With an Amei Family 「跟一個阿美家」

During the Chinese New Year break, 2016 I got a chance a spend a day with a family living along the east coast south of Hualien.

If you have traveled along the east coast, you know what I am talking about. There are houses scattered along the coast facing the deep blue Pacific. Not being part of a congested Taiwanese township, they occupy a liberal amount of space. The family I visited lived in one such house in the middle of nowhere. It was a single-story fronted by a large porch and a garden.  There was another garden on its lateral side. On the other side stood the house of their only neighbor.

An infectious openness pervaded the house. A delicate sense of privacy could be detected in few matters. Being CNY, almost all the family members had gathered at one place. I was handed a bike to explore the vicinity. The bike didn't have a lock. It didn't matter.

I came back around three in the afternoon. Soon I joined a group of men sitting out in the porch. They  were friendly, and had little inhibition while expressing themselves or talking to me. They'd pass around a bottle of 小米酒 and munch on nuts while talking. They were loud, they were hilarious. 

Their stories had an elemental freshness; they didn't have many contextual or cultural overtones. Their interaction wasn't delimited by social niceties or shaped by formality. It took little effort to connect to them.

As it got dark, the sea in front us disappeared behind the glow of streetlights. One could still feel the vastness of it as it dissolved cacophony of tiny human settlements into its roaring bosom. The evening and the night involved consumption of copious amounts of alcohol and food. Loud guffaws of laughter occasionally tore into the stillness of the dark. Unconcerned by statutes of an urban society, in the lap of nature, surrounded by people I didn't know a day ago, I don't remember the last time I felt so liberating.

過年時我遇到一位住在東岸的人。他邀請我來他家一起吃飯。

台灣的東岸有幾個零散的面對海的房子。他們不屬於一個擁擠的鄉鎮，而是位於開闊空間。我拜訪的那個大片房子也是這種的。在個大的前廊前面有個菜園。他一邊有另外一個菜園，一邊有唯一鄰居的家。

房子裡瀰漫著開放性。他們平凡的生活裡難以感覺到隱私的元素。因過年而家人都來聚集。我朋友給我一個腳踏車探索鄰區。那台腳踏車不能鎖起來。沒有人在乎。

我三點回來再加入坐在前廊的人。他們又熱情又直言不諱。他們一邊吃小吃，一邊從寶特瓶輪流的和小米酒。他們相當搞笑。他們講的故事有簡易性的感覺，沒有任何以文化為複雜的元素。他們的話題不是以應酬為範圍限制的。雖然我完全不了解他們的背景或是文化，我輕易的跟他們連結。

日落後海洋路燈的光芒後黑暗中消失了。你以驚濤咆哮的聲音與其他聲音的缺席中還是會感覺到海洋的出席。哪一個晚上大家都酗酒宴飲。偶爾哄笑的聲音會撕破黑暗的沉寂。那一晚上我對當時本人生活的情況完全無動於衷。在大自然的懷抱裡，跟前一天完全不認識的人中，我陶醉在剛發現的解放了。