The Brightest Star in Tan-Zih: Part #3 (last) "Star on the Ground"

“Dad, we’re turning the café into a pub!”

“What?” her father screwed up his face on an invisible sour lychee. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” is all he said. “The clientele is rough. It could be dangerous. You’ll have to pay off hoodlums and the police.”

Lin Shu-Jing listened. “My fellow investors think it will save our investment. We want to bring in liquor and karaoke.”

Father stood up painfully and began to walk out of the room. “You better think it over. Be careful.”

One of the regular customers at the new pub was one tall lump of a man I called “Chip’ n’ Dale,” not the sexy Chippendale men with six packs, but the cartoon chipmunks with six nuts in each cheek.

Chip ‘n’ Dale had a thing for Lin Shu-Jing, among other female interests. He told Lin Shu-Jing he was a college graduate, a plus in her book of potential boyfriends, and he was tall, dark, and lean with an air of confidence you could cut with a knife. She neglected the pub, too, as she went out eating, drinking, smoking, and gambling, scheming and borrowing money.

      Her sister was going away; to be with me in America, perhaps marry me. Lin Shu-Jing was dumbfounded. How could her younger sister get married before her? She was a thirty-year-old single woman in Taiwan. Time was running out. She had to get married soon. Chip n’ Dale would be the man.

Sure, he had three children from a previous marriage, two living with him, but if her sister could handle me with three children of my own, she could do it, too. It might be her only chance.

She married Chip n’ Dale a year after my future wife came to America and married me.

“Don’t do it, Lin Shu-Jing. He’s not for you!”That’s what her family and all her friends told her. That’s what her brother and sister told her. 

“You can do better than that,” they said, one by one, but she wouldn’t listen. She was ready to get married and Chip ‘n’ Dale was the lucky one to grab the ring, and keep it. Despite all the men Lin Shih-Ling had met – sophisticated, worldly, responsible, hard-working, and gentle – she went the opposite direction – provincial, ill-mannered, lazy, blameful, and arrogant. To this day, twenty-two years later, not much has changed, and still no one knows why. 

“Ba-ba, please come to our wedding.”

     “What? You’re marrying?” He knew it would happen.

 Lin Shu-Jing had brought “Mr. Shieh, Chip ‘n’ Dale, with his two kids to live with them earlier in the year.

 “Lun-chi-ba-tsao!” (trans: “messed–up.”) But father was too kind. He went along with it.

They had a big wedding, well beyond their means, but no one from the groom’s family came. There were five large empty round tables where his family would have sat. Why didn’t they show up? He had just gotten divorced from his first wife and his family was mortified.

“Hey Ba-ba, why don’t you divide your property for your children.  Before it’s too late,” said Lin Shu-Jing at Chip ‘n’ Dale’s suggestion.

     “Why? You can’t wait?” said Father

     “Don’t be regretful,”

     “I’m not dead, yet.”

“Baba, we’re starting our new kindergarten. We need some collateral.”

     “What’s wrong with having classes here at home or the boutique?”

     “We need room to grow. Help us buy the store-front house. We’ll be able to live upstairs.”

     “How messed up. Lun-chi-ba-tsao! Lun-chi-ba-tsao!” Father started drinking again.

     “Lun-chi-ba-tsao! Lun-chi-ba-tsao!”

     So they moved out of the Lin home and rented a store front nearby.

     Then they moved to another building, five floors, but only used two. Meanwhile, they rented another building for the bushiban.

      The telephone rang loudly in the Lin home. “Ba! I’m going to have a baby!”

      “Lun-chi-ba-tsao! Lun-chi-ba-tsao! Can you afford it; you just opened a new school.”

     “Ba, that’s why I called you. We need to borrow money to buy our new home.”

     “But you just rented a new home.”

     “Our place upstairs from the school is too small.” It was tight with Chip ‘n’ Dale raising his two teenage daughters from his first marriage with them.

     Once again, Father went to the bank and took out a loan for his daughter and son-in-law. Chip ‘n’ Dale had no bank credit because of past bad transactions. Lin Shu-Jing had no credit history because all her earnings had been off the books. They got the loan, guaranteed by Father, but the loan wasn’t enough. The school needed fixtures, furniture, and a little school bus for Chip ‘n’ Dale to drive and pick up students.

     That’s when Lin Shu-Jing went to her friends and relatives for loans. All her best friends were hit upon and her favorite aunt, too. But the loans weren’t just for the school. They lived a good life together, staying out late, leaving the elder child to watch the youngsters and baby. Late night snacks of goose meat and liver, imported liquor and cigarettes, pachinko games; they had a very nice life and neglected the children, at home and in school.

     Chip ‘n’ Dale was a teacher now, teaching the older students because they cried and complained less when he yelled at them.

     “What are you, stupid or something?” he would say to his class. “Didn’t your parents teach you anything or are they stupid, too? Sit the hell down and pay attention or else you’ll get a whack!” That’s the way he taught and that’s the way they began losing students. 

     “You have to stop talking to the students like that,” Lin Shih-Ling pleaded.

     “Who’s the boss around here?” was his response.

     “I am! Don’t you know? This is my school,” she retorted, but a lot that did. He stopped cursing but he still couldn’t teach very well. The students kept on leaving.

     “From now on, teach and drive the school bus, okay?” Lin Shu-Jing told him. So drive the school bus he did. On bald tires he careened around Tan-Zih streets corners with a cargo of children. Swine had better commutes to the slaughter house. Luckily, no accidents occurred.

     For Lin Shu-Jing’s best intentions, she let Chip ’n’ Dale play boss. Every good thing Lin Shu-Jing did, Chip ‘n’ Dale took credit. Every bad thing that happened, he blamed her. And he blamed his girls from his first marriage for ruining his life. He treated them like little slaves getting him cigarettes and washing the floors. Eventually, they ran away from home, but Lin Shu-Jing wasn’t that wise.

“Baba, we need to have a larger home. We need to move our school to a better location. We’re losing business where we are located. It’s a bad location. We need to move to be more professional”

     “Lun-chi-ba-tsao! Lun-chi-ba-tsao!” But father gave her the money again. They moved to a new condominium a few blocks away and moved their school to another location. Furthermore, they had another child, a daughter this time. The end was near.

“Lend us the money or she’ll commit suicide. She’s home, crying, right now.”

     “Who says?” her family asked

     “She says! Do you want to take a chance?”

     “Let her try,” they called his bluff.

     “So lose the condo. Finished!” said Father.

Chip ‘n’ Dale and Lin Shu-Jing couldn’t get their last loan from the family. She went to her friends, all her friends, and borrowed from them.

 “We need the money or we’ll lose the condo! We can’t pay the mortgage!” Her friend Mazy lent her a million Taiwan dollars

The loan was for a year and Mazy needed the money back. They didn’t have it.

 Lin Shu-Jing borrowed money from an aunt to pay back her friend.

Her aunt, who loved her niece even more than she did her own daughter, still trusted her. She lent her niece all the savings she had but it wasn’t enough.

All of her friends were expecting their loans paid back and Lin Shu-Jing was broke. By the way, Chip ‘n’ Dale didn’t ask his family to lend him money and he didn’t have any friends with money to lend.

So their spending, their gambling, and their late-night goose meat and liver snacks came to an end.

Their goose was cooked.

They went on the lamb.

They just got in their car with what they could carry, with their two children, and drove into the abyss heading south down freeway #1, ending up in Tainan, a city a few hours south of Tan-Zih. They found an inexpensive place to rent and they hunkered down, incognito, incommunicado.

     “No, she isn’t here. I don’t know when she’ll be back. She left no number.

     “No, she isn’t here. I don’t know when she’ll be back. She left no number.”

          The phone calls and angry visits to the Lin home wouldn’t stop. The family had to change their phone number. Everyone wanted their loan re-paid. The parents wanted their children’s tuition paid back. The bank wanted the mortgage due. The condo was going into foreclosure.

     Angriest of all was Lin Shu-Jing’s aunt. She had lent her niece one million Taiwan dollars, every dollar she had saved for her retirement. I’ve heard that she was ready to kill herself and had to be restrained. “How could she do this to me?” she sobbed. “I trusted her! What am I going to do?”

Her poor aunt cried her eyes out for weeks. Still, Lin Shu-Ling didn’t call, couldn’t be reached, and seemingly didn’t care what grief she had caused.

     “No, she isn’t here. I don’t know when she’ll be back. She left no number.

 “How many year has it been now?”

     “Ten.”

     “Ten years, huh.”

     “Ten.”

     “Nothing new?”

     “Nothing.”

     “Same old story?”

     “Same old.”

     Once, a few years back, a police car stopped her as she rode her scooter late at night to get boiled goose meat and liver for a late snack for her and Chip n’ Dale. She didn’t have a license so they took her in for questioning. Found out she owed the bank money. Found out she owed one friend who sued her money. She was brought to court. Made to make monthly payments to one friend, one of many; the others had given up looking for her. All except for her aunt. Her aunt still wants to know how she could have done that to her. Lin Shu-Jing still hasn’t paid her back.

     Her children can’t get grants from the government because she’s not registered in a household; the children are registered at a new friend’s address or they couldn’t get to school at all.

     Lin Shu-Jing teaches in someone else’s bushiban these days. They make ends meet. She lives her life through the academic accomplishments of her son.

 She’s still married to Chip ‘n’ Dale, a man who, she confessed, years ago, she didn’t really love and never sleeps with because of that and his sleep aphnea; his mammoth snoring. 

As the stars come out in the bright Tan-Zih sky as the soaked clouds of another typhoon pass west on their circular path to China, the common people of Taiwan recover from the deluge, sink holes, broken bridges, drowning, washed away roads and homes, flooded rice paddies and orange groves. The people move on and they’re happy. They watch TV and gloat a little over others fates even worse than their own. The friends who lost money in the storm are happy to be alive. The relatives who lost every earthly possession still have the love of their families. Lin Shu-Ling is one of those survivors. Whether she caused or was victim of the storm is unimportant. The storm is over and it’s time to clean up.

Lin Shu-Jing, the storm is over. It’s time to clean up. Shu-Jing? Oh, there’s the smell of death around you. Is that Chip ‘n’ Dale on your back?” Bring out your garbage! The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven plays on the sanitation trucks. Lin Shu-Jing, Bring out your garbage. She is still, and will forevermore be Tan-Zih’s shining star.

  One day. a little girl with her mama are walking down a street: 

 “Look Mama, there is a star on the ground.”