Tuane Gorgonsen - Metempsychosis: Part Six

Part Six

A year later, after Tuane secured a position as Dean of Min-Chuan Girls’ High school, Linda was summoned back to Taiwan. There, while Tuane built his career, Linda took care of Tuane’s mom, which is what wives are supposed to do. When Sasha was born, it was a home birth to save hospital and ambulatory costs. The wet nurse was an ah-ma who lived across the road. Baby Sasha ate ground-up leftover vegetables and meat, hand turned by Linda to save money on electric bills. Before too long, Basia and Marsha joined the Gorgonsen clan.  

The glorious expansion of Tuane's 'world familiarization' was achieved through his pedagogical channels. After all, one could not represent the world to natives unless one was an intellectually accredited personage. Tuane took advantage of his relationship with Mr. Millender by being at the right place at the right time as Mr. Millender expanded his bushiban and his legitimate credential in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) into the international school boom that was just starting in Taipei. Every Taiwanese native wanted their children to be familiar with English and Western society; it was considered modernization and the road to wealth.

 Tuane, by virtue of having an Alien Resident Card, being married to Linda, was able to stay in Taiwan permanently while other foreign teachers were fly-by-nighters who had to renew their visas every two months and leave the island after two extensions so as to obtain another tourist entry visa. Tuane parlayed his permanence into an administrative career as the dean of an all-girl junior college called in Taipei. The college didn't so much need his diploma as they did his 'green card' but diploma he produced and presented when it was, by rote, called for. Tuane had barely finished high school in Tetonia, Idaho and the first college campus he stepped onto was Brigham Young University for a day when he applied to become a Mormon Missionary. In Taiwan, he was highly qualified thanks to his confident air and blond hair.

    For fifteen years, Tuane was the Dean of English Studies at Min-Chuan College. His job? Get foreign teachers with green cards for the English program. His checked their credentials, certified diplomas, or verified their experience, and Tuane took some of it for his own. The administration never bothered to ask. He sat in his nice sunny office on most days, read the USA Today, walked out only to verify that students were in their proper assigned seats in the cavernous classrooms, and met with students, as required, to advise them on prerequisite classes and TOEFL exams which had to be passed for students to study overseas in America. Tuane was indeed bringing 'world familiarization' to Taiwan, but no one recognized that Tuane's world was bogus.

     For fifteen fruitful years, Tuane pocketed every New Taiwan Dollar he received while Linda brought home the cash from her executive position in her family's stationary export business. Later, when the "Three No’s" of Taiwan relations with China became the Three "Maybe’s." she even oversaw outsourced production from Chinese factories to suppliers in the American western states.