My Third Time in 4th Grade

In the fall of 1949, the Chinese Navy moved its command center to Zhung-en. Along with that move a brand new elementary school was constructed. Everything was to be taught in Mandarin. Since there were not enough Navy-related children, I was allowed to register in the fourth grade for the third time. I had thus lost one year of regular academic progression.

The school was located not far from where we lived. Dean and I walked there every day. September in Zhung-en was still quite hot. I remember that we jumped from one shaded area to another, and stayed under the shade for a while before ran to the next. Thus it took quite a while to get back home. The school was quite small; we had a lot of personal attention from our teachers. Mom, as a former teacher herself, was quite impressed. In the fourth grade, we had to write a report every weekend about what had happened, nationally, locally, and in school, and about what we had done personally the week before. It must have been a big Job for me, as I remember that I tried to ask Mother all weekend what happened here and there. The weekly report was graded word by word by the teacher; my Mother told me later that the teacher had paved a solid foundation for me. It is too bad that I do not even remember his or her name now! I was in this school only slightly more than one semester, but it gave me a deep impression.

Father, of course, was spending his time looking for a job, like everybody else. He was trying not to get a government job again. The fact that the communists were killing everyone who supported Chiang-Kai-shek’s regime had scared a lot of people. Finally, he accepted a job offered by President Fu Szu-nien of National Taiwan University (January, 1949-December, 1950), as the accountant for the University. He was moved to the position equivalent to the Vice President of Administration when Chien Szu-liang (January, 1951-May, 1970) took over. He retired in 1972 at the same position under President Yen Cheng-hsing (June, 1970-July, 1981). I will talk about his position more later. In January 1950, we were very happy to move up to Taipei. We moved into a very nice Japanese-style house on Wenzhou Street.