Translated…
Back in 1959 when I was in the elementary school years, there was, a rundown shack built behind the school buildings, that was a place where we’d gotten our hot water and steamed up our lunches, the man in charge of the place was Wang, who’d followed the army to Taiwan, he was elderly, and weakened, coughed nonstop, and, would spit as he coughed, rumor has it, he’d contracted tuberculosis.
He’d watched over the kitchens alone on his own, had an uneven temper, with his thick accent, that nobody could understand, if we’d wanted to get some more water from the kitchens, if he’d bumped into us, he’d started scolding, and if we still insisted on getting the water, then, he’d chased us out with a long stick, every day, the script of thieves versus cops played on.
There was a huge black cook stove, every student would, from time to time, bring over ten kilograms worth of logs to be burned, and, mostly, the teachers would take the students to the kitchens to weigh in the logs, and after the weights passed, the logs would get handed to Wang to stack up, and, if we’d not made the weight requirements, we’d had to, head home to get more logs, my father works in the logging industries, and he’d often picked the evenly cut pieces, and, the weight often exceeded the required limits.
Wang looked at me, with another sort of belief, as I was assigned to get the water, or warm up the lunches, nobody can stand in my way.
So, these, are the memories of your elementary school years, and, although the resources weren’t as abundant as they are today, but, you’d still had interesting memories from that period of your life, and this is an interaction, an observation, of the man who’s put in charge of the lunch steaming rooms that’s shared with the student.