Returning Home III

There was another change in town. I wonder why I can't see bigger children in the streets. In my childhood, there were big boys who used to do gang fights. I tried to find out the reason and came to the conclusion that those boys at school age have to receive six years of elementary education and there are few street brats. Ah, has education been that much promoted and popularized? I still remember when I was a little kid, parents did not want to send their children to school, no matter how hard the Japanese colonial authorities tried to induce them. Our people believed it was of no use learning Japanese. All of them thought the right thing for children to learn was Chinese. It took only a dozen years for them to change their minds. They want children to learn Japanese in school now.

But there is one thing that has given me comfort – discomfort for my family, though – after I spent quite some time at home. Almost happily, I have found there isn't a chance that I can be of use to my hometown at the moment. The question isn't whether I can be useful or not useful. With that doubt gone, my fear of being given up for lost forever evaporated as a matter of course. I now have the courage to go out to town.

The town has been going through urban renewal. Of course, it is very difficult to renew the town during the time of depression to the extent that I can now observe. New big, tall Western-style buildings are juxtaposed with half-destroyed rundown houses waiting to be torn down to make place for a few more modern edifices. Apparently, the scene symbolizes the class struggle of the twentieth century. But the town is still crowded and noisy. People come and go along busy streets. There is a change, however. Those stores that used to do big business have been reduced to shops for retail. The streets seem to harbor fewer beggars, who sanctify a vulgar urban society and exemplify its real social conditions. On the other hand, a couple of story-tellers are still able to attract a capacity audience of idlers who have nothing to do, their open-door shops looking like planetary houses in the dawning skies.

*Goarun ( 糕仔潤 ) is a kind of rice-flour cake, which isn't baked. It is rich, sweetened, moist and chewy.

**Chaozhou ( 潮州 ) is a district in the province of Guangdong. Chaozhou people speak a dialect, which is so similar to Hoklo or Amoy as to be mutually intelligible, if spoken very slowly. Swatow ( 汕頭 ) is the best known town of the district. Most of the overseas Chinese in Thailand speak the Chaozhou or Swatow dialect.

***Bahzhang ( 肉粽 ) is a dumpling of glutinous rice with pork as its filling. Vendors used to sell them hot. The Chinese eat such rice dumplings ritually to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month on their lunar calendar.

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

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