Of course you can!!! Translated…
On the path to educating the young, I’d recalled how my parents never made much demands on my scholastic performances, but had, become role models for me, in how to treat other people kindly, and how wonderful it is, to have a simplified life.
As I was growing up, my father was very strict on giving us allowances, we’d had difficulties, trying to get him to give us just fifty-cents, he’d always told us, if we wanted the reading materials outside of classes, then we should borrow them, and don’t even think about snacks. But, what made us feel so uneven was, that at supper time, there was always a little boy my age, dressed in ragged clothes, who’d come to the shops, and every time he’d extended his hand out, without a second word or a question, my father had, given him two dollars, and if school was about to start, he’d given the child even more money. And, I’d heard my father tell him to study hard in school, to follow his mother’s words, to help out the house; many years later, my father finally disclosed to us, that that boy was the eldest son of a coworker who’d died early, back then, he’d left three younger-than-ten years of age children left, and maybe, my father had promised, to look after his kids too.
There was a couple who were good friends to my father who’d owned a self-serve food cafeteria close to Taipei Main Station, every time my father went to Taipei, they’d passionately welcomed him in, and later on, as we all moved up to Taipei to study, every time we were short on cash, we’d often gone to the cafeteria that they owned to get the nutrition we’d needed. In those days, we’d had to gone to buy our train tickets ahead of time, and right before the summer or winter vacations, the couple would buy us our tickets, so we can get on the southbound home. Later on, I’d known, that they were tenants at our home, that they’d gone to our town to make a living when they were younger, and oftentimes, they’d not been able to have their meals, and they’d already had their child, and, as their neighbor, my father not only didn’t give them a hard time, he’d also, secretly deposited more rice in their food bins.
My father who’d not learned to drive his whole life, when he goes on a trip, he would always call on an uncle who was a cab driver. Whether if it’s us, daughters, needing a lift to the airport to go abroad for our studies, or coming home to visit, the cab driver would always set out a day early, to pick us up from the international airport in Taoyuan. As we were young, and we’d set out as a family, the put-together cars that we all rode out on by over a dozen of us, cousins, he’d driven too, took us out and about; he was always, more than kind toward all of us, no matter how far we’d wanted to travel, even on that trip around the island for a week, he’d set up the dining, as well as the hotels for us. All of this, was because my father once helped him to save his young son who had a high fever in the middle of the nights, the two of them became steady friends for life.
All of these wonderful memories, before I’d known, had been, planted, deeply, into my blood, it’d allowed me to hold that unknown sense of trust and kindness toward the society; and, we were all, looked after, because of my father’s kindness toward others. This made me believe, that as the world became more populated by only children, if we can teach them to be kind, or model the kindness for them, to help others in need, we would surely be able to, instill that sense of kindness for generations to come as well.
So, the father modeled kindness, for his own young to follow, and, actions always speaks louder than words, and this father knew that, that he’d needed to, act kind toward others, so his children will learn to be kind to others, and that would be, the BEST kind of inheritance you can give to your own young too, the right values, setting a good model for them to take after.
Life, the Obstacle Course 