Many Lives I've Had

Sometimes I feel that I've had many lives. By that I mean my live had been segmented into many periods with little resemblances to each other. Some periods could have belonged to a total stranger. The only common thread among these periods is me, but even that part did not stay constant. Otherwise I would have been content to stay at one place, and settle for one live.

These periods are the results of migrations. Each migration was either by necessities or motivated by my own ambitions. Although each one has brought more fulfillment, challenges, satisfactions and more prosperity, each also severe some of the old relationships and memories, which became very difficult to maintain because of the vast physical distances between them.

I grew up in Taichung, Taiwan. A medium size city with a population of 600,000, located in central Taiwan. I remember when I was in my third grade (1976), I still walked by a rice fields everyday to go to school, which is 1 mile away. My mom also walked to work - she taught English at a middle school that's also a mile away. Our home was a 2 stories concrete building that shared common walls with neighbors. Each building is about 12 feet wide and maybe 40 feet long. The entire block had maybe 20 houses, all had a tiny front and backyards. If I came home and the door was locked, I would just go into my neighbor's home. They would give me sweet green been soup while I awaited for my parents to come home.

One hot summer night when the electricity was out, our entire neighborhood emptied out to the front yards spontaneously. We brought out the benches and sat chatting, kids were playing, watching the stars in the night sky. That was a magical night. I could live that night forever.

Our family moved when I was in the fourth grade in 1977 and I transfered to another school 3 miles away. The new teacher, Mrs. Hsiu Jung-Shu, liked me a lot. Our family friend, Uncle Chang taught sixth grade there. He would eventually become my 6th grade teacher.

My grade was good and normally I am the No. 3 in the class without much efforts, the two girls before me always took their studies very seriously. Me, on the other hand, was always absent-minded and not sure what I wanted to do in life. My cousin, Kai Jien-An, also in my class, was my best friend. We just want to play everyday.

At my first exam in 6th grade, Uncle Chang correct one minor mistake in my math exam so I became No. 1, otherwise I would have been No. 3 as usual. I was so ashamed but I didn't tell anyone. After that I worked harder and became No. 1, to avoid the same from happening again. Uncle Chang was a close family friend and around our family often. He was even in my wedding 17 years later. We never discussed that incident.

I was a happy kid. I was never as serious as some other kids. Maybe that's because I was born in November and always the youngest in my class.

I wasn't very athletic and I became near-sighted since my 5th grade. My brother Pei-Chung and my cousin are very, very good, so we kicked ass playing baseball with the neighborhood kids.

My brother Pei-Chung was playing baseball for our school team and was the lead pitcher and 4th at bat, but the practice became longer when the team decided to go after the World's Little League Championships. My mom didn't like the extra hours of practice and withdrew my brother from the team. I still remember the coach came by several times pleading but she wouldn't change her mind. The team later went on to win the Little League World Champion. My brother always excelled in every sports he played, unfortunately playing sports wasn't a viable way to make a living so the parents discouraged that. The professional leagues for basketball or baseball would not be established in Taiwan for another 15 years.

We didn't have much but so did everyone else. I think our entire class of 60 had two rich kids, one is my cousin. Families back then normally had black-and-white TV (it had 3 hours program every night), electric fan (air conditioning was 10 years away), motor cycles. No one that I know of has cars, except my uncle. I think he owned the first Buick in Taichung city. But my uncle didn't seem that wealthy to me. They have meat every dinner, and can afford foreign travel (to Hong Kong) every few years, that's it. We all wear canvas sneakers. When my cousin told me he's getting a pair of leather sneakers (Nike), I thought that was odd - how can you run in those leather shoes?

Evey summer we spent our vacation at our maternal grandparents' place in Yung-he, a suburb of Taipei. Me, my bother, my sister, and my cousins, maybe 5-6 children in total, would go to Taipei on a train and stayed 3 months there. Every morning around 7AM my grandma would take us to the Youth's Park, where we played until 9AM, then we come back and my grandpa would take us to eat breakfast at a roadside stand. Then we played chess with grandpa. In the afternoon they take a nap, and my cousin, me and my brother would roam the streets in Yung-he, doing nothing particular, then come home for dinner.

I went to junior high school with my cousin. It's called Viator High School, a private catholic high school established by the Canadian Jesuit priests. It began in 1920s in mainland China and moved to Taiwan after 1949. My maternal grand father was the contractor that built the high school, so we were able to get in despite applicants far outnumbered the slots. The tuition wasn't that expensive, maybe $200 USD a year (in 1977's dollar).

We all live in the dorm during the first year. Since my cousin was sharing a two level bunk with me, it wasn't that big a deal to be away from home. There were 12 kids in the room, all cried during the first night except me and my cousin. We were just talking.

Viator high school had the largest campus for a junior high school in Asia. It has two soccer fields, 2 baseball fields, 1 full size swimming pool, couple of dozens basketball and volleyball courts, and a chapel. Each grade has six classes, and about 60 students per class. It also had a high school and each year had three classes. So there weren't that many and the campus is huge! It left a deep imprint in me since it was reputed to be the best junior high school in Taichung. 10 of my classmates later went on to Taichung First High School, the best high school in Taichung that required a placement examine to get in, similar to Stuyvansant High School in NYC. I still have friends from Viator High.

The Way They Lived (and we live..)

Last year during my father-in-law's visit, we were chatting after dinner about how they used to live when he grew up in China. The story he told was very fascinating! It was around year 1920, Nanjing, China:

"We have no electricity. At night, we lit kerosene lamps. There's no toilet or sewage, instead we use wooden basins in an out-house shared by adjacent families in the same quarter. Every day before dawn, peasants from the countryside will arrive with mull cart and collect those wastes. In exchange, they give us firewoods that we use to cook. Those wastes were turned into composts that fertilize their fields."

"There was no running water and we used two different sources of waters - from the well and from the river. Well water is only good for washing and bathing. For cooking and drinking, we boil water from the river."

Since China already have cities of similar population like Nanjing in 800 AD, the mechanisms needed to support urban life must have already existed by then. How different was a life in 800 AD, compared with 1920? I suspect not very much. I forgot to ask him how they started a fire, perhaps using matches? And perhaps using matches to start a fire was the one of the few things that had changed since. Other changes would be kerosene and the new world crops that were introduced to China around 1700 AD - vegetables with funny names in Chinese (sometimes in English too), like potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts and corns.

No change is not necessarily a bad thing. A way of life that does not change for a thousand years can probably last another thousand years, although not necessarily on an upward path. According to a Cambridge economic historian, China today's GDP finally matches up its previous record, set at 800 AD. Go figure what had happened between 800 and 2007.

How does our our modern live compare? The energy sources it depends on will be gone in 30 or 150 years, based on the most pessimistic or optimistic estimates, not to mention global warming, rising population, depleted resources and food supplies. If we get rid of the things we can live without - air conditioners, big screen TVs, dryers and only keep one car, how many years can we add to the 30, or 150 years estimate? Another 100? Are we willing to sacrifice a little, so our children and their children can have a comparable living standard like ours?

If I Can

If I can,
go back to the house I lived when I was three years old,
grap my own shoulders, and,
tell me that it's OK,
that Mom and Dad are fighting (they loved each other,
they just didn't know what they want)

If I can,
go back to my sixth grade classroom,
and tell me it's OK to day dream,
because knowledge will not be important,
but dreams will.

If I can,
go back to my college dorm,
and tell me it's OK to skip a class,
and not worry about the future,
because the future will be kind to me,
if I stay adventurous.

If I can,
go back to my wedding day,
and thank myself, on marrying the girl,
who sat on the sidewalk of London, smiling,
when we missed the bus to Heathrow.

If I can,
I wouldn't change any outcome,
only the process: fewer complaints,
more attentions, and kind words,
to people around me,
take more pictures.