Date ：2007 / 04 / 07 19:00
Location：My bedroom
Today, I have interviewed my grandmother in my house…
Jami： Good evening, grandma. Thank you for accepting my interview! We haven’t been met for a while, right?
Grandma： Good evening. Yes, it has been two weeks! By the way, I’m happy that I can help you to finish your assignment!
Jami： Oh, thank you very much! Well, first, do you remember what your earliest childhood memory was?
Grandma： Umm… That’s a good question. I think it was when I’m 5 to 6 years old. Then, the Japanese army came to Taiwan and occupied
Taipei. So we were assigned to migrate to Tai-Chung. My family was allotted a preserves factory to live in. There was a river near to the factory, and my sib and I often went there to play.
Jami： Wow, rivers seldom can be a place to have fun now…
Grandma： Yes, but rivers were very clean at past. I remember that there was a suspension bridge over the river. The bridge was wooden and had a lot of gaps. I once even threw little stone from the cracks!! And I was scolded by my parents because I hit a person!!
Jami： Ha!! You’re so naughty! Besides going to the river, do you remember what kind of game did you play growing up?
Grandma： First, I will tell you that you are really lucky and blest. The age I live in, there was “no computers”, “no gameboys”, all we have, I think, was the nature. We put sands in cloth and sewed it up, it became a popular toy called “sand bag”. But my favorite game is “jump rope”!
Jami： Jump rope! I play it when I was in elementary school, too!
Grandma： Yeah. Actually, we played “Hopscotch”, too. But, nowadays, children often prefer playing computer games than these natural games we used to play.
Jami： I think you are right…We really seldom play them since we grew up. I think it related to allowance. How much did you receive for allowance?
Grandma： Allowance!? Ha! Ha! Are you kidding? We may not have foods to eat! How come we would have allowance!
Jami： Oh…I can’t imagine how poor the circumstance was in the past! Do you remember what event impressed you most?
Grandma： Well, I think it occurred when I was at the first grade in elementary school. That was an odd experience because the earthquake struck so often that everyone said that “
Taiwan will sink!”. It seemed to be the “last day of
Taiwan”, so everybody buy food to eat. Because they believe that people shouldn’t die hungrily! It’s so crazy, right? But it really happened!
Jami： Yes, it’s so crazy…but I think people do crazy things because they feel hopeless. Didn’t you feel desperate?
Grandma： No, maybe I was too young, but we really didn’t have redundant money to buy anything. If it was really the last day of
Taiwan, all we could do is wait—wait to die. Although I was young then, I still felt scared.
Jami： I believe that it must have been a hard time for you. By the way, what did you think the most inconvenient thing in the past?
Grandma： Water!! We didn’t have tap water then, so we had to dip up water from the well. When we were going to bathe, we had to boil the water, and take turns sharing hot water! In order to save water and firewood, a barrel of water should be shared by five to six people! Washing clothes was another problem. Because the well was far away from my house, I usually walked to the “gully” to wash clothes. The gully was traced back to an ice-cream factory. People always went there to get water. The boys even bathed themselves there directly!
Jami： Oh, it’s really inconvenient! How about the electricity? Did you have fluorescent lamp?
Grandma： Yes, we did. But we only had electricity at night. In the daytime, we won’t turn on the fluorescent lamp.
Jami： Well, finishing the interview, I really approve what you said at first! I congratulate myself for living in the modern times!
Grandma： Yes, you all are really blessedly. Most importantly, everybody loves you!
Jami： Yeah! Thank you again, grandma!
Grandma： You’re welcome. I hope it will be useful for your project!
Jami： It will be! Thank you!
April 13, 2007 at 3:06 pm
When reading the stories above, I feel a bit sorry for not asking my grandma about her life when she was alive. According to my father, my grandparents lived in a very difficult time as your grandmother did. My grandfather died when my father was 9 years old. Then, my grandmother had to shoulder the responsibility and raised 8 kids on her own. In my memory, she was elegant, polite and quiet. She was definitely not like those uneducated country women around her. It was said that she came from a wealthy family and received good education. When her family forced her to marry someone she had never met, she escaped home and met my grandfather, a poor worker in a gold mine, when she wandered along. However, the story has never been confirmed because my grandmother never talked about her background, which made her quite a mysterious legend in the family.