Dad was not a good storyteller. We rarely heard stories about his childhood or how he escaped from mainland China to Taiwan. (In the past, I mostly heard my mom’s stories about fleeing Japanese persecution during World War II.) My father began to talk about his childhood in January 2020. Dad attended Xiheyan Elementary School in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. There were four teachers named Mrs. Ding at the school. One of them was my father’s teacher in first and second grade. He mentioned that he always liked helping teachers in the classroom. Dad was the third oldest in the family—he had one older sister, one older brother, and four younger brothers. He often helped take care of his younger brothers, and his grandmother would reward him with chicken drumsticks during Chinese New Year. It’s clear that my father had been an obedient and well-behaved boy since childhood. He also loved to help others.
Dad later talked about how he escaped from China to Taiwan. It made me feel that he had experienced the grace of God even before he knew the Lord Jesus. Dad left his hometown in May 1949. His family asked two friends to take him (he was 16 years old and had just graduated from the spring session of a commercial junior high school) and his 18-year-old brother to Taiwan to escape the Communists who were causing 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 on the other. The situation was tense and dangerous, but they hid and finally arrived safely at the Zhoushan Islands.
While in the Zhoushan Islands, Dad contracted malaria. The smuggler could only take two people to Taiwan at a time, but there were four of them. So my uncle and Dad decided to let the other two go first. Since they didn’t have legal documents, they stayed in the Zhoushan Islands and waited for their dad in Taiwan to apply for legal papers. Once they received the documents, they took a merchant ship to Keelung, Taiwan, on September 30, 1949. Dad said gratefully that although he might have entered Taiwan illegally at first, he was blessed by his illness, which allowed him to wait and eventually enter Taiwan legally with registered permanent residence status.
Dad’s sister was also in the Zhoushan Islands at that time. She loved studying and achieved excellent grades, but she decided not to go to Taiwan with her brothers. Who would have thought that her decision would lead to 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. To make a living, my uncle worked as an apprentice at the Smart Shirt Company and labored in the factory. He was smart and eager to learn, and later became a very successful owner of the company. When my father saw the announcement for the entrance exam to Hsinchu Normal College (a two-year college for training teachers), he took the exam and was admitted. He started college in November 1949. At that time, most of his classmates had also fled from mainland China like him. They helped and cared for each other throughout college. Since my grandfather was in Taiwan, my dad was luckier than most of his classmates and was willing to provide financial support to his friends. Each classmate looked out for one another, and they built deep friendships that lasted for decades, until old age.
My father graduated from Hsinchu Normal College in 1952. Because my grandfather lived in Keelung, my father applied to teach there. At that time, there were two elementary schools to choose from. He chose Xinyi Elementary School because most of the teachers there were from mainland China. After my mother graduated from a female teacher’s college in 1953, she also taught at Xinyi Elementary School. She had a hard time calculating students’ grades, so my dad often helped her with grading and setting up classrooms. They started dating then and built 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 study science-related fields, he failed the entrance exam. However, in October 1955, he was recommended for one of the slots in the Department of Education at Normal University without taking the exam. Dad started studying at Normal University in 1955 and graduated in 1959. While studying there, he lived in Taipei and my mom lived in Taoyuan. The two continued exchanging letters and maintained their friendship.
After graduating from Normal University, my father and two classmates were assigned to teach at Beitou Junior High School. At that time, my mother taught at Dongmen Elementary School in Taoyuan, but in 1960 she transferred to Beitou Elementary School. After they married in 1960, they lived in a one-room dormitory behind the library of Beitou Junior High School.
(To be continued …)
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