In the country side of Taiwan, there are lots of village named after family name, like Lin's village, Chang's village, and etc. And I, I was grown up in Jiang's village. As I can remember, more than half of my elementary school classmates are inherited the same family name. Hence, in my little mind, I thought Jiang is a big family name. Years after, and moved to bigger city, just found that my last name is just a small part of this big society. I believe that many people also have big family, but how do you connect with your family? Now it's not a strange thing if you don't know you have cousins, uncles, or aunties out there because we really didn't see each other often, even never met. But my big family is not. We have strong connections, especially when there are some special occasions or events.
In late Aug 2006, the date I got married. My wedding was held in Taipei, at my church. My dad rent a travel bus for the whole family. Grand parents, Grand Uncles, Uncles, Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, Nieces, Nephews, and many in-laws. They all the way came here to celebrate my wedding. It's crowded, but really sweet. Jiang's (Dad's family name) and Lai's (Mom's family name) family are together.
Sometimes I wondered which power to connect my whole family, and I realized that my parents are one of the key points. If they didn't involve and proactively take lead in the family activities, we won't have so strong connected relationship with this big family. My wedding is just one of the examples.
In Jul 2007, my grandfather's 80-years-old birthday. My dad invited all the uncles, aunties, and their families to celebrate grandpa's birthday. This is Lai's family gathering. Dad always shows his filial devotion to the grandparents, my Mom's parents. I guess that because Dad lost his own parents when he was 5, and since then, he was just like an adopted kid under his uncle's custody, and I guess he never had the real parenting. Heard from Mom, Taiwan society back to 60 years ago is not like now so focus on children's right of living and caring. Though my Dad was not abused, but he had to share life burden, absent from class all the time to help his uncle during busy time of the farms. Even so, he was still at the top of the class, and depended on the county scholarship to paid off his tuition. Therefore, when he was graduated from elementary school, his teacher encouraged Dad to continue his study, and will be responsible for my Dad's tuition and living expenses. Not sure what exact reasons were, my Dad didn't take his teacher's offer, and decide to share life burden of his uncle. I believe in Dad's first 30-year life, it definitely was touch and difficult, until he met Mom and Lai's family. Grandfather is a farmer too, and also living in a moderate life. But after Dad and Mom got married, grandpa helped our family so much, and I guess that was also the first time my Dad finally knew what parenting is alike.
Grandpa's 80-year-old birthday party, four generations of the family. Life is like this, one generation after another. (two people missed in the picture, one is my husband who is working in China then, and one is my cousin who is on shift in Taipei)
If I have so called "Family Concept", I believe it must come from my parents. We are a normal family just like any others, and we never lack of love no matter the family is in a good time or hard time. When I was young, I always questioned in my mind why Dad and Mom pushed us so much in study and behaved life. Now I understand that it is the process of character built. They are not wishing us to be rich, but wishing us to enrich our life and mind.
My parents have four daughters, and I am the youngest one. In the old society, 4 daughters is not unusual, but without any son is another story. Born in Jiang's traditional big family, Mom did experience lots of pressure of criticism of not having a boy baby. But Dad proved to the family community that even we are out of people's expectation of "perfect" family, we still are perfect family, with super strong of connections. Now, my sisters and I all got married, but we still get gather from time to time. Dad's birthday, Mom's birthday, Father's Day, Mother's Day, and so on so forth. We always find some occasions for us to get together. In Aug 2007, we arranged a two-day family trip, 2 grandparents, 4 couples, and 6 little kids. Since when, my small sweet family is getting into a big but still sweet family too.
I used to think that I am so independent and might not be the family guy. But from time to time, I realized, family concept is already embedded and sculptured in my soul. Now, I have my own family too, just Jackie and I, starting with a very small one. However we told each other, no matter how small or how big our family will be in future, we will be lasting our treasury family concept forever.
And I am so happy that I can have a husband with the same family concept too. Then, we have the same goal, the same pace to go on and go on to make our family stronger and sweeter.
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