With Sichuan brother’s driving flair and my instruction, our group was the first that arrived at the destination. Fresh breeze caressed my face the moment I stepped out of the car. A girl staff of Spencer Gorge Park came up to tell us that there were two parking lots. The one where we parked our car was for Tews Falls and the other for Webster’s Falls, which was 10 minutes walking apart. Either worked for us.
“How old you think is that girl?” Sichuan brother asked me, watching her stepping away.
A big farm tractor with full load lumbered passing by Harvest Road, of which the parking lot was to the south. The noise of the diesel engine petered out as the tractor went far. It, however, didn’t seem tranquility could be resumed because I already heard the splash sound of the falls. Occasionally, certain chirping were heard somewhere close by. I liked birds, but sometimes I still couldn’t tell names by their chirping.
“Hey guys, you wanna wait until all others come or you wanna move now?” I asked.
“Let’s move,” Jane said. “We can walk slowly, take pictures and wait for them on the way of hiking.”
“Let’s go,” George echoed, a big backbag carrying his 20-pound camera sets slung over his shoulder. The other two had already walked toward a small bridge across a river flowing from north to south.
I checked around and looked into the distance. Nothing appeared in farthermost sight on the road upcoming. Jane called me to follow up.
Along the river bank on the north side of the bridge were a lot of reeds dotted with some bulrushes swinging in the soft breeze. The river water was crystal clear. The cobblestones on the river bed were covered with moss showing the color of spring - verdancy.
“What name is this river? Do you, by any chance, know?” Jane asked.
“Logie’s Creek. It’s the source of Tews Falls which you will see soon,” I answered. “Actually, there’s another river running nearby. It’s Spencer Creek which gives us Webster’s Falls.”
“Wow, you are good,” she commented. “You’ve been here?”
“No, I just know.”
Jane chuckled. Many thanks to Google, visitors posting the information, homework-done student myself, and also Sun Quan’s mum.
“See? The water is so clear,” Jane pointed.
“It is. But if there had been a heavy rain previous night, the creek would swell and turn yellowish and brownish in colour.”
Over the bridge and to the right was a lookout point. George was waving to us two from there. We rushed our pace.
Hitting our views was Tews Falls.
“Tews Falls is the second tallest waterfalls in this area. It’s only a few metres shorter than Niagara Falls. See, this lookout gives you a good view of the falls and the gorge.” I pointed.
“Nice and tall!” Jane shouted.
The air was fresh and a little humid. Excited, the folk posed and took pictures non-stop. I walked alone further ahead as I found another lookout that was located with a better view on the falls.
Standing alone against the wind on the second lookout platform, I took a deep breath. My lung got soaked in fresh air of spring instantly.
All in a sudden, I saw a hawk dive from the top of the falls down to the bottom of the gorge and then glide with a curve to fly away along the creek. I could never tell who fell faster between the flying water of Logie’s Creek and the hawk. Even Galileo could not. But he knew, to jump like that, we human being had no chance. And I knew, if I had jumped that way, people would find a special coverage with my photo top the cover page of next day’s Toronto Star or Sing Tao Daily.
The light blue sky was flecked with fleecy white clouds drifting slowly across. Golden sunshine spread over the gorge through which Logie’s Creek meandered, and over the rocky cliffs covered with big trees and thick shrubs. Every time I started to be excited and intoxicated by beautiful scenery, I felt I wanted to pee though nothing could be forced to come from down there. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t anything going wrong with my bladder. But the intention never failed to unreasonably attack me whenever I got amazed by scenery of great nature. It happened to me the first time when I was seven and it kept happening since then.
“May I have a nice pee!” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the tail gas, noise, and reinforced concrete of city, stretching my arms to pose to hug the sun, letting alone the wind re-combing my hair.
“Look at the stones of the cliffs. What stone are they?” Jane’s voice sounded from behind.
Blushed, I realized how silly and weird I might look in her eyes though I tried to sound calmed to answer her question.
“They are limestone and dolomite. The cliff on the north side of the gorge is called Niagara Escarpment stretching for hundreds of kilometres. Logie’s Creek turns and falls from here, forming Tews Falls, and flows south to a town called Dundas after merging into the stream from Webster’s Falls. That stream is Spencer Creek, larger than this one. They head to Hamilton after Dundas and flow into Lake Ontario at the end. And very likely, that is Dundas,” I pointed to the south in distance.
“Thanks. Hmm, good to have you in our team. But you walk too fast,” she said.
“I know you guys are just right behind me. And I like to check around alone sometimes.”
“Look at that pine,” she pointed to a tree standing by the edge of the cliff, “isn’t that pretty?”
“That isn’t pine, that’s spruce.” I corrected.
“They are all the same to me,” said she, smiling.
“See? This area is covered with many different trees - pines, spruces, cedars, firs, maples, oaks, willows, poplars, aspens, and birches.”
“I don’t know which is which. That’s too much to me. How did you know a lot of trees?”
“I like trees, so I know some of them. Like, pine, fir, spruce, and hamlock are under pine family; poplar, aspen, cottonwood, and willow under willow family; chestnut, beech, oak under beech family; and maple ...”
“So cedar is under pine, right?” said Jane quickly.
“Cedar is under cypress,” I explained. Seeing a slight tincture of upset sweep across her face, I added, “but I don’t know much about flowers because trees are for us boys while flowers are for you girls. One day, I will date a girl,” I cleared my throat, “I will buy her a flower and she will have to buy me a tree.”
“What a great deal!” Jane dug at me.
I beamed and then said, “according to the website, there should also be certain chestnuts, ginsengs, beeches, hawthorns, tamaracks, hemlocks, and elms around here. Sometimes, yes, it’s hard to tell which is which, especially when you don’t see full leaves and ripe fruits. But I manage to figure out spotting most of them. I’m sure you can tell which one is maple and willow at least. But let’s start from pine, fir, and spruce first. Needles and arrangement of needles on branches are the surest way for identification, then you go further with cones, barks, and other traits. The difference between pine and spruce is...”
“Would you like to get some apricots?” she broke in.
“Apricots? So you washed them at home?” I asked, realizing she had no interest in trees.
“I didn’t wash them ’cause I didn’t have to.” She opened a small plastic bag, picked out a big prune and passed it to me. “Here! Apricot prune.”
“Great. Thank you. But I haven’t washed my hands. Actually,” trying to avoid eye contact, I pulled out a small bag of mixed cashew nuts and walnuts, and asked in English, “would you like to get nuts?”
It was when the other three arrived that I got a chance to move alone forward as Jane was asked to take pictures for them.
The trail, lined with thickets and trees on both sides, followed the edge of Niagara Escarpment with a dozen yards in-between. It’s also part of well-known Bruce Trail extending all the way up north to Bruce Peninsular. Nameless flowers, white, yellow, purple, and pink, though very small, peeped out from amid the green of new grass, under the light brown shrubs, behind the grey trunks, and between the cracks of rocks. I walked with buoyant steps as the dappled sunlight fell across my face. My skin was kind of sensitive to ultraviolet ray. I knew the tip of my nose would start to turn light brown soon.
My shoelace had come loose. I turned to a stand of birches by the side of the trail and squatted down to tie the lace up.
To watch the gorge, the cliffs, and the hills from behind the trees was a different view and thus gave me a different feeling. A flock of Canada geese, flying in their coolest V shape formation, were incoming from the distance. Good thing was the hawk had gone. I looked up. There was no other raptors soaring around. In the sky, temperature was colder, air, thinner, wind, stronger, how did those birds survive and even live a good life out there?
An ant was crawling on the white trunk of the birch. It came to a nodule, stopped, and then turned to try bypassing it. I put my pinkie on the white bark to block its way. But the ant went so far as to crawl over my finger, ignoring how itchy I was and making its way on, whilst I was thinking it would not bucket a millimetre. Holy ant!
“So you were converted into the religion?”
“Yes. Now I go to the church once every week.”
Two men came up along the trail, both talking loudly with thick Manchuria accent. I had no impression I had seen them at Don Mills Station. They were merely individual visitors.
“Every week? Were you baptized?” the shorter one of the two asked.
“I surely was. Baptized three weeks ago,” the taller one held out three fingers and continued, “to tell you the truth, I am, now, so professional, in the knowledge of the religion. There’s nothing I don’t know about that religion.”
“You were baptized only three weeks ago and now you are professional in that? Forget about it.”
“Don’t assume I’m kidding.”
Right at the moment they were about to pass by where I was standing, the shorter one shouted, “behold, what on earth is this worm? Earthworm?”
“Oh my mum! Who trampled so big an earthworm to such death? Poor worm. The body is too disgusting to cause any bird’s appetite. Amitabha,” chanted the one who had claimed himself baptized and professional of religion knowledge, crossing himself.
I could do nothing but cast him a worshipping look.
Hiking along the trail with birds chirping was amazing. Yellow warbler proved herself to be my favourite musician in Ontario again. I took a look at the cute bird singing on the branch when overtaking the two Manchurians.
“Big woods have all birds.” The voice of the taller sounded from behind.
“They chirp hard,” said the shorter.
“It’s mating season.”
“No wonder. Hey, have you ever seen any birds’ mating?”
“Yes, I’ve not only seen birds’ mating, but also seen donkeys’.”
I slowed my pace.
“Really? How on earth was it?” The other’s voice sounded excited. I could tell, without looking back, the shorter’s eyes were wide open.
“Really. It was, well, donkey is very special. Have you ever read I’Ching? Are you familiar with the book?”
“Me? I’Ching? Don’t be kidding me. You can’t imagine how terrible my classical Chinese is. I hardly passed the national college entrance exam because of my poor mark in language course. Thank God, my language course in the university wasn’t compulsory at that time. Believe it or not, I’ve read none of the four classical novels of Chinese literature, not even any simplified and full versions of those for kids or whatsoever, no need to mention any of the vintage Four Books and Five Classics. It’s already a great thing to me that I know I’Ching is one of the Five Classics and it’s a greater thing that I know it is a book for how divination is done through Eight Trigrams. But what for? What does it have to do with donkeys’ mating?” The shorter asked my question.
“You really wanna know?”
“Every bit of it,” affirmed the shorter.
“First of all, I’Ching is not only a book for divination, but a book covering everything including sex which is also called Spring Palace in classical language.”
“Right, right, that I know, I also know that.”
“Good. Second, the divination is actually executed by Sixty-Four Hexagrams rather than Eight Trigrams.”
My ears were wide open.
“There were three books entitled I’Ching. I’Ching of Zhou, I’Ching of Lianshan, and I’Ching of Guicang. I’m only talking about the first one as the other two were lost. About 3000 years ago which is the turn between Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, King Wen of Zhou wrote I’Ching. It’s a very complicated book which is related to mathematics, geomancy, logics, philosophy, religion, occult, sociology, literature, medicine, warcraft, martial art, symbolism, music, sex, etc.”
“So versatile.”
“Yes, and because of its complexity, so later, the book got paraphrased and re-edited by many different scholars, philosophers, and thinkers in the dynasties that followed. Among them, Confucius did the greatest and the most important contribution. In fact, it is said that the initial draft of I’Ching was written by Fu Xi 5000 years ago, but that’s only a small part in the whole book of King Wen of Zhou. Fu Xi created Eight Trigrams and King Wen wrote the whole book and developed Eight Trigrams into Sixty-Four Hexagrams. Then Confucius added important notes to and paraphrased the whole book about 2500 years ago. So this book is actually completed by three people. The thing is, the book turned into different versions afterwards, most of which got lost to the world.”
These were not new to me and I was wondering why he hadn’t cut short to the right point, but I continued to stay focused.
“The one I got is from a friend’s friend, and it’s just a handwritten copy. I was told that the original copy was privately printed in Qing Dynasty, probably during the period of Emperor Yongzheng. Only dozens of people had this version at that time.”
“Must be extremely expensive and it would make you rich if you got the original copy,” the other commented.
“Right. At the beginning, I thought my copy had no difference from any other in the bookstores or libraries as I had skipped twice. But it was until yesterday when I read it again that I found the difference.”
I forced myself not to stop my pace.
“In addition to the Explanation of Hexagrams and Explanation of Horizontal Lines, there’s...”
“Wait, wait, wait, what are Horizontal Lines?”
“Never mind, there’s...”
“But I can’t understand. You got to make me understand what you are talking about,” the shorter insisted.
“They are just two symbols of Eight Trigrams, respectively representing woman’s sex organ and man’s sex organ, or yin and yang.”
“Got it. Go on.”
“There’s a note added below the Explanation of Horizontal Lines in Hexagram Sixty-Three.”
I almost stopped there at the words.
“Sixty-three is the sequence number of that hexagram while the name of the hexagram is Jiji.” The taller continued.
“I have no clue in what those are. Just what is the note?”
“You prefer the original note in classical context? Or in modern colloquial one?”
“Come on. Don’t be jerk!” demanded the shorter.
“It means, hold on, before anything, I need to ask you a character.”
“You ask me? Can you just ... fine, what is it?” The voice sounded quite impatient.
“What is the character that is structured with the character Horse (马) on the right and the character Household(户) on the left? I mean traditional characters for Horse and Household.”
“How do you pronounce it?” the shorter said, voicing my question.
“The pronunciation is ‘hu’.”
“I never saw this character before. What is it? What does it mean?”
“Do you know what is the character with Horse on the left and Household on the right?” asked the taller.
“Donkey.”
“Right, ‘hu’ means donkey’s ancestor in ancient times.”
I knew traditional characters as many as simplified ones. But I had never seen this one before. The traditional character of Donkey was made up of traditional Horse on the left and Tableware on the right. I had no clue how Household should be written in traditional way. Was there such a character?
“Honestly, traditional characters I know never exceed fifty.” The voice of the shorter didn’t sound a joke.
“I didn’t know that character either. It’s a rare one. I don’t think it even exists in Kangxi Dictionary. I should have related it to Donkey first place because the character of Donkey is arranged exactly the other way, with Horse on the left and Household on the right, but I didn’t realize the connection between the two. So, that note is about ‘hu’ which also means donkey.”
“I see.”
“Now, this is what the note says - ‘hu’ goes to woods and gorges frequently during early spring to absorb yang because yang is always prosperous in the woods and gorges at that moment. As time goes by, the reproductive organ of ‘hu’ turns stronger. See, this is what the ancestor of donkeys had done.”
“That’s why donkeys’...” the shorter stopped and then asked, “but why didn’t other animals go there?”
“Because donkey is smarter than them.”
“So true.”
“I saw donkeys’ mating long ago, but it was only until yesterday that I read I’Ching again and came to realize the character ‘hu’ was actually linked to donkeys.”
“You came in a long way. But what about me going there to absorb yang? I mean, going into the woods and gorges at early spring time?”
“Donkey’s ancestor went there nude to absorb yang. You can’t go there with your shirt, coat, or jacket. So you have to go THAN way to THAT place at THAT time THAT often.”
“No wonder we human being...” the shorter stopped and laughed. The taller joined him.
This was insane. I never saw that note in any version of I’Ching. Maybe was it because I had read the book rough and fast? Or maybe the version he got was different from the one I had read? But why was yang thicker in the woods and gorges instead of the rivers or lakes? If so, I could go skinny diving to absorb yang. I slowed my pace while the two Manchurians overtook me, talking and laughing. They went farther and farther, and at last disappeared from the trail ahead out of my sight.
Off to my right was the gorge and the woods lay on the left. If the taller’s words were real, wasn’t this place right place and this moment right time to absorb yang? I looked around. There was no one within sight from both ways of the trail now. No people’s talk could be heard. All were quiet except birds chirping. I walked off the trail and into the deep woods. It was not easy to blaze a new trail through brambles and shrubs in the woods. Fortunately, I was in jeans and sneakers.
I kept trekking until I was sure I stayed unsighted from the trail side. On the ground were sliced sunshine and mixed shadows of trunks, branches, thickets, and withered vines and rattans. Where I stood was a patch in 3 by 3 feet without vegetation. The soil was a bit damp. But it didn’t stop me from taking off my coat, shirt, and vest. I put the clothes atop the shrubs close by. It was cold to stay half nude in the woods this season. A sparrow perched on the branch of a maple tree in front of me. It wasn’t chirping, wasn't bouncing, wasn’t flapping its wings, but watching me confused while I was struggling to decide whether I should take off my jeans and underwear or not. In a sudden, a chipmunk and a squirrel came from two different directions. They stopped in a distance they thought safe, doing nothing but watching me. I didn’t even care about what people would think. What could these guys do to me anyway?
But the taller hadn’t mentioned how to pose to absorb yang. Should I lie down, or sit, or stand, or even squat? Standing would be the better acceptable posture to me. But should I stand akimbo or stand with my hands in the jeans pockets? A man standing with his hands in the pants pockets would feel stupid; a man standing with his hands in the pants pockets with a hole would feel nuts. There wasn’t a hole in my jeans pockets though. Facing the sun with sunglasses, I stood akimbo, my index fingers hooked on the jeans buckles. I closed my eyes and tried to put myself on peace like a Shaolin monk focusing mind and thinking nothing. Inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled...I could think nothing, but I couldn’t stop feeling cold. Goosebumps started to crawl on my body. However, bit by bit, I felt my crotch bulge. 
Holy! Was it what it was supposed to be? Or was it because I was just too cold? But I was excited by all means.
“Hey, mimi, mimi,” I talked to the chipmunk, squirrel, and sparrow, “you guys are cute, but donkey is smart, I’m smart too. And now, I’m even as smart as a ...” I stopped mid-sentence and all my blood were coagulated. “Holy donkey!” The rodents and bird fled helter-skelter instantly after my shout.
Just a moment before, I had even reproved myself for not having read I’Ching carefully and had thought the one he had got was a special version. Now, it turned out the whole thing was merely an ugly trick. And most likely, my crotch had bulged because I had been suffering chill. I grabbed the clothes and put them on roughly, feeling if I saw the taller again, I would be able to strangle his neck as thin as a chopstick with my violin’s G string.
By the time I came back to the trail, my fellow team mates were still not showing. Girls were always slow, so were the boys with them. This would remain unchanged until the extinction of us human society. I paced up and walked further ahead quickly, hoping to catch up with the Manchurian and expose his deception. Nevertheless, I had been very silly and naive too. I was never sensitive to certain rhetoric.
A clump of blooming winter jasmine craned out from behind the trees on the left. The winter had been too long. How could I stay in ataraxia seeing this? The flowers were as yellow as dandelions spotted among new green grass along the cliff edge. Occasionally, there were also white flowers blooming on the branches of other few trees and nameless purple, red, and blue flowers sprinkled in the grass. As well, all these were something reminiscent of the season of High Park’s cherry blossom which would be around. The best time for cherry blossom was not its full blooming moment, but the time the blossom was about to fall. Pink and white petals flaked down in the mild breeze. My fantasy totally went flooded...
Notes:
01. Galileo - Italian scientist (伽利略).
02. Amitabha - the utterance at the end of a prayer of Buddhist just like Amen for Christian and the meanting could be "Buddha bless it" or "Buddha forgive it" as the case may be (阿弥陀佛).
03. I’Ching - Rule of Changes (《易经》).
04. classical Chinese - ancient literary Chinese language (文言文).
05. Four Books and Five Classics - the main vintage works of classical Chinese culture (四书五经).
06. divination - fortune-telling practice (占卜).
07. Eight Trigrams - i.e. ? Sky, ? Lake, ? Fire, ? Thunder, ? Wind, ? Water, ? Mountain, ? Earth; the national flage of Republic of Korea contains four trigrams of Sky, Earth, Fire, Water ?, ?, ?, ? as well as the logo of Yin and Yang (八卦).
08. Sixty-Four Hexagrams - developed from Eight Trigrams because each symbol of Sixty-Four Hexagrams is made up of two Eight Trigrams (六十四卦).
09. I’Ching of Zhou - the I'Ching created right before Zhou Dynasty and developed during Zhou Dynasty (1100 BC - 221 BC), not proved (《周易》).
10. I’Ching of Lianshan - the I'Ching created in Xia Dynasty (2100 BC -1600 BC), not proved (《连山易》).
11. I’Ching of Guicang - the I'Ching created in Shang Dynasty (1600 BC - 1100 BC), not proved (《归藏易》).
12. King Wen of Zhou - the father of the first king of Zhou Dynasty; the King Wen is the posthumous title; He encouraged his son to topple down the reign of Shang Dynasty; it is said that he wrote I'Ching of Zhou during the period he was detained by the last king of Shang Dynasty (周文王).
13. Fu Xi - one of the main forefathers of ancient Chinese (伏羲).
14. Emperor Yongzheng - the third emperor of Qing Dynasty after occupying whole China proper (1644 AD - 1911 AD) (雍正).
15. Explanation of Hexagrams - I'Ching has sixty-four Hexagrams and each Hexagram has its own explanation, in Chinese pinyin, it's called gua-ci (卦辞).
16. Explanation of Horizontal Lines - I'Ching has three hundred eight-six Horizontal Lines for sixty-four Hexagrams and each Horizontal Line has its own explanation, in Chinese pinyin, it's called yao-ci (爻辞).
17. Horizontal Lines - also called yao, i.e. — and - -, where — represents male or yang, and is called male horizontal line or yang horizontal line or yang yao; - - represents female or yin, and is called female horizontal line or yin horizontal line or yin yao; each trigram is made up of three horizontal lines while each hexagram has six horizontal lines because each hexagram contains two trigrams (爻).
18. Yin and Yang - the general concept of national dualities in Chinese philosophy, such as male (yang) and female (yin), life (yang) and death (yin), hot (yang) and cold (yin), fire (yang) and water (yin), high (yang) and low (yin), light (yang) and dark (yin), positive (yang) and negative (yin), etc. (阴阳).
19. Hexagram Sixty-Three - i.e. No. 63 Hexagram (六十三卦).
20. Jiji - the name of Hexagram Sixty-Three, Jiji means "after completion" (既济).
21. household - simplified Chinese character is 户.
22. donkey - simplified Chinese character is 驴 while traditional Chinese character goes as 驢 (驴，繁体字为“驢”).
23. tableware - simplified Chinese character is 卢 and traditional Chinese character 盧 (卢，繁体字为“盧”). Note it is the same as the right portion of traditional Chinese character donkey.
24. Kangxi Dictionary - the most successful dictionary in Chinese history, compiled and published by Royal Court of Qing Dynasty under the order from Emperor Kangxi, the second emperor of Qing Dynasty (《康熙字典》).
