Visiting Chusan, Nantou/ Charles Chuang

Visiting Chusan, Nantou/ Charles Chuang I had made an appointment to visit Chusan with Dr. Su on 11/17/2013 before leaving Houston for the trip to Taiwan. We would take of before day break from Tounan, his hometown, to Touliu to transfer to Chusan to visit a beautiful library. On the 16th, I was delayed by the rare opportunity to have a lunch and coffee with the old college friends in Hsinchu. I was late to catch the last bus to Huwei, my hometown, and was struggling between two railroad stations. I took another train south to Tounan, and was at midnight when I got to Dr. Su’s house. I was so sorry. The next morning, we took the same route in train back to Touliu to catch a bus to Chusan. We passed by a group of seniors who were doing Taichi exercises which he attempted to teach me some a night before. Hsin Jong library and Yu Lang culture center are in honor of their parents by four brothers. The building has been built on the parents’ land and with six hundred thousand US $ annual budget. Most of the volunteers are the retirees of government workers. They maintain the ground and garden regularly. One of the four brothers is Dr. Kao who is a co-founder of GPS, has donated US$125 million to the University of Tennessee and the state of Tennessee matches it to make US$250 million to build a six story college of electrical and computer science at Knoxville, Tennessee. It is one of the legendary talk in the USA. The bus started at Touliu passing through Yunlin hilly country and beautiful Villages. Su checked my Taiwanese language on the way by testing how I pronounced the names. It’s very difficult for me especially after so much Influence by Mandarin Chinese language. Most of the passengers were Farmers dressed very casual. At Chusan you could see some hiking tourists To hike at a forest nearby belonged to National Taiwan University. Chusan Is one of a larger townships in Nantou county named for its scenery, sweet potato, bamboo shout, and tea. The library was off on Monday, we did see many volunteers working outside for the yard and garden. I ran into a retired junior high principal who was still younger than me. He is a friend of my former colleague at Huwei Senior High. The world is so small that we can almost run into some one we know anywhere any time. Actually, Dr. Su has a property near Chusan downtown. We went to take a look and left for downtown market. It was persimmon season variety of products. I asked a vender how to make dry persimmon and he told me baking which is different from the one I know of. Taiwanese dry persimmon is better looking than mine at home. Because I had a dental appointment on the next morning at Wanhwa, Taipei, I was in a hurry to leave Chusan. We took a bus back to Touliu and separated, I transferred to another one to Huwei home. Three hours after arriving at Huwei, I was on my way back to the railroad station on my way to Taipei. This also included a dinner at a vegetarian café. I always think that if Dr. Su would allow me to stay at his abandon building at Chusan for a month in a year; therefore, I can visit those famous mountains and old temples at Nantou. I would re-paint that room for him.