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Updated Thursday, July 29, 2010 9:36 am TWN, By Joe Hung, Special to the China Post

Returinging Home II

While remaining bored to death and finding no way to kill time, I thought of friends I had when we were all still small kids. Ah, those friends! What have happened to those playmates who spun tops, flew kites, caught crickets and hunted mud snails with me? Where are they? I have heard some of them died. Death? How could it visit upon us young men? But death could not make me sentimental. Well, nobody can escape it any way. Some of my playmates are working as coolies or street vendors now. My goodness, while we were together attending our elementary school, they were pupils who were often given awards and prizes for their high scholastic marks. They were students I had admired and envied. Now, when we chance to meet in the street, I am afraid they may feel very sorry or even ashamed of themselves, for I think they are engaged in menial work because they did not want to excel. So I just try to avoid meeting them face to face. On the contrary, they greet me genially and affectionately, showing no sign whatsoever of shamefulness and making me feel ashamed of myself being a little too snobbishly narrow-minded. Well, there are some others who have made fortunes and become rich men – I don't know what opportunities have befallen them to get rich quick – or made advance in social status to that of the gentry. But these men were poor students unable to make good grades while in school. They were, as a matter of fact, looked down by most of our classmates, albeit we respect them and have to give them credit for the efforts they have exerted in upward mobility in society. Naturally, when we happened to meet in town, I did try to exchange cordial greetings with them, but they remained aloof, apparently impatient with me and seemingly reluctant to waste their precious time on me. They appeared afraid our chance meeting would desecrate their dignity and parted company with me as hurriedly as possible. They may have misunderstood me. But I have to laugh at myself for looking like an ingratiating person.

There still other playmates I have never come across for a long, long time. There is Ahpo, a very good swimmer who had a dash of the hero in his composition. Little Funny Shiang who made best kites. Above all, Ahkai, who called his daddy “Ah-pah” and made all kinds of funny mistakes.* These guys have continued to live actively in my memory.

In those school days, I only feared the vacation which I spent at home would be over in so short a time that I could not have enough fun and I used to idle away my time in pleasurable diversions. I did not have time for watching what was going on around us in my hometown. It was different now. My returning home this time forced me to notice the change. I felt the world I lived in while I was still a child and the world now are two very different worlds. The greatest change was the absence of familiar sounds of street vendors' little gongs. They used to beat the tam-tams to attract customers. The streets without the sounds of little gongs reminded me of Ahlai who hawked “daohuey.”**

*Ah-pah ( 阿爸 ) is Hoklo. No Hoklo child calls his father Ah-pah any more.

**Daohuey ( 豆花 ) is pronounced “douhua” in Mandarin. It is a kind of liquid tofu which used to be loved by children as a snack in pre-modern Taiwan. Unlike tofu, which is prepared by treating soybean milk with coagulants and draining and pressing, daohuey is not drained and pressed. It is served hot in sugared water.

The Lai He Fiction serialization, sponsored by the Council for Hakka Affairs, is provided by the Central News Agency.

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