The Adventures of Little Qi Shifu & Friends

Singapore, Part 2: The Journey Back to Bright Hill Temple

Returning to the Eight Immortals Wall—and a childhood place of refuge

@2026_Aileen-C-Jong-LAc_QiMastery | TM | All Rights Reserved   

Somewhere in Sunny Singapore…

“Are we there yet?” Commander Larry asked, checking his watch again. “We have to meet another friend for lunch after this.”

“Why is it taking so long?” Octii complained as his tummy rumbled. Lunch sounded really good.

“It’s so hot! I’m thirsty,” Bombi sniffled through the already-stifling mid-morning heat.

“It’s Singapore. It’s always hot,” Regal Regina reminded her. “We should have put on more sunblock.”

Fearless Frederick peered over my shoulder. “Why is this place so special again?”

Lady Qi Shifu smiled. “You know…Grandma.”

Frederick crinkled his eyebrows. “Wait—the time we got lost?”

“Yeah. That story,” LQS said softly. “I’ll tell you later.”

Coming Back to the Singapore I Love

My Five Element Family—my ever-present Little Qi Shifu cheerleading crew—peeked out of my backpack, chattering excitedly and trying to see over my shoulders. The conferences were finished. One family visit was behind me. I had shared meals with old school friends. Now I finally had a day to explore the part of Singapore that has always felt most deeply like home to me.

For me, it is not really Marina Bay Sands, the Supertrees in Gardens By the Bay, Sentosa or Universal Studios. I live in America, after all, Universal Studios and nausea creating amusement park rides is so NOT my idea of fun. And although I enjoy the Merlion and the newer Singapore landmarks, what I love most here—and what I cannot find anywhere else in quite the same way—are the temples.

Especially the Buddhist temples. And most especially Bright Hill Temple, the place I knew growing up as Guang Ming Shan. (光明山寺) . This was not simply somewhere my family visited. It was woven into childhood: festival days, incense, prayers, family rituals, meditation, my grandmother—and memories I did not yet understand would remain inside me for decades.

“WOW! Look at the ceiling!” Octii cried as we rounded a corner and saw Buddhist figures and mosaics in a riot of color.

“Oooh! Look at the little Shifu Buddhas!” Bombi squealed, immediately trying to imitate their poses—meditating, palms together in prayer, reclining, sweeping, contemplating. Naturally, the whole crew had to try them too.

The Child Who Had Been Here Before

“Do you remember the old library?” Regal Regina asked as we walked past it. “The one where we stayed when we were twelve for the children’s retreat?”

“Yes!” Frederick said. “It was so quiet among all those books and teachings. We had to whisper. And we woke up at five in the morning to meditate every day!”

Regina laughed. “And the boys slept near the bell tower—BONG! BONG! BONG!—and everybody was awake before sunrise. Then we went downstairs to meditate, cleaned together, ate breakfast, and finally got to run around outside. That really was a wonderful week.”

Then Larry suddenly straightened. “Look at the giant Kwan Yin!” He saluted the soaring statue as if reporting for duty.

Even Octii forgot his stomach for a moment. “She’s beautiful…”

We wandered slowly through the grounds, delighted by what was familiar and amazed by what had changed. New structures rose upward while the pathways wound us back toward the older parts of the temple. With every turn, present-day Singapore seemed to overlap with the Singapore of my childhood.

I remembered coming here with my Ah Ma, my parents and my brother. I remembered Vesak Day and the Three Steps, One Bow ceremony, when our family joined the long procession around the temple grounds. As a child, I did not understand why devotion needed to involve scraped knees, tropical heat, thirst and exhaustion. Would Buddha or Kwan Yin really care how uncomfortable I was?

I wanted to stop. But Mom told me that stepping out would interrupt the people moving behind us. So: tahan a bit. Endure a little longer. Do not keep thinking about the discomfort. Put your attention into the movement, keep going with the flow, and eventually you will make it through.

Only much later would I recognize something familiar in that lesson: attention, movement, breath, perseverance. The body can be uncomfortable while the mind learns not to fight every sensation. You stay with the practice. You keep moving.

Incense, Ah Ma, and the Old Temple

Memories drifted through me as I stopped at altars throughout the compound. Eventually I reached one of the older temple buildings—the place I remembered Ah Ma bringing me to pray and to pay respects to my Ah Gong after he had passed.

This was also the place where my grandparents were cremated. So Bright Hill Temple was never only a place of worship in my childhood memory. It was also a place of family endings, ancestral remembrance, grief, continuity, and return. Even as a child, long before I had words for any of that, I understood that this was somewhere we came to remember where we came from—and to stay connected with those who had gone before us.

“Ooohhh…” Bombi inhaled the incense. “I remember this place. Wasn’t this where they put out food during the Seventh Month, for the Hungry Ghost Festival?”

I nodded, half to her and half to myself. Past and present were beginning to blend together. My adult mind was walking through the temple, but the child who had once walked here with Grandma was very close by.

I knelt on the cushions, hands together, and sent out wishes for health, abundance and guidance—for my family back in America, for my parents and brother, for extended family and friends in Singapore, and for the journey still unfolding ahead of me.

When I stood again, the crew immediately perked up. “We’re close now, right?”

I was hot and a little light-headed. Octii, ever practical, added, “My tummy is growling again.”

And Then I Turned the Corner
There it was.

The Wall.

The Eight Immortals crossing the Heavenly Sea.

I moved closer. After more than forty years, the colors still seemed astonishingly alive. There were the Immortals—crossing waves and clouds with their different gifts and magical implements, each making the journey in a different way.

And there, where I remembered her, was Kwan Yin Bodhisattva: serene, compassionate, floating above the waters.

Suddenly I was not only looking at a mural. I was remembering the frightened little girl who had once become separated from Ah Ma and Ted Bear among the crowds of worshippers. I remembered crying. I remembered looking up at Kwan Yin’s face on this wall.

And I remembered becoming calmer.

In my child’s mind, her expression seemed to say: “It’s okay. Take a breath, little one. Rest. Wait. You’re in my house now. Everything will be alright.”

The Same Wall.  A Different Me.

Now, decades later, I was hot and tired again. I had crossed an ocean, delivered my first international keynote presentations, faced family history, reunited with old friends, and carried a great many versions of myself back to Singapore.

So I did what that little girl had once learned to do.

I sat down.

Under the trees, near the Eight Immortals Wall, I listened to the leaves rustling in the breeze. I stopped trying to get somewhere for a few minutes. No rushing. No performing. No fixing. Just a little rest.

The wall had not protected me by making life easy. It had given a frightened child an image of compassion she could hold onto until she felt safe enough to wait. And perhaps that is why I had carried Kwan Yin—and these imaginary companions in one form or another—with me for so long.

They had helped me find my way home.

“Quick, quick, before she wakes up!”

Then Octii spotted the waves beneath the Eight Immortals. “LOOK! They’re coming to play with us!”

Surfboards appeared. Of course they did.

Whoooosh…whoosh!

The Little Qi Shifu crew shot across the Heavenly Waters alongside the Eight Immortals—Frederick riding the waves, Regina blazing ahead, Larry trying to organize everybody’s surfing formation, Bombi laughing, and Octii somehow managing not to fall off his board.

For a little while, Heaven and Earth, memory and imagination, childhood and adulthood all seemed to occupy the same place.

And perhaps that was the real pilgrimage.

Coming Home to the Qi

Home is not always a house. It is not necessarily the place where everyone understands us, welcomes us, or gives us what we once hoped to receive.

Sometimes home is the place inside ourselves where we can breathe again.

A place of compassion. A place of belonging. A place where the frightened child, the adult woman, the teacher, the healer, and the ridiculous little Five Element creatures can all exist together without fighting for space.

On that hot Singapore morning, beside a wall I had known since childhood, I felt something come full circle. I did not need to become the child I had been. I could sit beside her. I could let her rest. And then, when we were ready, we could continue the journey together.

天人和一 • Tiān Rén Hé Yī
Unity Between Heaven and Humanity.

人在气中，气在人中
I am within the Qi, and the Qi is within me.

And somewhere in the Heavenly Sea behind me, Octii was probably still surfing.