My father was born in Henan province, China, which is the birthplace of Chinese civilization. My father followed ROC government to Taiwan in 1949 after ROC army was defeated by Communist army.
My mother side of families migrated to Taiwan from southern China during the early 19th century. After I learn how to tell romantic story, I will let you know how they met (It’s really romantic.)
I have a very lay back personality. It’s probably due to my birthday, I think. I was born on March 6 and I was actually one week overdue.
On March 6, according to Chinese calendar (the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 345°), the first thunderstorm of the year will wake up all the hibernated insects/ animals. I was probably woke up by the thunder and decided to come to see the world.
When I was a baby, my family lived in a military housing complex near an air force base. Linda’s husband, Gary, used to station there.
I used to “sleep like a baby” till one day, my grandmother visited. She said to my mom “Po-Wen is a such wonderful baby, even fighter jets passing by with such loud noise, he can still sleep so well.” Guess what? Since that day, according to my mom, I began to cry badly whenever fighter jets flied by my house. I believed it’s a lesson many parents had learned!?
Military housing complex was a mainlander neighborhood in Taiwan. Therefore, I could only understand Mandarin when I was little. When my family moved to a Taiwanese neighborhood, some neighbor kids would trick me to get my toys by confusing me with Taiwanese. After few weeks, I gradually became fluent in Taiwanese, and began to trick them to get my toys back. Now I can easily switch back and forth between two dialects.
After graduated from college in Taiwan, I decided to take a test and became a reserve officer served in Chinese Marine Corps (Taiwan).
I served in a LVT unit. Most of my military lives spent either in the ocean or on the beach. Sometime when I close my eyes at night, I can still " hear" the ocean in my ears. I missed that 5K run in the morning and 200+ push ups at night kind of life. Now, I can even hardly finish 50 push ups.
My wife is a Korean. At home, we speak 3 different languages. My kids speak to my wife in Korean, to me, in “some Mandarin” and mostly in English. Between my wife and I, in English.
My wife and I did occasionally communicate in Taiwanese though. Most Korean pronunciations are very close to Taiwanese. When we couldn’t express a certain word in English, we would try to say it in Taiwanese or Korean. 99% of the time, we could figure out the words that we tried to say.
I love to cook. One of my professors used to say that most good potters are also good cooks. I don’t know if I am qualified to be a good potter, but I am sure I am a good cook. My kids can prove it!!
When I was little, I loved to talk to my mom in kitchen when she was cooking . I think I unconsciously learned how to cook during the conversations. Some time I would cook my mom's dishes to ease my homesick.
Well, I don’t know much about other blogger, so I think I am not going to pass this down to next 15 people. However, if any of you would like to share what we don’t know about you beside your pottery, please feel free to do so.
