Taichung Crossroad

        Crossroad of Taichung

Taiwan may be an island to you and National Geographic, a province to the Peoples’ Republic of China, a clearinghouse to American businessmen, a bargaining chip to the Kuomintang, but it is like an ocean of people to me. It is not surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Strait of Taiwan; it is the ocean of life surrounded by a world of water. The people are bodies of salty water, the organization of earth, and the multiple organisms in the vast sea of life which is Taiwan.

Fish on scooters swim by; individuals congregate on street corners behind walk/don’t walk signs; green LED dots of light in a box hanging on a pole, counting down time like New Years’ Eve in Times Square, a big-footed LED man walking faster until the number turn red when you should stop walking. The tentacles of streets and lanes into intersections that coagulate with scooters and human-shaped blotches of clothes, all with helmets, some with masks, wave after wave until the last few puttering fish head home.

 Miss Guo Ah-Gui, a native Taiwanese woman in her late sixties whose life has been spent in bitter labor. Nonetheless, she had managed through hard work and poor living to accumulate a little property and become a landlord on a very small scale. She married a mainlander and failed to produce a filial son of their own. Her last job, ten years ago, was washing dishes in a cafeteria. Now, she’s an old lady who drinks heavily, talks openly about sex, and is bold in relations, by no means uncommon in Taiwan.

 “Look at me; an old bag of sixty-nine who can hardly read a word. That’s a laugh,” she said. “My whole life I’ve been suffering because I didn’t study and because I’m too fast with my mouth.” 

Her adopted son doesn’t visit her regularly. Miss Guo’s unconventional life and her refusal to take help from her better-off sisters kept her poor. Like others, she treated family as primary social unit but had few extra familial sources of support or charity, and government welfare services are extremely meager. The local temple procured fire relief for Miss Guo and her neighbors when their shanty town had a fire.

Miss Guo waits on the sidewalk for the light to change at the crossroad.

Sunset over the high-rise by the crossroads of Dong-Shan Road, Section 1 and Wen-Shin Road, Section 4, where Beitun Road, Lane 240 sneaks in a one lane shortcut to the Taiyuan Taiwan train station. Everyone looks up at the sky, waits for the red LED light to count down to ‘1’ in an uneventful end to a wasted day.

Like many of her fellow post 1949 migrants to Taiwan, Mrs. Zhang Xiuzhen had always expected that she and her family would return to China one day. She was born in Shandong province in 1937. She never bothered to learn or teach her daughter Taiwanese.  She was never happy about the way her sons or daughter adapted to life in Taiwan. She always believed that if only she and her husband had been able to return to China under a triumphant KMT government, their loyalty would have been rewarded by a high position and her children wouldn't have become unemployed drug addicts. But here she was, 77 years old and still her children lived in her home and took every penny from her that they could. 

Mrs. Zhang waits on her smoky 50cc. scooter for the light to change at the crossroad.

Get a close-up of the man at the window in a new condominium there, looking at the street down below. He's got things on his mind. He shakes his head and pulls the drapes. He starts writing a letter. He's reached the end of his rope. In the world, he feels so lonely and afraid, disillusioned by the promises. It is a pity that it ended up this way. His life just slips away.         

Guo Chi-Tan’s real vocation was cooking, northern dishes from her own background and southern-style learned from her Guangxi husband while he was still alive, Cantonese and Sichuanese food from old friends from these provinces. With these skills, she earned enough money for her children's' education which she added to the 50% discount in tuition the KMT designated as affirmative action for Chinese refugees who fled with them. Her children promptly spent all the tuition money as soon as they got it; two boys never finished high school and the daughter went to the easiest college she could pass the test for. 

She is on her way to work in her battered old car at the crossroad.

Moonlight over the high-rise, by the crossroads, at the end of the day. The man at the window is now asleep in his bed, safely tucked away. In his dreams, he’s a leader in his community, sharing what he has with his neighbors, helping a lost dog and taking children to the park. He honors elders and supports neighborhood schools. He fixes things that are broken even if he didn’t break it. He has potluck parties and does gardening together. He picks up litter on the street and reads stories aloud to his neighbors’ children. He talks to the mail carrier and stops to listen to birds sing. He puts up a swing in the park and helps elderly neighbors to carry something heavy. He starts a tradition and barters for his goods with shopkeepers. He asks questions and hires young people to do odd jobs. He asks for help when he needs it and opens his shades in the morning.. He shares his skills and takes back the night. He listens before he reacts to anger, mediates conflicts, and tries to understand. He knows that no one is silent but many, like him, are not being heard. In his dreams, he works to change this.

Fang Wei-Chi’s children grew up in subsidized housing in Taichung with their ailing father. Wei-Chi lived for twenty years in other people's houses often able to return to her own only once every two months. She was the cook for well-to-do military Chinese family. It was the best job she ever had; cooking only, no house work. When the former general employer passed away, she went home to live as a single mother with her first son's children, now 27, 29, and 31. Her son and wife were working for Taiwan Sugar Company when they died in a terrible fire when the children were young.  

     Morning comes and the realities of life shatter his illusions. They bring him down again. He gets up and stands by the window at the intersection, sunlight over the crossroads.

He watches all these working class stiffs meet on their scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, buses, in their cars, and on foot at this Taichung crossroad. 

     Lai Ka-Fang had met her husband in 1947, a young man from the air force. He was twelve years older than she was. She was seventeen when they got married. He often went out to drink and gamble with his air force buddies leaving her alone. After a year of marriage, she was pregnant with her first child.  The order came to fly to Taiwan. Mechanics like her husband and his friends could take their wives because they had lots of airplanes. He got her on a plane to Nanjing and from there they went to Taiwan. Everyone said they would be back in China soon. 

     Just after they moved, sleeping in temples in Taoyuan, she had her first son, the one who died in the Taiwan Sugar Factory fire. A year later, she had a daughter who lived only fifteen days; the older child injured the baby while playing and she died, A year later she had her second son. He died a few weeks after he was engaged to a very nice Taiwanese girl. She loved him for a long time but suffered from his bad behavior. After he died, she treated her like a daughter until she got re-married five years later. She went to her wedding and gave her 50,000NT; her husband's family didn't know. Two years later, in 1954, she and her husband were transferred to a little country town near Taichung. The air force built housing that they were later allowed to buy, at a special low price. After they settled there they had their last son. He was too stupid to finish school. He served in the army, went to Taipei, worked in a restaurant, married an Aborigine woman but wouldn't get married. She hardly ever sees him.

     She waits at the crossroad for the light to change. She wants to be on her way. She is tired of waiting.

Taiwan’s working class has been shaped by seafaring aborigines, Chinese tradition, by colonialism, and by oppressive industrialization. If you look beneath the surface, you will see three main ethnic groups, but for a sailor like me, riding the surf of Taiwan, they are all in one big teeming sea, requiring navigation to get to where I am going, wherever that may be; all I know is I am getting there through them, through this sea of people. I don’t know if I am a chameleon taking on their color or remaining forever a stand-out, uncharted. Am I passing through it or clinging to it like a barnacle to a wooden dock? But feel the blue collar on my neck I do and see the blue blur of life’s speed in the sea around me. Here are the people who make me feel at home, though I’ll never get to know anyone personally. Listen as I categorize each layer of flake in this scallop. I will tell you about the people of Taiwan that I see every day, my nemesis, my traffic, my school of fish-fry, my current of characters, and the family that raised my wife. Each person occupies a current of life with a million.

Where will they go when the light turns green again?