When I was small, due to his job,
father was constantly transferred from one place to other & sometimes we
moved along with him; there was a time when we moved six times in a year. I
don’t remember them in details; except the chaotic mess, moving out again with
the still unpacked boxes, losing something along the way, founding “new” things
that we did not remember where and when we purchased them, arrived in one city
without any baggages’ at all, long trips by car, ship, plane, train, and
sometimes involved them all. Yet, there is a place I perfectly remember. One
special place which I am, deliberately, not shut close in one of many
compartments in my mind.
The place itself, a small town, was actually, at that time, a quite dangerous place where separatist movements were fertile and people were being kidnapped to be recruited into their army, or to get a ransom, or to force an agreement with the central government. However, understand nothing about it, I found it was a perfect place to live. The house which father’s office provided for us was situated next to the office (a boring square solid building) surrounded by a garden and had three small doors leading to other different gardens. At the back right side of the yard there was a bigger garden after the door that was belonged to the office; there was a volleyball court next to two tennis courts. They were all surrounded by high wire but one day I found a small crack, pushed myself through it & followed a track and found a forest.
I was a “mediocre and wild” kid, the one that is different from my siblings. At this time I did not remember that I have a brother as he was already studying in another place. My first sister is an ideal child, who chose to immerse herself in the art and literature world. Most of the time, she has drawn herself amongst books -mostly classic Chinese- in her perfect room. My second sister is an active girl, that kind of smart people who always flawlessly excelling everyone else without any effort whatsoever. In other word, someone you want to kick wholeheartedly. She is always at someone’s house except her own, experimenting with something. My third sister who is only two years older than me and thus become my playmate is always having her own world. I remember much of the time when she was not arranging her jigsaw puzzles she was sitting in the corner of our playroom, staring into the white wall. Looking at her thin back, I had never able to ask her to come back to our play world. When we were studying in the same school, I was the one who brought her bag and protecting her as she is never really healthy. And me; curious with puddles of water, fascinated with different shape and colours of the leaves or with the sleepy lizard, spent all day drawing meaningless patterns among the bushes while at the same time hiding from human, and in the end falling asleep there.I always love nature, and forest along with sea and mountain are the object of my desire. I love them equally for different reasons. So when I found the forest which was so close to me unnecessary to say that I was in absolute happiness. However, we were strictly prohibited to go inside the forest. So while my first sister was reading a book which I can’t remember the title, about a stone that wants to have feelings… -Well, now I know imagination and philosophy are important, but not one or two but six volumes with each more than 600 pages, for a stone? And why would a stone want to have any emotions anyway? To hurt his/ her new emotion loving other stone who has no emotion? Or to have the ability to despise human that keeps stepping on him/ her?-, the second one was blowing something in someone else’s houses, and the third one staring into her wall, I began my adventure, armed with my cats -that most of the time got lazy and run back home only after few steps- after sneaking away from my aunt, a young soft-hearted girl, father’s youngest step sister. I did nothing there actually, only sitting on the soft and cold moss, staring at the grand woods and hearing the many voices of its leaves touched by the wind, but soon the forest became my sanctuary.
It should become my perfect hide out, my secret place, but one day my aunt said that one of father’s step aunts (father had too much step-someone that when I was small I thought everyone coming over was his relatives), who kissed and petted too much was to visited us for a short time and we had to accompany her and showed her the best manner. While my sister endured the trial with the help of her loyal friend, the white wall around the house, I did not want to try my manner and was hiding among manure & seed sacks, in the garden’s shed, thinking I need to hide only for a while. A short time is not a real dimension of time for women when they talk. Getting dead bored, I was falling asleep. When dinner time for the small one came and I was not appearing my aunt was started looking at me in the forest. Turn out she knew that whole time that I played in the forest. Then my sisters’ dinner time came. Then mother came home. And then father. If father came home it means that everyone should already solemnly in their perfect state greeted him; human, things, cats *straight out that humiliating crook whiskers, Mr. Tabby!*, all of us. I woke up & was entering the living room and freeze instantly. The house was full of strangers. I hate strangers. These strangers were in uniforms. And there was a strange light blaring outside. From a police car. It was an awkward macabre when my aunt exclaimed, “God is Great, here she is!”
As every adult’s head in the room turned to me, I was focusing to two faces I cared the most, mother and father, which were clearly expressing their thoughts, that I should just be kidnapped or voluntary broke my neck in the forest instead. It was an expected response when you were presented by a little dirty girl who also smells like a cow’s excrement and who has been wasted your energy and time. Needless to say the price I had to pay for my stupidity; a sore body for a long time until for a while it managed to calm me down & made me joined my sister in her harmless wall-watching (it was not bad at all, actually), the silent treatment (even from my sweet aunt), and beyond everything, all my friends, the used-to-be-stray-cats were taking the punishment for their stupid girl, thrown away once again into the street. Even until now I am still having nightmares of how I let them down, how they all must have been feeling cheated and abandoned.
Several things happened after that. One was my first sister decided to educate me. Everyone think she is a feminine & a nice girl with her long hair braided in the most meticulous way complete with the supporting attire, articulate and in all aspects is agreeable. When that is not entirely false, me and my sister know, oh don’t we know, better. There is a vivid memory when I and my sister came into her room a year earlier; wanting to show her something & in our excitement forgot to knock her door. As always she was sitting neatly, did not even look up from her book when she ordered us to go back outside and entered properly. We were standing dumbfounded for about three minutes; my sister because of her pride and me because I was just simply dumb. She in no haste putted a marker inside her book, got up, and grabbed my sister’s shirt’s collar and the next thing I saw was my sister landed on my feet. We were at that time also forgetting that she has a judo black belt. My frail yet emotionless sister never cried, but I can see she was in pain. We never forget to knock her door anymore after that amongst many of her rules. So with the memory still fresh, I was not in joy or thankful at all when my first sister started to give her attention to me.
The first thing she tried to fix was the way I was talking. I was not able to pronounce so many letters and instead creating my own words consist only the few words I managed to say; for example I would say “mung” for yes, so practically only my aunt and sister that were really understand what I was saying most of the time –given the fact that my sister preferred to stare into her wall however made her only contribute little amidst the ability-. Second, she tried to make me to stay only inside the house. She is an ambitious person, so after her classes finished, she was trotting back home and reading me her favourite parts of her books (I haven’t learnt to read yet at that time); apart from the inexplicable stone tale, there were “Three Kingdoms”, “No Longer Human”, “Emma”, “De Profundis” and so on. To be truth, my mind was wandering into my forest most of the time, but my sister successfully instilled my first love for reading; to those much, much, more cheerful stories compare to her taste and nothing involving stones, the emotional one or not. Third, the office’s gardener –a sour old man who was also happened to be my mortal enemy- (I will write about him sometime) was told to check and fix any holes in the wires.
Then one day we were told abruptly by father that we were to move again. I left without said any goodbye the hidden forgotten track which was leading to an open area where ferns grow undisturbed, drowning the light from above in their bright greens, and after that the forest itself; big trees with leaves so thick, only a few light granted coming through shape like crystal tubes filled with flying flakes. I have never got back into that town and forest anymore. But the sound I heard in every forests I have visited were all the same with my first forest, and no matter whenever I am, when I close my eyes, I can hear them clearly, the rustling leaves, high above me, sometimes whirling and other time soaring high, and I know that I will always welcome there again.
The place itself, a small town, was actually, at that time, a quite dangerous place where separatist movements were fertile and people were being kidnapped to be recruited into their army, or to get a ransom, or to force an agreement with the central government. However, understand nothing about it, I found it was a perfect place to live. The house which father’s office provided for us was situated next to the office (a boring square solid building) surrounded by a garden and had three small doors leading to other different gardens. At the back right side of the yard there was a bigger garden after the door that was belonged to the office; there was a volleyball court next to two tennis courts. They were all surrounded by high wire but one day I found a small crack, pushed myself through it & followed a track and found a forest.
I was a “mediocre and wild” kid, the one that is different from my siblings. At this time I did not remember that I have a brother as he was already studying in another place. My first sister is an ideal child, who chose to immerse herself in the art and literature world. Most of the time, she has drawn herself amongst books -mostly classic Chinese- in her perfect room. My second sister is an active girl, that kind of smart people who always flawlessly excelling everyone else without any effort whatsoever. In other word, someone you want to kick wholeheartedly. She is always at someone’s house except her own, experimenting with something. My third sister who is only two years older than me and thus become my playmate is always having her own world. I remember much of the time when she was not arranging her jigsaw puzzles she was sitting in the corner of our playroom, staring into the white wall. Looking at her thin back, I had never able to ask her to come back to our play world. When we were studying in the same school, I was the one who brought her bag and protecting her as she is never really healthy. And me; curious with puddles of water, fascinated with different shape and colours of the leaves or with the sleepy lizard, spent all day drawing meaningless patterns among the bushes while at the same time hiding from human, and in the end falling asleep there.I always love nature, and forest along with sea and mountain are the object of my desire. I love them equally for different reasons. So when I found the forest which was so close to me unnecessary to say that I was in absolute happiness. However, we were strictly prohibited to go inside the forest. So while my first sister was reading a book which I can’t remember the title, about a stone that wants to have feelings… -Well, now I know imagination and philosophy are important, but not one or two but six volumes with each more than 600 pages, for a stone? And why would a stone want to have any emotions anyway? To hurt his/ her new emotion loving other stone who has no emotion? Or to have the ability to despise human that keeps stepping on him/ her?-, the second one was blowing something in someone else’s houses, and the third one staring into her wall, I began my adventure, armed with my cats -that most of the time got lazy and run back home only after few steps- after sneaking away from my aunt, a young soft-hearted girl, father’s youngest step sister. I did nothing there actually, only sitting on the soft and cold moss, staring at the grand woods and hearing the many voices of its leaves touched by the wind, but soon the forest became my sanctuary.
It should become my perfect hide out, my secret place, but one day my aunt said that one of father’s step aunts (father had too much step-someone that when I was small I thought everyone coming over was his relatives), who kissed and petted too much was to visited us for a short time and we had to accompany her and showed her the best manner. While my sister endured the trial with the help of her loyal friend, the white wall around the house, I did not want to try my manner and was hiding among manure & seed sacks, in the garden’s shed, thinking I need to hide only for a while. A short time is not a real dimension of time for women when they talk. Getting dead bored, I was falling asleep. When dinner time for the small one came and I was not appearing my aunt was started looking at me in the forest. Turn out she knew that whole time that I played in the forest. Then my sisters’ dinner time came. Then mother came home. And then father. If father came home it means that everyone should already solemnly in their perfect state greeted him; human, things, cats *straight out that humiliating crook whiskers, Mr. Tabby!*, all of us. I woke up & was entering the living room and freeze instantly. The house was full of strangers. I hate strangers. These strangers were in uniforms. And there was a strange light blaring outside. From a police car. It was an awkward macabre when my aunt exclaimed, “God is Great, here she is!”
As every adult’s head in the room turned to me, I was focusing to two faces I cared the most, mother and father, which were clearly expressing their thoughts, that I should just be kidnapped or voluntary broke my neck in the forest instead. It was an expected response when you were presented by a little dirty girl who also smells like a cow’s excrement and who has been wasted your energy and time. Needless to say the price I had to pay for my stupidity; a sore body for a long time until for a while it managed to calm me down & made me joined my sister in her harmless wall-watching (it was not bad at all, actually), the silent treatment (even from my sweet aunt), and beyond everything, all my friends, the used-to-be-stray-cats were taking the punishment for their stupid girl, thrown away once again into the street. Even until now I am still having nightmares of how I let them down, how they all must have been feeling cheated and abandoned.
Several things happened after that. One was my first sister decided to educate me. Everyone think she is a feminine & a nice girl with her long hair braided in the most meticulous way complete with the supporting attire, articulate and in all aspects is agreeable. When that is not entirely false, me and my sister know, oh don’t we know, better. There is a vivid memory when I and my sister came into her room a year earlier; wanting to show her something & in our excitement forgot to knock her door. As always she was sitting neatly, did not even look up from her book when she ordered us to go back outside and entered properly. We were standing dumbfounded for about three minutes; my sister because of her pride and me because I was just simply dumb. She in no haste putted a marker inside her book, got up, and grabbed my sister’s shirt’s collar and the next thing I saw was my sister landed on my feet. We were at that time also forgetting that she has a judo black belt. My frail yet emotionless sister never cried, but I can see she was in pain. We never forget to knock her door anymore after that amongst many of her rules. So with the memory still fresh, I was not in joy or thankful at all when my first sister started to give her attention to me.
The first thing she tried to fix was the way I was talking. I was not able to pronounce so many letters and instead creating my own words consist only the few words I managed to say; for example I would say “mung” for yes, so practically only my aunt and sister that were really understand what I was saying most of the time –given the fact that my sister preferred to stare into her wall however made her only contribute little amidst the ability-. Second, she tried to make me to stay only inside the house. She is an ambitious person, so after her classes finished, she was trotting back home and reading me her favourite parts of her books (I haven’t learnt to read yet at that time); apart from the inexplicable stone tale, there were “Three Kingdoms”, “No Longer Human”, “Emma”, “De Profundis” and so on. To be truth, my mind was wandering into my forest most of the time, but my sister successfully instilled my first love for reading; to those much, much, more cheerful stories compare to her taste and nothing involving stones, the emotional one or not. Third, the office’s gardener –a sour old man who was also happened to be my mortal enemy- (I will write about him sometime) was told to check and fix any holes in the wires.
Then one day we were told abruptly by father that we were to move again. I left without said any goodbye the hidden forgotten track which was leading to an open area where ferns grow undisturbed, drowning the light from above in their bright greens, and after that the forest itself; big trees with leaves so thick, only a few light granted coming through shape like crystal tubes filled with flying flakes. I have never got back into that town and forest anymore. But the sound I heard in every forests I have visited were all the same with my first forest, and no matter whenever I am, when I close my eyes, I can hear them clearly, the rustling leaves, high above me, sometimes whirling and other time soaring high, and I know that I will always welcome there again.
