Monday, March 22, 2010

My Siblings

The picture you saw earlier of my family during the war time was a family of four; Dao-chien (Dean  道健) and I were in the picture. Just before the war was over, a daughter was added to the family. I remembered how happy my mother was. The war ended in 1945. We followed the government and moved to Nanjing. In 1946, after my mother lost a pair of twins, we had another brother, who died in just one year. There was just one picture taken with my sister and the new brother together.
    This picture was taken in front of the famous Linguo Pagoda Temple in 1947. Dean and I were in the middle, while mother was holding our just-born young brother(黄道 一 )and my cousin Fushen was holding my sister(黄道培), who died later in Taiwan just after her sixth birthday.

Huang Tao-kang(黄道刚) was born was born a year later (1948) just before we escaped to Taiwan, Tao Kai(道愷)was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1950 so she is exactly 11 years younger than me. Thus was created two generations of our siblings, one during the war, myself and Tao-chien and one after we moved to Taiwan, Tao-kang and Tao-kai. 

    The four surviving siblings in front of our new home in Taipei.

My father accepted a job as the chief accountant of National Taiwan University in 1951 and the Huang family life finally started to become stabilized. We moved from Kaoshung, where we had been staying with my Mother’s brother and his family, to Taipei.

    Kai was one and I was 12 in this picture. Who can say that I did not take care of her!

     We even had a family pedicab with a driver

2 comments:

  1. These pictures are great - keep up the monologue, it is very interesting reading.

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  2. I have always considered myself blessed for having three elder brothers who not only did not bully me, but cared about me a great deal. Big Brother (Tom), Little Brother (Dean), and Third Brother (Ed) influenced me in profound different ways. Tom set good examples as the eldest. I was 12 When he was getting ready to leave Taiwan. a few days before his departure, he took Ed and me to see a movie in the afternoon. A fantasy prince, princess, and dragon story. It was GREAT! After the movie, he took us to a "western" restaurant for dinner. I ordered a hamburger, which was served, without a bun, on a plate with lettuce and a slice of tomato on the side. I ate it with a fork. That was the first hamburger (and fork) in my life. What an experience. I remember that I said to myself that this Big Brother really is a pretty nice guy, and I probably will miss him. It was until years later that the relationship between Tom and I started to grew deeper and deeper into a tight friendship.

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