Translated…
I’d lowered my head, and stared at the tips of her fingers which were turning purple, imagining that over the seas, in the distance, how many young girls, had traded in the chances, of playing on the pianos………
Because my work as a volunteer, in recent years, I’d gotten the chances to come in contact with the newly migrated people, generally known as “foreign hired helpers”, the foreign brides, and the newly migrated population. The experiences I’d acquired these past two, three years, rather than saying that it’s my show of care and concern toward others, it’d benefitted me even more, in the form of spiritual enrichment and growth.
I’d started as a volunteer, because in a period in my life, I’d felt so lost, so confused: I’d had a stable job, with enough money made from my work, the job’s going well for me, but, I’d slowly, lost my passions for life. I’d asked myself on the one hand, “What aspects of my life is dissatisfactory for me right now?”, and on the other hand, I’d felt, that emptiness, that withering of my own soul. Turns out, “not needing anything”, can become, this huge, unfillable kind of “void” inside of my heart and soul.
the workers, fighting for their rights!
Through the organization of a friend, I’d started working alongside the migrant workers, the immigrants too.
With Those Purplish-Green Fingertips
The Indonesian household helper, Li, works in a mansion in Hsinchu, helped her boss look after the children. The employers’ home, and the courtyard of the community became her only space to live in. The tips of her fingers were always purplish green, for unknown reasons, I’d suspected, that it was, because of the nerve endings, or muscular problems, and she’d told me, that when she’d worked in the Middle East in the past, that, was when the problem started occurring.
Li treated the five-year-old she’s taking care of as if she were her own. Because back home, the year she’d left her own daughter, her child just turned five, and she’d not gotten the chance to throw her daughter a birthday celebration, she’d had to, leave everything behind, for the sake of making a living, cross the seas, to a foreign land, to care for someone else’s child.
She’d left her home for almost a decade now, “My daughter is already fourteen this year, she’d kept telling me how she’d wanted to take up piano lessons.” And every time as Li told about her family that’s far away, there would always be this twinkle in her eyes. I’d stared at her purplish finger tips, imagined, that on the other side of the oceans, there would be an adolescent girl, who’d used these regretless fingertips, and gotten the opportunity, to glide her fingers across the black and white keys of a piano………and, all of a sudden, my originally hollowed-out soul, was filled up, with the tears that felt souring to my heart.
After hearing Li’s story, it’d made me even more of an advocate, in helping the migrant workers. And still, rather than saying that Li had helped sparked the passions in my heart, rather, she’d given this floating heart of mine, some place to settle down in.
The Irreversible Absence
Ling, who’s a Vietnamese nurse’s aide, and her name had been changed, over, and over again, because the family who hired her felt like it. But she’d told me she’d not minded it, because the elderly’s abilities, his bodily functions, are declining by the days, the elderly man she’s taking care of right now in Sanchong, all three of his past nurse’s aides were called “Ling”, grandpa couldn’t live without “Ling”, and so, she will, keep on being the dependable Ling for grandpa, so long as he stays healthy and well.
Ling’s ill father died last year, and, being faraway, Ling couldn’t make it back for his funeral. And, although she’d been doing her father’s job, providing for the family since the beginning, but thinking of how her father, before she’d left home, had worked really hard, to prevent her from coming here, being away from her loved ones, she’d started getting misty-eyed, “I can no longer tell, if I’m fitting or unfitting, as a daughter anymore………”
These past couple of years, I’d bumped into too many “Li” and “Ling”, and, they’d used their stories, to touch my life. And so, this year, I’d left Taipei, the place I’d lived for many years, and moved back home, to Taichung.
I feel this deep sense of touching sentiments: Taiwan, is a fertile land away from their homes; and they’d also become, the fertile land from afar for us too. We’d often believed that, because of the lowered economic situations, which was why they’d come here to work, and we’d forgotten, to show empathies to them, how they’d needed to be away from their loved ones, to help us fulfill our duties as our parents’ children.
Time and space had, created this land barrier between them and their loved ones, and this had, awakened the reasons why I’d felt so empty psychologically for long-term. And now, I’d returned back to my family, the place I should have been all along; as I’d returned home, I’d still worked as a volunteer, but for the middle strips of Taiwan. I want to thank these ladies, for reigniting my passions for life, at the same time, wishing them well, that one day, they will make it back home, and fulfill the missing moments they’d missed out on, because they had to, for the sake of their household finances.
picture from the papers…
P.S. Li and Ling are both not their real names.
And so, you see, how hard it was, for these migrant workers to come here, leaving behind their families, and some had left their young children, because they realized, that they can make a HELL of a lot more money here, compared to if they’d stayed back at home, and these ladies are of amazing strengths too, they’re working, to support their families, and they had to be away from their loved ones, imagine how hard that must be for them all.
Life, the Obstacle Course 