Visiting Sanxia/ Charles Chuang

Visiting Sanxia/ Charles Chuang A staff member on the third floor of Wanhwa New Immigrants Center Encouraged me visit Sanxia, New Taipei City. It was his father’s hometown so was my father’s. Two days before I left Taiwan in 1975, I did take a bus from Hsindien to Sanxia attempt to visit my grandmother whom I had never met in vain. I did reach to Jing Hsien Clinic and introduce myself to a lady whom we greeted as Aunt, the physician’s wife, Mrs. Lin. Her younger brother was a friend closed to my dad at his childhood. She was very surprised and could not arrange it without a prior notice. I understood the awkwardness that my grand mother was under poverty level. Two days later, my dad went up to see me off without notice to me and unfortunately I entered the airplane so anxiously . He left the airport gloomily, returned to Sanxia to see his mother, and took a non seat train south to Yunglin, Changhwa, where he lost his retirement fund on a bearing factory. Upon arriving at Huwei, he had a stroke and fell down on a street and never stood up again. He was 65 ½. He did have a very stressful day. I heard that Sanxia has developed tremendously because the newly established National Taipei University. After walking through the spacious campus, I returned to the old town on foot. I asked as many times as I needed to find the old clinic. Of course both were deceased and finally I did find it right across the street from the township hall. The clinic building has been converted to a restaurant. The lady owner chatted with me how she paid the rent to Mrs. Tsui, one of the owners children. When I heard that Mr. Tsui was a retired army officer, I remembered him and connected some dots together. More than 50 years ago, he went to visit an air force training center at Huwei. I was the boy who took him on a bicycle ride to the back gate of the base. He remembered the trip to Huwei and yet not recalled any of the bicycle trip and the purpose of that trip. He is 86 and still very heathy by look. He was very puzzled that I knew him so much such as his rank, occupation, and a book which he wrote, 30 years red peril in China, etc. He called his wife to verify my dad’s name and confirmed. She told me my grandmother’s old residences should be within the old town area called Pachang Li just across the river. This river should be connected to Hsindien where I taught a middle school between 1974-1975. My dad mentioned to me that he used to take a ferry from Sanxia to Hsindien. I treated a nice grilled pork sausage to a hungry community dog who was playing his turn over in front of a senior couple without any success. The lady vendor cut the hot sausage into pieces in order to be cool and easier for him to consume. The staff at the township registry could only show me some of the information after she verify my passport to identify my direct line of relation from my grandmother. After a long hour’s reading by her, I ordered a copy of my grandmother’s registry record. I had had at least four of her old residence addresses. I went to visit every one of them and took some pictures for my memory. I can track the old record up to my great grandmother’s time when Japanese set up the registry. It is in Japanese. She could not tell if there was a language that our ancestors were under a definition of civilized aborigines. I has been my belief that my ancestors are Austroindonesians, a kind of Polynesians, instead of Han Chinese. If my ancestors were Han Chinese, a ruling race, my ancestors could not be so poor without any opportunity to make a struggle to change. I knew that my father did make a dramatic change after additional 5 years occupational school education in his youth under Japanese’s rule. My grandmother was born in 1887, 1983 deceased. She had married three times during her life with three sons each had a different surname, that mean I had two uncles with the same grandmother yet different grandfathers. All of them were illiterate and their jobs were temporary farmer, not a tenant farmer which right was protected under current Chinese rules. I called my eldest sister, Mary, that night to see if I should continue my search. She Advised me not and exchange some of her knowledge about our ancestors. Why I Want to know? I feel that I should and must know myself. Without knowing myself , I would not appreciate this life which was given to me by my parents. I don’t need to tell my children just like my dad who had not mentioned to me. My children do not need to know if they are not willing to know, if they are not ready to know. Last year my daughter did invite us to visit Taiwan and I asked her the reason why? She said that she would like to see my hometown and how I was brought up. My siblings must clearly understand our ancestor’ struggling in their life time, do not talk big and brag about generosity of donation to charity while one of us is still struggling.