“A child’s childhood is the future of the world.” Taiwan, without concrete monsters

Text/Photos byEurope-North Travel Observation DiaryCai Fuda

I vaguely remember when I was 8 years old, in the irrigation ditch of a paddy field, I was holding an American crayfish — brought to Taiwan by unscrupulous merchants as pets — which pinched me so hard I screamed. The girl I liked walked by, and trying to act cool, I said, “It doesn’t hurt!” But actually, I cried quietly after she turned away.

I also haven’t forgotten how, as a child, I rode a bicycle three times my size and raced wildly near school, then lost my balance and fell into a rice field, covered in mud. When I got home, my mom chased me with a clothes hanger. But even then, I thought I was cooler than Brigitte Lin.

Closing my eyes, I see myself at 10 years old, barefoot and bare-chested on the school grass during heavy rain, imitating a baseball player stealing a base. Even after scraping myself on gravel, I enjoyed the glory of my bruises and kept charging forward, throwing myself into the base. The next day, I definitely had to show off to my classmates: “See? Don’t you think scars are cool?” Even more outrageous, I once caught an alligator — nearly a meter long — with my bare hands from a drainage ditch where it had been maliciously abandoned. At the time, all I could think was: “If I caught this, I’d wake up feeling handsome every morning.”

Without overthinking, just being purely myself, doing what I loved most and felt most free doing — it all taught me unconsciously: “You can do anything you want, as long as you’re prepared to take responsibility for the outcome.”

I really miss those days of running, jumping, and being embraced by nature — rolling in the mud, playing in the sunshine. That kind of childhood only exists in memories now. Watching today’s children, often surrounded by concrete monsters, makes me a bit sentimental. Parents dote on them excessively, “filially” driving them to and from school every day. The topics of elementary schoolers often revolve around smartphone games and designer clothes.

A child’s childhood is the future shape of this world.