THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR.
Hi all,
It's been two months since I last posted an entry here and apart from feeling like a dead sloth warmed up in the Amazonian jungle, I keep inventing reasons to the sloth.
Well, I went down to nurse my terminally sick ex-hubby in Christchurch, South Island New Zealand. The Maoris used to call the place Te Wai Pounamu. Gorgeous, meaning Water of the Greenstone. They are now petitioning for New Zealand to be renamed and want the South Island to revert to that name. Which is very romantic, but would probably play hell for foreign visitors not used to Maori.
Now why I title this post Things to be Thankful for is because we must really count our blessings. And top of my list is good health. Seeing my ex- die slowly of myeloma and cancer in his lymphs, seeing a tall, strong active man die slowly as his bones crumble and leach excess calcium and protein into his blood stream makes me realise that nothing in the world is more precious to oneself than good health.
The second most important thing is family and friends. Many of us forget the human touch, forget the humanity that actually keeps our world as we know it, going.
The third is opportunities. I have usually made the most of mine, though sometimes, laziness comes in the way and swat that away. As I get older and more vulnerable, I must remember to be aware.
Anyway, my news over the past two months is that THE MING ADMIRAL: A CHINESE ODYSSEY will be ready and out on CREATE SPACE, AMAZON and other e-sites before Christmas. Below is a brief synopsis which I hope interests you enough to want to read it.
China
1382
A new emperor has
been on the throne since 1368 and proceeds to purge the empire of the
supporters of the previous Muslim Mongol dynasty. The village of Kunyang in
Yunnan is destroyed and its young taken into slavery. Out of this chaos, an
exceptionally gifted boy grows up to become ZhengHe, the right-hand man of the
founding emperor’s third son, the Warrior Prince Zhu Di. He helps Zhu Di take the
throne from his nephew, the mandated heir.
As Emperor Yongle, Zhu Di makes the former Mongol capital of
Dadu his own and calls it Beijing. He builds The Forbidden City and moves the
entire court there. He instigates the
writing of world’s greatest encyclopaedia and builds the Great Treasure Fleets,
bringing all nations encountered under the thrall of China in the first
instance of gunboat diplomacy. But the Emperor’s drive comes at great cost to
those closest to him. His closest friend and ally, ZhengHe is not only forced
to endure indignity and suffering at his hand, but also gains greatness as
Grand Admiral of the Treasure Fleets. The tumultuous love-hate relationship
between two of the greatest men in Chinese history lies at the heart of this
sweeping novel.
“MeeMee
Phipps has done credit to her heritage in bringing this story to life.” Miles Hughes, author of Catalan,
The Coconut War, Richmond Road.
“Phipps’
attention to detail brought 14th Century China so alive for me I
could smell the spices of the market place.” Tom Ryan, author of The Field of Blackbirds.
“All in
all, a wonderful book that is a true testament to the author’s strengths in
writing such a well-organized and complex tale in the genre of Chinese
historical fiction.” 5 STARS:
Red
City Review.
And now, the final of The Connection.
“Live for him, Chingmei. Live for our son!”
Chingmei was dragged away. The sound of
Honglun’s wails continued to drift over the top of the Wall. It took many days
for him to die.
Up on the hill in the pleasure house,
Chingmei heard him calling for her as her own wasted body was used over and
over again by the drunken guards. She wished for death, but death would not
come for her. On the seventh night Honglun let out one last heartrending cry.
“Chingmei!”
Then there was silence.
She knew he was dead and for the first time since she arrived her thoughts
turned to Xinfook. Before the next dawn, she took food and a pair of shoes from
the kitchen and stole away into the night. She began her return to Lungshan.
The land, parched from a summer of no rain offered little sustenance and she
lived like a wild mountain cat foraging for food in the crags along the
mountain tracks. Little passed between her cracked and bleeding lips until she found
her way back to the villages she had passed weeks earlier. She laboured and
begged from one bereft village to another. The vision of her little boy’s face
drove her on.
She arrived home as the
chill of the winter winds swept in from the Western Desert– howling through the
night like the men at the Wall.
No one ever came back
from the Great Wall but Lungshan did start to regenerate. By the time Xinfook
was eight years old, another baby was born, then another, and another. By the
time he was fifteen, a semblance of normalcy returned.
Fifteen years of darkness,
fifteen years of pain diminished.
Chingmei with Xinfook by
her side planted and harvested the sorghum and they made the wine together. At
the end of each day she would climb the hill by the river and look towards the
setting sun. Though a thousand li
away in distance, she could see the Wall in her mind’s eye, straddling the
horizon like a long sleeping dragon that had feasted well, and in the Wall she
could see Honglun strapped to his post, his eyes turned heavenward. Neither the
sun nor the moon cast their light on him. Neither the rain nor the snow
dampened him.
Each day the Emperor’s
armies rode over Honglun as they moved from one end of the Empire to the other.
Chingmei taught Xinfook that the strength of the Wall came from his father and the
Empire was mighty through the might of his father.
***
I looked at my
granddaughter and she was thoughtful. She rubbed her finger at a spot on the
table. I knew what was coming next.
‘Am I named after the Chingmei
in your story?’
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘In
our family it has been the name given to the first born girl ever since Xinfook
started his family. So you see you are special in two ways, to be a first born
girl and to bear the name of a remarkable woman.’
My daughter and Gerald
nodded in agreement.
Something glistened in my
granddaughter’s eyes. She was looking at me a little differently. A change I think.
‘I need to go to bed
now,’ she said and stood up.
‘Ping An, Chingmei,’ I said.
‘Goodnight Pohpoh, ping
an.’
Meemee
