Lao Ye (standard:Fan Fiction, 4517 words)
Author: Mookoo Liang	Added: Feb 27 2006	Views/Reads: 3506/2350	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This story is fictitious; if it sounds like a true story, please bear in mind that what a storyteller regards as "truth" exists in his imagination rather than in the real world. This is my first statement. And my second statement is....

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

Personally I agree that Lao Ye should have brought his wife out more
often, so that she wouldn't have had to stay home alone so much time, 
since all of us except Lao Ye enjoyed our weekend parties together with 
our wives. 

It seemed that Lao Ye's wife had never wanted to join the party; nor had
Lao Ye himself participated much in our common "social life." But both 
of them had been regarded as our "very close friends." The fact is, 
whenever Lao Ye was in the midst of us, there would be a very pleasant 
atmosphere in the room (That's why we were fond of him). Lao Ye was 
kind of wise and sort of naive. His funny stories always made us laugh; 
and when he was intentionally laughed at, his amusing manner usually 
helped him get out of the embarrassing situation in just a few seconds. 
He showed admirable self-control. His good and pleasant personality, as 
well as his sense of humor, was really remarkable. Knowing that he was 
going to retire from his teaching job, I expected that he would get 
more leisure time for chatting with us, and I looked forward to his 
wife's turning into a genuine member of the very-close-friends family. 

Now Lao Ye retired from his job as an art teacher. "Life is short, art
is long." He retired at the age of 50, planning to give himself a 
number of years for painting---painting with all his heart, all his 
soul, and all his might. 

How lucky he was to have been a teacher. Having taught (in the
elementary school, then in junior high, and finally in senior high) for 
so many years, he came to a promising "turning point" at last. From now 
on, he would be paid the monthly pension by the government. Without 
having to work as before, he could possibly take better care of his 
family, and he was allowed more time and energy for drawing and 
painting. He was very pleased to have a new beginning, to obtain 
"shengming de dier chun" (that is, the second spring of life). 

Naturally he was filled with gratitude. He was thankful that his parents
had allowed him to get out of the mountainous village for further 
studies; he was also thankful for the particular system of education 
which the government had practiced in those years. If there had been no 
"shi-zhuan" (Teachers Junior College) where students were totally 
supported<3> by the government, if his father had wanted him to help 
with farm work in his home village, or if he had failed the zhi-zhuan 
entrance examination, then his life after the age of 16 would have been 
completely different. Every time Lao Ye told me about those if's and 
then's, I was deeply moved because I had been in the same situation. 

In a sense, Lao Ye and I were not only "birds of a feather" but also
"leaves on a branch"---breathing quietly in the same sunlight, swaying 
gently in the same wind! 

I hadn't seen Lao Ye or his wife in months. It was said that they went
back to the mountains on weekends. Only on weekends could Lao Ye's wife 
follow her husband to a remote place, because she was still working 
near Taichung City, where the Ye's had been living for long---Oh, Lao 
Ye, Lao Ye! Your family name is "leaves." The Chinese character ¸­ 
(read as "ye") literally means "a leaf" or "leaves." You, whom I call 
"Old Leaf," have established your own family; you got a beautiful wife, 
who also comes from the mountains; and she bore you two daughters, your 
beautiful new leaves! 

Well, with the passage of time those new leaves must have grown up. I
hadn't seen Lao Ye's children in YEARS. I wasn't sure if they were now 
studying in senior high or in college. And I really had no idea whether 
they would like to follow their parents to the mountains on weekends, 
or in a longer vacation. To my surprise, when my wife and I were 
planning to give a special party on January 1st to celebrate the coming 
of this New Year, we received an invitation from Lao Ye, whom we 
certainly would have invited as one of our important guests. Lao Ye's 
invitation showed that his first daughter was going to be married very 
soon in December last year. I was happy to go to the wedding party. 
Meanwhile, I was well aware that time flew! 

The wedding party was held in a luxury hotel. The big hall for a
ceremony and banquet was now crowded with Lao Ye's and his family's 
relatives and friends. At first, guests chatted cheerfully here and 
there, making a lot of noise. Then, when the music started and the 
bride and groom's procession came into the hall, all the guests stopped 
talking but gave a big round of applause; and all eyes were focused on 
the bride and groom, who were slowly and steadily stepping toward the 
main table in the front. Lao Ye and his wife, just like their 
son-in-law's parents, looked unusually happy that day. Yes, it was 
indeed a happy time, and the wedding was a great occasion for the two 
families. 

Now the bride and groom were being led to each of the guest tables. They
were supposed to drink a toast to the guests, from table to table. When 
they got close to where I was sitting, the bride suddenly called me 
"laoshi" and, turning to her dear husband, she excitedly said, "He was 
my first English teacher! He taught me when I was in the fifth and 
sixth grades (elementary school)!" Oh, my! Time flew fast, indeed. 
After years had passed by, I could hardly remember that I had taught 
"children's English" to those kids! I asked the bride curiously what 
school or college she had attended in years past, and what her major 
was. She replied with a sweet smile, "I majored in English literature, 
and yet I'm taking some education courses, hoping to become a 
schoolteacher some day." I was pleased to hear that. At least I hadn't 
spoiled her interest in English when she was small. 

A week after the wedding party, I heard Li laoshi and Chen laoshi say
that Lao Ye's father "happened to die" on the very same day when Lao 
Ye's daughter got married. What a shame! It seemed that none of us had 
been told about it the previous week. I asked Lao Wang if the bad news 
was true. Lao Wang said, "That's true. Lao Ye's father caught a bad 
cold about two months ago, and was sent to one of the best hospitals in 
Taichung. No one would believe that he would pass away so soon---on his 
granddaughter's wedding day!" 

Oh! It suddenly occurred to me that Lao Ye might have known that his
father was then critically ill. He must have tried his hardest to wear 
a smile on his face, so as not to spoil the wedding party. 

Well, a man can be a loving father and a true son simultaneously. Lao Ye
was a true Hakka son, full of filial piety. In his first album of 
paintings, which he published and gave me in 1996, he included a 
photograph of his parents; and in the "Painter's Preface" of that album 
he told a touching story about his mother, who had passed away by that 
time, confessing that he couldn't have made so many paintings without 
his mother's encouragement. He deeply loved and respected both his 
parents. Now his father also passed away. I didn't really know what I 
should say to him. I just prayed for him in secret, hoping that he 
wouldn't lose the Hakka people's "hard-neck spirit." 

Without such a "hard-neck spirit" in him, Lao Ye wouldn't be the most
interesting friend of mine. According to Lao Wang and Li laoshi, Lao Ye 
has another interesting "weak and strong" point that few people have 
known. He has been suffering from "achromatopsia" to some 
degree---being "partly color blind." (This sounded rather unbelievable, 
but a bit sensible!) How could a partly-color-blind man have become an 
artist who is so good at painting? 

In those years, color-blind young people were not admitted into
shi-zhuan at all, for elementary school teachers were expected to be 
physically and mentally healthy, or they ought to be as "normal" as 
possible. How come Lao Ye was able to pass the physical examination to 
enter shi-zhuan? The fact is, Lao Ye so much cherished the chance for 
further study that as soon as he learned he had passed the first part 
of the entrance exam (some written tests on various subjects), he began 
to prepare for the second part of it, including a physical checkup. He 
managed to borrow a standard book used for checking color blindness, 
and studied (and learned by heart) all the pages with a colorful dotted 
number on each. Fortunately, he succeeded in getting through the 
"narrow gate." 

After that, his weakness dramatically became his strong point. While
studying at shi-zhuan, his paintings were always impressive to his 
classmates and professors because he painted them in colors that would 
be slightly strange to the "normal." 

When the New Year's Day was approaching, my wife and I started to call
our "family friends" by phone, inviting them to a dinner party at a 
restaurant (You know, I have a dozen of "very close friends" and so 
does my wife. All together we have about 20 so-called "family friends," 
meaning that the husbands were originally my friends while their 
spouses were my wife's). Lao Ye argued that it should be his turn to 
give such a party this year. "You have played the host for the past two 
New Year's Days," he said, "Let's just take turns, okay?" After a 
"warm" argument, we settled that two of us would throw two parties, one 
in January and the other in February. But we didn't give any party on 
January 1st, because Lao Wang (our good mutual friend) wasn't able to 
come that day. 

Some of our friends jokingly said, "Lao Ye has changed; he's more
generous than before." Once again I felt it unfair to say so. As far as 
I knew, Lao Ye had been kind to others; he had been willing to 
help---especially the poor! 

A couples of years ago, I was told such a story, which is by no means a
fictitious one. After Lao Ye graduated from junior high at the age of 
15, he came to Taichung City to take the shi-zhuan entrance 
examination, which lasted for two days. On the evening before the exam, 
he failed to find a hotel to stay at because he was unfamiliar with the 
city and because he dared not get into a "luxury" hotel that he thought 
would cost him too much money. He decided to spend the night, at least 
the first night, inside the train station. It was July, and it was not 
too cold there at night. But he was somewhat nervous, and felt too 
tired to read. After an uneasy sleep, he woke up at midnight and saw a 
man in his 40's or 50's walking toward him. The older man smiled at him 
and offered him some steamed bread. "For you, free of charge!" He then 
said to him, "You must be a student. Am I right?" Then they had a 
pleasant chat for a few moments. 

The older man suggested that Lao Ye stay at his "humble dwelling" that
night, saying that he was a veteran soldier (from Mainland China) who 
lived nearby alone. Lao Ye was very glad to follow that "good man" to 
his place. Then something terrible happened. While both of them were 
lying on the matted floor, the older man reached his hand to touch Lao 
Ye's private parts. 

The first touch didn't mean anything to Lao Ye. "It might have been a
careless act," he thought. But the second, the third, and the fourth 
touches made this 15-year-old boy more and more scared. Lao Ye was then 
too naive to know about homosexuality. What he really worried about was 
his money. With so limited money on him, he asked himself, "Is this man 
a pickpocket?" Thinking of this, he pretended he had to take a leak, 
and ran away from the place as fast as he could. 

Lao Ye returned to the train station and hid himself in a corner until
the next morning. He didn't have a sound sleep. So he bought and drank 
a bottle of Combat-P to refresh himself before going into the 
examination hall. It worked miracles! Then he bought and drank another 
two bottles for the same purpose. Since then, Lao Ye has liked Combat-P 
very much. He would like to refresh himself with a bottle of Combat-P 
whenever he has driven a long way. 

After taking the first part of the entrance exam, Lao Ye was ready to
return home. He came across with an old woman in shabby clothes begging 
on the street, for in those difficult days beggars were occasionally 
seen in a city or town. Lao Ye felt very sorry for the poor old woman. 
He checked to see how much money he had left in his pocket. Then he 
kept the needed fare for himself and gave all the remaining 65 dollars 
to the miserable woman. 

"Good intention makes good fortune." Lao Ye once told me that the
Chinese saying "hao xin you hao bao"<4> was very true. He hadn't 
thought he would pass the shi-zhuan entrance exam, which was especially 
difficult for candidates from the mountain areas; however, it was 
probably because he had given the poor woman 65 dollars that Heaven 
granted him the chance. This was Lao Ye's account of his success in 
entering the "narrow gate." 

Lao Ye also told us something about his school life at shi-zhuan. He
said that the five years when he studied at Taichung Shi-Zhuan were the 
most significant in his life. He studied hard and learned quite a lot. 
Like a happy bird flying sometimes fast in the forest and sometimes 
high in the sky, he enjoyed learning many different things and 
practicing various kinds of skills. His favorite subjects were 
Psychology, Counseling, and Fine Art, which was why, years later, he 
became a guidance counselor as well as an art teacher at a senior high 
school. Though located in Taichung City, the shi-zhuan campus was two 
or three kilometers away from the Bus Terminal next to the train 
station. Every time Lao Ye returned home from school, he "trotted or 
cantered" all the way from the campus to the Bus Terminal for a 
long-distance bus. He never took a city bus to the Bus Terminal. He 
thought that jogging was good for health and it also saved him some 
money. 

As a "mountain boy," Lao Ye had never seen a train until he came to
Taichung for further study. He was so curious about trains that 
sometimes he would spend 20 or 30 minutes crouching just outside of the 
railing fence and watching the trains passing in and out of the 
station. What a naive youngster! 

Well, in the twinkling of an eye, the boy student has already become a
retired teacher. Lao Ye is now much richer than before, in many a 
sense. To enrich his life, or to pick and gather beautiful things for 
his artistic creation, Lao Ye has been traveling here and there. He has 
been to Mainland China several times, taking lots of pictures of the 
Yangtze River, Yellow Mountain, the 1000-Isle Lake<5>, etc. His vivid 
description of Yellow Mountain was most impressive to me. "Perhaps its 
most outstanding feature is change," he said. "The mystic clouds drift 
in and out, changing the scenery from minute to minute as the mist 
rises and ebbs . . . " After retirement, Lao Ye went mountain climbing 
regularly. He made friends with professional mountaineers, and he even 
bought a piece of land in the mountains where he built a small but 
beautiful villa. 

At first I thought Lao Ye was building a villa in his home village
Bei-gang-xi, but I was wrong. Lao Ye's villa was for his wife as well, 
so it was made in her home village Ao-wan-da. Oh, Ao-wan-da! I've never 
been there, nor have I learned what the name means in the aboriginal 
language. However, it sounds to me like "O Wonder!" in English for it 
is said that there are many maple trees there. "You don't have to visit 
Japan for red leaves!" Lao Ye joked about my previous four "educational 
trips" to Japan. "Just come here, and you'll be satisfied with 
thousands of beautiful maple leaves and me, an Old Leaf!" 

I like Lao Ye because he is so interesting. He usually speaks in a
"humorous" way---this particular "sense of humor" is a combination of 
some wise, some kind, and some naive components! 

During the party he and I hosted on February 6th this year, Lao Ye was
asked how much he liked his new son-in-law. "The younger generation are 
hard to understand, aren't they?" asked Chen laoshi. Yet Lao Ye 
replied, "It depends. If you give them a careful examination, a proper 
oral test or something, then you'll know them much better." All of us 
burst into laughter, asking at once, "Did you really interview your 
son-in-law?" "Oh, it was before he became my son-in-law that I asked 
him five questions," Lao Ye seriously said, "Each question accounted 
for 20 per cent of the full marks. That young man was not too bad. He 
made up 85 per cent!" I was curious about the questions. The most 
interesting one was: "Could you list 10 shortcomings that my daughter 
possesses?" What a tricky question! 

Generally speaking, Lao Ye was wise. But he would make some subjective
remarks once in a while. For instance, he described the 1000-Isle Lake 
as "tremendously big and deep," but then he exclaimed that he had 
tasted the most delicate clams at a restaurant near it, saying, "How 
fresh those clams were! They had just been picked up by hand from the 
1000-Isle Lake!" Is it possible to pick up clams by hand right from the 
bottom of a very deep lake? Lao Ye was occasionally laughed at for lack 
of common sense. 

All of a sudden, I thought of the tragic event<6> that happened at the
1000-Isle Lake on March 31st, 1994; I thought of the devastating 
earthquake that happened in central Taiwan on September 21, 1999; and I 
thought of the floods caused by the typhoon Mindulle on July 2nd, 2004. 
All these natural and man-made calamities made people very sad, yet the 
July-2nd floods caused Lao Ye to be "loudly and openly" laughed at. It 
was the third day after the floods. Like some other mountain villages, 
Ao-wan-da had been cut off from the outside world by serious 
landslides, and the rescue helicopter was the only way to carry food 
and medicine in and the sick and wounded out. Lao Ye and his wife had 
been reported missing. Then, when Lao Ye appeared on the fourth 
morning, we realized that he had got out of Ao-wan-da by taking the 
very last seat in the helicopter the previous afternoon. And all of us 
made fun of Lao Ye because he "escaped" without taking his wife with 
him. 

"Why didn't your wife come out together with you?" I asked. 

"Well, there was only one vacant seat in the helicopter at that moment,"
said Lao Ye. "The helicopter was meant to carry the sick and wounded. 
You know, my wife and I were both okay---and safe!" 

"But don't you think that women should have been rescued first?" I
protested. "Your wife could have been scared to death, if there had 
been another storm last night." 

"My! I'm going back to her very soon. I've come out here to pay the
monthly huiqian. In my family, paying huiqian<7> has been my duty, not 
hers." 

Lao Ye always gave me interesting reasons or explanation whenever I felt
puzzled about what he had said or done. 

The other day I told him that I had found several maple trees near my
house so I wouldn't have to go as far as Ao-wan-da to see beautiful 
maple leaves. He said, "The maples in Ao-wan-da are really maples, 
called "feng" (·¬) in Chinese; but the maples near your house should be 
called "cu" (¼Ø) in Chinese. Look at their leaves carefully, and you'll 
see feng and cu are different, though very much alike."  <The End> 

================= 

Notes: 

<1> This story is fictitious; if it sounds like a true story, please
bear in mind that what a storyteller regards as "truth" exists in his 
imagination rather than in the real world. This is my first statement. 
And my second statement is like it: When reading this story, please pay 
attention to its invisible parts as well as its visible parts, for it's 
hard for a storyteller to tell all things he wants to tell. 

<2> The "hard-neck spirit" is pronounced as "ngang-kiang jinsin" in the
Hakka dialect. In Mandarin it is interpreted as "ying han, ying gutou" 
or literally translated as "ying-jing jingshen." 

<3> In those years students of the Teachers Junior College called
shi-zhuan did not have to pay any schooling fees; instead, they were 
given food, uniform clothing, lodging, and some "pocket money" by the 
government. 

<4> Literally, hao xin means "good heart, good intention" and hao bao
means "good reward." 

<5> The Yangtze, or formally called Chang Jiang, is the longest river in
China. Yellow Mountain, or Mt. Huangshan, situated in southeastern 
China, is famous for the uniquely shaped pines, the fantastic rock 
peaks, the sea of clouds and the hot springs. As to the 1000-Isle Lake 
(called Qiandaohu in Mandarin), it is not very far from Mt. Huangshan. 
We remember that a tourist group of 24 persons from Taiwan was 
tragically killed in a boat by three armed robbers on March 31st, 1994. 


<6> See also Note 5. 

<7> Huiqian is an mount of money one has to pay, usually per month, for
a particular "fund" organized by a group of friends and/or relatives 
who intend to help and to get help from the other members of the group. 



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