Our Heritage (V)

故事再繼續…

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Our Heritage #5: Why we are losing contacts with Grandma's side of male relatives

What your Grandma did after being booted out of the rented residence and food stall at Youn Lo market?

She went into a JV(*1) with her tenant at the Circle. I did not know what was the deal. Probably without any business to operate after losing the Youn Lo stall, your Grandma wanted the food stall back from the leaser at the Circle. The leaser were from Hsin-chu and was selling the pork meat ball that was quite famous at Hsin-chu; even, nowadays Hsin-chu meat ball still dominates the market. I believe your Grandma, instead of evacuating the leaser, opted to work together with them. The JV worked out pretty well for quite a few years until somehow the other party decided to quit the JV and let your Grandma became the sole owner. Again, I was too young to know what was breakup deal, but I know it was amiable breakup because the employee from Hsin-chu stayed on to work for your Grandma.

On the housing side, it was another story. By that time, your aunt Mei Chu, my cousin, LoLo and LiLi's mother, was successful in occupying and claiming one house vacated by the leaving Japanese. Again, it was wild-west-time for every one to jump in and claim the property left behind by the Japanese. All you need to do is to physically take over the site and produce something to prove or trying to prove that the Japanese left it for you. God knew what was true or not. The house very close to #1 lane 41 Chi-Feng St and at the today's value at least US$2,000,000.

Your Grandma's nature born parents invited your Grandma to share the house with them. All of them lived in the newly occupied Japanese house, your Grandma's parents, their two brothers, and two sisters. Your Grandma had to pay to join. Again it is the backend court yard of the house that your Grandma was offered to built a small wooden house to live in. The total cost about NT$5,000 to build. The time we spent there, although short and only for a little over one year, was one of the happiest time we ever had. That small wooden house accommodated, my Grandma (my father's mother), your Grandma, me, my sister, and normally two food stall employees. We were very happy because we finally lived under our own roof. I could still remember how we sang together. All those old Taiwanese songs your Grandma could sing and I could too.

The happy time was quickly turned into an ugly story. Two brothers were without steady jobs after the war. They wanted to sell the house to raise funds to go into business. The elder brother was a magician, and I was quite often his assistant. That's where I learned Magics from. You would be surprised at that time they had to invent and make all magic tools by themselves. I watched them, group of magicians, developed the idea, test-run, and completed the tools and skits. Quite interesting, not much different than the modern-day brainstorming or R&D.

Two brothers wanted to go into business as goldsmiths. One of magician brother had a client, a goldsmith, decided to become a magician. The deal was cut: the magician brother would help his client to become a magician, and the magician brother would become a goldsmith. A perfect job swap. And eventually both were successful in their ventures. Amazing. I saw it happen.

Now back to the ugly story. Two brothers wanted your Grandma to leave by tearing down the wooden house so that they could sell the house as was. No compensation what so ever. Your Grandma asked them to sell the wooden house in a bundle so that she could recover the building cost. The answer was NO. Again it was a very tearful experience for your Grandma and us. We eventually left the house and left two brothers forever. Your Grandma's parents were unable to help, so was LiLi's mother.

Another traumatic experience with relatives. Your Grandma, this time around, decided to have really a house of her own. She paid NT$10k for our first ever self owned house. I did not know how she did it. Obviously the food stall business at the Circle was doing well. I was always asked to pen the price list in black inks over the red paper. That was how the prices were changed.

And our first self owned house at #8 lane 52 chih-feng st also had a vacant back yard that was built into another smaller house and rented out all the time. Another of your Grandma scheme to make more money.

Your Grandma basically cut off relations with two brothers for years, but maintained fare relationship with two sisters. Both brothers had wives quite mean to your Grandma's nature born mother. Believe Susan can still remember her; she was quite a beauty, but fat. At the later days of her life, she liked to stay with us at #1 lane 41 chih-feng st because she was not welcomed by either one of her daughters in law. She would pretend that she needed to go back to his son's places, but within less than one day, she was back with us. We knew it, but we would pretend that she missed us and needed to stay with us. In fact, she had no place to stay. Years later, LiLI's mother was doing better, and she went to stay with her daughter and son-in-law most of the time. As to the two brothers' goldsmith shops; both were doing well except they could not keep it. None of their children are in gold business any more. And we lost touch completely.

The next episode will be about my and my sister's schooling. And your Grandma vs our educations.

(To be continued…)
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註釋：(*1) JV：Joint Venture，指合資進行某項生意或計劃… (多嘴解釋一下，以免有人不清楚，可偏字典裡找不到縮寫字…)