Dad was not a good story-teller. We rarely heard stories of his childhood or how he escaped from mainland China to Taiwan. (In the past, I mostly heard my mom’s story about fleeing from the Japanese persecution during World War II.) My father began to talk about his childhood in January 2020. Dad went to Xiheyan elementary school in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. There were four Mrs. Ding (teachers) in the school. One of Mrs. Ding was my father’s teacher for the first and second grade. My father mentioned that he always liked to help teachers in the classrooms. Dad is the third oldest in the family (he had one older sister, one older brother, and four younger brothers). He often helped to take care of his younger brothers and his grandmother would reward him with chicken drumsticks during Chinese New Year. We can see that my father had been an obedient and well-behaved boy since he was a child. He also loved to help others.
Dad later talked about how he escaped to Taiwan from China. It made me feel that he had experienced the grace of God before he knew the Lord Jesus. Dad left his hometown in May of 1949. His family asked two friends to take him (he was 16-year-old and just graduated from the spring class of a commercial junior high school) and his 18-year-old brother to Taiwan to escape from the Communist that caused the civil war. They took a small boat and followed the Yongjiang River to the Zhoushan Islands. At that time, the Kuomintang was on one side of the river and the Communist Party was on the other side. The situation was tense and dangerous but they hid and finally arrived at the Zhoushan Islands safely. When he was in the Zhoushan Islands, he contracted malaria. At that time the smuggler could only take two people to Taiwan but there were four of them. So my uncle and my father decided to let the other two go first. Since they did not have legal documents, they stayed in Zhoushan Islands and waited for their dad in Taiwan to apply for legal documents. Once they got the documents, they took a merchant ship to Keelung, Taiwan on September 30, 1949. Dad said gratefully that he might have entered Taiwan illegally but he was blessed by illness and he could wait for a registered permanent residence status to enter Taiwan legally. Dad’s sister was also in the Zhoushan Islands at that time. She liked to study and achieved excellent grades but she decided not to go to Taiwan with her brothers. Who would have thought that her decision brought a completely different fate for her life.
When my father first came to Taiwan, he lived with his father and brother in a small apartment in Keelung. In order to make a living, my uncle went to the Smart Shirt Company as an apprentice and worked in the factory. He was smart and eager to learn so he later became a very successful boss of the company. When my father saw the announcement of the entrance exam for Hsinchu Normal College (two-year college for becoming a teacher), he took the exam and got admitted. He started college in November of 1949. At that time, most of the classmates also fled from mainland China like him. They helped each other and took care of each other during college. Since my grandfather was in Taiwan, my dad was luckier than other classmates so dad was willing to provide his friends financial support. Each classmate took care of each other and they had established a deep friendship for decades until death of old age.
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My father graduated from Hsinchu Normal College in 1952. Because my grandfather lived in Keelung, he applied to teach in Keelung. At that time, there were two elementary schools to choose from. He chose to teach Xinyi Elementary School because the teachers there were mainly from mainland China. After my mother graduated from a female teacher college in 1953, she also taught at Xinyi Elementary School. She had a hard time calculating scores/grades for the students so my dad often helped her calculate grades and set up classrooms for her. They started dating from then on and built their nearly 70 years of friendship and 62 years of marriage. After teaching at the elementary school for three years, my father wanted to pursue higher education. Although he was among the best and wanted to go for science related fields, he failed the entrance exam. However in October of 1955, he was recommended for one of the slots for the Department of Education of Normal University without taking the entrance exam. Dad started studying at Normal University in 1955 and graduated in 1959. When he studied at Normal University, he lived in Taipei and my mom lived in Taoyuan. Two of them continued to exchange letters and maintained their friendship. After graduating from Normal University, my father and two other classmates were assigned to Beitou Junior High School to teach. At that time, my mother taught at Dongmen Elementary School in Taoyuan, and in 1960 she transferred to Beitou Elementary School. After they got married in 1960, they lived in a one-room dormitory behind the library of Beitou Junior High School.
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(To be continued …)
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