For the “NTHU Memory” contest
1.
My cousin and I walked towards the auditorium, at whose door students and their parents protested angrily, “Open the door and let us in!”
“We can’t,” said one guard firmly, despite the increasing pressure from people’s jostling and shrieks. He did not move an inch away from the entrance to the auditorium, intricately adorned by ornaments especially for the graduates of National Tsing Hua University.
“Never mind being in that red-carpeted hall and listening to the insincere speeches,” I whispered to my cousin cynically. “It looks like Clytemnestra’s banquet for the returning Agamemnon, anyway, and the guard is the poor Cassandra.”
“Huh?” his expression was one of sheer bewilderment.
On the day the graduation ceremony was scheduled to be held, it was bright, sunny, and sweltering. Several friends of mine and I decided to meet in the late June morning to feast on the beauty of the Tsing Hua campus with our cameras. After all, some of us did not know when we would set foot on Tsing Hua again after that special day. We all excitedly anticipated the graduation ceremony to take place at the “Vast Lawn” and the fireworks to close our university days with splendid explosions in the sky later in the evening.
Unfortunately, it was literally a bolt from the blue when the sky grayed at dusk and raindrops fell violently to the ground. Our celebration at the “Vast Lawn” was cancelled, our fireworks intact and unlighted. The ceremony had to be switched to an indoor location—the auditorium. Since the auditorium was not spacious enough to accommodate all graduates, their families, and friends, students who did not arrive there before 6:30 p.m. would not be allowed to enter the auditorium.
Having indulged myself with photography all day long, I desperately wanted to fill my empty stomach before joining the commencement party. “They won’t block me,” I thought smugly. However, I was proven wrong when I walked to the auditorium leisurely with my cousin, who was an ESS (Engineering and System Science) graduate student in Tsing Hua, and was confronted with crowds of frustrated students with their furious parents, bundles of flowers in hand. They all shouted for the gates of the auditorium to be opened, but to no avail.
How could the guards forbid me to join my own graduation ceremony? I felt enraged and betrayed in front of the auditorium, fresh and gleaming white in the night air, having been washed by the rain.
Wandering to the nearby Cheng-Gong Lake, my cousin and I sat ourselves down on the unoccupied stoned chairs. I chuckled to myself, realizing that not only did my college life begin and end at the auditorium, but it also witnessed some crucial events during my days in Tsing Hua.
2.
Four years earlier, my roommates and I, after quickly finishing our breakfasts, dashed to the auditorium at full speed at eight o’clock in the morning. While the dormitory is the first place where all first-year students spend their first night in Tsing Hua, they were asked to participate in the “Freshman Training Program,” which lasted for six days in the auditorium. When I stepped onto the stairs before the gates of the auditorium, I imagined the following events to be eye-opening for a coy and clumsy newcomer like me. However, my original enthusiasm turned into boredom and drowsiness as I listened to one speech after another. The speakers’ monotonous voices, the soft couches, and the comfortable air-conditioned air sent me into deep slumbers.
Luckily, my impressions of the auditorium as a huge bed chamber were dramatically altered after attending various musical concerts, plays, talks, and performances there. I was often thrilled at seeing posters advertising upcoming shows at the auditorium, waiting to be entertained and inspired.
3.
The auditorium also witnessed my failed date with my first crush in university. It was the day before the Christmas Eve, a cold and windy night. Being a diligent student, I had spent my Christmases in Hsinchu mostly by myself, only dining with several friends at night. Then I met the male student from another department who stirred inexplicable feelings in my heart. I could not endure another lonely Christmas. By all means, I had to make a meeting happen. He suggested a movie to be shown at the auditorium, and I consented at once despite the fact that the movie appeared to be uninteresting.
He suddenly text-messaged me that morning, telling me that he would leave immediately after the movie was over, that a friend of his would possibly come along. I might as well cancel the date if it was the treatment I received after swallowing my pride and discarding my modesty. After hours of mental turmoil, eventually I reached the auditorium a little earlier than the hour we agreed to meet. The tall trees opposite the auditorium hid my thin form, which was trembling with nervous anticipation.
Then he showed up on time, dashing on the darkling stairs of the auditorium, alone! I longed to give voice of all the surging emotions in my treacherous heart but could not. Walking myself out from behind the trees, I told him that I would not go to the movie with him. The brutal wind, carrying the foolishness and tumult of the whole incident, crashed on me with every step I took away from the auditorium, which stood still, unmoved.
4.
For us students of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, the senior play occurring annually in the auditorium is the perfect culmination of our university life. After months of painstaking preparations, we locked ourselves in the auditorium for a week before our performance dates. For most of us, it was the first time did we have the chance to explore the insides of the auditorium intimately instead of staying in the audience seats. During the rehearsals of our senior play, we busied ourselves backstage, in the dressing rooms, the sound control room, and the light control room. The days grew nearly unbearable as the auditorium practically became our prison, but all bearing was worthwhile when we released our pent-up anxiety on stage. We had two nights with nearly all audience seats occupied.
5.
The graduation ceremony was over. My cousin and I easily slipped in the opening doors of the auditorium. My eyes immediately found my classmates.
“Hey,” my friend patted on my shoulder as I approached her. She was smiling but there was a slight frown between her brows. “In the end, they let us in if we were in our bachelor gowns, of course without families and friends. Didn’t you try?”
“Well, no.” I gestured to show my companion’s presence. “How was the ceremony?”
“Tedious, as expected.” I could hear the wry amusement in her voice. The opulent life in Tsing Hua had been priceless even if the beginning and the ending of it were not spectacular, I reckoned.
“Besides,” she continued, “it doesn’t matter at all even though you missed the ceremony,” then referring to my admission to a master’s program in Tsing Hua, “You will have another commencement party soon.”
“Yes, I know.” I smiled. My life in Tsing Hua goes on.
