I am a volunteer docent at the Nixon Library and regularly am exposed to historical event exhibits from President Nixon’s life. There is one event portrayed in an exhibit that I recalled as a sophomore in high school in 1960 that has reverberated throughout my life. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Nixon and Kennedy held a debate, and a question about a possible Chinese communist attack on Formosa was debated. I had not known about Formosa before, but the names Formosa and its islands Quemoy and Matsu for some reason stuck with me, and my life would never be the same.
Fast forward to the mid-1980s and my family volunteered as a host family for a Chinese graduate student from Formosa (now called Taiwan) studying architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. His name is H.J. Li. At a low point in his first semester, we invited him for Thanksgiving dinner and he told me later that gesture greatly encouraged him to continue toward a degree. We became good friends and after he graduated his father visited him in St. Louis in 1990, met with me, and said he appreciated my family’s support of H.J. and invited us to visit him at his home in Taipei, Taiwan.
We visited Taiwan in the fall of 1991. As we exited the Taipei terminal at about midnight, we were met by H.J. driving a brand-new Mercedes. No lowly student as he had pretended to be during his student years but a friend who had been selected as one of the 10 most outstanding young men in Taipei in 1990. He drove us to a plain city cafe and ordered me a long fried roll called yao chow and warm soy milk, which I have liked a lot ever since. His father’s business had a huge emergency at the time so H.J. apologized and handed me tickets to tour all over Taiwan with a personal guide for a week, which we did. This was my first exposure to Chinese culture and as the tour continued I felt drawn to the strong work ethic and cultural values like harmony, courtesy, loyalty, and filial piety, among others. H. J. bought me some Mandarin language books and I began studying Chinese language when I returned to St. Louis.
My second trip to Taiwan was in 1995. H.J. invited my wife then and me to his Taipei wedding, and the culture around it was eye-opening. We sat in the back seat of his car as he drove to pick up his bride-to-be. The car had 2 poles tied on each side with meat hanging on them to feed the gods or something. He set off a lot of firecrackers as he approached his wife’s house to drive off evil spirits, and even worried aloud that the gifts he would give to his future mother-in-law before his future bride could leave with him would be adequate. At the reception hotel after the Daoist wedding ceremony, all his dad’s company secretaries greeted the arriving 800 guests at tables where they opened red envelopes with money and recorded the amounts in a ledger for H.J. to reference should he be invited to a future wedding involving a guest. H.J. stopped by my table before the food was served and asked if I would say something after the 3 main speakers, one of whom would be a future President of Taiwan. H.J. reminds me I spoke less than 30 seconds saying I knew everyone was hungry and I congratulated the married couple, wishing them all the best. Everyone laughed and clapped so they could start eating. H.J. and his bride stopped at each table (each table had a pitcher of Cognac and cigarettes) and toasted the table guests, which was culturally expected, although I suspect he toasted with tea or he would not have been able to make it to the last table.
My third trip to Taiwan was in 1999, accepting an invitation to attend a celebration of H.J.’s father’s 50 years as an architect in Taiwan and Japan. It was a huge event politically and socially. The well-wishers sending testimonials included both the current President and future President of Taiwan, along with high-level Japanese officials. I was one of four to speak at the celebration.
I ate local food, shared a room in the tour hotels with 3 Taiwanese guy roommates and even washed clothes daily next to them with a laundry soap bar. I got up at 5:30 pm each day, did calisthenics, sang motivational songs, and repeated after the ride. There were a half dozen other Americans from a Seattle bicycle club on the ride but they chose to live in upgraded hotels and did not participate in the daily rituals. It was a cultural immersion for me. I saw the beautiful island (the 15th-century Portuguese name for the island), experienced the friendly, hospitable people, and enjoyed the wonderful food- all up close.
After the ride I visited H.J.’s ailing father in the hospital- he died a month later and my eulogy with photos was part of the printed formal memorial program a few months later. H.J. then, at my request, took me to visit Quemoy Island (now called Kinmen Island). There I learned in the island museums and exhibits the history of the Chinese civil war between the Nationalists of Chaing Kai Shek and the Communists of Mao, which began in the 1920s, ended in the 1949 defeat of the Nationalists who retreated to Taiwan. I had fought the communists in Vietnam in 1968 and had lived with the aftermath of a lost war in the U.S. so I felt I could identify with the Nationalist soldiers who fought the communists in China. As I remember Kinman Island as a monument to war, my mind goes to a poem my brother wrote a few years ago about his recollections as a Marine in Da Nang, Vietnam in 1964. I have modified it a bit to express the feelings of heavy rains dripping off me in Vietnam like it did off Nationalist soldiers 20 years earlier in China and off untold soldiers from the past.
The water falls as it has for centuries
and we are much smaller than we
think we are. It follows a path set
many generations ago, rapidly
swallowing the washed blood,
sweat, and tears in the rivers of
time. Where will it end? Where
it has always ended. In the
oceans that wash the shores of
all continents, slowly mixing
the continuous flow. The
original storm is lost forever.
Just about 5 years ago in 2017, I tied the knot with Vicki who was born in Taipei and whose father was a senior Nationalist Army officer, part of the Republic of China Army that retreated to Taiwan from China. Vicki came to the U.S. in 1980 and got her master’s degree in nutrition in Texas. Vicki and I visited H.J. and his wife in Taipei in the fall of 2019.
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