good part of the trip. In Vancouver, we
stayed overnight with the friend who drove us to Seattle for our flight to Taiwan. I was winter weary and looking forward to the balmy clime of Taiwan.

  ***

  We arrived in Taipei mid-January and stepped off the plane into a bone-chilling morning.

  “I thought Taiwan was sort of a tropical island,” I said. I flipped the hood of my parka over my head and held it clutched under my chin.

  Bernard shoved his toque down over his ears. “We should have checked the weather.”

  For the next month, I shivered in my parka and complained about the humidity. Jonah took it all in stride and wasn’t bothered at all. Neither were the Taiwanese, who left doors and windows open throughout the day to “let out the cold air.” I learned to stay warm by drinking mugs of ching cha, meaning hot water, served in offices, shops, restaurants, and even railway cars all through the winter. I still drink ching cha to stay warm in winter.

  There were no heating systems, not even fireplaces in Taipei homes, but many were equipped with braziers or gas burners embedded in the centre of tables. During the winter, families sat around the tables to absorb the warmth from the central fire. I discovered this cozy way of eating when Theresa Chen, an artist who owned a gallery in downtown Taipei, invited Jonah, Bernard and me for a Mongolian hot pot dinner.

  Theresa did Chinese water brush painting.

  “Can you give me lessons?” I asked after visiting her gallery a few times. Her patience with my beginning efforts endeared her to me, and we became friends. Before I left Taiwan she gave me one of her paintings — chrysanthemums and a butterfly in flight.

  “A symbol of transformation,” she had said. Her gift hangs in my living room as a reminder of her insight into the voyage I was about to take.

  It was during one of my painting sessions that Theresa invited us for the hot pot dinner. As this was our first exposure to brazier style eating, she taught us the protocol in three succinct phrases. “Pick up. Toss in. Take out.” She demonstrated each step with a leaf plucked from a mound of greens.

  A chafing-dish filled with a simmering broth bubbled away at the centre of the table. Thin slices of meat, shrimp, fish balls, tofu, greens, and noodles were placed around the brazier in flat dishes. Each of us had a bowl and chopsticks. Towards the end of the meal, we cracked raw eggs into our bowls and ladled the broth over them. The final product was delicious and the group participation made for a congenial atmosphere. I suddenly noticed how warm and comfortable I felt, and started to understand community.

  In the countries we eventually sailed through and among the sailing crowd, a sense of community was the glue that held people together. Before I ventured on this journey, I thought of myself as an individual outside the social order and prided myself on my uniqueness. Slowly, I began to value the unifying strength of community. And from the gradual understanding that we’re all connected, I started to embrace the connectedness of all things. The dawning of that perception started with the hot pot dinner in Taipei.

  Anthropologist Marcel Mauss in the early 1900s studied the Inuit in the Canadian north where he observed that families lived independently during the summer, but as soon as winter set in, they coalesced into larger groups. This pattern of living was so basic to their cultural way of life that, when the Canadian government built Western style homes for them, the project failed because the communal lifestyle of the people during the long winter months wasn’t taken into consideration. The Inuit of Alaska once built structures called kashims for use in the winter. Communal activities took place around a central hearth used for major feasts.

  This connection between food and huddling for winter warmth has to be lodged somewhere in our ancestral memory because several years later, during our stay in the Larnaca Marina in Cyprus, a group of us organized what we called a “wintering in” once a week to get through the island’s marrow-chilling months. Each week a different yacht was “it,” and everyone arrived with items for cooking. The galley stove served as the central hearth, and the local flat bread took the place of bowls. Snug seating arrangements are inevitable on yachts, so body warmth was in good supply, and the feeling of well-being and comfort matched the Taiwan experience.

  We weren’t often invited to communal feasts, so I paid close attention to how the people managed when alone and discovered the local chiao tse stands. These savoury minced pork dumplings arrive with winter, accompanied by huge pots of bubbling hot and sour soup. Small stools placed around shared tables permit the chilled passer-by to warm chest and belly while taking in the heat of a neighbouring stranger. Jonah and I made frequent mid-day trips to our neighbourhood chiao tse stand, as much to treat our palates as for pinching a bit of body heat from strangers.

  While exploring the fabled marble mountains of Hualien, several hours by bus from Taipei, Bernard and I discovered an area dotted with hot springs. On the tatami-covered floor of our sparsely furnished room was a raised platform with cotton-padded quilts. After drinking several cups of hot tea brought to us by a silent woman on padded feet, and soaking in the hot springs under the chilled air, I sank into the thick quilts and fell into a bottomless sleep. The hot baths and padded quilts were not culture shock but a cultural discovery that softened the discomfort of winter.

  We bought a pair of the thick quilts as soon as we returned to Taipei. Every morning we aired them out for the following night as we had seen the Taiwanese do. They were remarkably efficient for soaking up humidity, and served us well in chilly ports. I couldn’t bear to leave them behind, and dragged them back to Montreal when I returned.

  “You’re nuts,” a friend interjected as she watched me hoist up the thick, bulky quilts from the cardboard box they had travelled in.

  “Maybe,” I replied, “but you never know when the heating will go.”

  I had learned to cope with the Taiwanese winter, but not the conspicuous absence of coffee. An Australian at our rooming house informed us that in the American enclave of Tien Mou we might find a small jar of Nescafe in a specialty shop. He added: “Could be pretty expensive.” Like us, he was in Taiwan for a yacht and on a tight budget.

  “I’m sure we’ll find something along Chung Shan Road,” I said. Chung Shan Road was a main thoroughfare that cut through the length of the city. “There’s got to be a coffee shop somewhere.”

  Two hours into our walk, Bernard and I found the one coffee shop in all of Taipei. Two grave employees in white lab coats greeted us. Watery, brownish liquid slipped through a series of convoluted glass pipes that snaked around the room. The brew at the end of this process resembled a dirty puddle, and tasted the way it looked. From that point on, we decided to immerse ourselves entirely in local culture.

  Most mornings, we drank hot soy milk served from huge vats sitting on carts that were stationed throughout the city. Sometimes, we frequented the smaller cafés where older men came for their morning soy accompanied by their pet birds. The cages hung on nails in front of the cafés, and the birds socialized outside while their keepers did the same inside. We’d go in the morning, have our soy milk, and listen to the bird song. When I left Taiwan, I couldn’t find my morning soy and suffered the same sense of deprivation I did when I gave up coffee.

  In 1980, there was little tourism in Taiwan, and few people spoke English, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from exploring Taipei. On one of my excursions, I forgot the card with my address written in Chinese. I had been told never to leave without it. This was a necessary precaution in a city where streets meandered, and the western alphabet was unknown. Though I hadn’t a clue how to read the destination of the bus I got on, I was certain it was headed in the direction of the market. After a while, I found myself outside the city. I got off the bus and questioned the locals.

  “Taipei?” I asked over and over. Happy, smiling faces nodded obligingly and repeated “Taipei,” but no one seemed willing to help. A wave of fear rushed through me. I crossed the street and prayed that the same bus that went one way would take me back along the same
route. Then, I hoped that if it did, I’d recognize where to get off. I stood waiting with the sky starting to darken. If I ever got out of there, I knew I’d have to take Mandarin classes.

  Finally, a bus stopped in front of me. I got on board and stared out the window afraid to blink for fear of missing a familiar landmark. To my relief I saw Taipei come into view. I guessed at my stop and panicked that I could be wrong. When I got off the bus, my legs felt like soft rubber. And then I recognized our rooming house a few doors down from where I was standing.

  “We’ve got to take Mandarin classes,” I told Bernard.

  “I don’t have time,” he replied.

  His answer surprised me since he spent a lot of time yakking about nothing with other yachties in the rooming house. I thought learning Mandarin would be more useful.

  I turned to Jonah. “How about you? Would you like to take lessons?’

  He looked up from the schoolbook he was flipping through. “Sure,” he said. “It’s got to be more interesting than this.”

  The next day I took Jonah with me to the Daily News Language School, not knowing that the school catered to graduate students from universities around the world. Our teacher had never taught beginners before. For almost two hours a frustrated instructor shouted at us. “Zhe shi shenme? She shi shenme?” She pointed out the window and repeated over and over: “Chuanghu, Chuanghu.” We sat there dazed. Finally, we managed a breakthrough. Zhe shi shenme — What’s this? Chuanghu — Window. I learned that day why no one helped me when I was lost. Unlike western languages, we learned the voice doesn’t go up to state a question. Me or Ma stated in a flat, even tone at the end of a sentence means a question is being asked. The people in the countryside didn’t understand I was asking directions for Taipei because I didn’t say the tag to denote question.