Translated…
My mother was born in a family of ten, into an agricultural family that raised the ducks during the Japanese ruling era, and after Taiwan became independent, because there were too many mouths to feed, she’d stopped going to school, to work, to help out with the household finances, looking after hundreds of ducks at a time, and she’d often had to, round up the ducks to the Creekside far away from her home.
not my photograph…
On the year she turned seventeen, my grandfather saw how she’d taken care of the ducks so very well, asked her if she’d liked to learn the trade of seamstress? And my mother thought, that being a seamstress can get her away from being out in the sun all day long, she’d agreed, having learned NO Chinese, and with only just four years’ worth of education in Japanese language, she’d rote memorized the methods to record down the measurements; and, two years later, all of her family members’ clothes all came out of her making, it’d made my maternal grandfather very proud.
Later on, my grandfather and my eldest uncle went to Banciao, and rented a huge field to plant the chives, and, the road by the side of the field led into a small village, most of the villagers had the last name of Huang, as my grandmother passed by the chive fields, she’d always said “hi” and carried on simple conversations with my maternal grandfather, and, after they were familiar with one another, they’d started discussing getting their children married. Just so happened that my father woks at the cloth shop in Yong-Le Marketplace, both their parents believed they were well-matched up, and so, my paternal grandmother took my father along to the south for a matchmaking with my mother, and the second time they saw one another, was their engagement, only a few months after they first met up, and, the day that they were married, it was, the fourth time they’d seen one another.
My father being honest and hardworking, started carrying the burdens of supporting his own family after his father died when he was younger, he’d handed his paycheck to my grandmother, but, my grandmother who had a gambling habit would often spend the money away in an instant. After they married, my father gave half of his wages to my mother, and, my paternal grandmother ranted on how after he married, he’d forgotten about her existence, and, there was this tension between my mother and my paternal grandmother. But, back then, because of the issues in the family, my father didn’t go up for his service term, he was called to the enlisting office, to make up for the time he’d not served, and for two years, my paternal grandmother’s funding for gambling was cut, and, she’d gotten angry, and asked my mother for rent, for staying at the house that the ancestors left for us all.
not my photo, or my menagerie…
And, because my mother was skillful in seamstressing, in the calls of the people in the same village helping to bring business to her, she’d managed to save some money, and, after my father was out of the service, they’d decided to leave my paternal grandmother who was so unreasonable, moved to the city of Banciao to live and work. Back then, there’s a lot of competitions for cloth, and, everybody working in his industry were always watching to see my father fail in business, but, my father’s shop had a lot of business constantly, and, people working in the same industries as he couldn’t understand how this was possible, so they’d come to look, and that, was when they’d learned, that the “Yo-Chih Cloth Shop” had a secret weapon—my mother’s trimming skills.
The ancient people said it right, “with a skill beats out having an enormous sum of inheritance”, and, I believe that what’s more amazing of my mother was, she’d learned to make men’s clothing, and she’d taken up learning how to make the more extricate women’s clothing too, it’s a wonder, that as I was a child hearing my maternal grandfather talked of how skillful my mother became, he’d smiled on and on…
So, this, is how having a viable skill beats having inheriting a TON of money, because NO matter how huge your inheritances are, it will be spent up completely one day, and, if you have a viable skill, then, you wouldn’t need to worry about not making your ends meet, but, if you don’t, then, you’ll be starving to death!
Life, the Obstacle Course 