The world of Tzu Chi (Vol.106)

2019 • 01 16 eature I caressed her hand appreciating that I had attained a good sister. Once when I brought her to Bagua Mountain, I let her sit and wait while I went to the bathroom. When I came back, I could not find her. I looked everywhere and shouted for her. Then I found a crowd and saw Ah Shan sitting on the ground crying. It turned out that she was looking for me, but she could not see clearly and was unfamiliar with the place. When she heard my voice, she quickly rushed over, held me tightly and could not stop crying. I tried to comfort her, “I told you I will be back! Why did you run away?” She said tearfully, “You were not with me, I was really scared...” I kept in contact with Ah Shan for two or three years. She even managed to walk out of the house herself and bask in the sun. Later on, not long after I moved back to stay with my eldest son, she passed away. Learning the e-book at 93 years old When I was 93, Master ChengYen said that we would start using electronic recording and go paperless for fundraising. The team leader from my community, Sister Mei Xiang knew I had the largest number of donors to manage, so she asked me along for training. “I don’t even know how to use the computer, how am I going to learn the e-book?” I said. “This is very simple! You will pick it up in no time” she encouraged. I knew everyone would need to use it eventually, so I went ahead to learn. During the lesson, each person was assigned an e-book. I was really confused. Words like “power button” and more, were all jargons I had never heard of. It was so difficult! When I got home, I did not think I could pick it up, and thought it would be better that I return the e-book. Sister Mei Xiang encouraged me to give it another try, so I relented and took the e-book home again. In fact, I only went for training once a month, yet I had to remember the names and positions of the buttons. So, after two or three months, I still wanted to give up. However, Sister Ming Luo patiently taught me and kept telling everyone, “Sister Cai Kuan is over 90 years old and she is learning to use the e-book. How can you not join her and start learning?” I heard that as people knew I was using the e-book, they were too embarrassed to slack off. Sister Lan Fang actually returned her e-book earlier on, but upon hearing that I was also learning, she discreetly took it back. In actual fact, back then, I still did not know how to use the e-book. However, being put in that position, I thought I should take it seriously so that I could influence others. My son was already 65 years old then, but he went to learn so that he could teach me. As long as I needed, others were always ready to teach me. Sometimes when I worked on it at the Accounts Department in the Branch Office, and forgot the steps, like what to select next, I would be troubling the staff all morning. I often used myself as an example to encourage others. “Pay attention, ask questions. Never be embarrassed to ask. I am not shy. Anything I am unsure of, I will ask. So just keep that up, you will succeed!” For me, learning to use the e-book was really difficult. I was under Japanese education in my childhood. I could not pronounce the phonetic alphabets, and knew very few Chinese characters. The only way was for me to forcefully memorize, and that took me almost a year.