1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

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Felicia.Tong
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文章: 20
註冊時間: 週四 3月 15, 2018 8:29 am

1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Felicia.Tong »

Hello everyone, this is Felicia. I will be the host on Jan. 22nd. I retold and wrote this true story in 2010. For years, I couldn’t forget and always rethink it. It is a story about incarnation and strong tenacity. I hope you like it and make our discussion more inspiring.
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Red Bean Soup
This was a true story I heard when I was a high school student in the Chinese class. Until now, I still remind the story all the time. Every time when I rethink it, I seem to be told the story again and my heart is laden with indescribable shocks.

One day, my Chinese teacher addressed in class,

"My brother could not sleep well for at least thirty years because every night he dreamed the same dream in which he was always eating a bowl of red bean soup. One day he took a bus to somewhere. While passing through a harbor, he saw an old woman who was selling red bean soup on her stand. My brother didn't know why he had a strong motivation to get off the bus and bought red bean soup from the old woman and drank it. After that day, he could sleep very well and never dreamed the red bean soup dream. But his mind was still obsessed with the mysterious incident, so in order to figure it out he decided to take a bus to the same place again. But no matter how hard he was looking for the old woman, he couldn't find her anymore. Therefore, he started to ask the other vendors around there. The answer, he got, was, “we have never seen the woman you described before.” So he gave up looking for the old woman and went home disappointedly.

Several months passed, my brother still could not forget the incident with red bean soup and the old woman, but still, this matter didn't have any progress. Until one year later, he was introduced to see a monk. When the monk saw him, he told him immediately, “You was a fisherman in last incarnation, and the old woman you met a year ago was your wife at that time. You died from a wreck in the sea. Even though you were dead, your wife still cooked red bean soup for you and waited for you every day because you loved to eat red bean soup when you were alive. Your wife believed that she will meet you someday.

Last year, when you saw her, she was already eighty-seven. She still stayed in the last transmigration, but you have already had a new one. To let you eat your favorite red bean soup was your wife's biggest hope, so she didn’t give up keeping waiting for you. Actually, you became husband and wife only for two years, and you were dead in her age of 20. Therefore, she waited for you for decades. Now she had fulfilled her wish and been released, so she was gone for her next transmigration. That is the reason why you won't dream the dream of red bean soup anymore. You can start your new life now. As for why those vendors said that they didn’t see your wife was because she had already died and what you saw was her soul.”"

I always believe there is an invisible emotional line between each other. Two people will meet each other one day and nothing can stop it if the line exists. If not, just let it go.
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Session I
1.What is the motif of this short story? What’s your opinion about the red bean soup? If red bean soup was regarded as a combination of people, no matter direct or indirect, how did it play the role effectively?
2.If you were the young man, what would you do if you keep dreaming the same dream? Do you accept dream, to some extent, reflects our desire in subconscious to release our discontent in reality?
3. If you were the old woman who couldn’t see your lover again, would you have the bottom line? How long would you wait for him? What was the fate in your heart to keep waiting? What else would you do?
4. Did you have someone or something that was obsessed in your mind? What was your story? What did you think you should learn from this experience?
5. What was the most impressive dream from you? What did you usually dream? What did the meaning of dream carry? Please share with your table members and analyze it together.

Session II
1. Do you believe in reincarnation? If yes, why? If no, why?
2. What kind of invisible power do you think to connect different relationships, like friendship, partnership, gender relationship, parent-child relationship, etc?
3.Do you believe in karma? From your knowledge, if possible, please share with your table members and elaborate the concept, what is that?
4. From the author’s arrangement, there seems a striking juxtaposition: the old woman was the one keep waiting, the other was the young man keep seeking. And both of them endeavor for their own desires with strong tenacity. What was your comment about this situation? If you must choose, which one would you prefer to be? What’s your reason?
5. Have you ever thought of writing an original story by yourself? What kind of stroy will you create? What's the core value or theme you like to convey? How will you arrange the network among the protagonist and the other characters?

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Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
7:50 ~ 8:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:25pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:25 ~ 9:05pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
9:05 ~ 9:25pm Summarization (20 mins)
9:25 ~ 9:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements ********************************************************************************************************************************************
聚會日期:列於該貼文主題內
聚會時間:當天請準時於 6:45 pm 到達 ~ 約 9:30 pm 左右結束
星期二聚會地點:丹堤濟南店
地址、電話:台北市濟南路三段25號 地圖 (02) 2740-2350
捷運站:板南線 忠孝新生站 3 號出口
走法:出忠孝新生站 3 號出口後,沿著巷子(忠孝東路三段10巷)走約 2 分鐘,到了濟南路口,左轉走約 2 分鐘即可看到。
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最後由 Felicia.Tong 於 週二 1月 22, 2019 10:04 am 編輯,總共編輯了 5 次。
morris25
YOYO member
文章: 65
註冊時間: 週一 5月 07, 2012 8:35 am

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Felicia)

文章 morris25 »

Now I understand why I have not slept well for more than 30 years :ccry: .
I definitely need to eat a bowl of red bean soup. :sun:
Felicia.Tong
YOYO member
文章: 20
註冊時間: 週四 3月 15, 2018 8:29 am

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Felicia)

文章 Felicia.Tong »

morris25 寫:Now I understand why I have not slept well for more than 30 years :ccry: .
I definitely need to eat a bowl of red bean soup. :sun:
Perhaps you has something that is obsessed in your mind as well.
JohnH
YOYO member
文章: 27
註冊時間: 週日 5月 13, 2018 11:10 pm

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 JohnH »

After reading through this story for the first time, I was trying to figure out the element embedded that tugged at my heartstring by peeling off layers of any aspects of this story, which is simple, plain and short without too many characters involved. There’re two main elements which I found quite fascinating. Firstly, the idea of reincarnation is always obsessive to us probably due in part to its feature of immortality and the dramatic turn comes up right at the mention of this keyword. Long-waiting over decades for the significant other might play a vital role in the strong sense of emotional resonance provoked among us and that’s when and where the transcendental events come into play and do their job of bringing it to life. Secondly, the extremely accessible food almost to anyone in life—red bean soup works perfectly as a magnet drawing people in on figurative meaning because that’s what everyone can relate to on the basis of everyday life experience. Not only that, the mention of food in the story is always a good emotional trigger via the activation of our five senses. However, that’s just my first impression on this story. Later on, I found out that what’s mentioned above is essentially mutually exclusive. What I am so obsessed with in this story is not these two elements used but the contradiction which the combination of these two elements creates. The indicator of ordinary (red bean soup) with the element along the line of “out of the ordinary” (reincarnation) might be what results in this strong fluctuation of emotion. I don’t know whether there’s an invisible and mysterious filament of cord pairing one person up with the other or two people bump into each other simply by chance but it’s always good to believe there’s something unknown in play and beyond our realm of comprehension. :wink: :wink: :wink:
Kooper
YOYO member
文章: 2725
註冊時間: 週三 4月 11, 2007 11:40 pm

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Kooper »

Hi John,

It's so great to see your new post on the forum. While you're physically far away from us, we could still interact spiritually and feel emotionally close, thanks to the Internet.

I am not playing this up but what you wrote really knocked my socks off. It's as if you were doing an essay for a literature class. Please keep up the good work and write more here. :ssmile: :mrgreen:
Luis Ko
YOYO member
文章: 970
註冊時間: 週三 6月 06, 2007 10:18 pm

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Luis Ko »

personally i don't believe in karma and incarnation such things but still, to be honest, deep in my heart i would wish i could have someone who was destined for me, with a happy ending of course. at the end of the day, who would never want to have a happily ever after romantic love story? 8)

by the way, after reading this story, what makes me sceptical about it is the red bean soup. we all know red bean denotes love in Chinese old saying, and this story happens to use red bean soup as a clue to connect the love from the old lady. that's really too perfect of a match with that old saying, too perfect to be true, isn't that? right, i'm a cynic and, a sceptic as well haa~ :mrgreen:
最後由 Luis Ko 於 週一 1月 21, 2019 9:05 am 編輯,總共編輯了 1 次。
i might be a cynic and, a sceptic as well but, i'm definitely not a bad person!!
Felicia.Tong
YOYO member
文章: 20
註冊時間: 週四 3月 15, 2018 8:29 am

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Felicia.Tong »

JohnH 寫:After reading through this story for the first time, I was trying to figure out the element embedded that tugged at my heartstring by peeling off layers of any aspects of this story, which is simple, plain and short without too many characters involved. There’re two main elements which I found quite fascinating. Firstly, the idea of reincarnation is always obsessive to us probably due in part to its feature of immortality and the dramatic turn comes up right at the mention of this keyword. Long-waiting over decades for the significant other might play a vital role in the strong sense of emotional resonance provoked among us and that’s when and where the transcendental events come into play and do their job of bringing it to life. Secondly, the extremely accessible food almost to anyone in life—red bean soup works perfectly as a magnet drawing people in on figurative meaning because that’s what everyone can relate to on the basis of everyday life experience. Not only that, the mention of food in the story is always a good emotional trigger via the activation of our five senses. However, that’s just my first impression on this story. Later on, I found out that what’s mentioned above is essentially mutually exclusive. What I am so obsessed with in this story is not these two elements used but the contradiction which the combination of these two elements creates. The indicator of ordinary (red bean soup) with the element along the line of “out of the ordinary” (reincarnation) might be what results in this strong fluctuation of emotion. I don’t know whether there’s an invisible and mysterious filament of cord pairing one person up with the other or two people bump into each other simply by chance but it’s always good to believe there’s something unknown in play and beyond our realm of comprehension. :wink: :wink: :wink:
Many thanks for your precious comment. Wish you all the best and join us! :D
Janice Wang
YOYO member
文章: 79
註冊時間: 週六 3月 25, 2017 7:45 pm

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Janice Wang »

At no time has my imagination or perception provided an answer to the unknown, even though my relentless efforts to persuade myself in believing some enigmas, such as the transmigration of souls(reincarnation), where when a person dies, his/her soul enters the body of a newborn, a deceased, or even the body of an animal. I am deeply disappointed at my continuous lack of progress in grappling with the ideas as they are just so beyond me, all the more so when they are beyond the realm of basic science. Allow me to put this bluntly, I believe in life, but only this life.

The ultimate pleasure of reading a story, to me, is not the verity or reality of the storyline, but the gripping narrative that endures time well and able to paint a picture of vivid images with written letters to draw me segueing within seamlessly, intently and pleasantly; and expectantly seize the core of the plot that the storyteller intends to convey. Felicia has already done an awesome job; hopefully, my grasp can speak to her spirit.

“Waiting”, seems to be the focus through and through the whole story. The man was waiting for a cure to his chronic sleeping problem, a clue of who the old lady was, a re-encounter and a rendezvous to meet his healer; and the old lady was waiting for her long-lost husband, a longing to gratify her husband again with his favorite red bean soup, and closure to her last life. “Waiting”, to some people, is painful; in particular, one that wears patience thin or knocks confidence down; but all in all there is always hope ahead; the only thing that we can do is to figure out what we are truly hoping for to make the “waiting” worthy.
最後由 Janice Wang 於 週三 5月 20, 2020 1:21 pm 編輯,總共編輯了 2 次。
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Rock
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文章: 2161
註冊時間: 週三 10月 31, 2007 9:03 am

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Rock »

https://zi.com/w/a/3a182oT

Another red bean soup story. BTW,if there were someone offering this soup in front of you, saying that he/she was your love from the previous life, would you drink it?

:shock:
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
morris25
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文章: 65
註冊時間: 週一 5月 07, 2012 8:35 am

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 morris25 »

Rock 寫:https://zi.com/w/a/3a182oT

Another red bean soup story. BTW,if there were someone offering this soup in front of you, saying that he/she was your love from the previous life, would you drink it?

:shock:
It depends on "what" she/he is.
Kooper
YOYO member
文章: 2725
註冊時間: 週三 4月 11, 2007 11:40 pm

Re: 1/22(Tue.) Red Bean Soup (Host:Felicia)

文章 Kooper »

Attendees(16): Liwen, David Jr., Douglas, Steve Cheng, Andy Liu, Janice, Ken, Devry, Jacy, Miller, Alex, Wen-han (host), Felicidad, Chris, Tim, Julian
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