※特別在此感謝，提供攝影照片的友人《雲南‧咖啡小鎮》
文章作者：無名
From 1951 to 1961, Jenny lived in a village in Taiwan, called juan cun. About forty families lived there. Most of them had left their home, when they were young.
A public outhouse was located at the western edge of the village. Each family had a bucket for collecting urine to dispose of later in the outhouse. Nearby, Jenny always saw a skinny, unkempt, thirty-year-old lady, who wore a dark dirty dress. She continuously talked to herself. Jenny saw her from far and had the sensation that she wanted to run away from her. She looked weird but never hurt anyone.
Chen Ying, a pedlar who knew jenny’s family, usually sold fruit more cheaply to Jenny’s mom . It was not easy to feed seven kids at that time. During the New Year’s holiday, Jenny was happy that she would get some chocolate. They were not rich, but they were happy.
They bred chickens and turkeys in the backyard. Once Jenny was biten by a turkey. They would really attack people. The houses in the village were so close that sometimes Jenny could see the couple next door fighting. His wife made a scene, jumping when she was pregnant and crying out,“ Let me die!...”
Walking for fifteen minutes to the school, Lao Hu, a veteran, carried a bamboo shoulder pole, collecting lunches from each home and taking them to schoolkids. When he put the lunch into Jenny’s hand, the cumcuber and fried eggs, were still warm. They were her favorite lunch.
Jenny’s father had considered taking her and her sister to apply a Chinese opera school. Because it would save money if lived at school. When her dad found out there was only one slot, he brought them back home. Jenny was glad they weren’t sent away. There was a lady lived in the first house of village who liked to sing opera. She usually invited her friends, to drink tea and play er hu in her backyard.
One scary night, high water flooded up to Jenny’s bunk bed on August 7, 1959. They survived, and had to move to the military base in the neighberhood for one week. (August 7 flood, became know as the natural disaster in Taiwan. According to official statistics, over NT3.5 billion of losses were incurred, 11% of the national income at the time, a grave blow to Taiwan. This sudden, unexpected disaster claimed 667 lives. Another 408 people went missing, 942 people were injured, and over 300,000 disaster victims were given temporary accommodation by the government. The disaster was second in severity only to the 9-21 earthquake in Taiwan.)
Jenny once wrote a rymph for her village:
The original smell so thick, Are you still in there?
Cry for crying, laugh for laughing, I’ll be back someday.
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