My Eldest Brother in Memory

Eldest Brother was the only boy born to my own mother. When I was in my first year of primary school, he was already at Taichung First Middle School.

Under Japanese rule there was no separate junior and senior secondary school; after primary school you went straight into middle school. Father was working in Hemei, Changhua—a small town—so the whole family, and his teachers and headmaster, were delighted that Eldest Brother had got into Taichung First Middle School. I remember one summer holiday when he came home from school, Father gave him a small film projector and a little camera. He learned to operate them quickly, then started playing at running a cinema.

Behind the house there was a sitting room. Eldest Brother put a desk there and set the projector on the desk, and he was ready to show films. I was in first year and Third Sister in third. Eldest Brother sent Third Sister and me to invite the neighbours’ children and classmates from our own classes.

Each screening could only seat fifteen viewers; any more and he declared the house full. A ticket was one dime—for fun. The films were Japanese cartoons; the title was Ninja, and the hero’s name was Sarutobi Sasuke. The films were wonderful.

After each show the children still wanted more, but Eldest Brother’s time was limited because his schoolwork kept him busy, so he had to tell everyone: see you next summer holiday. All three years he was at Taichung First, when he came home in summer he would always make time to play with us and take our photographs. In those days, after you took a photo you had to take the film to a darkroom to develop—it was nothing like today. Eldest Brother was not yet twenty, but he was very clever; anything that interested him he would learn—showing films, photography, and later riding at the racecourse.

Showing films and taking photographs were what Eldest Brother did with us children when he came home from Taichung First in the summer; the riding display happened after he graduated from the Tropical Medical College and was waiting at home. The town was holding a harvest festival that needed many acts, and he signed up. Eldest Brother rode so well that sitting on the horse’s back he could gallop and slide down from the saddle, hug the horse’s belly, and vanish from view above the horse while it kept running. People on both sides of the road stared dumbfounded; we thought Eldest Brother was marvellous.

Eldest Brother went to the Tropical Medical College because Stepmother said the household was large, Father was a civil servant, and his income only covered daily expenses—there was no money to send Eldest Brother to university. Eldest Brother’s teacher had originally urged Father to let him sit the entrance exam for National Taiwan University’s medical school, because with his grades he was sure to pass and would become a doctor after graduation. But Stepmother’s words disappointed Eldest Brother, and he never brought up NTU medical school again. Later Stepmother saw a newspaper advertisement: the Japanese military had founded a Tropical Medical College with full funding—three years of study, then three years of internship in the South Seas, and on return you could obtain a doctor’s licence and open a clinic.

Stepmother showed the newspaper to Father, and Father showed it to Eldest Brother. Keen to become a doctor, he sat the Tropical Medical College entrance exam and passed smoothly. After graduation he went to the South Seas for his internship. No one expected that the ship would be sunk by American forces. That was how Eldest Brother met his death. Even now Third Sister still blames Stepmother for that suggestion.