Swimming Party

We had several swimming parties at our home and at the Friests’ home that summer. We used plastic swimming pools which were very popular in 1974. Wendell and Faith Friest were living in Taipei at the time. Wendell had graduated from St.Paul Theological Seminary not very long before and had come back to this place which he loved, Taiwan, as a missionary. They had three girls then. We went to their place a couple of times and they came to our place, too, for a fun party. The pictures below give you some glimpses of the happy time of our kids.

Many Relatives

My father had one older brother and a couple of younger sisters. My mother, on the other hand, had a brother and one older sister. These were the relatives we were told about. I only met one of my father’s sisters and she only for one month, when she came to our home in Nanking to visit, before we moved to Taiwan in 1948. I called her Googoo and had a very good impression of her, as she was the only relative who gave me some of her spare change, in private, whenever she could, during the month she was with us. In Taiwan, we had quite a number of relatives, but most of them were part of my generation and their children. In 1975, we visited quite a number of them and many of them visited us. Here I have collected several pictures of those who came to visit us over the three month period.Hweige was my mothers’ niece, the daughter of my mother’s older sister. She passed away last year in 2013, in Tainan at her younger daughter’s home.Yaouge was in the military. He was my mother’s nephew. He died early and had a hard life. His brother Wien-Ge was also one of our visitors this summer, but I have no picture of him this time. Huang Hong Tai was the son of my father’s nephew. He was born in Taiwan and was in high school when we visited Taiwan that year. His family are now the only living relatives from my father’s side.The two pictures above are of the Yuan Family. Yuange was the husband of Xiaojie, who was my father’s niece. She played an important role in my family’s life, not only with respect to my father but also with regard to others in the family. I will say more about her later. Here they were with their grand child. Erge was my father’s nephew, Er means two in Chinese, as he was the second male in my father’s older brother’s home. I am the ninth if you follow the count of his family first, since my uncle had eight male children. Xiaojie was an older sister of Erge, but she was not counted as she was a girl. Erjie (in the picture above) was Erge’s wife and HongTai was their son!Zhu-ge and his wife Zhu-sao were my mother’s family relatives. They were really Hwei-ge’s relatives on her father side. So this family was not really directly related to my parents.

Washing Lady

As we lived in a house separate from my parents that summer, not only did we have to cook once in awhile for ourselves, when we were not invited out for dinner, but, more importantly, we had to clean our clothes regularly – almost daily. Clearly some help was necessary. We were lucky to have a regular washing lady come almost daily to wash our clothes by hand, since there was no washing machine available. A back yard was also necessary, as we had to dry our clothes there. The backyard had some papaya trees with papayas on them. I thought you would like to see our yard and our regular washing lady. Panpan was happy to help her sometimes! 

Playing Cards

One of the activities we did regularly during our three month visit was to to play cards with my parents. Many times, the players may only be the grandparents against their young grandchildren, Panpan and Steven. The two main games were “Believe it or not” and “Connect the Dragon”. And they were playing the games quite seriously, no one was willing to lose! They played as often as they had free time together. The following pictures were very typical!!!

Of course, they had other activities, such as reading books or just chatting!

Basketball Court

I mentioned about the basketball court at Taida last time. It was a place of great significance in my life. I started to play there when I was about twelve, right after I started my junior high school at Banqiao. At the beginning, it was only on the weekends during school time. But in the summer time, it was every day!! Sometimes, it was twelve hours a day! Of course, my best friend, Taotze, was with me most of the time. Sometimes, we went there to play early in the morning, then we walked to Reservoir Place to swim in the afternoon, and came back for more basketball! If you are wondering if we drank something when we were there all day long, the answer is “yes”! Although we did not have coca cola or other soft drinks, there were venders who carried iced tea on the backs of their bicycles. For a few pennies, we could drink until we were happy again. When we returned in the summer of 1975, people were using the basketball for some other type of exercise, no one was playing basketball. Life had certainly changed!

We lived in a nearby house

My parents’ house on the same old street was still our base. In the following pictures you can see the front door and the trees in our yard. Many of these were fruit trees while others were nice decorative ones, which either blossomed or gave off a special fragrance.

We stayed there only a very short time, as my parents had arranged for us to live in another house nearby. That way we could have some flexibility and more space. The house was only a few blocks away on the same street, but on a different lane. It was also a single house with a lot of trees. I took a couple of pictures of the lane in both directions. You can see our children standing in front of our outside gate.

Early Morning Walk!

Just one day after we arrived at my parents’ home in Taipei, both children got up very early, without any problem, as they had some jet lag.  My father was very happy to take us out for his regular morning exercise, a walk. It was the walk he did every morning around the neighborhood and the University campus. Our children were still wearing their Disney hats and, for the first time, they saw that a lot of people were already up, many of whom were doing different types of exercises. They saw the basketball court where I used to play. Of course, they saw the classrooms where I used to attend my classes. And, of course, they got a chance to see the beautiful campus of Taida, the most prestigious University on the island. Of course, they do not now remember any of these experiences, but I am sure that they learned something which is part of the early education they experienced. We human beings learn from many sources, and we do not know at the time what eventually becomes part of who we are. By the time we started to walk back home, the sun was just coming up in our faces, as you can see in the last two pictures.

First Time for Steven

Our next stop was our main destination for this big trip --- Taiwan. This was Steven’s first visit to the place where I grew-up. Panpan had been there once before, but she was only a few months old in 1969. In 1972, father retired and came to visit USA and we did not go back Taiwan. So for practical purposes, this was the first time that both of our children can remember that they were there in Taiwan. We arrived in the middle of June, and, of course, my parents were there to welcome us at the airport. The weather in Taiwan was very comfortable at that time of the year. My father had already been retired for a while from his position at the University by that time, so we did not have many extra people coming to the airport to welcome us, as had happened in 1969. The pictures below were all taken right at the exit door from Custom’s at the airport. It took just a few minutes for Steven to warm up to everyone after this long and tiring trip!

  

What is in a Chinese name?

As a parent, you get the right to name your children. In China, the name of a person is very important and, therefore, to name your children is a serious task. Not only do you have to worry about the meaning of the name, how it sounds is another factor, as you do not want your children to be bullied because his or her name sounds like something bad.The names you choose represent not only your mental mood but also your educational level. Earlier, I wrote about family poems and the one word in a name which is used to show your generation. That is, all your siblings share one common word in a three word name. Today I am using another example to show you how names for children are often selected. Debbie and Lin-Fung Yang have two children. The older one, a boy, is named Lotay, which is formed in two parts. Lo, the first part, refers to Los Angeles and the second part, Tay,  refers to Taiwan. Both parts were used to represent important locations for the parents. These places were most significant to them and they wanted their son to remember them. Lotay was only five years old when we were staying at his home. It was a big surprise for Steven to learn while we were there that he was Lotay’s uncle, the same generation as Lotay’s mother!

 

First Time at Disneyland

Our next stop before getting onto an airplane to go to Taiwan was Los Angeles. My cousin Debbie Yuan was living there with her husband Yang Lin-fung. While we were in LA, we did not waste any time and went to visit Disneyland one day. We had a great time there - it was our first visit. Both children were old enough to enjoy many of the rides. From the Small World to the Pirate Boat ride, we did not mind lining up and waiting for a long time to share their joy. The Unusual Ant Hill and the regular carousels were both visited. Certainly we talked and took pictures with many of the characters which made Disney famous.