A Life in Words

by You Jin

  At that age when all sorts of emotions were a jumble inside, writing in my journal was a huge help, keeping me calm and stable. It was what helped me keep my heart and mind smooth as a mirror. Without it, I’m afraid all those emotions inside would have erupted.

  Every night writing in my journal, scratching out and scribbling each character, unknowingly, the blunt tip of my pen gradually became sharp, and then sharper. What was most significant was that, in writing in my journal, I developed a good rapport with my pen. My hand could write my words and thoughts, gaining the experience needed to express a whole myriad of feelings.

  When I finished writing and looked at the clock, it would inevitably be two in the morning. I would go to bed and, before a minute had passed, I would fall into a deep sleep. At that time, if anyone wanted to wake me, she could shout as loud as she wanted and I wouldn’t stir.

  I only slept four or five hours a night at that time, but it was quality sleep, and the next day I was able to go through school and tackle my homework and the other activities in high spirits. In my second year of junior college, I was again top of the class. My father’s bright, smiling expression gave me great confidence as I sat for my A-Levels.

  After my A-Levels, while waiting for the results, I had a holiday of several months, so I asked my father to arrange a holiday job for me. At the time, he was working in the construction company, and he had contacts with people in many different lines.

  I never imagined that he would arrange a job for me that would prove to be a truly unforgettable experience.

  Robot

  Eighteen that year, and I was so thin that some of my relatives teased that I better not go out or a strong wind might blow me a thousand miles away. I made no sound when I walked, stealthy as a cat.

  At this time, the skinny little me stood at the grey door of a factory that made dishes, wondering if I should plunge ahead bravely, or hang my head and walk away. After a lot of hesitation, I finally took a deep breath, collected my thoughts, and stepped inside.

  I walked timidly into the manager’s office, announcing my arrival in a tiny voice. The manager smiled and said, “Oh, you’re Mr Tham’s daughter. Good, I’ve arranged a position for you.”

  He made a quick phone call, and the supervisor, Mr Zhang, came in. Mr Zhang was a thin, short fellow, dark as a misplaced chocolate biscuit. He took me to a place where there was a pair of long conveyor belts running side by side. A row of women sat beside them, with just one empty seat on the end. Mr Zhang said, “You sit here.”

  I asked naively, “What do I do once I’ve sat?”

  He said, “Just have a seat and I’ll teach you.”

  I sat, and he took a large round plate from next to the seat, then a piece of paper with a stamped image on it. Placing it on the surface of the plate, he pressed it down with his thumb, attaching it firmly to the plate. After this, he took the plate and placed it on the conveyer belt, and the belt carried it to the next workstation. I looked up and asked him, “That’s it?”

  He nodded and said, “Yes. It’s quite easy, but you have to be fast.”

  I followed his example. As soon as I finished the first plate, I did another, then another, and continued on. After doing this for just an hour, I felt that I had already turned into a robot. My brain had stopped thinking and gone into a sort of empty state. My mind was a blank and, with the exception of my hands, my whole body was lifeless.

  I worked and worked, busying myself for the whole day. I was so tired that my body was as limp as a wilted leaf, and I was even more exhausted mentally than I was physically. Though this work took no thought at all, I felt it extremely trying.

  When I got home, I sat at the table, eating my dinner without saying a word. I chewed and chewed, like a robot. My father said nothing as he watched. After dinner, he asked gently, “How was work today?”

  I answered listlessly, “Normal.”

  I saw the hint of a smile in his eye. “What’s normal?”

  My face darkened as I said, “Printing plates with a pattern is a very repetitive thing. It’s so boring.” I paused, then added, “I don’t want to go back tomorrow.”

  As soon as he heard that, my father’s expression changed. “That’s not possible. You agreed to work for a month, so you’ll do a month. In this world, the most important thing you have is your word. You must not break it.”

  “But…” I objected, “That job is so boring!”

  “Singapore is a place that only pays attention to qualifications. All you have is your O-Levels, so what job can you do? Tell me.” My father looked at me sternly.

  I lowered my head and said nothing.

  “We’ve got to make best use of our time, strength and resources.”

  Then he added lightly, “For now, you have no professional qualifications, so this is the only sort of work you can do.”

  And so, I continued for a month at that factory, like a robot. Aside from extreme weariness, I felt anxiety and bitterness because time was being wasted, slipping away. Every time I thought that, if I did not do well enough in my studies, this was the sort of life I would have, doing a mindless job all day, I felt an icy fear.

  When I had forced myself to finish that month of work, feeling like a prisoner who had been set free, I finally escaped from that factory. I gave myself a stern warning. I had to study hard, to craft my own path in life, and to nurture myself for the future.

  When I left the factory, my results still had not come out, and I still had several months of holidays ahead of me. My mother suggested, “Why don’t you learn to sew? If a girl learns to sew, it’s a skill that will stay with her all her life.”

  As soon as I heard this, my eyes lit up. For many years, when we were poor, my mother had spent a lot of time mending our clothes, prolonging the time before we had to buy new ones. She always stayed up late into the night, head bent over the sewing machine as she worked diligently and tirelessly to alter her old clothes for my sister to wear. She would then alter my sister’s clothes for me. Even my two younger brothers, who were not yet seven, were always in clothes that had been patched and mended so many times that they were now one-of-a-kind items. Sometimes, hearing my mother’s feet working the pedal of the sewing machine, I would be reminded that I had to take over my sister’s old, faded clothes. This did not make me feel touched or even grateful, but fed up. My young, ignorant heart was so cruel and foolish, resenting my mother for mending and altering all those clothes for us.

  When I was in Secondary 2, pleated skirts were the fashion; all the girls were wearing them. I would often see them on the road, and looked at them enviously. The pleats in the skirt seemed to have a life of their own. Some pleats were stiff and straight, like soldiers marching, proud and orderly. Some pleats were light and soft. When the wind blew, they waved, and when it stopped, you would watch and wait for the next breeze, so that the gentle undulating motion would start all over again. My desire for a pleated skirt burned inside, making it so I could hardly sit still. But such skirts were not cheap, so of course I could not—dared not—ask my mother to buy me one. I could only wait for my wish to become a reality.

  At last, that day came. My mother came in carrying a box. Inside was a pleated skirt, green as jade and with little yellow flowers. It was beautiful. My insides wanted to overflow—I was so excited.

  But I had never dreamed of what came next. My mother shouted towards the room, “Yee Ven, come out and try on this pleated skirt!”

  I felt like I was being slapped on the face. I went sullenly into the room and cried bitterly. I never knew I had so many tears! My heart was in a tangle. It never crossed my mind, my family’s financial situation being what it was, that it was impossible to buy a pleated skirt for each of us at the same time.

  So now, hearing my mother mention sewing, my first thought was, Ah! Then I won’t have to wear my sister’s old clothes.

  There was a sewing goods shop near our house that took in students. I gladly went and signed up. But,
after attending just a few classes, I gave up.

  One thing that was made very clear to me was that all sorts of tools were rendered useless once they were placed in my hand. Scissors, needle and thread, sewing machine—none would do my bidding. I drew the pattern on paper and pinned it onto the cloth, but as soon as I started cutting, there was trouble. The instructor would say, “Just follow the lines on the paper when you cut, okay? Why are you cutting out of line? You just cut out a big chunk. How am I supposed to help you repair that?”

  After suffering through some trials and errors, I finally managed to cut out the pattern, then began stitching things together. When I put my feet on the sewing machine’s pedal, it was like they belonged to someone else. They did not at all do what I told them to, but just moved up, down, or whatever direction of their own volition. My forehead was covered in sweat. It was so difficult to keep the fabric aligned. That damn needle chewed its way right through the cloth, then got stuck and wouldn’t move again. Time and again, the instructor had to come over and help me, her face dark. Later, when I clumsily broke the needle of the sewing machine, the teacher could not take it any more, and was ready to kick the unteachable me out the door. “Go home and practise on the sewing machine first. When you’ve learned how to use it, come back and join the class.”

  It really was a case of what the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu called “dying before gaining success”. I was clearly not cut out for sewing, so I dropped it.

  Even today, if you mention sewing, I feel a little ill. My clumsiness at sewing cannot be surpassed. After I got married, I would occasionally be forced to pick up the needle in emergency situations, resulting in many complaints from my family. For instance, when my son was in Primary 1, his school pants once had a split in the seam, so he asked me to mend it. I set busily about the task but, when I handed the pants back to him, he pointed at the jagged seam and said innocently, “Mummy, why is it a centipede?”

  Thick-skinned, I said, “Because it’s pretty like that.”

  The next night when he came home, he said, “Mummy, those pants you mended for me split today when I squatted!”

  He brought them to me and I mended them again. When I finished, I handed them back to him saying, “Remember when you wear these pants, whatever you do, don’t squat.”

  Of course they split again. He took the pants to his father, rebuffing all my sincerest offers of help because, he said, “I want to wear mended pants that I can squat in.”

  His father was in the same boat. I remember one time, when he had an event to attend, his jacket had a button missing. In the morning, he asked me to mend it. I found matching thread and carefully sewed a button on. Upon inspecting it, I was quite pleased with my work. When he put the jacket on, he said, “Hey, how come I can’t button it?”

  I looked at it more closely and realised I had not aligned it properly with the buttonhole. How could the jacket be buttoned like that?

  From then on, he preferred to take care of things himself. It was then that I said goodbye to the needle forever.

  It was my experience in the sewing class that taught me my limitations. That March, I got my A-Level results. I had not done too poorly. When it came time to choose which faculty I wanted to study in at university, I put myself wholly in line with what I wanted to do. Even though I could write down three choices, I only wrote one: Chinese Language and Literature.

  In July 1969, I gladly entered Nanyang University as a new student in the Chinese Language and Literature Department. The dream I had harboured for so long was finally a reality.

  CHAPTER 6

  Yunnan Gardens

  Great Teachers Abound Like the Sea

  MANY PEOPLE SAW Nanyang University as a Xanadu cut off from the world and they were absolutely right in saying so. The campus was in an isolated location that made it feel like its own world. Its Literature, Science and Commerce Colleges were three separate places, all with a very scholarly atmosphere completely undisturbed by the clamour of the outside world.

  The entire campus was covered with acacia trees, which rustled in the breeze. There was a large lake on the grounds that, when the sun shone on it in the daytime, sparkled like a blue gemstone, then at night turned to a beautiful ink stone. When the moon broke through the clouds, the ink stone would shimmer with a charming glaze.

  Having moved into this paradise garden, I spent most of my time in two places: one was at the edge of the romantic Nanyang Lake, the other amidst the thick aroma of books in the library.

  During my three years at the university, the subjects I studied included Modern Chinese Literature, The Analects and Meng Zi, Chinese Literary History, East Asian History, Linguistic Theory, Sociology, History of Chinese Philosophy, Critical Interpretation of Ancient Texts, The Book of Songs, Selected Song Poems, Chinese Philology, Chinese Phonetics, Records of the Historian, The Chinese Canon and Journalism Studies.

  Chinese culture is as wide as the sea, and deep as a well. No matter how much one may immerse herself in studies of the topic, it is impossible to study it all, just as one can never drain a well dry, no matter how much water she bails.

  I was like a sponge, greedily soaking up everything around me. As I drank it in, I learned that, in one’s studies, simply taking information in blindly was no use. Really learning something new required regurgitation, thought and consideration. In this way, we make new discoveries and, while we are strengthening our old foundation, we constantly renew our thought process.

  To others I was a very diligent student, both in class and out, always caught up in the smell of books, my whole world concentrated on literature. But the truth was, I was just beginning to realise how expansive this world of scholarship and academia was, and that I was just a tiny drop in the vast sea. Even with the baby steps I had so far taken, life’s limitations would make it impossible for me to absorb everything. I could not help but feel that I had to make the most of every second—I knew there was not enough time.

  The university was a place that housed many hidden talents. The lecturers and professors were impressive figures, each had her or his own style of instruction, with varying degrees of brilliance.

  All the students said Professor Pi Shu Min had pizazz. He was very tall and pale, and liked to wear white long-sleeved shirts. When he walked into the classroom, he always came without his notes. He would leisurely pull out his chair and, very relaxed, lean against its back, placing his long hands on the desk. Like a winged horse flying through the air, he taught us Chinese Literary History. As soon as he opened his mouth, a long stream of interesting facts would flow without stopping. He told us all about the prominent masters in literary history, talking as if they were old friends, people he saw every day. His lectures were fluid, pointed, endearing, and moving. When it came to the different literary movements, changes and mindsets, though they were considered dull topics, his rich vocabulary, strong narrative power, humorous character and expressions made each historical fact and literary quotation flow from his mouth like a running stream. Everyone listened, spellbound, as if wishing he would just continue without stopping. Every time class came to an end, everyone wished it would carry on, not quite willing to let it end. While we were closing our notebooks, we always wished the next lecture would come quickly. One might say that Professor Pi was the instructor who was most able to turn on his personal charm.

  The professor for The Chinese Canon was Professor Hu Chu Sheng. He was very young, with a bit of a baby face. This gentle, scholarly fellow would seem to fall into a stupor as he entered the literary world of the ancients. He passionately used the most beautiful, succinct, and ornate terms to introduce us to these literary gems. Then he would show us how we could turn them around and apply them for our own edification. He spoke spiritedly. Faced with his dazzling narration, we were captivated, feeling the powerful impact of those classical writings. Professor Hu not only lectured, but was also in charge of marking our papers. He often left solid, critical comments on the papers, and when he
came across some beautiful quotes, he would highlight them with encouraging circles. Once, he assigned a single word for our essay topic: rain. A topic like this was wide open, allowing us plenty of space to explore. Through the different types of rain, I wrote about the different turns in life, the ones that were happy, sorrowful, exulting, depressing, glorious or sluggish, combining emotion with scenery. Professor Hu liked my essay very much, giving me good marks and comments. When he returned the essay to me, he made a point of telling me, “You should submit this piece for publication somewhere.”

  By that time, I had already had several pieces published in different venues, but for something I wrote to receive that sort of praise from that sort of teacher was truly affirming. His remark stayed with me for a very long time.

  Professor Hu later left Nanyang University and returned to Taiwan, where he taught in Chung Hsing University. In 1990, I read his article in Liberty Times, entitled “The Language of Literary Arts”. In it, he said, “Elegant literary works can cleanse a person’s soul, raising his life to a new level. For this reason, it is a writer’s responsibility to show concern for their generation, and give a voice to the weak. I hope to see more excellent creative works in this journal, and also hope I can produce more meaningful work of my own.”

  This short passage made me recall my university days. So, I took up my pen and wrote a piece called “Couple by the Pond: Regarding My Teacher Mr Hu”, a 2000-word essay, which I then sent to the Liberty Times in Taiwan. Not long after it was published, Professor Hu called the newspaper office to get my address and sent me a long letter, along with his essay “Feeling Pensive”. When I talked to my former classmates about this, all of them fought to read the piece. Many years earlier, we had sat in the lecture hall learning from him, and now we learned from him through his writing. It seemed the teacher-student relationship we had with Professor Hu would be lifelong.