September92009
8/?/09 - Smoke Our Own.
That year, she was in fourth grade. She went to a friend’s place after school. There, the grandmother of the household took a look at her and exclaimed,
A maw-tsui!
Meaning: someone with an underbite.
Back in Penghu, a kid like that, we strangle at birth.
No one wants a maw-tsui.
Shocked, the little girl went home and hurried to her older sister.
Er-jie, er-jie!
(Second sister! Second sister!)
For the first time in her life, she felt the threat of her underbite. It must be something of a curse. Else, why would she deserve death on that archipelago off Taiwan’s coast?
***
My sister was only 15 that year, still very innocent,
grandma told me.
I ran home that day, all flushed with worry. She listened to me seriously, and we both wondered what to do next. Er-jie wanted to help me - that girl had such a heart - so she said, ‘why don’t you try pushing your upper teeth forward? Day after day, surely the problem will be fixed’.
So every day, I did. Whatever free time I had, I pushed my teeth out. Er-jie encouraged me all the while. We began to see the change in time.
***
Grandma couldn’t remember how long it had taken her, but finally one day her teeth aligned. Just barely. I could see now, as she opened her mouth to show me, yet I would never have noticed that something peculiar about her teeth, had she not shared the tale.
No one believes my story,
grandma continued.
Except one person - a dentist I met after my pregnancy. Back in the day, your grandpa and I didn’t know any better; we thought treating cavities would harm the fetus in my womb, so I let them worsen till the baby was born. By the time I went for treatment, I had to make a mold for my teeth.
My dentist made that mold twice, thinking he had blundered both times.
Finally, the man confessed his confusion. Why was it that her teeth, so straight as they seemed, would be completely misaligned in the back?
She told him the story.
Do such things really happen in this world?
He hadn’t learnt about braces by then. It was the first time he entertained the notion, that the teeth people are born with can be rearranged. Novel though it was and almost ridiculous, he believed.
***
I like being with you two so much, grandma told Pony and me at lunch.
You make me feel the future’s filled with hope.
Grandma, always a step ahead of me, I was going to tell you and grandpa that. When I am with our family, I believe we can do anything.
Anything, starting from our own smoked bacon and ox tongue.
