Taiwan in the 50's and 60's was a typical third-world country. I lived in central Taiwan which was probably the most impoverished neighborhood. We did not have a sewer system. Nor did we have a municipal water supply. Every day, everyone had to walk long distances to get water from a well. There was a river flowing by, yet since there was no effective municipal waste disposal program, people living in the neighborhood would dump everything into the river flowing by. Sadly, the same river was also used by women who washed their family's clothes. The infectious disease was rampant, and child mortality was very high. I would like to give my readers some idea about child mortality. My family mortality statistics can be used as examples. I had one brother two years older than I and another brother two years younger than I. Both did not live beyond 6 months of age. Today, because of my profession as a teacher, I have to show videos and images of poverty in Africa and India in class. I told students that I lived through a similar experience as a teen and I believe that all the stories about poverty in the videos are true.
The house I lived as a child had a living area approximately 300 square ft., or about 1/5 of my current Wisconsin home. In such a small area of the living space, we had dad, mom, one brother and one sister living together (the other older brothers or sister did not live with us.). The house was divided into several living quarters; the best room, or the room at the front was a shrine, used only for worship. In the shrine, typically, there was a tall table for offering, a ceramic-made vessel that contained sand so that a burning incense could be placed on, and a kneeling pad. God or goddess’ images were hung on the wall. Next to the shrine was a big bed room in which everybody sleep together: mom, dad brother and sister. The kitchen would be behind the bed room; then there was an outhouse.
Because it was hot most of the time, and no one can afford air conditioner or air fan, every house in the neighborhood would usually leave front door open to catch cool wind occasionally blowing through. Living in such a condition, we knew exactly the religion of our neighbor, because if they were on traditional religion, their front room would be the shrine, unless they had changed their faith to other religions.
The neighbor next to us lived a family with a girl of about my age. She was a cheerful girl. When I was playing with her, we always had a good time. Their family also followed the faith of Taiwanese folk religion, until one day, I noticed that they had removed the shrine and replaced it with a living quarter. Wow, her family had converted to Christianity. Taiwanese is usually quite tolerant to religion of other faith that her faith conversion at most only raise few eyebrows. It did not actually create a commotion. Since she was such a cheerful and popular girl that everyone in her age still wanted to be her friends even with such a faith conversion.
Later, I found out her family attended a Baptist church in town. One day, she even invited me to attend her church's Sunday school. After initial hesitation, I accepted her invitation. At Sunday school, I learned a Taiwanese version of the Hymn, Amazing Grace. I loved the tune and the words of the hymn. Besides singing the hymns, we also learned about bible stories. More importantly, the Sunday school provided snacks for the kids. Because of this sort of 'free meal', my mom did not oppose me to attend the church. From her view point, as long as her kids were fed, she would not stand their ways.
There was also a tremendous advantage for the impoverished families to have contacts with a church at the time. During late 50's and 60's, generous American launched a food assistance program to Taiwan; these programs were initially administered through church organizations. Although the program aimed for everyone, Christian or non-Christine, a church connection was always helpful because we knew that we would not be left out from this program. I remembered the smiling face beaming out from my mom when she baked bread in boiling butter. Today, we would say that butter can raise cholesterol. Well, at the time, butter provided needed calorie to those under-nourished impoverished Taiwanese.
Those good days stayed about 5 months until when an epidemic of diphtheria hit our neighborhood. Diphtheria is caused by a gram-positive bacteria and is highly contagious and deadly. Patients infected with the bacteria would have a severe inflammation producing white-like coating on mucus of respiratory system eventually kills the patient by cutting off air supply. Taiwanese literally translation of the disease is Pai-Ho, or White Throat. My Taiwanese medical doctor friend in Wisconsin told me that during his 40+ years of career as a doctor including his internship in Taiwan, he has not seen any case of diphtheria because immunization programs have wiped out this disease. But this was not the case when I was a teen. There was no immunization campaign at the time. As a result of this epidemic, schools were close and churchs were close for about a month.
One night, I had noticed a group of people gathered at my friend's house. They sang hymns, and they left quietly after the gathering.
Finally, the epidemic was under control; schools and churches were open once again. However, when I went back to Sunday school, I did not see her. She was gone. The diphtheria had taken her life away. I also realized the gathering at her house few weeks ago was actually a ceremony of her church to say good-bye to her.
I was so sad that I did not come back to the church until many years later when I was at the U.S in the 80's. Even with this late faith conversion, I still remembered my cheerful friend, the beautiful hymn of Amazing Grace, and the American generosity of food assistance program at the time.
Today, I had to teach students how poverty affects mortality; I realize that poverty is number one killer compared to other causes such as smoking or accidents (see the attached statistics chart in Figure 1.) I have witness the terror of poverty; it took away my two brothers, my friend in the neighbor, and many other people I did not know.
As I look back my teen life, not only I survived such hardship, I also came to U.S. to get the best education one can have, have successful careers, have raised two wonderful sons. I have nothing else to say but a deep gratitude from my heart. The odd of getting what I have now is extremely small. This is a very good reason to say thank you to the amazingly God's grace and blessing on me. If you don't mind, I will write the words of amazing grace as follows:
Amazing grace!
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.
Shout, shout for glory,
Shout, shout aloud for glory;
Brother, sister, mourner,
All shout glory hallelujah.
Attached are two Figures.
Figure #1: Causes of Global Deaths;
Figures 2: My son with my dad in late 18’s when Victor was about 15-16 years old.
Figure 1: Poverty is the number 1 killed for the global population, source: Cengage Learning, 2013.
Figure 2: Victor and dad in front of the house that I grew up as a teen. My son was with my dad in late 80’s when Victor was about 15-16 years old. During his high school year, he spent on summer attending a boarding school sponsored by Taiwanese government to learn about Taiwanese language and culture. By that time (about late 80’s), living conditions in Taiwan had improved tremendously. The outhouse has been converted to bathroom. There was municipal water supply and there was municipal waste pick up system set-in-place. Politically, martial law was lifted and universal health care system was enacted. Dad was also very practical. Even he still followed Taiwanese religion, he did not believe that god and goddess should occupy a whole living quarter. He had converted the shrine into a working room where he wrote, painted calligraphy, and sang karoke.
