I don't know that piece of Taiwan's history, but when I look at it, I always feel like I'm watching a neighbor's house through the window, and this neighbor is closely related to me.
I remember going back to my hometown when I was a child, waking up at night, the lights in the main room were still on, my father and uncles were smoking and chatting, and the choking smell of tobacco came from the cracks in the door. At that time, growing up in a foreign land, I could not understand more than half of my native dialect. Stumbled and fell asleep again, and woke up again, the sky was already bright, aunts and aunts had already started to cook, the smell of bacon drifted over, and could no longer fall asleep.
While watching the movie, I remembered these past events, and even the smell of bacon filled the air. Where does the feeling of being so distant and unfamiliar, yet so close to the heart, come from? The Hakka dialect doesn't sound so bad anymore, it's a bit like the local accent that I didn't understand back then.
Just a feeling. A life in the past. A piece of Taiwanese history. We saw it, but couldn't afford to comment.
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