From the children (I) — A mother unafraid of adversity

Encouraged by her children, Mother spent a year writing her life story — one chapter a week, stroke by stroke like engraving on steel plate, in pencil, word by word.

I am grateful to my brother-in-law Yao-qin for the computer he gave Mother, and to Mother’s eldest grandson Zong-han for the handwriting tablet for Grandma; above all to my second brother Guang-de. Whenever Mother finished a memoir chapter, though tired from work by day, he would sit straight down at the computer in the Tamsui home and type every neat pencil character into digital text. From the summer of 2010 to the summer after, a full year, we brothers and sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren looked forward each week to Mother’s freshly written story of struggle. Guang-de emailed it to the siblings, who forwarded it to the grandchildren; every piece stirred feeling and echo in our hearts — and, above all, respect. Mother had only four years of primary school under the Japanese; how did she know so much about conduct and principle? How did she know to reason and discuss with her children? Her memoir answers: family nurture in childhood and lifelong hunger to learn. She was born into a gentry family in Lukang, tutored from childhood by a grandfather who had assisted at Wenkai Academy. Her father served in the police and loved classical Chinese, enjoying poetry and couplets. Her birth mother and second stepmother died young; a grandmother steeped in ritual teaching guided her greatly — woman’s virtues, and many Hokkien proverbs and maxims from the grandmother who adored her. Because she came from a family of no thin culture, though fierce Pacific War air raids drove her with her parents into the mountains at Puli and she lost schooling — and thereafter, apart from a year of Mandarin classes with her father, never entered formal school — the habit of reading had already taken root and never faded.

Mother’s will to pursue happiness was very strong; that must have been inborn. She spoke of twice being sent to relatives; both times fierce crying and resistance won her return to her birth parents.

Had Mother been a woman who accepted fate — soft and submissive — she might not have grown up in the Tsai family and would have lived a wholly different life. In the memoir she could not bear her third stepmother’s oppression; she met a mainlander man she could trust with her life, defied her parents and elder sister’s fierce opposition, won elders of the clan plus the air-force squadron leader and Lukang police chief with her wits, and finally won her father’s consent — a beautiful marriage across local and mainlander lines. She was not yet eighteen when she decided to be mistress of her own fate.

For happiness and freedom she married a mainlander air-force master sergeant. Less than four years after the February 28 Incident, that choice carried great risk; some elders even cursed that if the marriage lasted three years they would cut off their own ears.

Thankfully the grandmother and aunt who loved Mother most blessed and encouraged her in secret, giving her courage to enter the wholly unfamiliar world of mainlander soldiers and dependants’ wives. More fortunately still, this airman from Sichuan was gentle, without domineering male pride, a man who loved wife and home one hundred per cent. Chapter by chapter Mother wrote the process of joining the same kind of mainlander who had left his native world, holding each other up, raising children, and building happiness. As eldest son I ought long ago to have known the years when household income could not cover outgo and my parents constantly worked extra jobs — yet I did not.

Mother and Father seemed to agree early not to let the children know how tight money was, always wanting us to study hard and live happily. In childhood and youth I never heard them sigh or saw them grim; in memory they always cooperated and shared chores — especially Father, who cooked when Mother was busy tailoring or minding kindergarten children, or helped alter her sewing. So when we siblings grew up, our memories of youth were bright; material want left no shadow. Even as the last family in the village to buy a refrigerator and television, we all felt childhood was spiritually rich. Only after I entered senior high did I see Mother cleaning the dependants’ block toilets and, rain or shine with my younger siblings, tending the pump motor a kilometre away at Lao Mei beach — then I felt the labour of holding the home together and how hard it was to keep me in school. In low moods at senior high and university I would picture Mother at night at the sewing machine, head down, fighting sleep — and my spirit would lift; I dared not slacken or despair.

Mother wrote that my elder sister Chun-lan, from her first month after nursing school, sent half her salary home to ease our parents’ load. That burden ought to have been mine first; my sister took it early, even giving up her chance at university. Through four years of university, apart from three summers at the first nuclear plant, I never worked during term and lived a life hungry for knowledge. Against our parents’ pressure then and my sister’s devotion, I received far too much care from them and support from her.

Remembering those free university years I feel sweetness and fullness — and deep shame that I should have worked to lighten their load; to this day I owe my sister a gratitude I cannot repay. Mother also described my second sister Chun-fang years later working half her way through five years of university, easing our parents’ finances and not fearing the long commute — more thoughtful of them than I. Mother placed all hope of changing fate and 追尋 happiness in giving her children better education.

Because that wish was so strong, whatever hardship or challenge came, she feared nothing and joined hands with Father to overcome it. She wrote that her educational belief was to raise the eldest well so younger siblings would take him as model, live uprightly, and study hard. As the eldest I was always off to fields or shore, often forgetting mealtimes, worrying and angering Mother — and earning scolding and corporal punishment. After forty I would complain with some resentment: the ruler fell on me more than on my four younger siblings. Then Mother would explain her philosophy of teaching the eldest, and I would understand her painstaking intent. In all five of us, Mother taught the principles of being human; Father was loving and quiet, educating us by example all his life. Mother’s strength to overcome adversity came from nature, family teaching, and the trials of late war and early recovery; after becoming Catholic in 1966, faith gave her powerful support. Father, when he came to Taiwan in 1949, already carried a Bible from the Nantong Baptist mission on the mainland — I learned only four years ago when I asked him to recall the past that he has prayed daily for decades without fail. Each dawn Mother bows to the sacred image and never skips the rosary. Until Father’s stroke last summer, our parents, whatever the weather, took the community bus every Sunday to Mass at the town Catholic church.

With God, Christ, and the Virgin in their hearts, they need not fear any storm of life. Mother wanted her children educated further and herself loved absorbing new knowledge. This book originally had no chapter on seeking knowledge; I begged repeatedly before Mother reluctantly agreed — she did not want to seem boastful. There is another side to her character the book does not mention but I think should: concern for public affairs and zeal to help others.

Many neighbour mothers carried grievances and came to confide in Mother; in the dependants’ village she was a listener many trusted. Many second-generation dependants loved talking with “Mama Tang.” For nearly ten years Mother and Father have lived in Tamsui; children and grandchildren need not worry. Mother’s interest in national affairs is greater than ever: besides television news she reads the editorial, opinion pages, and supplements every day. When politics looks grave she may half-criticise, half-encourage me: “Guang-hua, you studied politics — you should enter public life and make politics better.” I decline, telling her I cannot bear competing for power and am wholly unsuited to politics. Other mothers often urge children away from politics; mine often urges me toward it.

Perhaps because her grandfather enlightened her early, she cares deeply how dynasties rise and fall — and that is why she follows politics so closely.

What struck me most reading the memoir is Mother’s heartfelt thanks to every benefactor who helped while she and Father raised us: the landlord’s daughter who eagerly found part-time work after their marriage; the mainlander “elder sisters” in the early Tainan dependants’ quarter; many local and mainlander mothers after the move to Lao Mei; Father Pa of the Catholic church; air-force commanders; reserve officer Mr Xu Zhen-guo and conscript soldier Mr Wang — all gave crucial support at different stages. Without it our parents could hardly have educated five children as they did. When Father had a stroke last July Mother was lost for the first time. Though we five cooperated to support and accompany her, several Lao Mei elders and second-generation friends kept caring and encouraging until she found calm again.

I am deeply grateful to those elders and peers. The mutual-aid culture of the dependants’ quarter has not been washed thin by time nor vanished with demolition. Mother’s story is in a sense the story of a generation in Taiwan.

In an extraordinary age an ordinary mother looks anything but ordinary — especially the changing relation between locals and mainlanders in the book: from misunderstanding and rejection to understanding, acceptance, and blending — a miniature of Taiwan’s sixty years of ethnic fusion. Before about 1961 dependants’ areas had many mainlander wives; Mother fitted in easily and received much help from older mainlander women, while herself measured in friendship and aid. She disciplined us strictly, partly from a local woman’s wish to win respect from mainlanders; she did not want mainlander wives to look down on locals.

As visits home increased, kin — especially maternal grandparents and the eldest aunt — saw Mother’s happy life and children’s schooling, and worry and opposition turned to ease and acceptance. Seeing this mainlander son-in-law and brother-in-law awkward, honest, and wholly devoted to wife and children, they were more reassured and glad. I remember warm welcomes whether at grandfather’s and second uncle’s in Hemei, Changhua, or the eldest aunt at Wuqi, second aunt at Daxi, third aunt at Baguashan, fifth aunt at Yuanlin — no trace left of discrimination or rejection.

As a child and youth, whenever I went with Mother or both parents to aunts’ and uncles’ homes, I felt sisters’ love for Mother; many cousins were kind to me. Excited scenes playing at Wuqi fish ponds and shore with cousins are still vivid. Kind maternal great-grandmother and grandfather left deep impressions. Mother wrote that grandfather went alone to Lao Mei to visit his fourth daughter married at Taiwan’s northernmost shore; I too remember that quiet, gentle grandfather’s warm gaze, as if boundless feeling were hidden within. Reading the memoir I wonder whether that gaze held regret for fiercely opposing her marriage. I last saw grandfather at my uncle’s in Hemei — over seventy, with nasopharyngeal cancer, in a rattan chair with an old book; standing beside him, he read aloud to me with spirit. Mother wrote that the third stepmother, my maternal grandmother by marriage, who fiercely opposed her marrying Father and blocked grandfather’s contact, I met several times on visits to Hemei and no longer felt rejection — evidently Mother’s success raising children had softened that hard heart.

Having finished Mother’s memoir I wish to say only this: Beloved Mother, thank you for the priceless gift to your children and grandchildren. We are proud of you and Father. We will take you both as models — kindness handed down, unafraid of hardship, generation after generation.