我的漢人老師 9 /My Han Teacher 9

Plum Blossoms

January, our village is decorated with beautiful plum blossoms. From the distance, our teacher sees the blossoms spreading across the hills. She is excited like the first graders who have their very first field trip.

    "I don't know you have Mei-hwa (Asian plums)  here. Beautiful blossoms!"

    "Teacher, they are not Mei-hwa, they are plum blossoms. They look similar, but they      grow different fruits."Dai says.

    "Really?" the teacher says, "I've never seen plum blossoms. They look like a swarm        of butterflies in the hills, soooo beautiful!"

    "I think they're more like popcorns!" Dan says. We all laugh. We know how much he      likes food.

  “You want to see the blossoms?" Dai asks the teacher, "we have some plum trees          beside the house. You can come and take a look ."

The teacher's eyes glisten when she hears this, and says, "that'll be wonderful. I'd love to see."

Dai takes our teacher to his house on Saturday.  After stepping out of the side door, the view of the blossoms stands right in front of us. The teacher's mouth drops and her eyes wide open. She looks exactly like us when we first saw the popcorns. She buries her nose inside the flowers, inhales the fragrance with her eyes close like the grownups saying prayers in our church. Then she takes a closer look at the flowers and even counts the petals like we count our fingers in the math class. 

We are surprised when the teacher takes out a camera and starts taking pictures. Cameras are cool and we are all curious because not many of us have seen or even hold a real camera before. The teacher lets us play with the camera for a while and let us take pictures of her. She takes a lot of pictures of the blossoms. Not long, Dai and his sister begin to model for her pictures.

After picture taking, the teacher looks around and looks down. "Look, it's our school!" she points to the direction where the school is, then takes more pictures. 

     "You can see the whole school here!"she cries out, " you can even see the whole             village. " 

Her eyes first fix on the school, then slowly move along the only road of the village to the end of the village, where the mountains stand. It's like she's taking pictures with her eyes, slowly, fame by fame, and storing all the images in her head. 

Then to our surprise, she lies down on the ground, just like that, not caring too much about the mess and dirt. Her eyes squinch when looking up to the sky.  Dai and his sister also lie down beside her. Under the butterfly-like flowers, they chat and laugh. I think if there was a camera from the sky to shoot them, it would have been a great picture. 

Dai asks whether the teacher would like to climb a little higher. She agrees. So Dai takes the teacher, following his father's hunting trail and climbing up. Dai throws some sweet to the mountains when walking up.
     "Why are you doing that?" asks the teacher.
     "My father says we have to respect the mountain God. We have to say hello and let       them know we are coming. We give them some candies, and they'll protect us."
     "Really? but I didn't bring any candy with me, would that be ok?"
     "That's ok, they know we are together. They always know."

Along the way, Dai shows our teachers which plants are editable, which ones are poisonous. 

     "Never touch that one. They bite and your hands will get swollen." He points to the ones with thorns on the leaves, like cats' tongues. 

     "Really?" the teacher shakes her head. 

     "My father told me, once he tricked a Han man. He told him to use the leaves like           toilet papers to wipe his ass. And..." he chuckles, "the plants stung him and he             jumped up and down like a monkey and his ass swelled like this big." He spreads    his hands wide open. 

     "Well, that's not nice for your teacher to do that," the teacher frowns.

     "That was a bad Han."

Suddenly, he sees something in the tree. With  a swish, he flings himself up to the tree trunk and climbs up fast like little Tarzan.  The teacher quickly takes out her camera again and shoots Dai's climbing stunt. 

     "What are you looking for?"

     "A bird nest, but no eggs inside." Then, with another swish, he climbs down the tree like a squirrel.

    "Amazing! you are so fast like an acrobat." The teacher pats him on his head and he turns red, not used to compliments, I guess.

    "This is too beautiful!" the teacher looks around the mountains and the village one last time as we head back. "I think I'll come back to live here for a long time."

We are happy to hear that. Our teacher is getting more and more like us. She learns fast and she likes to be friend with our land. She thinks our waterfall is beautiful, our village is beautiful, our trees are beautiful. Doesn't she know that this place, right here, is the true "beautiful country" with all the differences that she likes? She doesn't have to go to that popcorn and cheerleading America to find that.  

山上李花開

一月，白色的李花點綴了我們的村子，遠遠的看到山坡上的李花開了，老師像一年級的小朋友第一次遠足一樣興奮，她說：「我都不知道你們這邊有種梅花，開了一大片好漂亮喔！」

阿岱告訴老師：「老師，那不是梅花，是李子的花，他們長得很像，可是長出來的水果不一樣ㄋㄟˋ。」

「真的喔？我從來沒有見過李花開，好像一大羣白色的蝴蝶停在那裡，真是漂亮。」老師還是很興奮。

「老師，我們現在覺得李花比較像爆米花！」進貴說，大家一聽都笑起來了，我們知道他愛吃。

阿岱說：「老師，我家旁邊就是一大片李子樹，我帶你去看花。」

老師一聽，眼睛都亮起來了，：「太好了！」

星期六，阿岱帶老師到那他家去，老師一出阿岱家的側門就看到一大片李花，臉上的表情就跟我們第一次看到爆米花一樣，眼睛都睜的大大的，嘴巴也張的大大的！她把鼻子湊近花裡，閉著眼睛深深地聞著花香，好像大人在教會禱告一樣。又仔細的看著一朵花，還數著花瓣，就像我們在數學課數手指頭一樣。當她拿出照相機來拍照時，我們都很好奇，因為大家很少看過相機，更少人摸過相機。老師讓我們拿相機拍照，她自己也拍了好多李花的照片，阿岱和妹妹也當起了模特兒。

拍完照，老師隨性的就坐在李子樹下面，往山下看。「我看到我們的學校了！」老師手指著學校的方向，又拍了幾張照片，「整個學校都可以拍的到呢！ 這裡真好，整個村都看得到。」 然後老師的眼睛就好像照相機一樣，從學校沿著村子的路一直往上看，好像把整個村子都照進她的腦海裡，然後，沒想到，老師就在樹下躺下來，一點也不在意髒髒的地。瞇著眼睛看著李花。 阿岱和他的妹妹看到老師躺下來，他們也躺在老師旁邊，三個人就這樣在佈滿李花的天空下談天。我想如果有相機從天空往下照他們，一定是最棒的照片。

阿岱問老師要不要再往上爬，到高一點的地方，老師說好，阿岱就帶著老師，循著爸爸打獵的山徑往上走，走著走著，阿岱還會從口袋掏出糖果往山上丟。

「你為甚麼要這樣丟糖果？」老師問。

「我爸爸說要尊敬山神，要先跟他們打招呼，說我們來了，請他們吃糖果，他們就會保護我們。」

「是喔！可是我沒有帶糖果，可以嗎？」

「沒關係，我們是一起的，山神知道的。」 

沿路上，阿岱告訴老師，甚麼植物可以吃，甚麼植物有毒不可以碰。
「不可以摸那個，要不然會被咬到，手會腫起來。」 他指著一種葉子上面有刺的植物。「有一次，我爸爸騙一個漢人說可以用那個擦屁股，」 他邊說邊笑，「那個漢人被咬到，跳來跳去像猴子一樣，屁股腫得這麼大，」他把兩手張開。
「你爸爸這樣做不好吧。」老師皺著眉頭說。
「是那個漢人不好。」

突然，阿岱好像看到一棵樹上有什麼東西，他像小泰山一樣，咻一聲，跳上樹，一下子就爬到樹上去，老師覺得太神奇了，趕快拿起相機拍阿岱在樹上的樣子。
「你在找什麼？」

「鳥窩，但是裏面沒有蛋！」 阿岱說，然後又咻一聲爬下來。

「阿岱，你很厲害喲！剛剛好像特技表演。“」老師拍拍阿岱的頭，他不好意思，臉紅了。

「這裡實在太美了！」下山的時候老師這麼說，「我想我以後應該會回來長住。」

我們聽了很開心，老師越來越像我們山上的孩子，她學的很快，可以和我們的土地做朋友了，而且還覺得我們的瀑布美，村子美，李子樹很美，難道她不知道我們這裡才是真正的 「美」國 ，還有很多她喜歡的「不一樣」？她其實可以不要去那個爆米花和啦啦隊的美國了。