My mom came home from Taiwan last Friday after my grandmother miraculously recovered (Praise God!) about three weeks ago. She came back with jetlag, pineapple cake, red envelopes, and hair accessories from the National Palace Museum gift shop (incidentally, I had bought one in the TPE airport shop before I left, but lost it when I wore it for the first time when I came home... I love it when my mom knows exactly what I'll like).
As we were discussing my grandmother's condition, my mom told me about how my uncle, who follows this specific 'black' sect of Buddhism, would cut the rind off the top of an orange and stuff it into a red envelope and carry it around in his shirt pocket. Why? Orange in mandarin is pronounced ju (橘) and it sounds like ji (吉), which means "luck."
Of my other maternal aunts and uncles, one is devoutly protestant, one is catholic, and one is atheist. When we would gather around my grandmother's bed in the hospital to pray, all of these other uncles and aunts would do so with fervor; all of us wanted my grandmother to be saved, whether it be physically or spiritually. However, after I had left and my uncle from Germany had arrived, there seemed to be this tug-of-war between him and my mom. When my mother would arrive at my grandmother's apartment from the hospital, my uncle would scramble to hide all the rindless oranges he had cut up. The oranges didn't bother any of my mother's other siblings and it wasn't just a matter of religious toleration; they put some store in the orange rinds as well.
Is it simply following culture/tradition? In her delirious sleep, my grandmother had called out to her children that they needed to set out fruits and vegetables on an altar to my grandfather, who had passed away when my mother was 20 years old. My devoutly protestant aunt was about to comply when my mother stopped her. A couple years ago, I was staying at my Catholic uncle's house during my internship in Taiwan and he asked me if I wanted to eat a pear. When he cut it up, he set aside one piece because we couldn't share the fruit between us. Pear in mandarin is li (梨), which has the same phonetic pronunciation as 'to leave' (離). If we finished that one pear between us, we would supposedly leave each other and never see one another again.
It makes me wonder... did my aunts and uncles believe that those orange rinds really had something to do with my grandmother's recovery? They participated with us when we prayed over her, but maybe their faith is in the ritual/language and not actually God. It's easy to say they're crazy based on Western sensibilities, but I might be just as guilty as them. It's time to examine my own faith. Do I really believe in God's power? Or am I putting my store in just the words?
When I rushed back to Taiwan in August because of my grandmother's emergency hospitalization, I left 10 days later, disappointed because she never once confirmed that she was a believer during her brief moments of lucidity. Now that her mind has recovered, she promised God that she would go to church when she could, thinking that's what she needs to do. It's kind of bittersweet.
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