Papa is the mother, and mama is Papa ?

Where was Lu?

I tried to reach him by phone, but to no avail. He did leave an email account. I waited after sending a message written in Chinese to him. No, half day had passed but still no reply. He couldn’t access to his email in some rural landscape newly shaped by earthquake, I guessed.

The last resort was a postal address. Are there any people who still write a letter nowadays? As the final resort I wrote one.

Writing still worked. After a week or so I got a call from someone who claimed to be Lu’s family. She told me Lu once called home, but left no correspondence hint as to where to find me again. She said she would tell Lu what I said in my letter if he called home again.

From then on I rang up Lu’s family once in a while to find out what was going on with him. Sometimes it was answered, sometimes not. The same answer was that Lu was still searching. Yes, I could assume Lu heard of my advice. If he went on, it was his business. Gradually I forgot the man.

It was special about Maori god Ruaumoko among natural myths of volcano and earthquake. He is not an animal, but rather, a personified entity. I figured him to be one of the underworld population, a wanderer suffering from chronic, if not forever, nostalgia which was described as a loss of feeding from Papa, mother earth. His rage rebuked the terrestrial ever on.

What an interesting invert. The mother is called ‘papa’ which in many cultures means the father? And Maori gods are nearly all male. Papa is the mother and mama is papa. Where have all the other goddesses gone?

Presumably in other subterranean locales. Just thought of them as another tribe, another world. Underworld.

earthquake and myths

When I had time to do more research, the fact stunned me -- New Zealand has earthquake everyday !

Every year there are around 14000 quakes, 1.6 times hourly. Many are not to be felt. What would have occurred with this frequency? It has been going on for such a long time that it is possible a large quake would strike. Actually it is predicted to happen within fifty years.

I couldn’t escape from earthquake, could I?

Many races have mythology of earthquake, usually about an animal which causes it. Here, the Maori myth says Ruaumoko, the god of volcanoes and quakes, was at rage when his mother dropped him into subterran when she was bending down to breast-feed him. Rage becomes eruption and earthquake. What a pity.

Beads. Crystal, polished gems. Seeds.

Seek the seeds.

Is Lu really searching for those beads, by chance meeting a lotus or two? I realized what I had suggested to the poor man, a Herculean task. Along the cracks on earth, those forced out by immense tectonic force... I needed to call Lu so that he might want to stop searching. At least I have done something to make him rethink whether he should seek the beads in this way or not.

quake quake there, Sichuan, and quake quake here, NZ

‘I’d better hurry.’ Lu said and left a contact address.

I watched him leave, thinking of seeking the beads myself. But I should be busy; I was going to New Zealand. I would try to stay in touch with him. It helped my writing.
x x x x

I didn’t know New Zealand has earthquake. I thought it is safe. But no, there were quakes. The worst one ever recorded was the 1931, grading as 7.8 . And for volcanoes, the Auckland region is active.

Sichuan came to my mind. Quake quake there, quake quake here. A fantasy curled in my thought: what if the earthquakes are related to each other?

I checked and found that there are seven major tectonic plates on Earth. New Zealand seems caught in the subduction zone and spreading zone of the Pacific Plate and Australian Plate. The area affected is mainly South Island where I was staying.

Had anyone used seismological wave to transmit message? What if in a way the tectonic plates know about each other’s activities? Not just touch, but the information, culminated for millions of years and have already reached an equilibrium state so that when vibration gets rough, the others know.

But they were not humans nor creatures, even when... Then suddenly the underworld stroke me. Creature living under the crust, perhaps in the cracks or underground landscape such as a lake? They have to know about the quakes because it endangers their home, their lives, their all !

If the underworld was long enough, they should have the related technology about quakes. What a rich history that would be. They are seismologists everyone.

Yes, but that was only my imagination. The underworld.

The last thing I thought of was the beads Lu mentioned. They were from the underworld.

find the beads along the quake fault

Lu took it as a positive attitude and somehow a nod. ‘So, where are they?’

‘You just brought up the underworld. Have you found any clue?’

‘There was a place famous for beads. Should I go there?’

‘Is it along the fault torn open by the quake?’ I asked.

Lu mapped the geography in his mind before answering, ‘Sort of.’

‘Then go and ask about them, and pay attention to lotus.’

‘Lotus?’ Lu looked round and pointed at the pond, ‘like this one?’

‘Not every lotus pond is the place. You have to be alert.’

‘Okay, lotus with the fault.’ Then he asked, ‘Would I finish the doll before the Games?’

‘Well, even during the Games, the world knows of your achievement.’

‘Yeah,’ he smiled.

This rural man came for a confirmative message. Anyone told him one and he would be happy to go on his way. Well, perhaps not everyone, it’s only me. Why me? Am I looking for something like this rustic man does? An idea, and he came along. From his words I have borne an idea, maybe the best idea I ever have. In return I gave him hope... Or, have I done wrong in pretending to be the man he spoke of? If I aren’t, then I have a problem for what I did. But then I may be the man... provided the being were really the future me.

I am or I am not the being ?

infant robot by a lotus pond

‘Let me ask you a question.’ I paused for his silent acceptance before I continued, ‘If I am not the future being you mentioned, then I really don’t know what you’re talking about and where the beads are. What if you’re wrong about me?’

‘Then how can I ever find the beads? Without them my clay doll wouldn’t have come alive.’

‘Alive? The beads are so important?’ I asked, ‘but aren’t they just beads?’

‘They are great beads, seeds...’

‘Seeds?’ Then I realized I mistook the sound.

There was a small lotus pond in the far corner of the courtyard. I caught sight of an erect stem. I always wondered how could the flower still flourish in the night.

Lotus seeds. Suddenly I was inspired. An infant robot coming from the future, settling in a... a temple, waiting for something to happen or someone to come, and of course, with the seeds being the key to its survival, its being, its trans-temporal evolution... I was excited.

Lu studied me. 'Sir, you look different.'

I smiled, with the joy of working through the plot of my would-be fiction. I might just include the sixth mascot idea. But then I realized it was Lu’s idea, or that of the future being he mentioned. I couldn’t do plagiarism.

‘Are you now the secret being that visited me?’ Lu asked in a low voice.

‘...Maybe.’

consequence of being the future me

Lu seemed happy that I did not argued with him. ‘Can you show me some hints to find the beads?’

‘I don’t know...’ Then I was aware that I was expected to be the present form of the future being who visited Lu the other day.

He looked at me, trying to see if I was hiding something from him. Would he consider this a test by the future being? As time dragged by, Lu grew suspicious and a bit impatient.

‘But you’re a writer,’ He said.

‘A writer doesn’t necessarily know everything.’

‘The things a writer writes about always come true.’

‘Who said that, a writer?’

‘You!’ Lu was angered.

‘No...’ I again became conscious of my being the future being that visited Lu. I didn’t know whether this will be true but now I had to bear the consequence, if not responsibility.

There was a phase of silence.

rural miners make robot

I was speechless.

‘Aside mine, there’re other families.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Others living in the same mountain. You see, we run a mine of our own.’

My eyes grew wide. ‘Do you have someone who’ve learned mining science?’

‘No.’ Lu again shook his head. ‘Just dig. No need to learn mining.’ And before I answered, he added, ‘Don’t mind the mine.’

I should have known he was just one of the rural homemade miners. Family business. And instead of mining they now came to making robots. Chinese people couldn’t be that naive. Populism. It may hurt.

‘Yeah, maybe we are affected by past history, that we believe we can make steel from ore just by burning a big fire.’ Lu showed his wit of reflection.

‘Do you think it’s plausible?’

‘Possible?’ He nodded, ‘Only if you have faith.’

I tried to disagree but, just by looking at his face, I knew I could hurt this fellow by saying so. After all, he now took me as the future being that visited him. Then I resisted my own reaction.