Speaking Part 2 童年開心回憶 Band 7+ 範答

Describe a happy memory from your childhood.

You should say:

• when it happened
• where you were
• who you were with
• and explain why this memory is important to you.

¹ One of the happiest memories I have from my childhood is a family trip to Alishan — a mountain in central Taiwan famous for its spectacular sunrise — when I was about seven years old. ² My parents had been promising the trip for months, and I remember barely sleeping the night before we left because I'd honestly never been above the clouds before.

³ We drove up the winding mountain road late in the afternoon and stayed the night in a tiny wooden guesthouse that smelled faintly of cypress. ⁴ The part I remember most clearly is the next morning — my dad woke me at around four in the morning, wrapped me tightly in his jacket because the air was surprisingly cold for someone used to Taitung weather, and carried me on his shoulders through the dark forest all the way to the sunrise viewing platform. ⁵ There were dozens of other families already gathered and waiting, most of them standing in complete silence, and I could actually see my own breath hanging in the beam of his flashlight.

⁶ When the sun finally came up, it didn't really rise — it sort of leaked slowly through the sea of clouds beneath us, turning them first pale pink, then gold. ⁷ I had never once imagined that you could actually look down on clouds from above. ⁸ I remember my older sister crying a little, and my mum saying quietly, "Remember this." And somehow I really have.

⁹ That memory matters to me because it was probably the first time I properly understood that the world was much bigger than my neighbourhood, and bigger than anything I'd seen on TV. ¹⁰ Whenever I feel overwhelmed or small these days, I still think of being up there on my dad's shoulders, looking down at that sea of clouds, and the worry tends to shrink back to its proper size.

The happiest memory I have from childhood is probably something very ordinary — Sunday mornings at my grandmother's house in Tainan, when she'd make fan tuan, a sticky-rice roll stuffed with pickled vegetables.

One memory that always makes me smile is being stuck at home during a typhoon when I was about eight. The power had gone out, and instead of panicking, my parents lit candles, pulled out a board game, and we ended up having one of the best evenings of my childhood.

A happy memory that keeps coming back to me is Friday nights at Raohe Night Market when I was nine or ten. My mum would let me hold a 100-NT note and choose one thing to spend it on — which, looking back, was probably the most serious decision I'd ever been trusted with.