The Time to Live and the Time to Die
This film
is some memories from my youth
particularly impressions of my father
¡°My father came from Mei County, Canton Province¡±
In 1947
on the 40th day after my birth
He led a ball team to Guangzhou for the Provincial Games
He was the Educational Secretary of Mei County
In Guangzhou he met an old classmate
¡°from Chung-shan University, Li Kuai¡±
¡°At the time, Li Kuai was¡±
the mayor of Taichung City
He asked if my father
would move to Taiwan to be his Head Secretary
One year later
my father wrote home saying
¡°This is a good place. There's tap water.¡±
He asked my mother to bring the family over
In 1949
My father was transferred to Taipei Educational Bureau
as the Supervisor
We lived in Hsin-chu at the time
Because of the humidity up north
My father suffered from asthma
When I was in the first grade
We moved to Fengshan in the south
for the sake of my father's health
My grandmother was always wrapping silver papers
She said the paper money was to be used in heaven
She was already over 80 at the time
My father was very pious
Every time we had dinners
he wouldn't start to eat until grandmother came
¡°But everyday at meal time,¡±
grandma would be out to looking for me
Grandmother was especially good to me
Because when I was little a fortune teller said
I was to become a great official
¡°My nickname in Fengshan, ¡±Ah-ha
came from grandmother's calling of me
Ah-ha-gu! Ah-ha-gu! Ah-ha-gu! Ah-ha-gu!
Ah-ha! Did you take the $5 in the purse?
I don't know
¡°You don't know. If not you, who else?¡±
Did you take it?
No
You're lying
Tell me
Where is it?
I didn't take it
Lair
How dare you! Come down here
Your feet are so dirty
Get down!
Where is it?
It's gone
Nonsense
Where is it?
I buried it here
and put a brick over it
Still lying?
It's true! I'm not lying
What kind of man will you turn out to be after growing up
Here. Over here!
Grandma
¡°Grandma, where are you going?¡±
Go back
To find Ah-ha-gu
I can't recognize the road
Ah-Hsiao
Nothing
She hasn't paid me yet
Hasn't paid you yet?
Go get it at the house!
Don't read that while you eat
Go over it once before and another time after dinner
ABC. ABC
Frog with curry
¡°Lai¡±is come
¡°Chu¡±is go
¡°Wo bu chi¡±
I don't know
¡°Yi ke yang chien,¡±one dollar
ABC. ABC
Frog with curry
¡°Lai¡± is come
¡°Chu¡± is go
¡°Wo bu chi¡±
I don't know
¡°Yi ke yang chien,¡± one dollar
If you were not a good man in your past life, yourson will be your daughter-in-law
What do you know?
Ah-hsiao! Ah-hsiao
Bath time
You go. I'll wash them
Ah-hsiao! It's okay
You'll find a way when you're older
Kids
1.6 kg
This is mine
I have more than you do
¡°Ah-ha, Ah-ha-gu¡±
Come here
Grandma's going to take you back to the mainland
I don't want to go
Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Big cock!
Alright. Alright. It's my turn
You're dead
¡°Ah-ha, save it¡±
Nice
First class
OK
Don't bother us if you can't play
Don't let him in
What do you cry for?
Ignore him
¡°Come on, come. It's my turn¡±
In an air battle today over the Matsu Strait
Our courageous Air Force pilots
downed 5 Communist MIG 17's and damaged two others
This glorious combat will serve as the greatest gift
to all of our country men
on this Double Tenth National Day
Despite being outnumbered
our courageous Air Force pilots were determined in combat
Glorifying the spirit of revolutionary battle
They have won the hearts of all our countrymen
¡°In particular, Colonel Chang Nei-chun¡±
¡°In the heat of the combat, to save a nearby aircraft from enemy fire¡±
¡°thinking not of himself, he rammed his plane into a communist craft¡±
His patriotic and glorious sacrifice
has once again glorified the revolutionary spirit
of our forefathers
the spirit of sacrifice and struggle
writing down the most glorious page in our Air Force history
President Chiang hosted the 47th National Day Celebration Ceremony
at 10 o'clock this morning
¡°in the Presidential Building,¡±
and announced the news of voctory¡­
Chien-yuan is in Qinman
How come we haven't heard from him for so long?
I wrote him last month
It's probably the restrictions in the war zone
Every time I wrote him before
It took at most a week for his return letter
What are you talking about?
¡°Chien-yuan, Chiu-ming's son¡±
¡°Oh, Chien-yuan!¡±
It's sad what happened to his dad
I was in Canton attending Chungshan University. I lived in his place
¡°At the time, he was the brigade captain¡±
¡°One day,¡±
he suddenly contracted malaria
I took a rickshaw to buy him medicine
The rickshaw boy suddenly stumbled
smashing the rickshaw light
I had an ominous feeling
because he stumbled right in front of a coffin store
The day Chiu-ming died
his wife had just given birth to Chien-yuan
She smelled something fishy in her room
and asked her to mother if the fish peddler had come
They went to look. There was no body there
¡°That night,¡±
the chickens that the Changs brought
over as a present began crowing at night
¡°Grandma said,¡± take it to the three-road intersection
to cut off its head so the bad luck would go
We are going to recover the mainland!
Liar!
How come I haven't heard the news?
That's what the teacher said!
¡°I'll shoot you, I'm telling you¡±
Move away! Stop looking!
There's hot water over there. Take your bath
¡°One family, one foot of mouth¡±
That's a lot of food every day
Your father's salary
is 620 dollars per month
He keeps 20 for the barber and his own spending
600 is for the family
Food¡­ the doctor¡­
Your father is in poor health
¡°Even if you teach, you still have to get married¡±
We have so many children in the family
¡°As the eldest, you have to sacrifice¡±
The Teachers' Academy is free
¡°And after graduating, you can be a teacher¡±
What do girls need all that education for?
You just have to be able to cook, sew, and help the farm work
That will be enough
She's not talking about me
She's talking about Ah-chung
One person attending Teachers' Academy is enough
But it would be a pity if An-chung can't go to university
¡°Ah-chung, if you want to study more,¡±
do it yourself
Your father started teaching after he finished high school
And he wound up going to university ¡°Before that,¡±
he went to South Asia to learn business with uncle Chin
¡°He studied whenever he had time,¡±
while others play instead
Uncle Chin knew your dad wasn't the business type
and told him to go back to Guangzhou for college
He got accepted by Chung-shan University
Where's it from?
Auntie An
From South Africa?
What does she say?
Ah-ching-gu stopped going to school after third grade
The Communists threw him out of his house
said he had bad background
They're doing some movement called ¡°Three Red Flags¡±
They took all of the iron in our hometown
¡°Knives, pots, door handles, nails¡±
even the fire tongs and everything
There's no iron-smelting
Now they have a pile of junk iron
If only we had brought him out with us¡­
Did Ah-ha get into the middle school?
Don't know yet. He went to school to find if he's passed
I'm sorry! I'm sorry!
Alright. Stop crying!
What happened?
Didn't pass
Crying just because they didn't pass?
How do you know if you passed or not?
The teacher just came
Chen Yen Didn't pass so she's crying
¡°Mom, I passed!¡±
Really?
I got into Provincial Fengshan Middle School
There was a chalk mark on my desk
The teacher said that means you passed
That's great!
Go tell your father
¡°Dad, I passed!¡±
I got into Provincial Fengshan Middle School
There was a chalk mark on my desk
The teacher said that means you passed
What? A check?
His teacher said he used a chalk to mark the desks
of those who has passed the entrance exams
Good! Then you must study hard
Yes
¡°Ah-chu, what happened to Ah-ha?¡±
He made it into the Provincial Fengshan Middle School
Ah-ha!
You made it!
Right!
This is for you
You are so good
¡°Ah-chung, when will you know about your exam?¡±
End of the month
Ah-hsiao made it on his brains and luck
He's always had the best luck
¡°When we lived in Hsin-chu,¡±
remember I went to Taipei to take the exam for the First Girls' High School?
I was going to take the train myself
But Ah-hsiao insisted on tagging along
Remember when they used to sell red bean popsicles on the train?
The ones wrapped in red?
Really good
Ah-hsiao kept saying he wanted one
So I had to spend 50 cents to buy one
And he didn't even give me a bite
I didn't feel like asking him for any
I remember Mom told me to look for Ah-chen at the train station
Remember? The M.P.?
¡°When I found him,¡± he said that I was really capable
lmagining a girl traveling so far to take the exam
Then he took me on his bike to father's office
on Chung-ching South Road
¡°The next day,¡±
Dad took me to the exam
I bumped into my teacher
in front of the school
The one you said was nice
¡°After that, I went back to Hsin-chu to wait for the result¡±
Dad came back from Taipei
I went outside to welcome him that day
¡°He kept laughing when he saw me, but didn't say anything¡±
So I asked him:
¡°Did I pass?¡±
Dad said:
¡°Yes. You passed!¡±
Then he started getting proud
He was talking about¡­
whose daughter didn't make it¡­ whose daughter failed¡­
Later he told me
that I was No. 41 on the whole list
I scored 100 in math!
What a pity!
I couldn't go to Taipei for First Girls' High
How good it would be if I could've gone
Ah-ha
¡°Grandma's going to take you back to mainland, OK?¡±
Come on!
Take the big road
¡°Before long, you pass a dike,¡±
then you get to the Mekong Bridge
¡°A little further down the road,¡±
¡°and you get to our village, Wanshia¡±
What do we go back to the mainland for?
Stupid!
Grandma's taking you to the ancestral shrine
so you can pay homage to our ancestors!
Old lady¡­
Can you tell me where the Mekong Bridge is?
The Mekong Bridge!
What's she saying? What does she want?
I can't understand what she's talking about
What?
You don't know?
Mekong Bridge! In Mei County!
Mekong Bridge?
Did she say ¡°bridge¡±? What bridge?
You don't know?
Can you understand?
I don't know
¡°If you can't understand, how can I?¡±
¡°Grandma, there're guavas!¡±
Let's pick some
You try
Not so high
Try again
¡°Huilan, is the power out?¡±
Yes!
Get some candles
Mom
Dad
¡°Mom, hurry!¡± What's wrong?
Fen-ming!
¡°Mom, the doctor is here¡±
I'm sorry
There's nothing I can do
Fen-ming!
¡°Ah-chung, bring the boys over to hold father's hand¡±
ice upon a time, a man passed away
When his family looked after his body
A cat walked in
And jumped across the dead body
The dead body sat up then
So when you're looking after a dead body, You can never let a cat in
The captain in my army once said When they were fighting the Japanese
What?
When they were fighting the Japanese
A lot of people were killed
One day, a man died in the army
is dead body also sat up after a cat jumped acros
The body even chased people
Chased people?
He hugged whomever he saw
Someone who knew this kind of thing and gave him something to hug
He lied down when he got the thing to hug
Don't know why
Some people say there might be a kind of electricity in the cats
Yin
Might be Yin
Weird
There are a lot of these weird stuffs
¡°Ah-chu, go take your bath¡±
I already did
¡°Then Ah-hsiao, you go¡±
Fen-ming!
What?
He's playing dumb
He said he's a street peddler and doesn't earn much
¡°Come on, his business is good¡±
What'll we do? Let's corner him!
Right! Corner him!
Right!
¡°When he leaves, we corner him¡±
Let's do it this way
Ah-shui, you go over there with Ah-hou
There! OK!
Le-gu, go to the end of the road
Let me see the one with pictures
I'm going home No more business today
¡°Ah-shui, what the hell!¡±
Can't even stop a motorcycle?
So what's the use of being fat?
What the hell are you standing there for? Let's go!
Let's go!
Thank you!
Thank you! That time he fell from the roof
His legs had different length
I didn't know what to do
I almost sent him to the Chinese martial place
Fortunately I ran into you
¡°Otherwise, the child would have suffered¡±
His brother's home
Ah-hsiao, come
This is Mr. Liu
How are you?
¡°Huilan, Mr. Liu is leaving¡±
Goodbye
Watch your steps
Goodbye
You have to wash it first