Memories of Summer in the Village Beyond the Reeds
蘆竹後的夏日回憶 : A diary comic and a collection of childhood memories
I’ve been slowly working on this wordless diary comic on and off for almost two years somehow? It was the first comic project I started (but never finished) and between feeling uncertain about storytelling through the form of comics and wanting it to be perfect, it took a long time to get here. But I’m finally ready to share it.
I was born in California and raised in Seattle and Singapore, but I spent many of my summer breaks growing up in Hong Kong and Taiwan visiting both sides of my family. I have especially fond memories of summers in 大德村 Dade (pronounced DAH-duh) Village, my mom’s hometown. There’s something really special about childhood summers, but maybe I cherished these even more because they were such a contrast to the big cities I’ve lived in my entire life.
Dade Village is a very small village in southwestern Taiwan, in Dapi Township, Yunlin County. My mom’s childhood home is surrounded by rice paddies, plentiful fruit trees and mountains that frame the endless sky in the distance. The local specialty is 酸菜 pickled mustard greens and 80% of Taiwan’s pickled mustard greens production is made here! One of my favorite things to do when visiting is to go for long bike rides in the countryside, and a core part of these memories is the tang of pickling greens carried by the summer breeze as I passed by the pickling preservation pools. When it was especially hot, my brother and I would ride our bikes to 土地公廟 the Temple of the God of Earth, a shaded oasis in a sea of rice fields, for some cool water from the water pump beneath a large banyan tree.
Having spent my entire life living far from extended family, in the US and in Singapore, I’m definitely not able to visit as much as I would like. But every now and then, a small and ordinary experience whisks me back. A sip of an ice-cold Yakult always transports me to my Ah Ma and Ah Gong’s (grandma and grandpa’s) kitchen. The sound of cicadas in the trees reminds of me of long summer walks through the countryside.
I wanted to create this diary comic as a way to collect and preserve memories that I have of childhood summers in the Taiwanese countryside. What makes these even more special to me is that my mom grew up sharing many of these experiences in her childhood, even though we had completely different life paths. It makes me think about layers of past and future lives, and walking in the footsteps of our ancestors.
As a whole, this diary comic represents moments that span from dawn to dusk on a perfect summer’s day:
The facade of my mom’s childhood home, the smell of the incense Ah Ma lights for her morning prayers, going to the market with Ah Ma, visiting Ah Gong’s fish stall
Luffa growing in the family garden, the gate that marks the entrance to our village, birds sit atop telephone lines, a cat perches upon the rooftop
Joss paper burning for our ancestors, Ah Gong harvests longan from the tree in front of our house, fields of golden mustard flowers, the smell of tea eggs kept warm in 7-11
An endless sea of rice that moves with the wind, catching cicadas, little egrets hunt for food in the rice paddies, racing paper boats in the canals when it rains
The smell of rice cooking in Ah Ma’s Tatung, spotting geckos on the walls at night, bats flit through the sky as the sun sets, Ah Gong lights sparklers for us to dance with
✦ Further notes ✦
When sharing this comic with my mom and talking about how best to translate the title from English to Mandarin, we made some discoveries together and I learned a lot more about her home.
I had always known the village she had grown up in as 大德村 Dade Village, which is the Mandarin name. My mom told me that in Taiwanese, the village name is actually 蘆竹後 which translates to ‘the village beyond the reeds’, and dates back to at least the Qing Dynasty. It’s such a beautifully poetic name! This name was only changed to Dade Village in more recent decades, but locals still use its original name, especially when speaking in Taiwanese. My mom wasn’t sure when exactly this change was made when I asked. After doing some research, we found that it had happened in 1974.
While reading through old documents, my mom also found information on 三山國王廟 the King of Three Mountains Temple, a large Taoist temple near her village that I love visiting every time I’m back. She read that it had been built in 1809 after $8,000 was raised collectively by over 53 villages between two counties. It was such a surprise to learn this! My brother and I would bike to this temple to watch the turtles and fish swim in its intricate fountain as kids. I had absolutely no idea that we were running around and exploring halls that were over 200 years old. I honestly would have guessed it was 100 years old, at most!
Learning new things and sharing stories with my mom really just further cemented the layers of meaning and memory in this comic for me, and I’m so grateful to have this experience.
✦ Recommended reading + listening ✦
Several years ago I came across Inner Distance, an album that No Distance (aka Emma Palm) created, described as a “gift to my mom, a way to bridge the distance between and within us”. Through a blend of field recordings from their respective locations (California and Taiwan), connections through time and space are woven and the result is beautiful. I think this album shares a lot of similarity with the intentions behind my comic, and I highly recommend giving it a listen!
My second recommendation is not currently out yet! Even so, I wanted to recommend Made in Taiwan, a cookbook by Taipei-based food journalist
that’s out September 19th. I’m so excited to read this book that celebrates Taiwan’s unique culinary identity, including deeply researched essays and more than 100 recipes inspired by the people who live in Taiwan today. It will be extra special, because I coincidentally found out that my mom’s hometown is profiled in the book, in a chapter on pickles!!
What beautiful illustrations!! Thank you for the shout-out :)