#022 story /故事( gùshi)
照片攝於葡萄牙馬德拉群島主島/The photo was taken on the Madeira in Portugal ©Chillneez.
Story
The word, story (故事/gùshi), in Chinese means past anecdotes or fabricated matters. Here, ‘故(gù)’ refers to ‘past’, ‘ancient’, ‘old’, or ‘original’ such as one’s birthplace, home or native land is ‘故鄉/gùxiāng’. We can also use the expression, ‘to hit off with someone when meeting each other for the first time (一見如故)’, to describe that two strangers immediately get on like a house on fire. To the extent that as if they had known each other for a very long time. In Taiwanese, the word, ‘講古（ kóng-kóo’)’ means ‘to tell a story’. When I was young, my brothers and I used to listen to the bedtime story about Aunt Tiger, who caught the disobedient children who cried all the time or who were not willing to fall into sleep. Aunt Tiger would bite the fingers of the children who were unwilling to sleep, and the ears of those who cried all the time. A well-known children song is also based on this folklore. All in all, the purpose of this story is to tell the children to behave well.
故事
「故事」在中文裡指的是傳說中的舊事，或編造杜撰的事情。「故」在此意指「過去的（事物）」、「老的」、「舊的」，或是「原來的」，如一個人出生成長的地方便作「故鄉」。「一見如故」用來形容跟一個才剛認識的人很聊得來，相處起來融洽自在，如同兩人相識已久一般。 說故事的台語是「講古（ kóng-kóo）」，即說書、說故事之意。小時候，我跟弟弟們睡前都聽過一個叫《虎姑婆》的故事，孩子愛哭或是不睡覺，虎姑婆抓這些不聽話的孩子，抓去以後咬他們的小指頭或是小耳朵。有一首以此民謠為歌詞的童謠。總而言之，故事的宗旨就是小孩要乖乖的就對了。
The children should be obedient?
A famous yet sad story written by the late Taiwanese writer Lin Yi-han, Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise, sparked the discussion about whether children should be obedient, especially to those who were conventionally viewed as the ‘good adults’, such as the teacher. The protagonist, Fang Si-Chi, a 13-year old girl, who was coaxed into sex by her teacher for a long time. It is said that the story was based on the author’s own experiences. She ended her life at the age of 26, leaving this novel the only and the last work of hers. My sister-in-law told me that the awareness about the danger of blindly being an obedient child is now increased at school.
小孩要聽話?
已故台灣女作家林奕含所著的《房思琪的初戀樂園》，是個有名但令人心碎的故事。這本小說引發了小孩是否應該聽話的討論，尤其是是否應該聽那些一般認知上被視為是「好的大人」的話，如：老師。故事中的主角，一名十三歲的女孩遭到教師長期誘姦。據悉小說故事的根據作者自己的親身經歷寫成的，作者於26歲時結束自己的生命，留下這唯一的也是最後的一部作品。我弟妹告訴我現在在學校對於小孩盲目地聽大人所構成的危險已經多加宣導。
Living in a storied form
“The products of narrative schemes are ubiquitous in our lives: they fill our cultural and social environment. We create narrative descriptions for ourselves and for others about our own past actions, and we develop storied accounts that give sense to the behaviour of others.” — Polkinghorne, 1988: 14
The experienment conducted by the psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel in 1944 indicated that we live in a storied form. They had the subjects watched a short animated film and described what they saw in it. They found out that most of their subjects told a plot of a story, assigning agency and emotions to the objects in the animated film, which were geometric shapes such as a triangle or a dot. You can also try to describe what happened in this animated film to see if you are also inclined to describe it in a storied form.
活在故事形式中
在我們的生活中，敘事結構的產物隨處可見，填滿了我們文化以及社會環境。我們為自己也為他人創造敘事敘述，這些敘述關於我們過去的行動，我們建立合理解釋他人行為的敘事根據。— Polkinghorne, 1988: 14
1944年由心理學家Fritz Heider 與 Marianne Simmel 執行的一項實驗顯示我們以故事的形式活著。他們請受試者看一段段動畫並請其描述他們之所見。結果顯示多數人敘述有情節的故事，將能動性以及情緒指派到這些影片中的幾何圖形上，像是三角形和小圓點這樣的幾何圖形。你不妨也試試看你會怎麼描述這段動畫，是否也傾向說一個故事。
In Search of Lost Time
When we tell what happened in the past, we tend to construct our memory in a storied form. We identify and highlight the personally significant events, no matter how trivial they may seem to others. We then organise them in to a whole, a story. Two persons who were involved in the same event are likely to tell two entirely different stories. Through the processes of telling our stories, we attempt to understand what has happened, and link the causes to what has happened. Interestingly, the meaning of a certain event keeps evolving. A bad event in the past may become something good as the new events occur. For example, a lost key chain may led to a new friendship because you hit off with someone who found your keys. Or a small bite of an ordinary madeleine cake, after so many years since his childhood, brought Proust’s childhood memory back to him ever so vividly.
追憶似水年華
回憶往事時，我們傾向將其以故事形式儲存於記憶中。我們從過往的事件中辨別出，挑出最重要的事件，不論這些事件本身在他人看來有多麽瑣碎，並將這些事件組織成一個完整的故事。 經歷了同一個事件的兩個人可能說出兩個全然不同的故事。通過講述自己的故事，我們試圖去了解過去發生的事情，並將其因果關係連結在一起。隨著事件的推演以及新事件的發生，過去的某件壞事可能因為後來發生的事情而被賦予新的意義。舉例而言，一把丟失的鑰匙圈導向了一段新的友誼，全都因為你跟那個撿到鑰匙的人一見如故。或是一小口不足為奇的瑪德蓮蛋糕，在長大多年後，仍栩栩如生地將普魯斯特的兒時記憶喚回。
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Si-Chi%27s_First_Love_Paradise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-gk5pO1g-I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNmLt7QX8E
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1988-97536-000
https://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Knowing-Sciences-Philosophy-Social/dp/0887066232
https://confluence.gallatin.nyu.edu/sections/creative-nonfiction/the-storytelling-animal