The red clay courts at Huwei Senior High/ Charles Chuang

The red clay courts at Huwei Senior High/ Charles Chuang I carried a tennis racket back to Taiwan last year in order to play tennis at The red clay courts at Huwei Senior High, Huwei, Taiwan. There are two Roland Garros red clay on the courts which are very expansive to build and maintain in Houston, Texas, yet at Huwei it is reasonable and can be simply be kept up to a good shape. Usually the work is done by the club president and members. The facility was donated by a distinguished alumnus, Wen Shan Chen. The incumbent president is Wu, a retired elementary school Principal, who used to rent a room at our home while he attended at the Senior high school and also took care of the house when my mother came to visit Houston, Texas. Tennis is my life time hobby. I Play double three sets every week. There are seniors still playing tennis at Huwei courts. According to some experient, sandy courts are more friendly to knees than the hard courts. There are two regular meeting in a day, one is early morning for the seniors and some business owners; the other one is late afternoon for younger workers coming out of daily work. No need to make an appointment, like Waikiki courts, you can drop by any time to play. There are two other identical facilities at Huwei, one is at the old residential complex at the sugar corporation; the other one is at the Huwei Senior school for agriculture. I ran into an old neighbor, Kai Lung. He is a year older than me and a retired teacher from this high school. He used to play tennis until his knees injury. Every morning, he would ride a bike to the courts and meet his old friends. He mentioned a story and I wrote it done. Recently a former student came to the courts to find him to inform him that she planned to move back to the home town for her retirement and she went ahead to purchase a new house during that trip. She was one of a good student from the old Huwei Girls Senior High that he helped to arrange a scholarship with a former colleague who was also a successful business owner. This philanthropist one day told him that he would like to help some poor students at the high school. He would invite this student to his house for a lunar new year’s feast and give her a big envelope of yearly scholarship. I believe that would last until her graduation from college. She has become a school teacher until her own retirement. I am very touched with the story. I taught one year at the old Huwei Senior High, currently the majority part Of campus of the National Formosan University od Science and Techology. The university had torn down everything including the old hard courts in order to build such new facility. Most of my former teachers and colleagues are not playing tennis any longer. I am only passing by the campus not entering. Even the ditch along the front has been covered to make the street wider. The campus is no longer in my old memory.