Our House

The words of my uncle:

Our house was a three-combination style house, a standard in the whole county.  The solid wall was double-layered green brick.  The slanting roof was terracotta tile.  The floor was dirt on the rear three rooms, large marble stones on the sky room, and large terracotta tile on the two front rooms and a small area of living room.  A 6 x 8 feet central area in the sky room was depressed for about 4 inches, facing the open sky, called "sky well."  The house originally had no windows.  Each bedroom had only one tiny "sky window."  We added one window to each bedroom in the early 1930's.  Sky room was the only inlet for daylight and ventilation when all doors were closed.

The living room had an altar for worship of our ancestors, a built-in rice polisher, a large square table with four chairs, a chest for dishes, and things inherited from our ancestors, including two extra chests and two desks.

The bedroom had just enough space to squeeze in one big double bed for parents, one small double bed for kids, one chest for clothing, and two desks, each with two drawers.  A wooden bucket was always at the end of the big bed, exclusively for urination.  Defecation was done outdoors.

The kitchen was in the right front room.  It had a built-in brick stove to hold two woks and four pots, a cutting board, and a dinette table with four stools.  The pig slept next to the stove.  The left front room was used as the main entrance and family room.  There we had two chairs, one bench, several stools and a grain grinder.

The sky room had a chicken house with its bottom elevated for collection of droppings, a wash basin, and two huge terracotta water tanks.  The right front corner was covered with loose bricks.  Beneath the bricks was the sewage tunnel.  Rain from the sky and roof splashed down the sky well, then drained out through the tunnel.  Occasionally a golden-striped snake crept into the house, coiled underneath our bed.  The cat often sounded the alarm.  Sky room was the place for washing.  Pig, chickens, dog, cat and goose ate there.  Sparrows were constantly present.  They set up nests in the living room between the roof tiles and rafters.

Ample shelves for storage were in the bedrooms, living room and sky room.

That was our house, with leaky roof, dirt floor, no plumbing, no gas, no electricity.  We shared it with mice, rates, termites, roaches and bedbugs, well, sparrows and snakes, too.  Flies and mosquitoes were rampant.  No, we were certainly not poor.  That was the way everyone lived, for generation after generation.  My grandparents and parents raised their families there.  My dad, my brother, myself and my sister were born and grew up there.  At infancy I had infantile diarrhea and almost died there.  At age two the right bedroom roof collapsed and almost crushed me there, if not for sheer luck, mom took me out just minutes before, when I happened to wake up from my nap.  All of us had malaria there.  My brother had asthma there.  In 1938 my brother developed a paralysis in Hong Kong; mother took him "home" and he recovered there.  In 1945 after the war he married there.

Our house for three generations has given us happiness and blessings, shelter against hurricanes and hope against despairs.  There is no place like home.