Three Years in Penghu

After we reached Penghu and left Magong harbour, the unit sent a vehicle to meet us. Mr Zhang, a classmate of my husband’s, came along in the same car. He took us into town first for breakfast, then to the village where they lived, called Dongwei Li.

Before we moved, we had written asking him to help find a house, so when we arrived we moved straight into the place. It was the end unit of a three-wing courtyard house. The room was tiny, about two and a half ping. After putting in one bed, the only space left was for a dining table. Cooking had to be done under the eaves by the door.

We managed there for half a month, looking for a house every day. Later we found an empty room behind the Lü family’s three-wing house, about five ping, square, built of coral stone from the Penghu seabed. Two thirds of the space was a shared sleeping platform; the remaining third held a cupboard for bowls that could also serve as a dining table.

On the right-hand wall as you entered there was a window. Outside was a pigsty, so we often heard pigs. There was nothing for it; you got used to the noise. Penghu folk of the older generation were reluctant to rent to women about to give birth. Mrs Wang, seven months pregnant, moved in; the next day the landlord began asking her to find another place. I heard they would rather rent to someone near death than to someone about to have a baby—a strange idea. They explained that if a tenant gave birth in the house, the landlord’s fortune would be split and luck would turn bad. With the landlord saying so, Mr Wang had to look elsewhere.

They found nothing in Dongwei Li or Shiquan Li. In a third village, Cailiao, someone finally was not superstitious and would rent to the Wang family. In her third month in Cailiao Mrs Wang gave birth to their third child, a boy; mother and baby were fine.

When the baby was seven or eight months old the Wangs found a way to move back to Dongwei Li and live near us, because commuting from Dongwei Li to the Gongbeishan unit was much shorter than from Cailiao. Once things were settled my husband wrote to my father in Lukang, saying our family was safe and our grandson was already over two, asking the old man not to worry.

Father was delighted to get the letter. He wrote back and sent a parcel of food for the child. I wept, moved, knowing Father still loved and cared for us. In the 1950s, apart from electric lights on Magong’s main streets, every other village used kerosene lamps.

We had used kerosene lamps on Dadu Mountain too, so it was nothing new. But Penghu summers sometimes brought drought with no rain. When the wells ran dry, people in Shiquan Li and Cailiao had to go to Dongwei Li to fetch water; occasionally they even fought over it. I went after lunch, when others were resting. By then the well was nearly dry; only in the deepest crack in the stone lining did spring water trickle out like a tap.

We tied a rope to the bucket, lowered it to catch water, and when it was full hauled it up and poured it into a larger tub. Two full tubs and we carried them home. That hard work came only in the rainless summers. On ordinary days the well had water and you could fetch any time without queuing. In the photograph, the house with a door at the back is the place we rented. This picture of our son was also taken at our doorway. People on Penghu island were warm to us and looked after newcomers well.

I thought buying a sewing machine and taking in dressmaking might be a good way to earn. My husband agreed. We went together to Magong town, spent six hundred dollars on a machine, and bought two pattern-cutting guides.

I had only sewn from ready-cut pieces before and could not cut patterns. With those two books I studied the instructions hard. They explained many styles of flat-pattern cutting clearly and in detail; I understood quickly.

Back at home I studied the books again, asked others for old newspapers, drew measured sizes on the paper in red pencil, cut the patterns slowly, laid the paper on cloth, traced with tailor’s chalk, checked carefully, and cut the fabric. I started with trial shirts and trousers for my son. When those worked I made my own dresses, narrow skirts, and western-style trousers—all successfully.

Those two books gave me confidence. From then on I ran a small home tailoring business. That sewing machine and the two guides stayed with me from 1953 to 1980. In 1969, two days after our second child graduated from nursing school, she started work. In 1978 our eldest son married and set up his own home; after that the eldest and second son took over the family finances.

Though the third, fourth, and fifth were still at university, I no longer had to struggle so hard.

So the sewing machine and the two books retired with me.

My husband and I went to Taipei in 1981 to dote on grandchildren.