Mr. Chen, you are not my enemy. 阿買兄, 你不是我的敵人

 Over a hot summer of 1997, when my brother, Ting-KAi （廷楷）, was sitting next to my dad.  He was about to take a short nap when my dad turned to Ting-KAi, and asked him,

“ I know you are already baptized and you are a Christian now.  Tell me, how does Christinality teach people to live their lives ? “

Ting KAi was a little bit shocked by this question from my dad.  He settled down and organized his thought and reflected a couplet (對聯) his friend at New York Cities gave him and was hang over his living room.  The phrase is from Corinthia Chapter 13, Section 8.   The phrase was written in Mandarin, and it says,

凡事 包容。凡事相信

凡事希望    凡事忍耐

It (love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always preserves. 

Dad nodded his head in approval  then slowly disclosed his story approximately 60 years ago.  The time was approximately 1937 when Ting KAi was 4 years old and I was not even born.  My dad was young, and strong.  Besides, he also had a lot of opinions.  At the time, we were still at Long-Jin village  (龍井 鄉） which belongs to Taichung county (台中縣）。

The village had village politics and had different fractions because of the politics.  Different political factions often had arguments, even exchanged  verbal insults.  Being young, strong, and opinionated, my dad was also involved in such village politics.  There was an incident in which my dad was involved in the shouting match with the other side during a village meeting.  The two sides did not see eye-to-eye.

Then my dad was ill.  He was not only ill, but dangerously ill. He had jaundice. His skin and eyelids turned yellow.  If he was not treated, he could die.

At that time, the village had only one doctor.  His name was Tan I Tsang （陳以專）.  There was a problem.  Dr. Tan belonged to the other side, and my dad had exchanged verbal insults and shouting matches before.  My dad resisted to see Dr. Tan for help.  Then a miracle happened.

Dr. Tan came to my home to treat my dad.  After a few weeks, my dad was healed.  Besides saying thank you to Dr. Tan, my dad asked him why he came to help my dad.

“First, I am a doctor.  Healing a patient is my calling in my profession.”  Dr. Tan replied,

“Second, in my faith, I have no enemy. You are not my enemy.”

Dr. Tan was a Christian and he was referring to Luke 5 33-39 verses in the Bible.

..love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return…judge not, and you will not be judged; condemned not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give, and you will be given;…

In fact, every Christian is reminded of this important teaching of Jesus during the Lent season.  Other faiths, although do not practice  Lent, also have similar teachings.  For example, Ms. Joy Hajoe, a Native American poet of the Muscogee Nation, writes,

And whom do I call my enemy? 

An enemy must be worthy of engagement.

I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.

It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.

The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.

It sees and knows everything.

It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.

The door to the mind should only open from the heart.

An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

My dad was greatly transformed by this incident.  He told my brother that every time he got emotional, he would ask the question, “ Would this reaction come from my heart or from my head?  “. This attitude served him very well through his life, because he would not do anything or react to anything that would compromise his state of “peace of mind”.  

For Dr. Tan, he had risked the danger of turning an enemy into becoming a friend.  My dad, 2 years before his death, reminded Ting-KAi, to find Dr. Tan’s son in the U.S. to deliver his gratitude to Dr. Tan.

“Dr. Tan saved my life”, my dad said. 

Dr. Tan saved my dad’s life, both physically and spiritually.

Butterflies, please come in. 推窗時有蝶飛來

It was dawn on a street of Chang-Hua city, Taiwan.  An elderly couple was walking on the street as a morning exercise routine before the sun came out and the day became too hot to do anything outside.  Suddenly, a truck came behind knocking down this elderly couple to the ground.  The couple was rushed to a near-by hospital; the wife was pronounced dead, and the husband survived.  

That was March 27, 1972.  The couple were my parents.  My mom died on the impact, but my dad survived.  After a few weeks in the ER, he went through a few months of rehabilitation.  Because of the rehabitation, he could not even attend my mom’s funeral.   

Heart broken, he went through a long grief process to heal his emotional wound.  My dad taught us that to every problem, there was a solution.  Now he has to live up his words to solve his own problem—his  emotional grief. 

At first, he wrote journals and collected all the stories about the day of the accident.  The journal was called the Broken Heart Journal (断膓集). The Journal temporarily helped his grieving process.

Then at the suggestions of my siblings in Taiwan and his friends, he went through extensive traveling.  The places he traveled  included Japan, Korea, Hong-Kong, China, United States and Europe.  Traveling gave him temporary reliefs of sorrow.  But, traveling itself was taxing his many resources, both financial and stigma.  Additionally, the friends he met during traveling,at most, were acquaintances.  After the traveling, feelings of emptiness and loneliness could quickly come back once again to his heart. Traveling to ease his pain was not sustenable. 

Then in April of 1990, I received a couplet (對聯) from my dad.  The couplet has 4 phrases written in Mandarin with a typical Chinese Calligraphy Art.  The couplet is displayed in Figure 1.

Fig. 1  A couplet that I received from my dad in April of 1990.

  Literal translation is as follows.   

手培蘭花七八載. It has been 7-8 years of hand cultivation of  the orchid flowers.

曰暖風和次笫開.   With gentle wind and sunlight,  the  flowers bloom one by one

坐久不知香在窒.  Unaware of fragrance which is all around after staying in the room too long.

推窗時有蝶飛來.  Butterflies flew in  when the windows were pushed open.  

The couplet was written in 1990.  If he had cultivated orchids 7-8 years before,  then the year he began this new hobby was approximately 1982, or 10 years after he lost his wife and I lost my mom.  When I visited him in 1987, I noticed a few things had changed  in my old home- the front room became a greenhouse for growing orchids.  When I grew up in my old home, we had a very typical traditional Taiwanese room arrangement; the most front and the best room was the  Spirit Worship room.  In Taiwanese, it is called the Shin-Meng Ken (神明間) .  Shin-Meng Ken faces south, ideal sunlight for growing orchids.  

Nothing disrespectful, my dad removed Shin-Meng Table (神明桌) and remodel the Shin-Meng room (神明間） into his work room for writing calligraphy, growing orchids and serving tea to the guest.  He just felt impractical and absurd  that spirits 神明 could occupy a whole room while the living people had no place to work.  

We also had a small piece of land on the side of the house.  Dad converted this piece of land into a tropical garden with guava tree, papaya tree and Bandai garden.  This garden had a lot of shades; it was a great place to get cool air on hot summer days.  Dad liked to show off this garden when he had visitors.  In 1995, Meeilei took Victor home and had photos taken in this garden. (Figure -2) 

Figure 2.  Dad was showing off his tropical garden to Victor and Meeilei in 1995.

The old Shin-Meng Keng (神明間), because of facing south, had plenty of indirect sunlight which is required to cultivate orchids.  Dad knew about the water and fertilizer requirements for the plants.  The biggest issue for growing orchids were the bug issues.  Just like the insects or bugs of any plants, those bugs only came out to eat the plants during the night while everyone was asleep.  Thus, if chemicals were not used, dad had to get up at night to catch and remove the bugs from the plants.  This is what my sister said.  My sister lived in California.  She and her husband visited Taiwan very often.  My brother, Ting-KAi, had one semester sabbatical leave in Taiwan in 1997.  On the weekend, Ting-KAi stayed with my dad.  Ting-KAi also said that dad got up at night to catch the bugs from the orchid plants.

Dad had brought his orchids for exhibit.  Dad’s orchids often won prizes.  Friends near and far began to know about his orchids and bought his orchids.  Because dad also wrote beautiful calligraphy couplets, neighbors and friends often visited dad, drank tea, had good conversations and bought either the calligraphy cuplet or the orchid flowers.  When my dad received money from his customers, he would take his grandson, FanJong (煥彰) , to the night market and enjoyed a treat at the market. Fan-Jong often came to my house to keep company with A-Kong at night.   Figure 3 is the certificate that dad served as a consultant of National orchid exhibit in 1991.  

Figure 3. Dad was asked to serve as a consultant for Taiwan National Orchid Society and Exhibit

In October of 1999, he had pneumonia, and was hospitalized.  It only took 2 weeks that pneumonia killed him on October 24 of 1999.  Dad often said to not worry about death, because death would eventually come, sometimes, sooner than you would like to expect.  However, he also said that be mindful when you are alive, making sure you live your life fully.  Dad certainly lived his life fully because of his full efforts on his orchid cultivations and writing couplets.  Figure 4 is another couplet he wrote to encourage us to get in the habit of being and staying healthy. 

Figure 4. A couplet that I found from his remaining in 1999.

Despite that, dad still missed mom when he was ill.  He still had the Heart Broken Journal (斷腸集)  on the side of his death bed.  I took the journal home in1999.  In 2008, when I had a sabbatical in Taiwan.  My brother, Wen-KAi, (文楷） took me to the tomb of my mom and my dad (they were buried together).  I presented the journal and paper money.  In a very respectful manner, we burned both the paper money and the journal.  We said a prayer to both dad and mom, saying that it was a closure for everyone affected by this truck accident. 

What had happened to those orchids and bonsai trees?  My eldest brother Mo-KAi (模楷) thought that because he was the oldest, he should have inherited everything precious from my dad. Mo-KAi  took all the orchids back to Taipei.  Unfortunately, those orchids died within 6 months.  None of my siblings had green thumb.  I should have said that none of us have the patience gettting up at midnight to remove the bugs from the plants.  None of us write calligraphy let alone write poems for couplets.  But all of our siblings have learned a big lesson from this orchid growing stories.  Even if it is just a hobby, doing the hobby with your best effort. Doing that, it makes life more pleasant and more meaningful.  In the end, it healed my dad and we have learned a big lesson. 

Grandpa, Smoking is not good.

 When my dad visited us in New Jersey in 1982, Victor was 5 years old and Leo was 3 years old.  Because both my wife and I were working at the time, Leo was sent to the nursery, but Victor stayed home with A-Kong.  In that sense, A-Kong was the babysitter with Victor  at home.

Victor got along with A-Kong very well.  Victor was learning Taiwanese from grandpa while my dad was learning English from his 5-year old grandson.  Victor was learning to say grandpa (A-Kong) and “How are you ?” ( li hó bô) .  We lived at 4 Barbara Street at the time.  I have seen my dad working very hard trying to say and write 4 Barbara Street.  In our backyard, we had an apple tree.  The apples from the tree were not anything special.  But to my dad from Taiwan where he rarely saw apples, those apples were very tasty to him. Thus, my dad was working hard with his grandson to learn to speak and write apples.  

My dad stayed with us for about 2 weeks.  Before he left to see my older brother, Ting-KAi, my dad planted a tree with help from me, my wife and Victor.  The tree was about as tall as Victor, a 5-year old child.  The tree was about 2 feet tall.

In 1987, Taiwan removed the martial law.  I took my family to Taiwan in the summer of 1987.  Victor was 10 years old while Leo was 7 years old.  When we visited my dad in Chang-Hua, he took my family to a hill where my mom was buried.  My mom died in 1972 by a drunken truck driver.  We went to her tomb to pay our respect.  We went there by foot.  

My dad smokes all through his life.  On the way to my mom’s tomb, he smoked one cigarette after another.  Of course, the second-hand smoke bothered all of us.  But everyone was quiet, until Victor finally spoke with a broken Taiwanese.

“A-Kong, jia hun  bô-hó “. (Grand Pa, smoking is not good). 

My dad pretended he did not hear the words or did not understood what Victor said to him. He continued to smoke.

A-Kong, jia hun  bô-hó “. (Grand Pa, smoking is not good). 

Victor said that phrase 2nd time and said it louder than the first time. 

“What did you say ?”  Grand-Pa pretended that he did not understand.  However, he relented a little bit and smoked much less often.  

After approximately 2 weeks of visit, we flew back to Wisconsin and did not think of anything about my dad either continuing to smoke or quit smoking until one day I received a letter from my dad from Taiwan.  In the letter, my dad explained that he knew he had a very bad habit of smoking.  Many times he had tried to quit but did not succeed.  This time, he was reminded by his grandson, Victor, to quit smoking.  And he was determined to quit smoking.  He did and he succeeded.  

My dad quit smoking in 1987, and continued to live a healthy life for another 12 years at the age of 93 years old (1906-1999).  I flew home to attend his funeral and his memorial ceremony.  The ceremony was arranged according to the Buddhist tradition with a Buddha portrait.  Besides the Buddha’s image was a portrait of Victor and Leo with the words “I love Grandpa”.  My dad treasured the loving relationship with his grandsons, Victor and Leo.  

Ten years later, or approximately 1997, I had a chance to visit New Jersey on a business trip. With a rental car, I drove back to see my old home of New Jersey at 4 Barbara Street where I saw my old home and the tree that Victor and grandpa had planted 25 years ago.  The tree was approximately 5 ft and 7 inches tall, as tall as Victor who was then a growing young adult of 20 years old.  

北港的媽祖 The Ma-Tso of the North Port

 Once upon a time, there was  a little town called Pun-Kung (笨港), literally, it means a dumb port town. This town sat at the entrance of a river in central Taiwan.  This port town was divided by this river: The North and the South. The river flooded often especially during the Typhoon  seasons.  When the river flooded, households lost properties,  and people  lost lives.  It was very miserable. 

Then there was one very fierce Typhoon day. The wind blew like a ghost while the water was pouring in from everywhere.  

The Typhoon finally subsided. Miraculously, this time, everyone was safe. No one lost properties or lives. 

Then someone spotted a goddess sitting on top of a rock in the river.

It was Ma-tso (媽祖), the most revered goddess in Taiwan.  People living in Pun-Kang (笨港）said, “Let’s build a temple for this goddess for her protection “

The people on the north side of the river said that, “ She sits closer to the north.  Let’s the Northside build a temple for her.”

“No, she sits closer to the south. Let the people of the south take care of the temple business.  “

Two sides quarreled and neither side would consider to concede.  Then a small child quietly said to the elder, 

“Why don’t allow  two sides to compete?” 

That was an excellent idea. The next question was how did they compete?

“ Let either side take a bucket of water from their own wells and weigh them “  The child said.

Another brilliant idea, because either side has a well.  So, this should be a very fair competition.

Yes. It is very fair. Then how do you beat the other side in this competition ?  Water is water. A bucket of the water from either side would have the same weight.

Then there was a villager in the North rushered to the elder of the North.  

“I got it. I got the idea”. 

The elder settled him down with a cup of tea. “What is the idea?”  

“The salt”.

“The salt,”. “That is very brilliant as when the salt is dissolved into the water, the bucket of salt water would weigh more then the bucket of the pure water”. 

The captain of the North then asked every family of the North donated their salt, then put all the salt into the bucket.

On the day of the competition, surely, the bucket of the salt water certainly weighed heavier then a bucket of pure water.  The North won the right to build the temple of the goddess.

The people of the North said to themselves. “We are not dumb.  It is unfair to call this town, Pun-Kang or the port of the dumb.”   Thus, from that moment, they call their town, the North Port (北港）. Their southern neighbor is called The South Port(南港）  

The temple was then built.  The North believe that they got blessing and the protection from the goddess.

How about the South ?  Surely, if the river does not flood, the North is protected, but so is the South.

But certainly, the North get more offering money and tourist money.  The North becaomes so rich that they are able to hire an engineer firm to redesign the river flow, build a dam and so on.  

The river flooding frequency was drastically decreased. The temple becomes one of the religious site in the world. 

A Family Tradition

 Growing up in Taiwan, I celebrate the New Year twice a  year: the universal New Year of January 1, and the New Year according to the Lunar Calendar.  For January 1, there is only one day off as a national holiday. However, for the Lunar New Year, the festivity goes on for at least two weeks. It starts with food preparation a week before. On the New Year’s Eve, everyone in the family sits in a circle around a fire dish which we call Fire Pan (火煱) . It actually is almost the same as Fondue in which  vegetables, meat, and dumplings are added to the water. When I was a kid, the Fondue was heated by a coal block. Now, they are almost heated by electricity or by gas.  The most important food item in the fire is the so-called 湯圓, a spherical shape of boba basically made of sugar, and tapioca flour.  湯圓 signifies good lucks for the next year. 

Asides from the Fondue, there was another important dish of fish.  The Mandarin word of fish is 魚 which has the same pronunciation of 餘 that means ‘left over’ . Literally it means that food and wealth will be sufficient for the following year.  

On the next day, everyone in the family would dress in new clothes and the most senior person in the family would hand out red envelope to the children.  Insides the red envelope would be the money. 

The streets on the Lunar New Year would be very busy with either the lion dance or the dragon dance.  In the plaza, sometimes there would be Taiwanese drama musicals which entertained the neighborhood.  My mom was very fond of the free Taiwan drama musical for entertainment.  

I moved to the U.S. in 1971 and got married in 1974.  Victor was born in 1977 and Leo in 1979.  Basically, I started a new family in the U.S. in 1977.  The celebration of the Lunar New Year depends on the place I live.  If I live in places such as in New Jersey or at Ann Arbor where there are Taiwanese community, then there is Lunar New Year Celebration.  But during almost 40 years of residence in Wisconsin where there was no Taiwanese community, there were no Lunar New Year celebrations.  

In 2023 at Ann Arbor, the Taiwanese Community has a group celebration at the social hall of the First Presbyterian Church.  We had a feast followed by music performances but not with the lion dance or the dragon dance.  We even have a red envelop of $1 N. T. from our President.  By the way, you probably cannot do anything with $1 N. T. 

Family Fondue feast still continues but with Christmas Eve, not with the Lunar New Year. Healthy vegetables remain with the Fondue but not with the boba as boba contains too much sugar.  Yes, there is still fish which is not only healthy but signifies good wealth and good fortune in the following year. 

By the way, what is the Lunar Calendar and how is Lunar New Year determined ?  The Lunar Calendar is a  lunisolar calendar based on the cycles of the moon and the Earth orbiting the Sun. The calendar has 12 months with each month being either 29 or 30 days long.  A year is made up of about 12 lunar cycles or 354 days. The date of the New Year is determined by complicated calculations, but usually falls on the second new moon following the winter solstice. 

You may also have heard about the Lunar zodiac, and what is it ?  The Lunar zodiac is made up of 12 animal names that are associated with the years.  The animals are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.  I was born in 1946, and my zodiac is dog.  Those people who are born 12 years after such as 1958 has dog as his or her zodiac. 

Although backgrounds of the Lunar New Year or Chinese zodiac are not part of the story.  But it doesn’t hurt to know about it so that you have a better appreciation of my story. 

A life time event

 When I retired from Kimberly-Clark to take on a chemistry faculty job in 2002, I was excited and elated.  Twenty years later, when I retired from my chemistry faculty job in 2022,  I had a very different challenge.  

I have a Fitbit watch for a long time.  I use Fitbit for step and sleep tracking.  For a long time, tracking how many steps I walked and how many hours of deep sleep and REM are good enough for me.  Many times I received emails from Fitbit to see if I wanted to receive notification, I just ignored them.  Then one day when I received such an email, I said ‘yes’.  

Not long after, I received a notification from Fitbit that I had irregular heart rhythm.  I received the same notification on the following day.

I notified my primary care doctor the next day.  The doctor wasted no time to order a 48-hour heart monitor for me which confirmed that I had an 11% burden of irregular heart beat.  Besides ordering blood thinner and medications to lower both blood pressure and heart rate, my doctor ordered ultrasound echo for my heart and a battery of test for thyroid function. 

Thyroid tests were inconclusive.  Ultrasound echo test results were troublesome.  Although EF (ejection fraction) was normal, it showed that my tricuspid valve was leaking. It was labeled as ‘severe’ leaking which means it requires surgery to fix the valve. 

Those problematic diagnoses helped me to decide to retire from my faculty job because having a heart disease while continuing to teach would not do any favor to my students and myself.  

Talking to my cardiologist in Appleton, I requested a second opinion and also requested a less invasive surgical procedure for my faulty valve.  The cardiologist in Appleton referred me to see the top-notched cardiologist at the Cardiovascular Center of UM at Ann Arbor.  This is one of the reasons that we moved to Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

I saw Dr. Bowling of the Cardiovascular Center of Ann Arbor In January, 2023  and had a second ultrasound surface echo test of the heart.  To my pleasant surprise, the test showed that my valve was only mildly faulty.  It didn’t require a surgical procedure.  I was greatly relieved by the news.  

In March of 2023, I had a successful ablation of the faulty wires in my heart that had fixed most of my arrhythmia problems.  To this point, the doctors had done their jobs, and the results were marvelous.  Yet, there are responsibilities on my part to keep my heart healthy.  This is much more difficult than the medications and procedures received from my Medicare teams.

When my doctor performed ablation procedures on my heart, he had warned me that the ablation is not a cure.  The arrhythmia could  come  back.  Surely it did.  I had experienced moderate arrhythmia episodes since the procedures.  I became very intrigued to learn about the causes and triggers of the arrhythmia.

I was a chemistry faculty.  Back then,  my research subjects were atoms and molecules.  Now, I am a heart patient.  My  own body becomes my research subject. 

My research tools are, (1) a blood pressure device to check my blood pressures at least 2 times a day; (2) a blood glucose meter and testing strips to check my fasting glucose; (3) a portable electrocardiography (ecg)  device to check my heart rhythm any time; (4) a Fitbit to check on my sleep pattern and finally the most important tool, (5) journaling on the patterns of my heart rhythm. 

Here are few findings which may be useful for readers who have similar arrhythmia experiences.

First, blood pressure and blood glucose control are very critical.  Never settle on pre-diabetics or pre-hypertension.  Even on the so-called pre conditions, they can do damages to the blood vessels and to the heart. 

Second, quality sleep is critical.  Just a night of bad quality sleep can trigger episodes of arrhythmias. 

Other factors triggering the arrhythmias are quite fuzzy.  In my case, it looks like over exercise, or after a big meal could trigger episodes of irregular heart rhythm. 

In the end, I still have not completely figured out the trigger, let alone to completely heal from this illness.  The research on my own body is still continuing in the process.

I cannot believe that I am a heart patient myself and a part of the statistics.  However, because this is my own body, I have a deep curiosity to find a cure for my illness.  It may take me a year, or 10 years or a lifetime. 

This continuing research on my own body maybe the only good outcomes of this lifetime bad experience. 

I survived the big flood in Taiwan

 I wonder why I am still alive today. Am I just lucky or some other reasons which I still do not understand now.

The following story describes how I brushed off death by a hair in the worst flood Taiwan had since 1945, the so called 1959 August 7 flood, or 八七水災*1.

The fateful event took place on August 8, 1959.  I was only 13 years old. Dad was working at Taichung (台中).  He did not come home on August 7. My other siblings were either in Taipei (台北), or Tainan  (台南), or abroad.  At home, there were only four persons: Mom, my sister, Lina (麗娜) who was only 5 years old, and me.

Typhoon Ellen has brought torrential rains that pounded on my neighborhood since August 7, 1959.  This typhoon was formed in the seas south of Japan, and brought a tropical depression from around the Pratas Islands to Taiwan.  Rainstorms raged for three days, from August 7 through August 9, covering almost the entire western region, with the heaviest rainfall coming on the 7th. The incessant rain was accompanied by continuous, frightening thunder and lightning. In nine hours (at night of August 7) 811 mm. of rain dumped itself on Changhua (彰化) and its adjacent areas. By early next morning, all the streets in Changhua (彰化) were inundated. The previous record was 412 mm. 

Normally, the vast area of forest in central or eastern Taiwan was able to absorb this large amount of rainfall. Flooding had occurred in the past.  But no one had expected that the flooding this time would be different from the previous experiences.  However, since Chiang Kai-Sheik’s  (蔣介石) regime brought 1 million retreated, rugged and undisciplined troops and civilians over to Taiwan, deforestation had taken place at an acceleration rate.  A large portion of the forest has been either converted into cropland or residential areas.  The natural flood prevention system has been largely lost.  The authorities should have been aware of the fact that this large amount of rainfall could cause severe damage to many west-central counties of Taiwan.

Additionally, the weather stations of the U.S. in the Pacific, mostly in Japan also gave Taiwan authority a warning: that the tidewater from the sea was invading Taiwan at the same time of the unprecedented rainfall.

Unfortunately , Taiwan authority under Chiang ignored the warning. No evacuation order was given, nor any siren sounded to warn the residents of the pending flood danger either.  Most American remember 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.  President Bush and his administration were heavily criticized for their disaster prevention and relief efforts. In Taiwan, no one dared to criticize the government. The regime’s major concern was to suppress  the populace.  Chiang’s regime had declared martial law in 1949 which ended in 1987.  In those almost  40 years of martial law, all resources went to defense, police and civilian surveillance, nothing to go to the well being of the civilians. 

The relentless seven hours of continuous rainfall occurred at night while everyone was asleep.  Torrential rain is very common in Taiwan.  Nobody gave a second thought about the impending danger of the typhoon. 

Rain actually stopped in the morning of August 8.  Mom’s first concern was if the roof in the kitchen was leaking again.  It has happened many times in the past.  This time was no different.  I placed a bucket to collect the rain water leaking from the roof.  Although the dirt streets were flooded about ankle-deep, the floor in our house was only a little wet.  My sister and I helped mom  to wipe the wet floor to keep it dry.  Everything looked normal. Taiwanese had experienced these problems thousands of times before, not knowing that this time would be different.

Suddenly, we heard a loud voice thundering, “The embankment of Ta-Tu-Ke (or Big-Stomach River ( 大肚溪), the river that separates Taichung (台中) and Chang-Hua (彰化) counties), has failed.  Run, Run, Run for your life.”

The person who called to us to run was Mr. Huang who lived a few houses away from my house.  In the normal day, he was quiet and soft-spoken.  We kids called him O-Zi-San (ぉじさん, a Japanese phrase adopted in Taiwanese language. It means ‘Mr’ but in a very respectful manner.). He did not have any connection with the police or government institution.  Should we trust him?

Mom’s first reaction to the call was to put coal-blocks on a high table so that she would have something to make a fire with and cook when the typhoon was over.  My sister and I were helping her to put coal blocks on the table.

Mr. Huang cried out again.  This time was even more forceful with an authoritative tone. He told Mom, “ O-Ba-San (ぉバさん, a respectful addressing for ‘Mrs’.  This was also a Taiwanese-adopted Japanese phrase).  Run quickly. Stop your work now.  Strangely, mom listened to his call this time.  We quickly ran outside looking for 2-story or 3-story concrete houses that was about a quarter mile away.

Surely, the flood water did rush in our neighborhood.  Starting at the ankle height, after 5 blocks, it became knee height.  By the time we reached a 3-story-house, it was already chest-height.  Mom held my hand while I held my sister’s hand with my free hand.  Three of us half-ran, half waded to reach the 3-story house.  The door was already open.  About a dozen neighbors were there to greet us.  Along the main street, doors of every 2-story or 3-story concrete house were open showing the genuine compassion and hospitality of  the Taiwanese to strangers.  The host and the hostess of the 3-story house actually prepared warm meals for us.  We stayed at their place on the night of August 8.  We returned home on August 9. If we would have run 5 minutes later, all three of us would have drowned.

Through the window of the 3-story concrete house, we witness the flood scenes with great horror for the drowned neighbors and collapsed houses.  The official casualty of the flood was 669 dead, 852 injured, 377 missing and 248,184 homeless--victims of Taiwan's worst flood disaster since 1898.

One of the most tragic scenes was witnessed near a railway signpost outside of Changhua (彰化) when flood workers sighted a pair of legs sticking out of a heap of debris. As they dug out the body of a six-year-old boy, they found three more bodies.  They were two younger boys and a woman, who appeared to be about thirty and several months pregnant. Apparently she was the mother of all three. They held each other's hand in a firm grip. 

The strangest thing that happened in this story was about Mr. Huang’s calling for his neighbors to run for their lives. These days when everyone has a phone and internet, such a flood warning by Mr. Huang would not be a surprise at all.  However, the flood was in 1959, and no one in our neighborhood has a telephone.  A few families might have radios, however, radios do not work when there is no electricity.  The utility had been damaged by the storm.   He did not have any government connection.  How did he know that the embankment of the river failed (Actually, he was correct in this aspect. The official records did show that the embankment of Ta-Tu-Ke failed in the morning of August 8)?  How could this quiet and soft-spoken O-Zi-San (おじさん) come to speak with a loud and convincing tone to ask every family to leave at once? How could Mom believe in him and have saved three lives of the family? Any missteps or misjudgment could result in the drowning of a whole family.

I brushed off death in this big flood by a hair.  Besides saying thank you to whoever divine, I must treasure this life and live my life fully because this is the best way to express my gratitude.

Figure 1:  Flooding of the Big-Stomach River.

Figure 2:  Flood reached almost to the roof.

Figure 3  Taiwanese wading through the flooding water to a safe location. 

Figure 4:  Mass funeral for the flood victims.

*1  The flood occurred on August 8, 1959.  However, for unknown reason, the flood is known to historians as the August 7 flood.