The Sight of My Father's Back

Father appeared in my dream recently. As usual, just like when he was alive, he was quiet and only smiled slightly in the dream. After that dream, I recalled bits and pieces about him. The first mind picture I had was Dounan Railway Station. That was one sunny afternoon in 1974. I stood by my father waiting for his North-bound train to return home. I was then serving my obligatory military service at Huwei Air Force Cadet Training Centre, and father himself rode one early South-bound train to where I was stationed to see me.

Out of missing me and concerning of my winter clothing, he spontaneously decided to bring some home-made food and some warm jackets to come to Huwei to see me. His appearance at the visitor's reception quarter that afternoon was beyond my expectation, so when I was paged for a meeting at the reception quarter of the camp entrance gate, I was puzzled.

When I rode my bike to rush to the camp gate from my office, I saw a medium height, solid built body with crew cut hair figure from a distance. I recognized it was father, both hands carrying bags of stuff. My mind was deeply touched upon seeing father, especially by his bothering to travel whole day in order to hand me some comfort.

He was not talkative. Apart from basic questioning about my living details in the camp, silence filled up most of the time of our being together. I briefly guided him through the barrack, and before long, it was about time to leave for catching his return train to Taipei.

I gave my father a lift with my bumping bike to Dounan Station 5 km away. While waiting for train on the platform, he became more talkative, and it was all about how I should be looking after myself well while being away from home. Soon, the train slowly rumbled in and put an halt by the platform. I saw from his back, noticed a slight bent over it. At that moment, the sight of his back made me recalled his being the most pampered only natural son of Chen family during his childhood and youthhood. And now, he was 59. Man did age after all. He entered the carriage, waved his hand signalling me to return to camp safely. My eyes welled up with tears at this moment till the train moved out of my sight.

The reminiscence of that episode about seeing my father off on the platform of Doulan Railway Station connected my thought to the short story titled "The sight of father's back (背影)“ written by Zhu Ziqing, a prominent literature scholar (1898-1948). Every Junior high school student in Taiwan read this article in their year two Chinese textbook. In the story, Zhu mentioned about how their originally well-off family became a shabby one and how his father, facing the worsening family setback, reacted to peoples and matters. Zhu Ziqing filled the story with great deal of emotions both his father's and his own. I was so moved when I reread the story that I intended to write some of the stories about my father.

Father was born to a wealthy family in 1915. My grandfather, being a well-known carpenter and furniture trader, had earned a big fortune for Chen family and owned many farming lands. Apprently my grandmother had had infertility problem since her marriage, as she bore her only son, my father at age 36. My uncle was adopted a few years before my grandmother got pregnancy. People in those days believed adopting a child, especially a boy, would increase high chance of a boy born to this family. (people in picture, from left: my aunt, my mother, my grandmother, my grand father, my father, my uncle)

So my father, being the only natural son of Chen family, was deeply pampered. He at a stage of his childhood, loved raising pets such as rabbit, bird. My mother was the one to tidy up the droppings. At another stage in his early youthhood, his interest changed to radio. When he heard that a new radio product was available in the market, one of my grandfather's apprentices would be assigned to escort him by riding a bicycle to Taichung City about 25 km away to buy one.

Life began to challenge my father from around the time when a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake hit the middle part of Taiwan and flattened our dwelling in 1935. Followed by my grandfather's death at age 59 in 1938, and the eruption of World War II in 1939. Consequently the timber supply for our furniture trade was cut off. Father was lacking of trade skill but he had to pick up the responsibility of Chen family's livelihood after my grandfather's demise.

To a young man in his mid 20's of age, being raised up in a fully protected circumstance, and lacking of trade skill, making a living to support a family of 7 in that tough situation was really difficult. So year after year, the whole family could only live on the reserve saved during grandfather's day.

Father's life challenges were not just from the three big incidents. There were many other heart breaking events arose before 1948. They lost three children. The first kid they lost was a boy killed in the 1935 Taichung Earthquake. The second was a girl whom my mother described as the most beautiful girl, named 'Hilei', she had ever seen, died from flu epidemic. The third was a boy died, again from flu epidemic, in his infancy in 1948. So if all of them survived, there should be 9 children all together in our family. (picture shows Chen's extended family in 1954, front row from left: 2nd cousin, my aunt, my mother holding my sister, my father, 1st sister, 4th sister; back row from left: 2nd sister, 3rd cousin, 3rd sister. Uncle was in Japan, 1st and 3rd cousin were visiting their father in Japan, so they were not in this photo.)

Since the government had enacted the Land Reform program in 1950, Chen family began to lose its status as a landlord. My memory that I had seen a rice paddy owned by our family was in 1955 or 1956. I think after 1960, all my father owned was a very old dwelling with a grocery shop in the Ching Shui township and a household of 8 members to feed. Anyone who has to went through these long term challenges will definitely develop anxiety and/or depression. My father did not show this symptom, but his short tempered personality must have something to do with it.

Father was a serious, strong willed, inflexible, easy to be offended type of person. This type of personality made him quite unpopular in the community.

We ran a grocery shop before 1967. Most of the time, the shop was managed by my mother and 3rd sister. My father took over the shift between 8pm to 2am. Now and then, he looked after the shop during the daytime when 3rd sister rode bike to the neighboring town, Salu, to pick up our orders of cigarette and wine for resale, and mother left for a while to cook lunch and dinner. Quite a few times, when father was in charge, I witnessed a few times during my childhood how he either upset the customer or being upset by the customer, anyway that resulted in unpleasant serious quarrels in our shop. So a close friend of our family advised my father to avoid showing up in the shop as it only discouraged customers to walk in. Therefore my father quit the involvement in running the shop eventually, and left for the neighboring town to work as a band saw technician for a timber mill.

It is understandable why had father developed into an unwelcoming person. That was all to do with his being overly pampered and protected when he was young. However, father was basically a righteous, sympathizing, trustworthy, courageous person. He never had problem getting along with decent people.

Having been in their 56 year long marriage life, my mother's comment about father must be the fairest one, "your dad does not know how to express his feeling and emotion", mum once said when she was alive.

Indeed father was very bad at expressing his inside world. All I can recall from my childhood memory, he never had kissed, hugged me; never had played any game with me; never had told me any story, however, I believed his love to me was profound. He had been trying to show his intimacy to us children, but just did not how to do it right.

One evening, when I was about 12 years old, he, out of nowhere, had this idea of giving me a treat, watching a live singing and dancing show. It was very weird, as we all knew father never had watched a movie or show before. And I never knew what was in his mind that evening when he asked me if I'd like to watch the show with him.

I remembered I was very excited from this surprising treat. I still remembered vividly that show was presented by a girls' group named Yu Xia girls singing and dancing troupe (玉霞女子歌舞團). But I had no idea what their show was all about.

We bought the tickets from the box office window, entered the theater and seated. Soon the program started. The brass band of this troupe played a very rocking exciting overture, then, a row of about 12 girls, danced out from both sides of the stage following the rhythm of the music kicking their legs up and down. And, gee..., every single one was in bikini. At age of 12, I was sort of aware of sexuality, but being in a conservative society in early 60's, I felt terribly awkward at that instant moment watching bikini girls with constantly serious dad next to me.

Father's usually serious facial expression made him not so popular in the community. However, his caring mind toward people in hardship was warm, and that was manifested in his action in silence.

He quietly gave money to beggars without even mentioned to mum for her praising on his kind deed. Mum told me that once she saw dad did this without his being aware of her watching from distance. She concluded father was soft minded but stink faced.

The feature of his personality traits made him a mighty defender for his married daughters and nieces. Before 1970's in Taiwan, domestic violence was more or less seen in most households. This was not an exception to many of my sisters and cousins who had married. It must be a horrified experience to my sisters when they were attacked by their spouse in over-heated quarrels that they cried home to report to my mother for solace.

This was what had been kept in my memory about one of the daughter defending episodes occurred when I was about 11 years old. Once in an afternoon I saw sister cried in mum's arms, and mum was sort of condemning and cursing her son-in-law's misconduct. Father was watching all this quietly. Then, suddenly we noticed father was disappeared. Mum's intuition told her father was rushing to sister's home to give her husband a lesson. Mum became worried about what might be happening between father and the son-in-law under that furious atmosphere.

Before father returned, sister took the evening bus home. After all, she was married, and to Chinese tradition, particularly before 1960's, there was no return to the maiden home for a married daughter.

Apparently father's sudden appearance at my brother's home with his innate 'stink' face had given the son-in-law an effective warning of "no more violence!"

Similar incidents happened to my other sisters and cousins, too. Every time father's silent but mad face successfully suppressed his son-in-laws' rude behaviors. So all my sisters commented that father was the bravest one in the world, while the brother-in-laws who'd ever made trouble all claimed "you'd better behave yourself if you want to see a smiley dad appearing before you."

To my sisters, father was a hero, a brave man. He seemed to be an unbeatable figure. Unexpectedly in September 1988, he was rushed to hospital and was diagnosed brain stroke. Followed by many complications and went through a major operation in his stomach. Throughout his life, I never heard him sighed or groaned once even in great discomfort when he was hospitalized. According to mother, he never had shed tears. "Being a brave man is the core objective of Japanese education", mum said. Dad had accepted 9 years of Japanese education during its ruling in Taiwan. (picture shows dad in a tour to a pearl company during his visit to uncle in Japan in 1963.)

During the four month time in hospital, father's only older brother flew back from Japan to see him. They might had met each other for about five times only in their lives since uncle migrated to Japan in early 1940's.

I was standing by father's bed side in the hospital when uncle walked into the ward. Uncle bent over to talk some comfort words to dad. Father's eyes showed great surprise upon recognizing his dear brother. Though he had lost speech ability, he could hear voice. He shed tears for the first time in his life after having heard his brother's words.

After about four months of many attempts of getting his series of complications fixed in the hospital, all failed, on 23/02/1989, father left this world. To my sisters, his strong will and unbeatable courage is always with them. As to me, it is always his meeting me at the Dounan Railway Station platform and the sight of his back.

Learning Japanese 1972-1973

Japan had a difficult time after World War II. From 1945 to 1956 when it was admitted as an UN member nation, this period of a decade must be the toughest time in its history imagining the great number of soldiers killed overseas, the two atomic bombs that wiped off two of its big cities in a short instant during the world war.

Yet, it stood up, reconstructed their homes, and just within 10 years, it became fit again. In the 3 decades from 1960's to 1980's, its GDP was over 10% for many years, and although gradually declined during 1980's, an average growth of 4% was still maintained. So during that period, Japanese Miracle was a familiar term seen on newspaper.

When a country becomes rich, its cultural influence in the world strengthens too. The indication of this influence can be seen by the growing popularity for its language and pop music.

1971 was my first year in the college. The most popular foreign language apart from English for students to select as their school subject was Japanese in Taiwan. In areas in Taipei city where private educational institutes were clustered, we could see commercial signs of Japanese language schools were one after another along the street.

In late 1960's, when I was still a high school student, I began to feel the Japanese cultural influence on me because among so many popular singers on radio and TV, I was deeply fascinated to a Japanese singer called Judy Wong. Judy was a Taiwanese but was raised up in Japan. I was her fan during my teens period. Later I enrolled myself on a Japanese learning course with a private language school when I received my first payment of wage from my part time job in 1972 doing subtitle for movies. When people asked me why I chose Japanese as my second foreign language, I always replied "because I am a fan of Judy Wong".

Two years before I started learning Japanese in the language school in 1972, I already bought a beginner's learning kit, a disc record and a textbook. I learned the 51 片かな and 平かな together with very basic conversational 挨拶語, such as 今日は，今晩は，おわよごさいます and so on all by myself from that kit in 1970. So by the time of enrolment, 先生assessed my level and placed me in the intermediate class. I still remember now the first lesson of my textbook is about a 手紙、letter.

There were 2 sessions of two hours each per week in the course. Class began at 7:00pm in the evening. I was always the first student arriving the classroom if I was not called to do the film subtitle job after school. The teacher was in his late 40's, a clerk of a trading company supposed to be a Sino-Japan joint venture one. He was of a medium plump guy with heavy near-sighted glasses and crew cut hair. His spoken Japanese resembled those Samurais I saw in the movies. I thought he deliberately mimicked the actor's tone in his teaching in order to add some fun in the class. And his tactic worked, as I found his class interesting and enjoyable.

During the two years of learning Japanese, I made acquaintance with a girl named Yang Li-fang in the class. Miss Yang was 3 years older than me, an employee of Matsushita Electronic. A smile always on her face when she walked into the classroom. Being a clerk of a large company, she must be loaded with tasks as I noticed her frequent absence from class. Each time she came to class, she took the seat next to me and asked to borrow my notebook so as to catch up the missed lessons.

A couple of times, she invited me to have supper with her after the class at the nearby food stools. I should confess now that I did wish our friendship could further develop. One day, I wrote her a letter after seeing a long absence of her from class. The letter must have implied my admiration of her, although slightly, because she sensed it. To avoid causing embarrassment to me, she skillfully mentioned that she had boyfriend. Thus, I remained a boy without a girlfriend until 3 years later in 1975 when my colleague in the Air Force Cadet Training Centre introduced me to a girl who is now my wife.

I learned Japanese quite hard that I was up to a level of being able to write understandable letter in Japanese to my uncle who lived in Kobe, the 6th biggest city of Japan. However, I only got two chances so far to put my Japanese into practice.

The first one occurred when I and 4 of my college classmates were in a tour to the Eastern Taiwan where there was a big population of the earliest Taiwan settlers who spoke their own language and some Japanese. In a bus to Hwalian, the eastern city, one of our seats was mistakenly occupied by a seemingly early Taiwan settler, a tribe woman. None of my friends could make her understand she had taken the wrong seat. One of my friends knew that most Taiwan tribesmen spoke Japanese, so they urged me to try my Japanese. So I did, and after a couple of sentences uttered from my mouth, she realized what had gone wrong and returned the seat to us.

The second time was in 2000 when my daughter, Tessie, was staying in Tottori of Japan through AFS student exchange. One evening after work, my wife received a call from Japan, she passed it to me because both parties found no common language for the communication to go on. I took the call and practised my learned Japanese the second time in the past 27 years. My Japanese was already very rusty then, and yet when there was no effective common language between the two, a few right words did make both side relieved and the messages somewhat understood. Tessie's host mother just wanted to tell us that Tessie was very safe and happy in their home, and was getting along well with the family members.

Now the whole world is facing a big economic recession, and Japan is no exception. There is a saying that whatever goes up comes down, I find this explains all the ups and downs of all matters. Buddha's teaching is even more sensible, Impermanence applies to every thing we know of. However, as a not-yet-enlightened being I still hope the downturn will be over soon.