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The Tiger Jumping Over the Wall 逼虎跳墙 An essay based on a true story by Wanchain

The Tiger The following is a story which in my mind can only best be summarized as 逼虎跳墙. This Chinese saying literally means to force the tiger to jump over the wall. It describes a situation where a group of hunters try to chase a tiger, in a maze. The tiger runs, and arrives at a dead end—a wall. As long as the tiger feels that there is still a sign of hope, a way to escape, he will attempt it, because he wants to live. So he will assess the tall wall, in a moment of panic, and will summon his greatest effort to jump over the insurmountable wall. That is an expression of hoping when there is no hope. Only when he has fought until he can no longer fight will he give up fighting. Humans also have this survival instinct, of fighting until our last breath.

Where does our desire to live come from? Where does our strength to live come from?

Where does our will to live come from?

There was a channeler who once said that when we force the animals to their extreme, they would retaliate and would fight back with all their might. That’s their survival instinct. When there is at least one faint sliver of hope, they will fight, to survive. This instinct also exists in humans. However, when the animals feel that there is absolutely no hope that they will come out of a situation alive, then they will acquire a serene composure, and will quietly succumb to their fate. They will be at peace at the end of their lives—Okay, go ahead and kill me; I am ready. They will not fight back, because they know that there is no more hope. This behavior also exists in humans.

I never knew how that felt like—the feeling of succumbing to what was and to truly be at peace with it even though it was not what I wanted—until I had the following experience.

On the eve of year 2015, I was to traverse through three continents: Europe, Asia, and North America. That was my plan, but life does not always go according to our plans.

I woke up extra early on December 31, to take the public transportation to the airport on the Asian side of Istanbul. I had figured out two possible routes to get to the airport.

As I checked out of the hotel, the concierge said, “Are you sure you want to take the tram? It is snowing outside.” Snowing was a euphemism. It was as if all the snow in the world suddenly decided to convene in this poor city. The stray dogs were exhilarated by the snow dump. They ran madly around in the snow. They were having meetings every five minutes, discussing how they could frolic most wildly. The humans were miserably shuffling snow off the ground, and walking with their heads down trying to resist the force of the wind, to bare the joke that nature sometimes played on them.

I would have to take a tram, a ferry, and a bus to get to the airport. The tram took forever to arrive, but it did arrive. The ferry was out of service, due to low visibility. The ship could not operate if it could not see the lights in the sea. My plan had to change.

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I walked to a nearby hotel, where Fatih (I mentioned Fatih in the Appendix of my Story 9) worked. We exhausted our options, and eventually decided on hailing a taxi off the street— the least desirable option. In some parts of the world, taxi drivers would give tourists a tour of the city before arriving at their desired destination. Istanbul was one such place. You would almost have to tell the taxi driver to take you to a place that you don’t want, in order to get to the place that you want first.

Without a jacket, Fatih ran out to the street to try to catch a taxi for me. Most taxi drivers ignored him, as they didn’t want to do business in that miserable weather.

While the wind continued to howl and the snow continued to dump, Fatih continued to hail a taxi. Finally a taxi driver named Farhat agreed to go to the airport. Fatih ran back inside the hotel, looking like a snowman, and said, “Okay miss, I have a taxi for you.”

I would prefer to call Farhat a bastard. Not only did the bastard give me a tour of Istanbul when I specifically told him in many creative ways that I had no time to waste, a tour that kept my blood pressure high, he also overcharged me, perhaps by 60%. Although I have many stories about the bastard, but let’s continue with the theme of my story.

Arriving at the airport, I managed to get to the plane which was scheduled to depart at 10.30am. This was where the actual adventure began. The last passenger boarded the plane at 10.52am, at which point, I had already lost much of my patience. I had one hour of transit time in Amsterdam—a tight connection.

After all passengers boarded the plane, it didn’t take off right away. The pilot announced that it was waiting for deicing, and estimated the wait to be 20 minutes. Half an hour later, another announcement came on board, repeating what was previously said, and revised the wait time to 15 minutes. Another half an hour later, another announcement repeated the previous announcement, requesting the passengers to wait for about five minutes. Five minutes became thirty, at which point another announcement came estimating the wait to be two minutes. Another half an hour lapsed, before I finally saw someone deicing the wings of the plane.

Within these two hours, a few other things happened, including a cabin crew announcing, “Is there a doctor onboard? Please identify yourself if you are a doctor.” Naturally, some of the passengers’ attention was temporarily entertained by this diversion.

One female passenger was missing her glasses, and she went up and down the aisle searching for it and requesting for assistance from the cabin crew who gave some excuses to dismiss her request. She started to show signs of irritation, almost like a volcano ready to erupt.

There were other passengers who spoke to the cabin crew about their connection flights, although I was the first one to do so. That was before 11.30am, when I still harbored hope of

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making the connection. Specifically, what I requested from the cabin crew was a communication between their airline and the airline that I was connecting to. Their responses were: (1) “Don’t know.” (2) “Can’t help you.” (3) Shook their heads. No solution was offered. No alternative was provided.

Although missing a flight connection was a fairly common mishap for most people, it was absolutely not common for me, even though I had travelled by plane more so than by bus.

Up until that point, I had a perfect track record of making all my connections. I had always been lucky when I travelled solo, as if there was a travel angel looking after me. I would arrive at an airport 15 minutes prior to the flight departure, go to the washroom, get a drink of water, and still have ample time to board the plane. I was also lucky enough to change planes several times without any price adjustment, by simply going to the gate of the flight that I wanted to board instead of the gate of the flight that I was scheduled to board. So when this flight delay in Istanbul happened to me, never mind all the other chaotic events that helped to intensify the tension, I went through some extreme and unusual emotions.

In between 10.52am and 11.30am, I kept wishing/hoping/praying, an act which I would describe as borderline lunacy. I don’t normally panic. But to me, missing my flight was a big deal, in a very personal way. As mentioned, over the many trips that I had, I have come to understand that I will be alright whenever I travel and wherever I travel. I have acquired an uncanny sense of inner assurance over the years, based on many unusual and surprising events. So if this misfortune was to happen to me, what exactly did that mean for the future? Would I be similarly unlucky? Should I be a bit more cautious, perhaps to the point of paranoia, when I travel in the future? Whatever it is, it will change the way I travel in the future. That will not an easy change, as I have already established a certain style and mentality over the years.

To add a bit of color to the circumstances that I was in, here are some facts. In North America, and in the US for sure, airlines are not required by law to compensate passengers for missed connection, if the cause was beyond their control, ie. weather. The mitigating measure therefore would be for the passenger to purchase a travel protection plan, which is essentially an insurance product, on top of the air tickets, to cover for untoward events such as flight cancellation, missed connection, lost baggage, etc. There is however an inconvenience to this. If a passenger claims the insurance, then there is an often cumbersome administrative process to go through before receiving the reimbursement.

When this event happened to me on my last flight for 2015, I was upset, I was irritated, and I rejected it. I did not want to be inconvenienced, and I did not want to fork out any cash up front.

My delirium lasted until around noon when I had lost all hope that I finally resigned to my fate and was at peace with the situation. From then on, my upset turned to boredom, an

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undesirable kind of peace, as I sat in a confined space, fettered, counting imaginary sheep with my eyes wide open.

It was then that I understood how it felt to be forced into a situation where I had absolutely no control of, and no chance to get out of. It was then that I whole heartedly accepted the situation. Come what may!

I had never experienced such a 180 degree change in such a short span of time. It was through that situation that I learned to comprehend the full meaning of 逼虎跳墙. I am a gentle soul. I don’t need to go through a life and death situation to comprehend this meaning. We don’t learn by knowing; we learn by feeling. Even the best education system cannot replace the value of life experience. It is for this reason that it is important to go through different life experiences, as that is the best way to learn.

We learn hunger by feeling hunger. We learn pain by feeling pain. We learn love by loving.

Blessing in Disguise After resigning myself to my fate, the first question that arose in me was why. Why did this happen to me? I had planned to return to North America by end of 2015, and I had made every effort to do so, but why was my intention not materialized? I don’t resign myself to fate easily. I always search for the reason. I am not satisfied with just letting things happened to me with no explanation.

My answer came shortly. How shortly? Within a day. It was a blessing in disguise. In fact, it was the best travel arrangement I ever had. How did a misfortune become a fortune?

Arriving at Schipol International Airport, I inquired about my connection, and I updated my parents about my flight. There was one caveat: I could not tell my parents that I had missed my connection. Basically, I was not to disclose any bad news to them, unless I wanted to experience a disaster. They had the imaginative power to amplify a simple scenario to a severe trauma, and then reacted quite psychotically to their imagined trauma. Whatever problem I was going through, I had to contain it fully, because if I were to leak only a fraction of it, it would blow up—creating problem instead of solving problem. So instead of saying that I missed my flight, I curtly said, I had changed my flights. The funny thing was, I changed my flights two or three times.

It was really lucky that Schipol had wifi connection throughout its building, such that I could use VOIP, to conveniently coordinate a situation oversea. Had this occurred in Los Angeles or even in Calgary, I would be quite troubled, because even though some airports advertised free wifi, they actually meant free but not accessible. Luckily, there was none of that nonsense in Schipol. Instead, Schipol wifi network happily allowed everyone to connect, with no usage limit.

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I got my flight and accommodation (full board) arranged, free of charge, even though the two airlines were not code share partners. I owed my thanks to KLM, not for being able to tell my story, but for being able to tell a story with an unexpected arc.

I had New Year’s Eve dinner at Sheraton in Schipol, after which I went to downtown Amsterdam to count down to the new year. The hotel was great. The food was great. The fireworks were great. It was a much more memorable way to end my 2015 than if I were to end it in Canada. I would not have thought of such a perfect way to end a year. Who would have thought that a missed connection could bring so much fun? I walked around in Schipol airport with my flip flops and my teddy bear, as if I was wandering around inside my own house, a very big house. A house that was almost like a mini city, with many of the basic amenities such as wifi, post office, shops, restaurants, train station, hotels, etc. It reminded me of the Iranian who lived in Charles de Gaulle airport for 18 years, although I am sure that my stay was much more pleasant than his.

I had never stayed in an airport, nor would I choose to do so in any airport, but I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at Schipol, one of the top ten airports around the world. The idea of living in a big house really intrigued me.

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On the first day of 2016, the weather was beautiful. It was as if the sun had decided to come out to greet me, after dumping snow on my plane the day before. The sky was blue. The clouds were white. The temperature was +5 degree. I spent the lovely day in a lovely town called Zaanse Schans. Even the bus drivers were lovely. They were like teachers taking a class of kindergarten children on a field trip.

After my field trip, I went back to Schipol to arrange for my accommodation for that night.

Again, it was full room and board, free of charge. The cornered tiger suddenly found herself transported to a heavenly garden with plenty of food, plenty of playmates, and plenty of adventures.

The Meaning Looking back, I asked myself, what did this all mean? First of all, I can say for sure that if this were to happen to me in the US, or some other countries, it would most likely not be pleasant.

And if this were to happen at the beginning or in the middle of my trip, the delay would have a domino effect that would disturb a few of my subsequent plans. And if this was to happen at the end of my previous trips, it would also disturb my other commitment. This was actually the only time that the flight delay could happen to me without causing further disruption, as this was the only time that I had no further plans.

This experience, happening at a particular time and at a particular place, was most likely not an accident. An accident is an event with an unfavorable outcome. For me, this had an unexpected, unimaginable, but favorable outcome. The hidden lesson is: To be flexible, to open ourselves to other possibilities, especially to those that we do not want, because it could very well be possible that an unforeseeable but pleasant surprise awaits us at the end of that choice.

The cornered tiger thought that she would be dead-meat. But no need to think like that. No need to be so bleak. Since then, I had become more neutral to events happening to me and around me, although many parts of this trip had a similar effect of teaching me to be at ease and at peace with what is, they did not have the honking effect of the flight delay. Someone once said, an event is a signpost; if that signpost keeps appearing in our life, it means that we should really pay attention to it, otherwise that signpost will one day start blaring at us—if you are deaf, I will have to shout into your ear, so please listen.

This is a very important life lesson. It equips me with the confidence to take on the harder path in life. It assures me that even when the path ahead appears uncrossable or appears to be a dead-end, I can still proceed, confidently and courageously, for what may appear daunting and impossible could very possibly be the best and ideal path. Yes, it may not The Tiger Jumping Over the Wall

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sound logical or plausible at first, but that’s because logical reasoning is conducted by the human mind, while the forces of universe happen outside of the boundary of the human mind. If the human mind allows the impossible to be possible, then it will. There is a Chinese saying that goes 路是人走出来的, which literally translates to mean that a road exists simply because someone built it. So if there’s no road ahead, then build it.

The period of my delirium on the plane was a period of darkness. At different times in our lives, we would find ourselves be surrounded by darkness. The only way we could illuminate our path ahead was to take out our inner light. All of us were born with that inner resource, that inner strength and inner wisdom. Nothing could strip us away from it. Our purpose in life is to externalize our inner light, to illuminate this world, and to externalize our inner beauty, to beautify this world. When we first came to this world, we were all very bright and beautiful beings. Over time we may have accumulated some dust on us. All we have to do is to get ourselves a duster and we will shine again. The full power of our dormant potential will forever be beyond our wildest imagination. If and when we all shine forth from within, the power of collective wisdom cannot be estimated.

It is my wish that only the purest and highest thoughts circulate on this planet. When everyone fully exteriorizes their inner treasure, there will be no poverty, no war, and no suffering in this world.

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