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?
