I am. There are also many recurring characters. My family, friends, strangers and occasional enemies appear, disappear and reappear within the story. Locations change, and as the story progresses I grow appreciably older. I wonder what percentage of this story I've been asleep? Alone? Angry? Afraid?
Perhaps a short biography is in order. Hi, my name is _____ and I'm _____ years old. I'm married with two grown daughters. One of these daughters lives in Taipei while the other lives in Kaohsiung.
I've lived in Taiwan over a period of 23 years, though I went back to the States for graduate school between 2003 and 2004 (about two years), and later went back to work in 2008 when the American economy was in the toilet. I first moved to Taiwan in 1999, just after I graduated from the University of Washington. Everybody asks me why I moved to Taiwan, and I never have any clear answer to this question.
At this point in the story I work at two different public schools in Hengchun Municipality, at the end of the Hengchun Peninsula, in Pingtung County, Taiwan. If you happen to be viewing a map of Taiwan I'm not too far from the "little feet" at the southern end of the island. The house where I live is 10-15 minutes north of Kenting.
I struggle to define my own personality. I could list things I like (old science fiction novels, beer, swimming, snakes and American football), or I could list things I don't like (excessive rain, milk, hiking, monkeys and basketball), but I don't think that doing so brings anyone any closer to who I am as a person. I can be quiet or talkative in equal measure, outgoing or introverted depending on the situation. You could say the same about anybody.
2. Where and when does the story take place?
For the first 25 years of my life most of this story took place between Seattle, Washington and Bay City, Oregon, just north of Tillamook. I was born in West Seattle, in a hospital that later burned down. Up until the age of 6 my mother and I divided our time between Seattle, where she rented a house, and Bay City, where my grandmother lived up until her death in the 90s.
Around the time I turned 6 my mother married my stepfather, a man I've always considered my father without the "step." After her marriage my mother and I moved from West Seattle to my stepfather's house in Greenwood, also in Seattle. I lived in Greenwood until I was 19, and from the ages of 19 to 25 I lived in a variety of rented spaces in and around Seattle.
At the age of 25 I moved to Taiwan. Since then I've lived in Taichung, Hsinchu, Taitung, Fangliao and Hengchun. My longest residence during this time was the 13 years I spent in Taitung. For this reason Taitung is the place my daughters think of as home, in much the same way as I regard Seattle as home. Are our homes ever really our homes though? And for how long?
A more interesting question is where and when this story will take place in the future. If you're asking me today I'll say that it will probably continue to take place in Hengchun next school year, though beyond that I have no idea. We'll see?
3. What happens at the beginning of the story?
If someone were taking a novelistic approach to this story I suppose they'd go all the way back, to the beginning of the universe, and from there progress to the formation of our star and the planets that make up our solar system. They'd then offer an overview of Earth's development over geologic time, and from that point transition into my birth in Seattle several decades ago.
Or, in genealogical terms, the history of my family could be traced back to wherever the hell they came from in North America and/or Europe, and while that was being done the author could paint a vast picture of religious movements, technological developments and pop culture over hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Or the author could just start with the day I was born. I can't discuss the day I was born, however, because I don't remember anything about it.
4. What happens in the middle of the story?
The average life expectancy for a man in the United States is 77.28 years. The average life expectancy for a man in Taiwan is 76.63 years. Given that I'm a North American man who's spent almost half his life in Taiwan let's average the two and get 76.96 years.
So assuming that I live to be 76.96 years old, 38.48 years of age was halfway through my life. At that age I was living in Taitung, my daughters were ages 8 and 13, and in comic book movie terms Iron Man 3 hit theaters not long before. I remember it being a good time in my life. I was feeling secure in my job, I had enough money, and there was always something going on.
I was, by the way, already writing this blog then. You're welcome to look here if you're interested.
5. What happens at the end of the story?
Is death the end? That's a big question. I apologize if you haven't had your morning cup of coffee yet. We all know it's coming for us, even though we don't usually like to think about it. Let's just say that I'm not a religious person, even if I do have some philosophical thoughts on the matter.
A more interesting (and possibly less depressing) question is what the world will be like in the 2050s (or, if I should live so long), the 2060s. Will Taiwan and China still be at odds? With both still exist as the same political entities? Will we have learned from past mistakes? Or will we continue to wallow in them?
I certainly don't have any answers. My feeling (and this is only a feeling) is that countries (and people) that think more about the future tend to live longer.
6. What might this story teach us?
I think people have a certain myopia about death, in that they often view how someone died as the defining characteristic of their life. A man dies in a terrorist attack and we regard him as a martyr, a woman dies in a freak boating accident and we regard her as foolhardy. We often blame or praise people for how they died, probably because we're looking to either avoid or embrace the same fate.
The thing is, life can be LONG, and finding "a moral in the story" is often an act of oversimplification. It also tends to diminish the person spoken of, who was just as multidimensional as you or I. Maybe, for example, the man who died in the terrorist attack also molested young boys, or maybe the woman who died in the freak boating accident left behind an astonishing amount of money to family members. There are many sides to any story, and personalities are always changing over time.
This said, the manner of my inevitable death will probably define me for those who survive it. People will look at how I died and come to conclusions about what kind of person I was, and whether or not certain of my character traits were desirable. In the end your identity is like a gift -- or a curse -- you give to those who outlive you. After your death it is they who control your narrative, and they who draw morals from your story.
But, barring that kind of conclusion, and assuming that the reader finishes my story before I myself have finished it, what kind of moral(s) or lesson(s) do I hope they draw from my exploits?
This question I can answer:
1) Always have a backup plan, and
2) Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.
And what about you? Who is in your story? Where and when does the story take place? What happens in the beginning of the story? What happens in the middle of the story? What happens at the end of the story? What might this story teach us?
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NOTE: The questions/headings above taken from the eighth grade English textbook, hence the weird title.
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