In elementary school, Shi Mingjin attended four schools because of his parents' job change. When I was a junior, my father started a business and opened a factory. The whole family lived in a dormitory without a bathroom. They could only boil hot water mixed with cold water and take a bath while standing on the washstand in the toilet. After the factory closed down, my parents sold fish balls, patriotic lottery tickets, drove taxis and buses, went to work in electronics factories, set up street stalls to sell clothes...and did everything.
When he was in fifth grade, his parents company banner design finally saved enough money to buy a house, and there was a bathtub at home to take a bath, which became the most vivid event in Shi Mingjin's childhood. Until now, Shi Mingjin takes a bath every day. He said that it may be a psychological compensation for his childhood life. The hardships of childhood are now fleeting, but at that time, the will of the parents to not give up in the pursuit of life, and the kindness of the neighbors, may have become the foundation of the choices he faces in life? In the 1990s, President Lee Teng-hui promoted the southward policy, and Shi Mingjin's father was recruited to work in Malaysia.
"I decided to go to Malaysia in two weeks, and I didn't have time to say goodbye to my high school classmates," he said. Faced with change, people will have two choices: one is to adapt desperately to a new life, or to stay in one's own cultural circle for comfort. Shi Mingjin belongs to the former. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country. Shi Mingjin is a Chinese independent high school. Most of the classes are in Chinese, but he must complete a certain number of hours in Malay. The textbooks are in English and Malay. The big triangle where he studied is the town with the most Teochew people. Seventy percent of the people in Penang are Hokkien. If you want to make friends, you need to learn their language. Therefore, he can speak Teochew and Hokkien, and most of the overseas Chinese speak it. Cantonese, he also naturally learned. "My Cantonese is so good that Hong Kong people will think I'm Cantonese," he said.