他人的鬼故事，是我們共同的過去式 — 柚子甜 Others horrible stories were our same past tense. — A Sweet Pomelo
比鬼故事更可怕的是你我身邊的故事
Those ordinary daily stories are more horrible than ghost stories.
少女老王
我是個女孩，在關鍵評論網站上看到這本書中其中一篇的內容，覺得被觸動到，就買來看。閱讀過後，裡面每一篇不是深深擊中我的心，就是那熟悉的場景或對話讓我哽咽，因此想要藉由這本書，來分享對於這個社會下的女孩，看到這個社會對待我們的樣貌。整本書共有三個大標題，我各挑兩個小故事分享感想或相關經驗。
打印著第二類字樣產出的女孩們
「拜託賜一個聖筊吧」與「金銀色的雪漫天飛舞」講述爺爺去世了，大家開始辦後事，從招魂、做七、燒紙錢中，明顯從故事中看到台灣社會明顯的男女不對等的社會地位。少女老王的筆下，明明哀戚的喪事，被敘述的充滿幽默與笑點，卻又不得不讓我們深度思考這些傳統與現代觀念碰撞出的火花。
招魂時，作者父親身為家中獨子，身兼所有的責任，但又因為上面有姊姊們(作者姑姑們)的壓力，因此在用丟十元硬幣招魂的時候，本來是爸爸帶頭，變成由大姑姑帶頭問。但沒有想到，大姑姑問了4次，都沒有聖筊，師姑想說換男生看看，這時就看出傳統上大家還是認為長輩比較喜歡男生；卻出乎意料，爸爸問到第8次，還是沒有，最後換了孫女，也就是老王本身，終於聖筊了。但大家看到後又說，爺爺只疼同姓的直系長孫女(孫輩中只有老王一個)，爺爺偏心。
經歷了招魂頭七，家族對於做七都十分敏感，在女兒七十，姑姑們對於誰站在前面先燒紙錢，又吵起來了，母親的戰爭最後延燒成小孩子也加入戰局，之後更有表姊打電話給老王的爸爸告狀，表哥對於為甚麼是老王捧靈位，覺得明明有男生，雖然是外孫，更火上加油的是，師姑每次看到直系孫輩只有老王一個，都會再問:真的沒有男生嗎? 因此表哥表姊們覺得只有姓王的可以捧、爺爺生前是警察竟然是讓女生捧靈位?老王爸爸覺得他們對於爺爺的愛太虛偽，甚麼姓王不姓王、男生女生的，這些愛，好虛偽。結果變成之後捧靈位，都要輪流，像是體育課帶操一樣。
我是爸爸那邊孫輩的老大，跟老王一樣是直系長孫女，但我下面有親妹妹、堂弟堂妹們，意思就是我們家是有男生的，但不是長子生的。爺爺奶奶對於性別多多少少還是有一些傳統觀念，我不知道其他同學的爺爺奶奶，但我們家真的是有那麼一點像老王說的故事一樣，因為他們仍健在，所以沒有發生故事上的情節，可是有時在日常吃飯、對話中可以知道，對於兩個孫子，爺爺奶奶是比較疼愛的。
看過「花甲男孩轉大人」，裡面花甲的奶奶過世，是由花甲捧靈位，雖然花甲有個姊姊花慧，但在傳統上就是由長子生的長子捧靈位；我曾祖父過世，也是我爸爸負責（我爸爸是長孫）我外婆過世，是我表弟，雖然表弟是小舅舅的兒子，但原因是大舅舅只生兩個女兒。傳統上，就是這樣，不是說不好，而是捧靈位與愛不愛這位長輩、長輩比較喜歡誰，並沒有直接的關係，我相信如果真的和該位長輩關係很好，經由生前的相處一定感受的出來，而不是用招魂、做七、捧靈位這些行為去判斷。還有一個就是心態問題，我認為傳統與現代觀念會有相衝的地方，但也可以相容，沒有一定要誰對誰錯，或許長輩就是希望男生捧，他沒有不喜歡女生，可能甚至更疼女生，只是他「習慣依循傳統儀式」。
“畢竟在很久很久以前，在那個衛生棉還沒被發明的時代，因為無法隨時隨地乾爽吸收不停剝落的子宮內膜，那些帶著腥臭味的經血，讓女性妥妥的站穩不潔的地位，並融合進許多傳統習俗中。儘管台灣社會對宗教信仰自由相對開明，但遇到習俗時卻又還是那麼的保守，即使在現在的社會氛圍下，女生正逢月事也能祭祖、守靈，但在這些儀式中，依然處處彰顯了男女的差異。 — 金銀色的雪漫天飛舞 ’’
我們女孩們，在傳統上就是一個「特別的存在」，我們不被歸在一般人，長孫是男生，我是「長孫女」，科學家是男生，「女」科學家才是女生……等等數不清的例子，常常有意或無意地將女生特別歸納成另外一個族群，一如標題，我們的染色體被決定的那刻，就已經帶著第二類的標籤降生在這個世界。對於在台灣社會仍深深影響長輩的傳統男女的觀念，我們可能無法完全用性別平等去改動，但是若真的很在意，真的很不合理或很不公平，要毫不猶豫地說出來，尊重傳統不等於犧牲權利。
女孩們，請為自己發出聲音；男生們，請不要再用「傳統」去當作給予女生偏見的藉口。我希望我們在面對這些由男生當主導的傳統儀式時，只是因為這是個傳統，所以我們用尊重的心態去遵循，而不是真的因為這些傳統，有男女實質上的差別待遇。不只有傳統儀式中的男女不平等，其實我們自己也在日常，不知不覺用自己與他人的共同處的有無去分類，像是家鄉、年紀、家庭背景等等因素，希望可以從中找到一個舒適的圈子，一個只有自己同類的圈子。但在圈子外的就是不正常的人、活該被欺負的人嗎? 下一篇就要分享跟群體有關的女孩視角。
I have once read an article in The News Lens website from this book. After finishing the book, those stories not only touching me but make me want to cry sometimes. That is, I want to share some thoughts about 3 chapters in the book and tell everybody the scene I have seen through my eyes, a girl’s eyes.
We girls who were born in secondary.
‘’Please give us a Shing-bwei’’ and ‘’Snow is gold and silver flying in the sky’’ talked about those absurd things happened in the funeral after grandpa had passed. The first one is a ceremony that should throw divination blocks to ask whether the spirit of grandpa has come back or not. In regulation, the main role of the thrower was the author’s father. However, under the pressure of her father’s elder sisters, the oldest aunt became the main thrower. Sadly, after 4 times, she was failed to get Shing-bwei(the positive response by spirits). The female master considered the problem because of the gender, so she decided to let author’s father to throw it. The same sequence, they got 4 failures. Finally, the author threw the blocks and got Shing-bwei. But other members criticized it as grandpa’s eccentric in the reason that the author’s first name was the same as grandpa.
Till the day we called ‘’the 7th day’’, aunts were discussing about the order that who first can burn the joss paper to grandpa in heaven. While other brothers and sisters also joined the fight to argue the right that author can be the representative as the whole family. Moreover, the author was a girl and she can hold grandpa’s picture in every ceremony after the funeral though the female master would assure again after making sure that the only grandchild who had the same first name with him was the author. In Taiwan traditions, the first child of passer’s all grandchildren have the right to hold the picture after funeral. However, author’s father was disappointed about those kids’ attitude and thoughts. He considered the gender and first name were not as important at all. Their love to grandpa were too fake.
As the author, I am the first grandchild of the whole family though I have sister and other cousins younger than me. Hence, in our family, there were boys though they were not born by the first son of my grandpa. It is little clearly that my grandparents have some differential treatment among girls and boys.
The drama ‘’The Boy Name Flora A’’, Flora A was the first boy grandchild in the family, so he held his grandma’s picture in her funeral; my father was the eldest grandson of my grand grandfather, he also held the picture for him; my boy cousin held my maternal grandmother’s picture. In the tradition, it is the original that the boy take responsibility to all the important ceremonies. While in my opinion, the motivation of the behavior that the boy to be a representative of the family is based on the respect to the tradition, not the differential treatment in the reality. Furthermore, how much the passer love children and how much kids love the passer were not only defined at who has the right to hold the picture. We hope that elders insist the boy to do those things after they dying is just actually follow the tradition, and they will love girls as the same as boys or much more maybe.
We girls were tagged the special sticker after the XX gene was determined. We are called ‘’female’’ scientist, ‘’female’’ doctors……lots of the similarities happen around us every day. While it is difficult to change the deep conception in the elders’ mind, we should speak loudly when facing bias or bad treatment as we respect the traditions but not the same to sacrifice out rights.
Being girls, we should fight for our rights and boys please do not take the traditions as excuse to discriminate girls. Not only the traditions, we often classify people by some common elements such like family, hometown, ages……we build a comfort zone to make ourselves better comfortable. While those kept out of the zone were doomed to be bullied in no reason? I will share the viewpoint in the next part.
