13 Joyous Childhood
When we were young, we were not as free as the children today. For example, children today can have ample chances to see the world with their parents. They can enjoy watching TV, using smartphones, playing electronic games, cycling on the country side or going to Ocean Park, etc. whenever they have free time.
However, in the old days, most of us came from grass root families. We had no toys and our daily routines were all about homework, study, eating meals and going to bed. Even if we liked music, we could not afford to learn any musical instruments. Parents were busy people. They worked daily till very late. They spent little time with us. We were all left at home and had to survive by our own independently.
It appeared that our daily life was very boring, but actually we were not bored. In real, the world we enjoyed most was about creativity. We created our own entertainments. We self-made a lot of toys (e.g. floating paper boats in our basin, playing hopscotch in the streets, etc. Please see the pictures attached below). We thought of ways to reuse any broken toys. We played ping pong elsewhere. We picked up small stones and could play with friends for the whole day. We enjoyed most when we could play with our siblings or our neighbours next door at any time. We could be easily satisfied because we felt lucky enough that we did not need to live without a home!
After posting this article on my Facebook, I immediately received many feedbacks from my friends who echoed with my claim. Some of them even quoted their own examples, like these:
“… I would say we didn’t have (own) any toy cause our toys were everywhere. Just look around, our Lord has provided us more than enough.”
“I played all these when I was kid. I feel blessed on what I own today such as relatives, friends, families and matters.”
“I remember that I was so excited that I couldn’t go to sleep on the night before school picnic. We brought our own ingredients and utensils... We held meetings far ahead for job assignments among classmates... But that was fun and unforgettable. Kids of nowadays won’t understand the joy of all these!”
“… my family was too poor to send me to kindergarten, so I played day in and day out until starting P1 at age 6. In retrospect, that was a great blessing. If I'm still keen about learning today, it's probably because I had lots of time to play in my early childhood.”
“Same trajectory of my childhood period but I was living in the NT village ~ farming and raising cattle without toys!”
A friend also wrote this quote in Chinese to me, “快樂來自簡單、純樸的心境” and I think this has already summed up why I titled this article as “Joyful Childhood” and what my friends shared as above.