What you’d learned about work ethics in your childhood days, going to play at your grandfather’s, tailor shop, that stayed with you, for, life, translated…
While you were commuting via the MRT through the city, suddenly, you were reminded of your, grandfather’s shop at Fengyuan, it was when the seams were beautiful, the cutting, measuring were, perfect, a slivery large scissor, aglow, as the sunlight came in, the light landed on the rims of your grandfather’s glasses, and it’d, made his appeared, even more, concentrated and, focused.
At the time, you and him lived, together, you were about five, or six. Most of the times, you were, rubbing your, sleepy, eyes, slowly, walked down the stairs, and saw that your grandfather at the first-floor shopfront, rolling open the steel doors, with the light, coming in, from the, outside, with his glasses on, sat before the sewing machine, and the machine clicked-clicked-clacked-clicked, away, sounded even like your, slow steps, climbing, down those, stairs, and that was the beginning of the days, that you and your grandfather, cut open, together.
illustration from UDN.com
Cutting it open, stepping it, open. As your grandfather heard your footsteps, he’d stopped his hands, moved his glasses straight onto his nose ridge, asked, “woke so early?”, seeing how he’d cut opened the clothes, and every now and then, the customers came, left the orders, you had the candies in your mouth, climbed onto the chair next to him, through your teary eyes, you’d watched the scraps of clothes your grandfather just cut off, ironing them, seeing how he’d, measured the pieces, cutting them up, ironing them, sewing them together, step, by step, stitching the sides onto, the days, like the fishes that swam close to the reefs in the oceans, without any, dents or damages.
Later, as grandfather aged, the cost of making the suits by hand got too high, too many steps to making them, and people want everything new and fast, the manually stitched could not catch up to the machines of mass production, and as you’d, left for Taipei to work, leaving your hometown, the Fengyuan suit shop that your grandfather owned and operated, closed down. Recalled the last night, as your grandfather turned the lights of the signs off, pulling down the doors, he’d first, wiped the clothes he still had down with a smaller rag, then, placed them one by one into the plastic bags. He’d taken off the suit that was on the mannequins on display, like, disarming of an old, general, slow, and aging away, you’d helped him with the clothes one by one, but he’d, waved for you to go, and never said, a word.
measuring the suit for its, final, touches…photo from online
That evening, the two of you, cleared the shop, without any words of, exchange.
And now, the door of the MRT trains opened, the alarms sounded off a few times, pulling you back from your, memories, and now, you are in a suit, and the words of your grandfather, “after we ironed the suits, they wouldn’t wrinkle, the shirts are set up straight, and, it would look fitted on people, it would be, straightened up.” Those days of old which weren’t easy, needed to get, ironed, flat, ironing down the wrinkly, old days, putting on the, suits that were, straightened up, you can walk, with your backs, straight. So, the days needed to get, patted down, made to fit, life had, cut the lines, with the stitches on time on, with the rulers that bent, not an inch off, then finally, set, shape. Still remembered, how you’d, helped cut the pieces by the measurements, every suit, as it was, getting the, final bow tied on, you’d always, made your, secret, wish, told them, this time, please, don’t, fall, apart.
And, this is, what your grandfather taught you, with his, work ethics, his means of measuring everything, carefully, and, you’d learned, that you needed to, be a man, who’s, straight like the suits he used to make, follow the right morale.
JUST the Unwinding of Thoughts 