Diagnosis: "You Have Joy"

In April the unit commanders took their English test, and my regular Wednesday night English lessons ended. The base was still on high alert, and all leaves were cancelled. One afternoon in May, Liu Yuni came home while his unit was watching a movie. I was back from Taipei and getting ready to go teach at the Gloria English School. We all sat and talked in the living room, and then I hopped on my red scooter and headed off for class. When I got back, Liu Yuni was still home. I was surprised because when he had movie leave, he was supposed to return before the unit headed back to the base from the theater. He said that he was tired of not being able to see his family, and he was planning to go AWOL. He wanted me to get on a midnight bus with him and head to the South of the island. My parents-in-law and I told him that it would be foolish for us to flee together because I was such a noticeable target. We suggested that he return to the base. Finally, we all went to bed. I suspect my father-in-law called the base and spoke to a commander, but I will never know for sure. In any event, Pa Liu was not terribly surprised when early the next morning, Yuni’s Company Counselor (something like a chaplain/psychologist) and his Unit Commander showed up on our doorstep before breakfast. We all finally convinced Yuni that it would be better for him to return with them to base with no consequences besides extra KP duty, than to let them go back alone and have to send the MPs after him. They also told him that the commanders had already received word from the high brass that the state of emergency would soon be ending and that all military personnel would be given make-up leave for the preceding months. The officers said they could not guarantee that Yuni would get an entire week of leave at one time, but he would have several three-day weekends over the next few months. With that assurance, the three of them drove back to base.

The commanders had not been lying; in June the state of emergency was cancelled, and all personnel began to have leave again. For the next few months, Liu Yuni got three days at stretch every other week. He would come home and sleep for the first 24 to 36 hours, but then he would still have two days when he was well-rested and could interact with the family. He was in a Guard Company, and they had to stand watch for two hours at a time 24 hours a day. He is not a person who does well on interrupted sleep. It took him more than ten years after his tour of duty was over to recover from that kind of a schedule.

I began my all-day teaching schedule in July when school let out. (Taiwanese schools usually started their summer vacation on July 1.) Life was good. I had a great job. I enjoyed being with the family. I was seeing my husband several times a month. I had lots of new friends among the teachers. I enjoyed my students. And then, I started getting this horrible lower back ache and my arms and chest began to ache. I didn’t throw up, but I was definitely queasy, and I kept burping at the most inopportune times. I told one of my TAs, who was older and married. She said it sounded like I was pregnant. I grabbed a calendar and counted off days, and sure enough, that was a strong possibility.

My friend suggested that I get my mother-in-law or sisters-in-law to take me to the doctor. I really did not want to do that. After the brouhaha with the aunties and the family’s reaction to my vomiting after eating food cooked in pork lard (they had the nearest sister-in-law take me to the clinic immediately for a pregnancy test), I was afraid that if this was a false alarm I was in for more lectures about how terrible it was for a woman to be infertile. Finally, my friend offered to come spend the night with me and go with me to the clinic early in the morning before our first class. We made the appointment and got our number the evening before on our way back to my house. Then very early the next morning, we went to the clinic and I peed in a cup. Several minutes later, the doctor came back into the examining room and told me: “You have joy.” That is the literal translation of the Chinese euphemism for “You are pregnant.” He figured that I was about 6 weeks pregnant.

My friend and I went on to class, and I continued with my life as usual. I decided to wait for Joshua’s next leave and tell the family all together. Needless to say, they were quite excited. These would be the first “inner” grandchildren for my parents-in-law. (“Inner grandchildren” have the same last name and carry on the family line.) Then after getting everyone so excited, I started bleeding the very next week. I took a day off school and went back to the doctor’s. He did an ultra-sound to see what was wrong, and he discovered not one, but two pulsating blobs with heart-beats. I was not only pregnant I was making up for lost time and was going to have twins. The local doctor suggested that I transfer my file to a major hospital because twins were considered a “high-risk” pregnancy. So the following week, my in-laws took me to the Chang Geng Memorial Hospital for my first official pre-natal exam. The doctors there pronounced me healthy, and the excitement in the home was palpable. My mother and uncle from the States made arrangements to come visit me and bring American prenatal vitamins (the kind that are big enough for horses).

And the following week “morning” sickness set in for real. But it was not just morning sickness, it was morning, noon, evening, and night sickness, and it lasted for the rest of the pregnancy. I continued teaching, but I had to develop a strategy. We had breaks on the hour, but the line for the bathrooms was quite long. So I would will myself not to vomit until 5 minutes before break time. Then I would give my students a quiz, rush out of the classroom into the nearest bathroom, empty my stomach before the bell rang, and run into the teachers’ lounge for a cup of tea to settle my nerves and stomach. The owners were quite accommodating, and they even instructed the managers to hold off on ringing the bell for break time until I was safely out of the bathroom. Later ultrasounds and exams showed that the problem was the placenta of Twin B pressing upwards on my stomach. There was nothing I could do but eat frequent, small meals; drink lots of fluids; and make sure I always had a clear path to the restroom. Aside from this one minor matter, the pregnancy went pretty smoothly. I worked up until the week before the babies were born, and for the most part, I felt wonderful. The Chinese term for “morning sickness” translates literally as “harmed by joy.” And I guess that’s a good term for it.

Book Launch

Calligraphy by the Dalai Lama for the cover of Chinese dissident poet Jiang Pinchao's latest anthology: Poems from Exile

My good friend, Chinese dissident poet Jiang Pinchao, has compiled yet another anthology of his and other dissident poets' works. This volume is entitled "Poems from Exile." It includes the work of 42 Chinese and Tibetan poets, most of whom write from exile around the world. My thesis committee chairman, Dr. Teri Shaffer Yamada (Professor of Asian literature, CSULB Asian and Asian American Studies), wrote the intro for this volume. A friend of mine, Fanyi Yang (MA in Asian Studies, 2009 CSULB), and I translated the intro into Chinese with the help of another professor in our department: Dr. Feng-ying Ming. The book launch will be held at CSULB later this month with several notable Chinese dissidents and poets in attendance. Jiang Pinchao will be there, as will 吴宏达先生、黄翔先生、傅希秋、周锋锁 (Hongda Wu, Poet Huang Xiang, Bob Fu of China Aid Association, and Fengsuo Zhou). The launch will be in Chinese and English with poetry readings of some of the poets' work in Chinese with English translation. If any of you are in southern California, you are more than welcome to attend. Fanyi and I will be emceeing and interpreting for the event. There will be light refreshments and admission is free, but parking on campus costs $4.

Event: "Poems from Exile" Book Launch

Date: October 28, 2009

Time: 5-6:30 pm

Place: California State University, Long Beach, Karl Anatol Center (AS 110)

A foretaste:

"All of the poets represented in this anthology provide an insight into the resiliency of the human spirit and the courage required to maintain artistic integrity in the face of censorship and violent repression. They represent the power of creative expression to overcome the most crushing obstacles and the determination to make our world a better place. We are blessed by their presence and poetry. " ---Teri Shaffer Yamada, "Introduction to Poems from Exile"

"本詩集的所有詩人，都讓我們看出人心靈的適應力，以及他們面臨審查和暴力壓制時為保有其藝術創作而產生的勇氣。他們證明了創造性的表達有能力克服最壓迫人的障礙，也讓我們看見他們要改善世界的堅定決心。我們因他們的存在與詩歌受到心靈上的恩惠。" --Teresa Zimmerman-Liu 與 楊凡儀 譯

PS I will resume posting my memoirs on Sunday, October 4, 2009. The title of the next post is "You Have Joy."

Happy Birthday PRC!

Today is the 60th birthday of the People's Republic of China, and in its honor I am printing a fourth poem by Chinese dissident poet Jiang Pingchao from his Chinese poetry anthology June Fourth Poems. He included my English translation of this poem in his June Fourth Tiananmen Masscre 20th Anniversary Memorial booklet that was published April 13, 2009. The English editing was done by my cousin Brian E. Hansen, to whom I am very grateful.

This poem is in some ways the most shocking because it reflects the terrible effects that Jiang's imprisonment had on the rest of his family. I have been going back and forth about posting it, but when I got up this morning and read in the New York Times online that our own US government is working on legislation to curb the rights of investigative reporters to keep their sources confidential, and after all our own human rights abuses and torturing, albeit on foreign soil, I decided that the message of this poem is too crucial to hide. We run the risk of losing our traditional freedoms, if we do not face the unpleasantness of what is happening in the world around us. We need to see it; we need to consider it; and we need to take a stand against all callousness, brutality, torture, and insensitivity to our fellow human beings.

I am also posting the Chinese version for my readers who like to practice their Chinese.

Tiananmen Aftershocks
By Jiang Pinchao

I fell into fog in the summer of 1991
thinking in my prison cell of
China and my little sister—
hanged by her own hand in the house where we grew up.
Her eyes and tongue protruded,
blood, urine, excrement dripped from her corpse for a week.
No one noticed, no one heard her sighs for me,
no one saw my tears, I could not go home to mourn for her.

That same ghastly summer, the blades
on the plastic toy machine mangled my finger.
My elder sister waited outside the prison thinking of me
not knowing that my chopped finger
gave the warden an excuse to prohibit visitation, a joy
denied my first two years in Hanyang.
My broken-off finger kept bleeding,
the prison doctors operated without anesthesia
but my finger could not be sewn back on,
I yelped like a dog in the prison operating room.

In my summer of anguish, my elder sister could not visit me.
She stayed with a farm family outside the prison and was
a stranger in the wilderness,
thinking of me. Long-serving felons freely
passed in and out of prison because they were
the government’s model prisoners,
thinking of my sister.

In the summer of 1991
my finger broke off
and I was thinking of China
but China was not thinking of me.
My finger was broken off
and I was broken off from people I loved.
Los Angeles, 11/18/2002

漢陽監獄的那座吹塑車間裡我不知道我的斷指還有沒有在想着中國

1991年夏天，我是坠在关于中国的云雾里

我在想着中国，年轻的妹妹上吊了

在我们一同长大的家中，她想着关于我

她的尸首瞪圆眼吐出长长的舌头

尸水一星期在房间里滴，没有人注意

没有人听到她断气时因我绝望的最后一声叹息

我在监狱流泪，不能回去哭

1991年夏天，是我进监两年第一次允许被接见

吹塑机的割刀，想到了我的手指

姐姐在狱外想着关于我

她不知道割刀，给了政府我仍不可以被探监的理由

我的手指断着，太不雅观

我的手指断着，血流不止

狱医的手术不用麻药我在手术室里象狗一样尖嚎

1991年夏天，我的手指

没法缝合，姐姐不能看我

我的手指没法缝合 姐姐在监狱外的农舍求宿

她在陌生的郊野里，想着我

几个被囚数年的歹徒，狱内狱外

自由出入，是政府授予的模范囚犯想着她

1991年夏天 我的手指断着

我想着中国

中国没有想到我

我断着手指

断掉了我连心连肉的亲人

汉阳监狱的那座吹塑车间里

我的手指断着我不知道我的断指

还会不会在那里，在如我从前

想着中国

2002/11/8洛杉矶

Great Videos (Random Insertion)

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A Passion for Teaching

The owners and Chinese TAs at the night market branch of the Gloria English School

In March or April I began teaching two days a week at the Gloria English School in Chungli and Taoyuan. When I was teaching in Taipei, I taught adult conversation and beginning composition to people who were planning to take the TOEFL exam to come to the US and study. Many of the students came late after work, and most of them had not done any homework, so the classes moved slowly. Things at the Gloria English School were very different.

The Gloria English School was an afterschool “cram school” that taught English to children from preschool up through the end of high school. It used the English books from Singapore’s elementary school curriculum, and then the school added its own touches like songs, basic conversation, games, and “direct phonics.” Instead of teaching the KK phonetic system like Taiwan’s junior high schools, the Gloria English School taught the alphabet with phonics. This helped the students with pronunciation and reading.

Each class met for two hour sessions twice a week. The class had an American teacher and a Chinese teacher. The Chinese teacher acted as TA when the American was there one day a week, and then she would explain the points of grammar and review the lessons on the second day. The Americans spent two hours a week with each class.

All the elementary schools were in session for only a half day on Wednesday and Saturday, so the school ran classes all afternoon and evening. Classes started around 5 pm the other days of the week, and the schools were closed on Sundays. I was given classes on Tuesday and Friday evenings to start with. I only worked half days in Taipei on those days so I could get back in time for the classes.

They were so much fun. Most classes had a row of mothers in the back learning English with their children. We would come in, review the previous lesson, sing whatever songs I wanted to teach them, play some games to review grammar, and then learn a new lesson. The mothers took notes on what homework had been assigned, and the students usually did it all. The parents were paying quite a bit of money to have their children taught by real Americans, and they made sure that the kids got the most of the opportunity. The method of teaching was fun, too. Every concept was practiced through contests and games. At first it seemed that we were moving more slowly than the other schools (Big Bird’s English, for example), but because we had six books to our curriculum, our students were able to stay with us for a long time. By the time they got to the later books, they spoke, read, and wrote very good English. Many of them won English competitions in speaking and writing when they were in high school.

I thoroughly enjoyed the classes. It was like I was playing word games for several hours a day, and I was getting paid big bucks to do it!! The students and parents liked me, so as my classes in Taipei ended, I added more and more evenings in Chungli. Over the summer, the owners of GES (who were also Hakka) decided to give me classes for nine hours a day, five days a week. By this time, I was feeling the pressure of the monthly mortgage payments, so I immediately accepted. I quit my job with the church publishing company and became a full-time English teacher.

For the most part the morning classes in the summer were for new students. They met five days a week, and we were supposed to teach the entire alphabet, phonetic reading, fifteen songs, and enough conversation for the students to be able to introduce themselves in English by the end of the 8 week course. Since they were coming daily, they only met for an hour a day. We had to keep everything fast-paced and fun because we needed these students to make up our classes during the school year. The goal of summer session was to make them fall in love with learning English. In general, my classes had a high retention rate.

When I started, GES had three branches: two in Chungli and one in Taoyuan to the North. I was in Taoyuan for two days a week and in Chungli for three days. Some days in Chungli, I would be at the branch near the train station in the morning and have to rush to the branch near the night market in the afternoon. Eventually, Pa Liu decided that I should learn to ride a 50 cc motor scooter, so I could get to classes on time. When I went to Taoyuan, I took the bus to the train station and took the train, but when I was in Chungli, I puttered along on the family’s little red scooter. I did not need to take a licensing test because before our honeymoon, I had gotten a reciprocal license to drive a car with my regular US driver’s license. That was all I needed to drive a 50 cc motor bike. Life got easier for Pa and Yuntian, too, because they only needed to pick me up at the train station two nights a week, and since I was teaching children, the classes ended earlier.

Over my three year stay with GES, they eventually expanded to five branches all in the Chungli and Taoyuan area. They even got the contract to teach English to the flight attendants for the new Evergreen Airlines. And after we came to the US, I organized two cultural exchanges for GES students. They came to the US and did some touring, then I took them to a school or summer camp to meet and mingle with American kids. Working at that school was one of the best jobs I ever had.

First Chinese New Year with the Lius

In heels and a dress playing on a rope bridge at the park. I have truly gone native!

Out rowing on the lake.

With Liu Yuni's cousins at the Liu family tomb.

Two weeks after we moved into the new house, it was the Chinese New Year. All my friends in Taipei were from the church, and they did not adhere strictly to many of the Chinese New Year traditions. In the Liu household, only Yuni, Hsiu-Chu, and I were practicing Christians, so especially that first year, they did all the ceremonies. The first thing was to clean the house from top to bottom on Chinese New Year’s Eve. That part wasn’t too hard since it was a new house, but they did work hard to get everything unpacked and put away neatly. They also laid in lots of food because the markets would be closed for several days. Then they made rice flour cakes. Later, they stopped making these by hand, but the first year in our new house, they did everything according to tradition.

All the unmarried girls and Yuni got to come home for New Year’s Eve dinner. We all ate together at the round dining table. There was a big bowl of fish soup, but we were only supposed to take a taste and leave the rest, so there would be plenty in the New Year. We had red couplets beside the doorway praying for blessings on the household. Yuni and I got one of our friends from church to write them, so they were Christian poems. They were actually quite nice, and Pa Liu was pleased that they were hand-written in nice calligraphy instead of just store-bought ones.

We all went to bed, but Ma and Pa and Hsiu-Mei, Hsiu-Chen, and Yuntian got up in the middle of the night to offer a whole boiled chicken to the ancestors and to set off firecrackers. I was just as happy not to have to get out from under my warm blankets because it was chilly. The next day we all had to wear red, new clothes. I just wore my red wedding dress from the church ceremony because I didn’t want to buy yet another red dress. Yuni wore his suit from the wedding, too. We ate sweet rice cake and fruit and watermelon seeds. Then we all went out to a park for a day at the lake. We were all dressed up for it, too. Then we came home and cleaned up for the next day when the married daughters would come home.

Traditionally, married daughters come home on the second day of the Chinese New Year. Yuni should have taken me to visit my parents, but he was back at his military unit, and it would not have been feasible for me to fly back to the US. So instead, I made waffles for everyone for breakfast. Elder Sister and Elder Brother-in-Law and their four daughters arrived bright and early the next morning. They all loved the waffles. (My relatives had given me a waffle iron for my wedding, and I had a cookbook with a recipe for homemade waffles.) We kept waiting and waiting for Youngest Sister and her husband. Finally, we got a phone call that her mother-in-law was not going to allow her to come unless the Lius guaranteed that she and I would not see each other face to face while she was here.

I knew that the Liu family was worried about her being pregnant with a broken leg, so I said that I would stay upstairs in my third floor rooms. They all thanked me profusely, and I went up to read. Yuntian later came up with a small tv and VCR and a pile of kung-fu movie videos. He also kept bringing food up for me in case I was hungry. I hung over the top of the house and watched her arrive (darting back before anyone saw me, of course.) Since Youngest Sister (Hsiu-ling) had a broken leg she could not go out anywhere. She just sat at home with her mother and one or two of her sisters while her husband and the rest of the entire group took Elder Sister’s children to a park. I unpacked more of my books from America, read Hawaii, watched videos, ate when I got hungry, and wrote some letters to my family.

Then the rest of the family came back. All of a sudden, Yuntian came running up to say that they wanted waffles. So Hsiu-ling was bustled into her mother’s room on the second floor and the door was shut and locked. Then I was hurried past the door down to the living room where I made waffles. Yuntian ran a plate up to his mom and Hsiu-ling so she could enjoy the new taste treat, too. I played with the nieces and stretched my legs a little until word from the second floor came that Hsiu-ling wanted to come down to watch tv. So I was bustled upstairs again. When I was safely ensconced in my room with the door closed, Hsiu-ling was allowed out of her mother’s room and had the run of most of the house.

For the next few days, the family pretty much stayed all together. No one had to work for the rest of the week, and there were plenty of bedrooms (by their standards) and room on the couches. One of the unmarried girls or Elder Sister would bring the laundry up to the third floor where the washing machine was out in the roof garden, and I would have company while we were doing the laundry. Once the laundry was hung out to dry, my companion would take my dirty dishes downstairs, and I was left in peace to read, watch videos, and snack in my bedroom. I could also go out onto the roof and watch the neighbors. When they wanted waffles, Hsiu-ling would be locked in her mother’s bedroom until the locusts were satisfied. Then I would retreat back up to my lair. The nieces, Pa, and most of the girls would go out every day to a park or for a hike. Finally, Pa and Ma decided that I had been shut away long enough and sent Hsiu-ling and her husband back to home. Elder Sister and her family left that day, too, because they had to visit relatives on Elder Brother-in-law’s side of the family.

When the married girls were gone, Pa and Ma took me to call on the relatives who had come to the wedding. Our first stop was the Liu family homestead up in the hills in Hsinchu County. We visited Pa’s brothers and cousins who were still living in the old family farm compound. I was taken up to visit the family tomb and meet the ancestors. I did not burn incense, but per my agreement with Pa, I did bow my head and pray for the Liu clan at the tomb. Then we went down into Toufen Town to visit Ma’s brothers and mother. We spent the night at Elder Sister’s house because it was quite late by the time we had finished our New Year’s courtesy calls.

The next few days after we had finished visiting the family elders, the family members who were younger than Pa and Ma came to our house to visit. I must have gone through ten pounds of flour because I made fresh batches of waffles every time new visitors came that New Year’s season. Finally, it was time for the Lantern Festival, and the Chinese New Year came to an end. Everyone went back to work. That year, because we had a new house and a new bride, Pa took off more days from work than was his custom. He had more visits to make and more courtesy calls to receive. In later years, he usually only took off a week. By the third year, they had stopped offering the chicken to the ancestors in the middle of the night. But the family dinners and visits to and from friends and relatives is something that continues every year.

At the New Year, working children give their parents gifts of money in red envelopes. Parents also give money to their children and grandchildren. If you are married, you are expected to give to unmarried, younger siblings, to nieces and nephews, and to children of your friends and cousins. Everyone keeps a running tally of how much they have been given by a particular person over the year, and then they try to repay it to the children at the Chinese New Year. (I got much better at mental math after my marriage.)

Even the illiterate women knew exactly how much money had been in every gift envelope given to them throughout the year. They would recite the tally to a child and have the child add up all the debts to figure out how much they owed people on Chinese New Year. It is inauspicious to start the year with debt.

My Life in a Multi-generational Household

The first day of Chinese New Year, 1987
(notice the sausages drying on the 2nd floor)

Ma and Pa Liu and Hsiu-chen in the new living room

In the library/tatami alcove of our third floor bedroom

Ma Liu and Yuntian out on a New Year's excursion

The modern kitchen in our new house.

Liu Yuni was in the army, and he did not have leave after our honeymoon for about five months, except for the first day of the Chinese New Year. After that the most his unit got was “movie nights,” when their officers walked them to a movie theater off-base and took them to the movies. Sometimes the assistant commander would let Liu Yuni take the bus home, as long as he was back in the movie theater before the end of the show. So we got an hour here and there together. I did go to visit him, and since I was now his legal wife, visiting was much easier than it had been. Every Wednesday night, I would take the bus to the base, and his commander would take us to another officer’s house where I would teach four unit commanders English. Liu Yuni was supposed to be learning, too, but I think he was too nervous. The officers had to learn basic conversation because they were taking a language test to be eligible for further military training in the US. Two of the members of my little class passed the test and came to the US for two years training.

Despite the fact that my husband was not home, I was never alone or really lonely. My brother-in-law, Yuntian was in ninth grade. He was fifteen years old. Only two of Liu Yuni’s five sisters were married at that time; Eldest Sister had four daughters and lived with her husband in the town of Toufen. She came up to visit her parents on Sundays once or twice a month. Sometimes Pa Liu would take us all down to Toufen to visit the uncles, and we would wind up at Eldest Sister’s house for dinner. Youngest Sister had been married just a month before our wedding. She was living in the town just north of Chung-li near the airport. She was pregnant and had a broken leg, so we did not see much of her. Furthermore, there was a traditional prohibition that brides could not see one another for the first four months of their marriages. I suspect that this was to prevent jealousy over who was being treated better by their in-laws. When Youngest Sister came home, I would hide upstairs in my apartment on the third floor until she left. After she broke her leg, her husband brought her home for an overnight stay during the Chinese New Year holiday to reassure her parents that everything was all right. Yuntian was charged with bringing me food and renting video tapes for me to watch so I didn’t get bored. Fortunately, my grandmother and aunt had added quite a few of their old paperback bestsellers to my library before I shipped it to Taiwan. One of the books was Hawaii by James Michener. Youngest Sister’s stay was only supposed to be one night and two days, but she was so sad and lonely (and she was barely sixteen) that she wound up staying for three nights and four days. She would have stayed on with us indefinitely, but Pa and Ma Liu told her that she was not being fair to me. They shipped her back to her in-law’s place, and I was released from my rooms on the third floor.

Second Sister Hsiu-Mei worked in Eldest Sister’s lampshade factory. She was home on holidays, but for the most part she lived with Eldest Sister in Toufen. Third Sister Hsiu-chiu worked for Pa Liu’s construction company by day and went to night high school in the evenings. Fourth Sister Hsiu-chen worked in a factory at the nearby industrial park. She had a space in the company dormitory and usually only came home on her days off or on holidays or when she wanted to do laundry.

In a typical day, we all got up early. Ma Liu made a full Chinese meal with meat and vegetables and rice for breakfast because three of them did construction work. She cooked in pork lard, and my stomach could not take it. I started getting sick in the mornings until I began buying buns for my breakfast near the train station. We would all go to work or school in the mornings. Yuntian came home first in the afternoons. In the old house, he would split kindling for the wood-burning water heater. In the new house, he did not have to do this chore because all the water heaters were gas burning. He did his homework in front of the tv. Because I taught evening classes, Ma Liu and Hsiu-chiu cooked dinner on week nights. I cooked and cleaned the house on the weekends. After dinner, Ma and Hsiu-chiu did the laundry. I would do the dishes and clean up the kitchen on week nights after I ate a late dinner when I got home.

Every pay day, the unmarried girls, who worked outside the family business, would bring money home to Ma for groceries and household use. All the proceeds from Ma and Hsiu-chiu’s labor went to paying off the debts. I was responsible for paying the mortgage and giving a certain amount to Ma for groceries. Not long into the marriage, I realized that I needed to find higher paying jobs. The budget was so tight that Ma had to ask me for money so Yuntian could pay his fees for school spring semester. That first year of the marriage, everyone was entirely focused on paying off the family’s debt. I asked around among friends from church in Chung-li and found a job teaching English at a “cram” school there. It paid very well, better than the schools in Taipei, and I got home much earlier. In the spring, I was referred to the local university to teach English conversation in their College of Business. That job didn’t start until fall, but I was given a position as part-time English secretary to the President that started over the summer. Eventually, I stopped going to Taipei and worked only near my home in Chung-li. Within six or seven months, I was earning as much as my father-in-law’s contracting business every month. I took over paying most of the household expenses, allowing the rest of the family to dedicate almost all their earnings to paying off the debt. We all worked six days a week. I usually taught classes in the evenings, so I was not at home too much.

Sunday afternoon was free time. Pa would take us out to a park or to hike in nearby mountains on nice days. Or sometimes he would just sit in the living room eating watermelon seeds while he and Ma told us stories about their life before modern conveniences. It was fascinating for me to learn all the changes that they had seen in a life-time. They would ask me about life in America. When Ma could not understand me or when I could not understand her, Pa and his children would translate between Hakka and Mandarin. Liu Yuntian liked to watch kung-fu movies, so we would usually rent videos on the weekend and watch them.

We got along quite well for several reasons. First, we had a focus; we were working as a team to get the family out of debt. Second, we knew that we were coming from very different backgrounds, so we cut each other a lot of slack in our day-to-day dealings with each other. I did some things that were normal for Americans but were very rude in the traditional culture. The Lius didn’t say anything because they knew I was not doing them out of spite, but out of ignorance. After a long while had past, when no one was angry any more, Hsiu-chiu would explain to me the Hakka way of doing things. I tried to adjust myself. If it was something I really couldn’t do, I would talk to Pa and explain my point of view. He would consider things, and usually we found a position of compromise. In general, everyone treated everyone else with courtesy and respect.