Family history

I quickly packed a light bag, and hopped on the high speed train. Within three hours of waking up and deciding to go south, I was standing on the platform at Chiayi Station, and breathing in the warmer, fresher air of my parents’ hometown.

It was a last minute decision, as mum had been feeling unwell and thrown up a few times the day before. But this morning, she looked and said she felt better, and encouraged to go. “People are waiting for you…”

Indeed, a whole host of people have been eagerly awaiting my return, ever since they found out that I’ve been in Taiwan. Aunties, uncles, cousins… It’s a sort of tradition of mine to try to pay as many people a visit as I can, so that no one feels left behind, so that no one feels like I prefer one person to the next. Because I really don’t. You may be able to choose friends, but you cannot choose your family, or who you are related to. So I’ve always felt a great affinity toward them, and even having lived abroad for so many years, they are still on my mind (and now, increasingly on my Facebook…) and must-visit list.

I cycle around Chiayi, on a bike with a basket in the front, sometimes ringing happily the bell as I criss-cross and navigate the narrow lanes and streets of this old city. A city where my parents grew up, where my parents met, where my parents got married, where I used to spend all my summers and long holidays, where the family would always gather on special days and on special occasions. The streets of Chiayi are filled with smells, sights and sounds of my childhood, of my grandparents, of those yesteryears of innocence and play with my cousins.

Having grown older, each time I return to this small town in rural Taiwan and do thoroughly enjoy visiting members of my distant and close relatives. I enjoy seeing how everyone is doing, how people are growing and developing in their lives—even if it means I have to recount numerous times how my life is going in Canada, and tell people what exactly it is I’m (supposed to be…) writing a thesis on.

On these visits, I learn a lot about my family, about where I come from. Perhaps being a sentimental someone who attaches a lot of value to the past, learning about the lives and histories of my parents and their parents never ceases to fascinate me. Earlier today, shortly after arriving, my aunt (dad’s older sister) took me on a little tour of where my grandpa came from. It is a backwater and poor village named “Cow Peach Bay” (where according to one story, a village developed where the original settlers used to tie water buffalos around a peach tree), the main source of income was, and still is, from oyster farming.

I wandered through the little alleyways, peeked through holes in rundown and abandoned one-storey red brick houses, and felt like I was going back in time, reliving memories and stories of my grandpa, who passed away when I was only two. Metal shacks and houses no bigger than a few square metres crowded with families of eight or more were the norm those days. Seeing the past makes me appreciate more the present, treasure more what I have and how hard my forefathers (and foremothers) toiled to raise a family and continue the family line. Even though I cannot imagine or know fully what life was like back then, it is intriguing and touching to see with my own eyes the humble and hunger stricken beginnings that my grandparents and their parents worked so they could provide food on the table and education for all their children.

Seeing the past, comparing it to the present, and measuring it against the possibilities future makes a person, a family appreciate life and people more. My grandparents may have already left, my dad may have already departed, but life continues on and on. Life, filled with its sorrows, its joys, its tears and its laughter, continues on and on no matter what, and all the people are mere characters that play temporary (at times too temporary) roles whose paths happen to cross at the same time, sometime for a long time, sometimes for a short time. With the upcoming wedding my brother, who is the oldest and first male of the family, it is as if the story of my family, a story like all stories, complete with birth, marriage, and death, is coming full circle.

For now, with all the attention focused on my brother, I’m able to avoid the questions of when I’m going to get married. But here and there are already voices and whispers: “Oh, with your talents and good looks, you must have lots of girls following you…” “Oh, whoever is your wife will be very lucky…” I just smirk and smile and keep quiet, and maintain my policy of not saying anything unless asked directly. For a number of years at least, I can still stall and say I’m studying, or I’m just beginning to work… but inevitably people will ask, especially in a very family-oriented culture like where I was born and raised in.

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Though my personal belongings were just the things I had in my little bag and the clothes I had on me, I pulled a trolley full of goodies and gifts to give.