First Sounds

#2026-0402

First Sounds

(A story from Dreamlike Reality)

In those early school days, I first learned how to make sounds.

Not just any sounds, but the careful, deliberate sounds of bo, po, mo, fo—the beginning of language as it was given to us. At the time, I did not know that these small symbols would stay with me for the rest of my life. To us, they were only something to repeat, something to finish as quickly as possible.

When I entered Changliu Elementary School in September 1961, I was placed in Jia Ban—Class A. There were three classes in each grade: Jia, Yi, and Bing. I remained in Jia Ban throughout my six years there, though at the time, it was simply where I belonged, without question.

In the first few weeks, we had a teacher whose name I can no longer recall. He introduced us to the basic system of pronunciation—the thirty-seven symbols that formed the foundation of spoken Mandarin. We repeated them again and again, until we believed we had learned them well.

Then, several weeks later, a new teacher came.

His name was Mr. Yanshu Jian.

One day, after listening to us for a while, he asked the whole class to read the symbols together, from beginning to end. We did so smoothly, almost proudly, our voices rising and falling in what we thought was a perfect rhythm.

When we finished, he did not smile.

Instead, he shook his head.

Our pronunciation, he said, was mostly wrong.

The room became quiet.

We had not expected that. In our minds, we had already learned something important. But Mr. Jian asked us to slow down—to pronounce each sound carefully, clearly, one by one. He demonstrated, listened, corrected, and then asked us to try again.

There was no impatience in his voice, but there was firmness.

From that day on, the sounds were no longer something to rush through. They became something to attend to, something that required care.

Looking back now, I know how much that mattered. Without his patience, I might have carried those early mistakes much farther than I should have.

To us, he was a handsome and gentle teacher. But he was also strict when it was necessary.

I learned that one day in a way I did not forget.

A classmate of mine, Jinbao, took a toy I had made and broke it. It was a simple thing—a long, thin plastic tube that had once held juice, now filled with tiny grains of dry sand. To me, it was something I had made with care.

I told him it was mine. He did not listen.

Anger rose quickly in me. Before I could think, I kicked him hard. He cried out in pain.

When Mr. Jian heard what had happened, he called both of us forward. He struck my palms with a short plastic ruler. The pain was sharp, and I felt a sense of injustice rise within me. Jinbao had started it—why should I be punished as well?

But Mr. Jian spoke calmly. He told me that I should not answer harm with harm. He spoke to Jinbao differently, teaching him another lesson.

At that time, I did not fully accept what he said. I only remembered how it felt.

Yet that moment stayed with me, just as the sounds had stayed with me—something not fully understood, but not forgotten.

There was another memory from that year, quieter, but perhaps more lasting.

Our school was in a remote mountain village, and most families were poor. One day, Mr. Jian suggested that we take a group photograph. Those who wished to be included would need to pay for their own copies.

Only a few students agreed.

I was one of them.

I do not remember how I made that decision. Perhaps it was curiosity, or perhaps something else. I only remember standing there, among seven students and our teacher, facing the camera.

It was the first photograph I had ever taken in my life.

Years later, when our family moved, that photograph was lost.

But the moment of standing there has never entirely disappeared.

By the time I entered Grade Two, our teacher changed.

Mr. Xincheng Cheng came from Guangxi, a place that, to me, was distant and almost unimaginable. At home, most of us spoke Taiwanese or Hakka, and we had only just begun learning Mandarin in school. Mr. Cheng spoke Mandarin with a different accent—one that sounded unfamiliar to us, though we could still understand him. He taught as other teachers did, yet there was something in his voice that made him seem slightly apart, as if he had come from a place not only far away, but somehow beyond our small world.

Life in the classroom continued in its usual rhythm. We studied Mandarin, mathematics, and a subject called Common Sense, which included both nature and society. But something in me had begun to change.

I found that I liked certain things more than others. I enjoyed singing. I enjoyed drawing. Even when these were not required, I practiced them quietly, as if they belonged to me in a different way.

Outside the classroom, we played freely. The school had no fence, and the fields beyond were open to us. We ran, chased one another, and imagined battles, calling out who had been “killed,” only to begin again moments later.

The world seemed wide then, even within the small space of the school.

One day, Mr. Cheng asked if anyone had a puppy that could be given to him. A few days later, Jinbao brought a small dog to school.

For a time, nothing seemed unusual.

Then, months later, some classmates found what they believed to be the remains of a dog in a nearby field. There were whispers, guesses, and rumors. Some said it was the same dog. Some said our teacher had eaten it.

At that age, we did not know what to believe. The story passed quietly from one to another, changing slightly each time. For a while, we avoided that part of the field.

Looking back now, I think it was not the truth of the story that mattered, but the feeling it left behind—a sense that the world was larger, and not always easy to understand.

Amid all this learning, there was also a quieter awareness—one that came without words.

In my class, there was a girl named Yuqin Wu.

Her father owned a Chinese medicine shop. She dressed neatly, often in a blouse and skirt, and carried herself with a quiet confidence. When I glanced at her, I felt something I could not explain.

It was not friendship, and not something I could name.

I only knew that she seemed different—something I could feel, but not yet speak.

Then, when we moved on to Grade Three, she was no longer there. I was told that she had transferred to another school in Puli.

She did not return.

Many years later, she came to visit my home with some former classmates. By then, she had grown into a woman, and her name had changed to something I could no longer remember clearly. Yet in my mind, I still preferred the name I had first known.

Some things change. Some things remain.

The sounds of bo, po, mo, fo had long since become part of my speech.

The photograph had been lost.

The stories about teachers had faded into uncertainty.

But certain impressions remained—clear, quiet, and unchanging.

Even now, when I think back to those early school days, I sometimes feel that I am still sitting in that classroom, listening carefully, learning how to speak—not only with my voice, but slowly, without knowing it, learning how to understand the world around me.

= = =

相關文章 (See also)：

1)  前一篇 (Previous Story)：Small Hands     (2026)

2)  下一篇 (Next Story)： 

3)  Puppy Love     (2010; originally, 2003)

4)  Notes on Peace: From Lantern to Creek     (2025)

5)  (中譯版) 人本自然～Chatting during Lunch!     (2024)

Small Hands

#2026-0401

Small Hands

A story from Dreamlike Reality

In my memory, the mornings of that time were always quiet.

Before the sun had fully risen above the hills, my parents would already be preparing to leave. My father moved with few words, gathering his tools; my mother checked things one more time—water, fire, the small things that kept a home alive. Beyond the door, the mountain paths waited, and the rice paddies lay somewhere farther down, hidden in the pale mist.

Inside the house, three children remained.

I was five years old. My two younger sisters were three and one. At that age, I did not think of it as responsibility. It was simply the way things were. When the door closed behind our parents, the house became very still, as if it, too, were listening.

Our home was not a single solid structure, but a few simple spaces arranged around a small courtyard. On the northern side stood the living room and a bedroom; along the eastern side were the kitchen and another bedroom. On the western side stood a simple toilet beside the pig pen, where we kept a few pigs that ate leftovers and chopped sweet potato leaves. The southern side was bordered by a hedge, planted to keep people from falling down the steep slope beyond. Some parts of the hedge were broken, and through those gaps the ground dropped sharply down the mountainside.

It was a modest place, built of bamboo, clay, and a few wooden posts, with a roof of dried straw. At the time, it was simply our home.

The youngest lay on the big bed in the bedroom. It was a wide wooden bed, built close to three walls, leaving only the front side open. To me, it felt like a small world of its own—safe on three sides, but uncertain on the fourth. I could not carry my baby sister for long; my arms were too weak. So I stayed near the edge of the bed, watching her carefully as she rolled, crawled, or waved her small hands in the air.

Sometimes she laughed at nothing I could see. Sometimes she made soft sounds, as if speaking to someone invisible. I did not understand her language, but I understood my task. If she came too close to the edge, I would gently push her back, or call her name, or simply stand there, alert and still.

Time in those mornings did not move quickly. It stretched, like a long breath that was never quite released.

Before leaving, my mother would give me a soft rice cake. It was made of rice powder and sugar, slightly sticky, and warm in my hand. She would say, “Feed your little sister later—around ten o’clock.” She had already divided the pieces for the three of us.

I always nodded. I believed I understood time.

The hours passed quietly. My elder sister played by herself, sometimes humming, sometimes talking to things only she could see. I stayed near the bed, guarding the smallest one. From time to time, I would look at the rice cake and wonder if it was time yet. The sunlight slowly shifted across the floor, but I had no clock to guide me—only a feeling that grew stronger as the morning went on.

When I finally decided it was time, I took a small piece and fed it to my baby sister. She accepted it, slowly and seriously, as if she knew it mattered. I watched her chew, feeling a quiet satisfaction that I had done something important.

In the evening, when my mother returned, she would ask, “Did you feed her?”

“Yes,” I always answered, without hesitation.

She would smile and say, “You are a good boy.”

That smile stayed with me longer than the taste of the rice cake.

When we grew a little older, the courtyard became our world. It was open, edged by the hedge on the southern side, and beyond it the slope fell away sharply. At the time, we did not think of danger in clear terms. We only knew the joy of movement.

Our father made a wooden board car for us. It had four wooden wheels and a flat board on top. One of us could sit, while another pushed from behind. We took turns, laughing as the car rolled forward, sometimes smoothly, sometimes with a sudden jerk.

One day, my youngest sister insisted on pushing the car by herself. There was no one sitting on it, but she pushed with all her strength, as if carrying an invisible passenger. She did not yet know how to guide it, how to turn left or right.

I remember watching her, perhaps a few steps away. The car moved faster than she expected. Then, before any of us could react, it went straight toward one of the broken gaps in the hedge.

There was a brief moment—so brief that it almost did not exist—when everything seemed to pause.

Then both she and the car disappeared over the edge.

We ran to the slope, our hearts beating wildly. Below, she was already trying to climb up, crying loudly. There was blood on her forehead, bright and shocking against her small face.

I do not remember whether we cried. I only remember the fear—sharp, unfamiliar, and deep.

After that day, we were more careful. Not because someone told us to be, but because something inside us had changed.

There were other moments that seemed to belong to a different kind of memory.

Once, when my parents were away, I tried to cook rice as my mother did. I had watched her often enough to believe I understood. I placed the pot on the clay stove, arranged the firewood, and waited as the flames grew stronger. The heat rose quickly, and the water began to boil. For a moment, I felt proud, almost like an adult.

Only later did I learn how worried my mother had been. The house could easily have caught fire. At the time, I did not think of such things. I only knew that I had tried.

And sometimes, along the path that led toward our home, a figure would appear.

We called her A-Moi-Jia—a Hakka way of saying “Sister A-Moi,” the name our parents used, and so did we.

She walked slowly, her clothes worn, one hand covering one eye. Whenever we saw her approaching, we would feel a sudden uneasiness. We hid behind the living room walls, or behind the bamboo rice storage, peering through small gaps to see how close she had come.

Curiosity always brought us back to look again.

One time, as I stepped quietly from behind the rice storage, trying to see through the cracks in the wall, I almost ran into her. She had already entered the house and was moving toward the bedroom.

I cried out in fear.

At the same moment, she seemed just as startled. She turned quickly and stepped back out of the living room, disappearing as suddenly as she had come.

For a while, none of us moved.

That moment stayed with me—not only the fear, but the strange closeness, as if two worlds had briefly touched and then pulled apart.

Now, many years later, when my own vision sometimes doubles and blurs, I think I understand her a little better. Perhaps she covered one eye to see more clearly. But at that time, she remained a quiet, uncertain presence at the edge of our small world.

When I look back on those days, I do not see them as difficult. We were too young to measure life in that way. What I remember instead is a kind of stillness—a space in which small hands learned, without knowing it, how to care, how to watch, how to act.

I could not hold my baby sister for long. My arms were too weak.

And yet, each morning, I stood at the edge of that bed, keeping her from falling.

Even now, I sometimes feel that those mornings have never entirely left me.

= = =

相關文章 (See also)：

1)  下一篇 (Next Story)： First Sounds     (2026)
2)  標題太長（五絕）     (2019)

3)  Echoes in the Courtyard     (2026)

4)  First Part of My Family Tale     (2010; originally, 2001)

5)  The 92 Coffee     (2020)

花蓮港山林事業所 (Symphony of Wood)

#2026-0330

花蓮港山林事業所

【木の交響】(Symphony of Wood)

地址：花蓮縣花蓮市菁華街６號

This afternoon, Jean and I took a longer walk around Meilun Creek than we usually do.

We first walked north along the western bank, crossed Hualien No. 3 Bridge to the eastern bank, then strolled south until we reached Jinghua Bridge (菁華橋). After crossing it, we returned to the western bank of the creek.

Near Jinghua Bridge, we came upon a pretty, distinctive house (see the photo above), where we stopped to enjoy fragrant coffee and warm, tasty scones.

Later, we learned that the house is part of Jinghua Forest Garden (菁華林苑), a quiet historic site hidden in the city. The complex was built in 1919 during the Japanese era and was first used by a timber company. Over time, it became home to different forestry offices and government units, reflecting the changing history of the region. After being left unused for many years, it was restored and officially recognized as a historic site in the early 2000s.

Sitting there, we could almost feel the past in the building itself. Its Western-style design, with graceful arches and simple decorative columns, gives it a calm and balanced appearance. At the same time, practical details—such as raised doorways and small openings beneath the eaves—show how it was designed to handle Hualien’s heavy rains and frequent typhoons.

We finished our coffee break sooner than expected when our grandson called. He told us that he would not be staying at school for additional study this evening. Instead, he had asked for leave and would be coming home early, as his midterm exams begin tomorrow.

= = =

相關文章 (See also)：

1)  漫步到對岸／繞一圈回來     (2025)

2)  Tianpu Ecological Pond     (2026)

3)  七星潭 ~ A Short Stay, But Much Fun!     (2026)

4)  《花田小路．慶祝之日》     (2026)

Palm Sunday, 2026

#2026-0329

Today is the Sunday of the Passion, also known as Palm Sunday.

In previous years, Jean and I celebrated this special day at St. James' Church in Taichung. However, during our extended stay in Hualien, we celebrated it this year at St. Luke's Church—the only Episcopal church in eastern Taiwan.

Following tradition, we joined the congregation of St. Luke’s in the Liturgy of the Palms and the procession through the community. After returning to the chapel, we continued with the Liturgy of the Word. Everything felt familiar to Jean and me, though the change in location brought a somewhat new feeling.

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for this Palm Sunday. I am also grateful to the Rev. Minglong Wu and others for leading the special service. In addition, I deeply appreciate the Rev. Mengrong Guo (郭夢蓉會吏) for her wonderful sermon this morning, which touched my heart in a quiet and unexpected way.

= = =

相關文章 (See also)：

1)  棕枝主日 (Palm Sunday)     (2022)

2)  Palm Sunday, 2023     (2023)

3)  棕枝主日     (2024)

4)  Palm Sunday Again     (2025)