Translated…
My maternal grandfather’s last name was Yang, his name was Ming-Shih, he was from Hunan. At age eighteen, he’d worked as a banker at the local bank, one day, he’d witnessed how the National Airforce shot down six Japanese fighter planes with just one plane, right then and there, he’d made up his mind to enlist, and, from three thousand who’d signed on, he shined through, became a member of the 22nd term students. At which time, he’d changed his own name to “Yun-Gang”, the steel from the clouds.
Afterwards, he’d gone to Kunming with a man from Hong Kong, and went to the Ganges River in India, as well as the U.S. for his trainings, and finally, he’d returned back to China in 1946. He’d mentioned to me on how a lot of his classmates had, given their lives for the endless wars and battles against the Japanese, as well as the war between the Nationals and the Communists too.
The summer before he’d died, I’d returned to Taiwan from the States, and would visit him every other day. It’s destined, that I’d become, the last person of his grandchildren’s generation to hear him tell of the tales of his life in its entirety. On a gray afternoon, he sat on the couch, started from his childhood years, all the way to how when he’d reported to Kunming, he had caught malaria, and had gone to Vegas to celebrate Christmas with his classmates in the States, learned to fly a fighter plane, as well as other fun things he’d experienced, along with how the plane he was on from Henan to Taichung had almost crashed. In the end, he’d, sighed about, how he was satisfied of his entire life, that the only regret he had was, not being there, to take care of his own mother in China.
I watched the flag flew in the wind on my balcony, I knew, that a lot of their generation would feel that sort of excruciating pain and sacrifices for their homeland, but, you’d not heard about them tell of how hard their younger years were. Several years passed, I’d slowly discovered, that that, was a flair that they carried, something that’s worth pursuing for myself.
So, this is when someone from the elder generations has something to share, experiences for their younger generations to learn from, and, by listening to the stories that his grandfather told, this guy was able to understand the times that his own grandfather was raised in, and he’d taken something from his grandfather’s life experiences as well.
the picture came attached to the papers…
Life, the Obstacle Course 