My Corner for Education

I don't know if this test result sounds like me. For those people who read this blog, does this sound like the perspon you know?

I love the 80's. Roxette is one of the bands that I used to listened to. Let's refresh some memories.

This group is the Canadian girl power of the 80's. It was a two-sister band, Heart. I love their voice and the guitar sound. Alone Never What About Love These Dreams

My mother was a very attractive woman. However, a girl from a poor family had no means to marry early in life. In fact, her marriage was a sheer beautiful accident. Apparently, my father, who was on leave from the marines, saw my mother pass by my paternal grandparents’ house one day. My mother was on her way to visit a relative who happened to live next door to my grandparents. My father was so taken back by the glimpse of her that he immediately rushed inside to urge my grandparents to find out who the pretty girl was next door. The next thing was that a matchmaker was sought to help talk to my mother’s family and then a marriage was later arranged.

For my mother and her family, the marriage was considered a good catch because my dad was a charming young man and his parents were very reputable. What more could she ask for? However, life was not easy for her to be a wife to the first born son and the first daughter-in-law in a large family. Her adult married life was not a smooth peaceful ride. In fact, life was full of disadvantages and disappointments for someone like her who always feels ashamed of not being able to read and write.

After having four children and establishing a hairdressing business, my mother still did not have any chance to go back to school for continued education. She spent her time raising her four children. After my father fell ill to cancer and paralyzed, she took care of my father full time for many years. After my father’s passing, she then moved on to help care for my brother’s children. After my father had passed away, she finally decided to do something that she always wanted to do for herself.

A few years ago, I received a Christmas card in the mail. It was a greeting card from home. My first nephew had just started grade one and he was so adorable. I read the cute writing on the envelope and opened to read some more. Surprisingly, the card was signed by my mother. My mother had gone to school to learn to read and write! Those words were not childish writing done by a 7 year-old. Those were precious print pressed down hard, stroke by stroke, by my mother’s bony hands. I held that card close to my heart and cried my eyes out. For those people who do not appreciate the privilege of education, they just don’t understand how lucky they are, compared to those who luck out in life.

It has been and always will be a struggle for my mother to learn to read and write. But at this point in life, she just wants to do something that she did not get to do long time ago.

Four years ago, when my mother came to visit me, she was studying Japanese in her spare time. We had a giggle about that. Of all foreign languages, why on earth would she pick Japanese? She really should learn English which will eventually benefit her if she ever wants to come to visit me. I guess the truth is she is more familiar with Japanese than English since her generation grew up learning Japanese when Taiwan was occupied under the Japanese rule.

The purpose for my trip to Taiwan was to be with my mother. The hugs from my mother just made me melt after long hours of tiresome transcontinental travelling. It was embarrassing, but I just had this urge of holding on to her like a little kid the day I arrived. For the whole time I was there, I fully prepared to spend my time at home with her. The funny thing was that my mother was probably busier than any of us. It was a big laugh among us that my mother had her own appointment book and we had to “book” our time in advance in order to take her places. What does an old lady like her do to be so busy? Well, let’s start with a few interesting things about my mother.

If the literacy rate in Taiwan is 96.1%, as stated in the Wikipedia, my mother would be one of those 3.9% illiterate population in Taiwan. My mother, like many people in her generation, had very little formal education due to her life circumstances.

My mother had a really hard life. She lost her father when she was less than three years old. My maternal grandfather was a farmer who was accidentally electrocuted by a downed hydro line at the rice field. During the Japanese occupation, life was a devastating hardship for a widowed mother with two young daughters. My grandmother was not entitled to anything because my grandfather was not the oldest son, and certainly there was nothing left for a family with only two daughters as the heirs. 

My grandmother rented a very small rice field from relatives to farm as the main meager income to support her family. My mother and my aunt had only been to school for a couple of years before the war erupted. Everything in life was interrupted for a few years. By the time peace time finally arrived, my mother had already passed her formative years. For a poor family of three females, it was obviously too late for my mother or my aunt to go back to school. My grandmother kept her older daughter home to help her farm the land and made the decision to send my mother away to learn a skill. My mother started her apprenticeship as a hairdresser in the County of Chia-Yi in her early teens.

My mother has my grandmother’s physique and personal traits. She is very petit and very shy with words. She is one of those very traditional Taiwanese women who would rather swallow their pride and plow through the hardship quietly on her own. My mother was a very good apprentice at the salon but she had suffered so much teasing all her life because of her illiteracy. Illiterate people are not ignorant; however, people, including those dear ones in the family, could sometimes put her down with mean and harmful words like adding salt to a wound.