Speech: My Hometown
Distinguished toastmaster, fellow members and honored guests,
Good evening, I’m Vera. It’s a pleasure to be in such great company.
Today, I want to share with you the happy memories growing up at my grandparents’ home in the beautiful countryside of Sichuan, China. The house was surrounded by lush green farmland. Time seemed to stand still there.
Every morning, I would wake up to my grandma’s voice, calling my name, “Lin Lin ah…” from the yard, while the dog barks and the cock crows. Her voice will cut through the noise and reach me. Till today, I have wonder how she managed to wake me up every day in the morning chaos.
In the countryside, most people work as farmers, and my family was no exception. We used traditional tools and techniques to work the land. But I am not diligent enough to do it. So what do I normally do on the farm? I take care of a bull. In Mandarin, this is call Fang niu! As you know, bulls are used to plough the land, to flip it over before laying down seeds to grow plants. My responsibility here is to ensure that the bull was well-fed.
One of the main challenges of feeding a bull is that there are some types of grass that is not suitable for it to eat. These types of grass will fill the bulls tummy but it would not really provide it with nutrients. So when I see the bull grazing on the unhealthy junk food grass,I would drag it to some place. This needs plenty of strength since the bull weighs over 500 kg and it likes to eat that kind of tasty grass. On top of that, I have to be careful to ensure it is not mad, in case, it drags me on a bull run.
Sometimes, I will fall asleep while the bull is eating, only to wake up and find it had wandered off. I would have to search for it, high and low, over mountains and fields, or else I cannot go home. There were also times when the bull was picky about its food, so we had to walk a long way to find the tastiest grass to keep it satisfied.
Besides taking care of the bull, I would help my grandparents in the fields. They often work on the fields for a whole day and keep the same posture, half bending down to plant, half squatting down to remove grass and at the same time walk through the field. Their dedication and hard work never failed to impress me. It was a labor-intensive task with patience, and persistence. Perhaps, through it, this is how the perseverance and strong work ethnic, is pass down generation to generations among Chinese.
Around our yard, there were numerous fruit trees, such as loquats, pomelos, and walnuts. During the loquat season in June, we would pick batches of the fruit. While the lower branches were easily accessible, on taller branches, I had to climb up ladders and step on branches to reach the fruits. My grandmother, now 85 years old, would even help me climb the trees. However, loquats couldn’t be stored for long without using preservatives. We had to eat them every day, or else the birds would feast on them.
Watermelons were another fruit we had in abundance, but they were grown in sandy fields instead of black soil. Each field would have around 50 - 100 watermelons. Collecting them meant transporting them back to the house. I often wondered why we had so many watermelons, but during those times, they served as our main source of hydration.In contrast, when I came to Singapore, I only get to eat smaller slices of watermelon sold at the fruit stores.
At night, usually there is no air con in the room. I will turn on the fans to cool down the room. If it was hot inside the room, I would sleep on a grass mat on the top floor. Looking up at the starry sky, with only the sounds of nature around me, there is a sense of peace and serenity.
Thank you for listening to my memories of my grandparents’ home in the Sichuan countryside. I hope you enjoy this story. Thank you!
Clap Clap Clap, thunderous claps….
