When the storm did come, it came from the sea to clash with the mountains. The blue mountains shook and the river bank rose to flooded the dam with mud so that clean water became luxury until the water could be fixed. The schoolhouse fell to the wind and rain, and there was a brief moment of excitement when East thought there would be no more assignments to be done.

Then the storm passed and the mountain remained, and when the sky had cleared - East was bitterly attending classes at the local temple. The adults had saw fit to find a temporary space for classes to resume until the school could be rebuilt. In the long open hall of the main chamber, rows of heavy linen hung on wires divided the space into little curtained rooms. East’s eyes did not see classrooms, but a game of tag between the sheets and chasing shadows until the teacher sternly sat them down.

The charity of monks did not make it so simple for East, as school was now too far from his home to walk, and he had been told wait for his mother to claim him each day. On one particular day, East waited until the sun had set and yet his mother could not be found. He grew nervous as the old temple darkened by the hour, and he wondered what to do about the conditions he was in. He didn’t know that his mother had simply forgotten to get him.

The temple monks went about their way in their drab robes and black cloth shoes, passing East who remained still where he sat against the entry wall. He watched them in his own curiosity, as he had rarely seen them but in passing for monks were well regarded in the village. There was a wood box fixed to a wall, with knobs and wires and a crank, a monk came to it and turned its handle, lifting a wire attached piece to her ear. After a moment she spoke to the box, making a list of ingredients for delivery to the temple, and when she was done she expressed her gratitude and placed the piece back where it had been on a side of the box.

After a while, a delivery man came to the temple asking for the monk. An exchange was made, whilst East watched in quite some awe and quickly gathered that the box was a means to speak to someone far away. Despite his vague understanding, East was not one to shy from his task at hand and he stood up when the monks had left the entry way.

Now this device was fixed on the wall at a height for grownups, and East, as a primary school child could only hope to touch its base where he stood on his toes. East went and found the praying stool, having decided that buddha would not mind in this case, he brought it to the box and climbed atop. Here he imitated the monk he had seen, he turned the hand crank and after a moment a woman's voice spoke.

Where would you like to be connected? She asked. 

East asked her if she could please get his mother. 

The woman’s voice asked again, where would you like to be connected? Sir you need to speak into the receiver. 

So East did, and repeated his request to speak to his mother. 

She asked him not to play with telephones, and hung up. East looked at the silent box, and turned the crank again, still determined. This time, East said he didn’t know when the woman inquired about his connection. She asked where he was, and then who his parents were.

Mother was a homemaker who was Hakka by birth and lived through the colonization and the last years of the war. Father, a chief policeman of the village stationed there after the war where he met mother. He survived the aftermath feuds because he spoke the local languages, all four of them to be precise.

A policeman, where is he stationed? The voice from the box asked. 

East told her he was at the town. The woman asked him to wait a moment and was silent for a while. When she returned she told him to stay at the temple and that his father would be with him shortly.

When the sun set, father did indeed appear and quite proud of East to have stuck stubbornly with the woman whom he only referred to as the operator. Father was rarely as excited as when he explained to East that the box in the temple was a telephone, which had been installed in a few locations in the village, like the police station and the court house. Before the week was through, father had arranged for a similar device at their home and taught the family how it functioned.