My name is Huang Li-hua（黃麗華）, and I'm 69 years old. I used to be a farmer and I live in Changhua County（彰化縣）.
I was born in 1954 and used to work as a farmer. Now, I'm 69 years old, but my ID card says I was born in 1946. When I was born, our house was hit by three typhoons in a month, and the roof was blown off. I almost died. It wasn't until I was three years old and my sister was born that my mom realized she had forgotten to apply for my household certificate and had to pay a fine. She was so nervous that she asked if we could be registered as twins, but we looked too different for that to work. In the end, my mom decided to use my older sister's birth date as mine, but made it ten months earlier so that the delay wouldn't be too long, and we wouldn't have to pay a fine. When my mom had to fill out the form to register me, she realized she had forgotten to give me a name. My parents had just been calling me "little sister." The staff at the registration office suggested the name "Li-hua（麗華）," and my mother took it.
I love to read, but in the past, boys were seen better than than girls. After finishing my third grade, my parents didn't allow me to continue my studies, and I had to work on the farm. I was very sad, working during the day and reading books at night. I didn't have new books, only my old textbooks, but I still wanted to touch them. Sometimes I cried myself to sleep. When I saw students carrying schoolbags on the street, tears would fall from my eyes. Sometimes I would ask them what grade they were in and if they could lend me a book to read.
Later, I got married and gave birth to five children. When they started going to school, I learned Chinese characters along with them, and that's how I learned how to read. My husband and I were farmers, and I also worked on construction sites. But I told my children that as long as they wanted to go to school, I would support them anyway possible. All five of my children graduated from college, four of them obtained master's or doctorate degrees. They all became teachers. My children were very respectful to me and told me not to work anymore and to enjoy my life. So I stayed at home, cooked and ate lunch and dinner every day, and went to sleep after meals.
But it was strange. My body started to ache here and there, my feet lost strength, and I could barely lift my hands. Every day I woke up not knowing what to do today. Sometimes my husband would ask, "It's noon already and you haven't cooked yet?" “Really?” That's when I would snap out of it and start cooking. “No, I need to do something,” I told myself, “or else I'll get dementia!” So, I became a volunteer for the community, the environment and hospitals. I was busy all the time, but to my surprise, all my pains were gone! One day, someone from the Hondao Senior Citizen's Welfare Foundation（弘道老人福利基金會）asked me if I wanted to learn esports. I asked, "What's eSports? Do I need to know how to use a computer?"
After attending a few classes, I didn't feel like learning anymore. I would forget everything the teacher had taught us within 10 minutes. It was frustrating, but I remembered how I never had the opportunity to study before. “No, I can't give up!” I put a small sticker on each of my fingers that read "this one is for grabbing, that one is for hitting, and that one is for escaping" and I used waterproof tape to keep them on my fingers, otherwise, they will fall off when I washed dishes.
On the third week, the teacher was amazed at my progress and asked, "How did you get it?" Two months later, the teacher took us to participate in a competition. Although we didn't win anything, but I thought it was good to learn how to paly eSports. I used to see my son coming home from work and continue using his computer, and I would take a glance and not disturb him. I thought that he worked so hard to earn money that he brought it home to finish his work when he couldn't do it in the office. Little did I know he was just playing video games.
My grandson was the same. He used to ignore us when we told him it was mealtime because he was too busy playing video games. When I finally got the hang of it, I told him, "You can press pause, I know that!" He was surprised and asked "How did you know that, grandma?" But I didn't ask them to stop playing games, I just told them to control their schedule. If it's time to play games, then play games. If it's time to eat, then eat. If it's time to study, then study. It's easier for them to take it when you put it that way. Now my grandkids even make appointments with me to play games, and we have a secret chat group. My grandson told me, "Don't tell mom, grandma." I promised him I wouldn't.
