Some of My Days

施璧倫（1931 - ）九一八日本佔領東三省那年出生於北京。抗戰時期全家由北向南逃亡。四十年代初在日本大轟炸時居於昆明。戰後遷往臺灣。在臺灣完成中學和大學教育。一九五四年畢業於臺大歷史系。一九六○年與王平雷結婚。育有三女一子。七十年代美國人要深入認識神秘中國，中文發燒，因而陰錯陽差地飄到紐約州北部的伊色佳城康奈爾大學教中國語文。有時也做些投稿退稿的把戲。一九九七香港回歸之年我亦退休。現在新澤西與女兒同住，在本地的老人中心選修英文創作班課程，重新回到課堂胡亂寫些洋涇浜的小文自娛，了此無味人生。

Pilwun Shih (also known as Pilwun Wang) was born in Beijing in 1931, the year the Japanese invaded Northeastern China. Her whole family moved from northern China to southern China traveling along the railways from Hankou to Gongzhou, and then through Hong Kong to Vietnam. In 1940 the family moved to Kunming. After the war the family moved to Taiwan, because of its warm weather. Pilwun Shih graduated from Jianguo high school in 1949 and Taiwan University in 1954. After immigrating to the United States, she taught Chinese at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for thirty years. After retiring in 1997, she continued to live in Ithaca, New York, but then moved to New York City, New York and Princeton Junction, New Jersey. Since July 2013 she has made her residence in Seattle, Washington. She sometimes writes as a way of enjoying her life.

I lived in Princeton Junction, New Jersey for almost seven years (2007-2013). The landscape of Princeton Junction was different from Ithaca, my home in the US for thirty years. Rather than the immediate hills and waterfalls that I encountered on my daily outings, I walked a terrain full of flatness and street side windings. My walks there were full of twists and bends but I felt my life was going nowhere for me at the age of close to eighty. Fortunately, a senior center was located close to my house. I went to there to do taichi and yoga exercises while also joining a creative writing class. The classes extended my life, but my writing class in particular, also surprisingly deepened my life. I was spurred on to draw from stories and experiences of my long ago past. I tried to recollect those stories from my mother’s generation and my own experiences during my early life. Here are the fruits of my creative labors. Anyone who happens by and picks this up to read might say: “Oh, that was when…”

TABLE OF CONTENT
FORWARD
STORIES OF MY MOTHER
Lucky Young Country Man
Stories in West Village
The Rhapsody Parker Fountain Pen
Her Destiny
My Uncle And His Stinky Toufu
The Good Old Days - Cooking, Cleaning and Raising Pigs
Be Punctual. It’s Dinner Time
Professor Fang and His Orange Orchard
The Threshold
There is Heaven, and There is the World of Men
LIFE IN AMERICA
A Cradle Land
Affairs on Bridge Street
He Lectures, I Teach
Campus Talk
One of My Days
All She Needs are Scallions
Don’t Invite Them to Your Table
The Key Is Turning In The Key-hole
Christmas Resolution
Indulgence - to Piece a Puzzle
The Cleaning Lady is Coming
The Story of a Bread maker
You Got to Practice
He and Eggs
A Chicken Comedy
A Piece of China
TRAVELLING
Don’t Blame the Wind
No More “We” or “Us”
Of Husband and Wife
Left for Taiwan
Across the Border
On the Train
A Journey to the Southern Hemisphere
The Inn
Lost and Found
Arrival
A Piece of the Puzzle