Visiting Leiyu Island, Kinmen(3)/ Charles Chuang

Visiting Leiyu Island, Kinmen(3)/ Charles Chuang I stayed about 24 hours at Kinmen Island and spent most of the time at Houtou village where my old battalion barracks were 41 years ago. I lived at the barracks which had been abandoned for quite some, while the village had been furbished like new, yet sparsely populated. Army left so were the young generation of the village, only the elders and some stayed. Taiwan Power and Taiwan Telephone invested some at Kinmen expected that three little openings between Taiwan and China would bring some new business such as the tourists’ overnight stay at Kinmen. They didn’t expect that the real grand openings between these two rival nations would come so soon that you could fly directly from Taipei to Peiking bypass Shamen and vice versa. I still like to describe my mind for this 24 hours stay, I went to a birthday dinner; stayed overnight; attended another party at an old and closed restaurant listening to a pretty councilwoman from Leiyu in Kinmen county. The next morning went through a much effective way back to Taipei. Originally Leiyu was an offshore island of Shamen, one of the early five ports opened for trading in China in 1844. It had been peaceful from the ancient time until the cold war. I guess the development of the island related to that treaty in 1844. Many resident immigrated to the southeast Asia. His father-in-law didn’t inherit any of the real estate. The family have stayed at a house belonged to his deceased elder brother. Most of his siblings are in Brunei , an oil rich kingdom in Malaysia. As a matter of fact, our battalion compound occupied his property and still not returned to him even abandoned. I believe that the government still considers Kinmen as an emergency war area in case the war between these two nations broke out. The old man’s family cannot build a new house or addition because the owner has no interest. His son whom I met, invited his parents to live at Mei Lung, Pingtong County without any success. The parents would rather stay at the island. I was arranged to sit on a table with a group of retired teachers from Leiyu Junior High. They were the former colleague of his son. Most of them have retired in Taiwan because the local enrollment has decreased to 80for the whole school. I dreamed to teach at this school while I was in the army, yet the battalion commander objected. There was a dean of study, Mr. Chuang, who was helping me at that time. I asked him during the dinner and was informed that he was ill and retired in Taiwan. Two of us were vegetarian diet and we were lucky that the chef liked to prepare such plates. I didn’t see the large yellow fish which I had some taste at the old time. I only saw the small size oyster still on the table. This kind of oyster is very unique and delicious different from the large size both in Taiwan And the U.S. Of course the dinner was abundant and delicious only because I was so excited and ignored the cuisines. The guests were good at drinking the sorghum liquor. Chung Lung’s wife, the eldest daughter of the family named Chiu, was very pretty at that Time. She would come to the hospital to deliver laundry. Many officers hired her to do the laundry and ironing. She did also take care of the youngsters. The father did the wash work. He used to write letters to Brunei for people with a small amount of fee. Because of the elder siblings took care of the youngers, they built a very special relationship among themselves. Chung Lung was an army nurse and took care of Chiu’s aunt at our hospital and won her heart eventually. He was the winner among many who admired her, one of them was my former classmate at senior high from Leiyu Island. Their marriage was difficult at the beginning, as he described to me, then improved after he was accepted as an employee at Taiwan Telephone and Telegraph. He is still working with the company. He advised me that every time he was angry with Chiu, he would ride a motor cycle to the Countryside until he was in peace.