Time

I have been thinking about "time" these days not only because it's something that I am working on at the moment but also because I am approaching a specific age this year. In Chinese culture, by this age I should be quite established in my career and life.

Something important, in terms of how it has been an indispensable part of my childhood, happened last November. My mother's family closed down the logging business that they had run for 30 years. When I was home last December, most of the building had gone. An empty space there was. The nice smell of wood was gone too.
Mom was nostalgic but the family didn't have many choices. The business had been down after the 921 earthquake years ago.


I spent most of my childhood in the factory as my mother had been working as an accountant there even before I was born. Everyday after school, the spacious factory was my playground. It was very noisy as the machines never stopped cutting woods. The ear-piercing noises were never pleasant, but they were the rhythmn of life. The business fed many families.

From today's viewpoint, the factory was very dangerous for children to live in. It was crowded with all kinds of machines, sharp things like nails, hammers, knives, trucks busy moving around. But I had a good time there. I always climbed up and down piles of logs, playing hide-and-seek with my cousins and brothers, and shouting out loud to compete with the mechanic thunders.

The memory about my grandmother that I keep was mostly taking place in that factory. My grandmother was a pretty and quiet lady. While my mom was busy, grandmother helped take care of us. I had great fun playing with a good number of rabbits that she kept in the garden. It was not a proper garden in fact. It was just a piece of land growing tall grass and bushes where we sometimes encountered snakes or strange insects. Every sumer My brothers and I would climb up guava trees to pick guavas for her. She made delicious pickled guava. In particular season, she would pickle kinds of fruits and vegetables. Thinking about the sweet and sour taste of pickled plums makes my mouth watering. I remember how I always sneaked into the kitchen in the afternoons, opened the cupboard, and stole crispy pickled plums from the gracious jar of sauce. Ah... what a grace!

She is an amazing woman, and once in a while when I remember her I still regret for not spending more time with her before she passed away. I didn't quite know how to remember her until recently.

I kept my first puppy in that factory. Its tender body and bright eyes are still fresh to me. He feels like the sun taming the world in winter afternoons. In the same place, however, I also lost that puppy.