Four nuns, a college student, and no internet

8/25/2009 12:45 PM

Going off to college! Away from home, away from family, away from friends. Once more. I should have been used to this by now, traveling four times a year back and forth from the boarding school in Cali to Iowa and vice-versa. This time shouldn’t be any different, right? I thought it shouldn’t. After all, going to that boarding school and living in a dorm basically prepared me for this fateful day of my first step towards independency. In my mind I tried not to make a big deal out of it, despite a little voice in the back that wailed “you’re going away! you’re going away! you have no family with you now!” It’s true. I always had my sister by my side almost my entire life. She and I were never separated for more than one or two months. She even went with me to California. The moment I went on the plane and realized that there was nobody to talk to, to complain about the hot weather, or to predict what’s in store for us this school year. I was alone on a plane with strangers who could care less about where I’m going for college. I suddenly have an empty feeling in my stomach. I tried to keep my emotions at bay by looking out the window at the sea of clouds floating happily under the sun.

My mom had ordered the plane ticket early because she wasn’t sure when school starts. Now the problem is I’m arriving in Cali August 22nd, exactly week before my college dorm will let anyone in. Great. “Where will I live when I get there?” I asked my mom, quite frustrated because 1.) I have one less week to spend time at home and 2.) I have one less week to spend time on internet. My mom seemed indifferent at her incorrect scheduling. “There’s a monastery in Long Beach, right? You can live there for the week. I’ll call them to see if it’s okay.” Oh. My. Goodness. I’m still not done with monasteries yet? Not even after four years of living in one, doing community service every day, and attending daily evening ceremonies? Not to mention having a nun that constantly watched your every move. Apparently I am not.

There are four nuns in the Long Beach Monastery. The abbot (is there a female word of abbot?) of the temple is Dharma Master Heng Li. She is from Taiwan. The other much younger one is Dharma Master Jin Xian. These two Dharma Masters watch over me and runs the monastery. LBM is a bit different from CTTB in custom. Although they still do the Morning and Evening Ceremony at approximately the same time as the main branch (CTTB do Evening Ceremony at 6:30 whereas LBM do it at 6:00), the nuns do things differently because there are so little people.

A few rules were immediately made clear to me once I stepped through the door. 1.) take off shoes before going inside the monastery and 2.) after ringing the doorbell, wait a few moments and do not pull on the door handle (which I did :P). The nun that opened the door for us and made those rules clear was Jin Xian Shr.  

The few differences in LBM from CTTB are you need to wear slippers all the time as long as you’re on monastery grounds. I have three slippers that they temporarily let me borrow. I have one slipper for walking on wooden floor, which I wear to my room upstairs, and slippers for tiled floor. Another slipper is for when walking outside.

Since there are only four people, five including me, the dishes that needed to be washed are significantly fewer. Comparing the amount that needed to be washed in CTTB, this is a piece of cake I can eat all by myself. And by myself they let me washed. I washed all the dishes before and after lunch.

Since we always wear slippers, the floor is kept clean so they sweep or mop only once a week. Slippers can come in handy.

During the first two days, I was indescribably bored. The first thing I did the night I arrived was to check for internet connections. Nada. I sighed at the expected. For the whole morning and afternoon the next day, I typed up my blog in Word. Then I studied the maps of Long Beach, which I thanked my dad for buying it last time we came to Long Beach. One map is the one he bought, which is a road map you would use when you want to drive to a specific street. The other was a simpler, more attractive version of Long Beach filled with cartoons, bubble letters, colors, and points of attraction. It also conveniently marked the paths that different buses run. I liked this map better, but to check the accuracy of the kiddy map, I still need the other one. I spent a long time planning what I was going to buy for college and where I was going to go when I finally get out to shop. I stared at the attraction map greedily, wanting so much to be out in the sun and see the ocean that I can see out the window of my room. I also wanted to try out my new cellphone (hehe).

On Monday, two days after my stay, I went out for the first time by myself to explore the wonders of Long Beach. I followed the map (I must look a lot like a tourist to the passerby), and walked to the nearest shopping place, Belmont Shore, about four or five blocks away. Belmont Shore is great, full of many restaurants and cafés as well as small clothing stores, post office, banks, and a library at the end of the street. It is not fancy and certainly not boasting, but it is relaxing and casual, just like the people at Long Beach. I bought almost one-third the items on my list at Rite-Aid pharmacy, though pretty expensive. I also bought a pair of flip-flops for $2 at “The Beach”, a branch store of CSULB (Yeah! my school). I wanted to go to the library to get some books or movies to keep me entertained, and also to go online, but it is close on Monday! What store closes on Monday?  Oh man…another day with nothing to do but staring at the maps!

I then walked on foot in the Southeast direction towards the Marketplace, where I expected to do some shopping, according to the name. However, all that was there two restaurants, one whole-foods store, one Petco, and some private company buildings. Oh no…I thought. I desperately needed something to keep me occupied during my stay or I surely will go insane from being with my own thoughts all the time. Though as a Buddhist they tell us to contemplate and understand our thoughts through meditation, but I cannot do that for an entire day. I am not yet that cultivated. I needed a bookstore or something. Then, I spot those boxes that sell newspapers. I don’t read newspapers, although I heard they are good for improving vocabulary and being in touch with current events. Why not? I thought, and grabbed the last L.A. Times. I felt slightly better now at the prospect of having something to read.