(She is the Rainy Night Flower)
Rainy Night Flower (or ‘the Torment of a Flower) is a song written in the 30s, composed in Taiwanese dialect. The song was in my “xiāng-tǔ Education” textbook when I was around 10 (xiāng-tǔ could mean ‘homeland’, the subject teaches Taiwanese dialect, culture and literature). The teacher told us that our a-gōng a-mà (grandpa grandma) would know the song. One day after school, her room was lit with the orange beams of sunset, I showed a-mà the song. We sang the song together. As we sang, I saw her eyes red and moist. I wasn’t sure why then, but I might have come closer in understanding now. This is for her, my late a-mà.
This is an attempt to write in the Taiwanese dialect. I have also tried to translate in English — see below.
雨夜花 原諒我無閣講妳的話
妳隨土轉去時
刻在妳的手上 是阮細漢的時光
日夜抿洗的饒痕 菜刀佮噴油的痕影
刻在妳的手上 是阮自私的童年
阮毋知 隨妳化為塵土的
是阮的大漢的家
嘛是妳辛苦的一生
是妳在舊港的童年
是妳離鄉背井的故事
妳嫁雞隨雞
佇內鬧熱富足的臺北
漏水的厝內
細算心酸
佮幸福的夢
日日抿洗 照顧孩兒
咁有人會知影
阮的故事
雨夜花 原諒我無閣講妳的話
阮有筆有紙有電腦
紀錄國外的風景 別人的故事
煞袂記 咱的雨夜花
花開花落 無聲的一生
是共款離葉離枝離家的故事
—
rainy night flower, forgive me
that I no longer speak your language
when you return to the soil
the times of our childhood
carved on your hands
wrinkled with the washing
of days and nights
scarred with hot oil of the frying pan
the cuts of the kitchen knife
our selfish childhood
carved on your hands
we don’t know
what followed you into the dust and soil
was not only the home we grew up
but a lifetime of pain and toil
your childhood in Kū-káng (the Old Port)
your story of leaving home
you followed whom you married (so the idiom goes, ‘you marry a chicken, you follow a chicken; marry a dog, follow the dog’)
In Taipei, bustling and prosperous
under the roof that leaks
counting heartsore
and those happy dreams
days and days
of washing
and caring for the children
would anyone know my stories?
rainy night flower, forgive me
that I no longer speak your language
we have pens papers and computers
yet as we
note landscapes abroad
write stories of others
we forget that
our rainy night flower
blossomed and withered
a life with no sound
is the story of leaving leaves and branches
the same story of leaving home
It was not until Cristina mentioned that we don’t have enough of women’s stories of migration that I started to think of a-mà’s life as a migrant’s life — from a village to a city, hoping to build a better life. I wish I had thought of asking her about her life before she’s gone, but I was too young and self-obsessed. I asked my dad before writing, and heart-broken for what I received. Not only because of the poverty and violence she had gone through, but because of the silent endurance — that even those who were closest to her didn’t know about her dreams.
