Visiting Toufen, Miaoli/ Charles Chuang

Visiting Toufen, Miaoli/ Charles Chuang I have had two lunches in Hsinchu with college classmates which have been organized by Roger Huang. In between these two, he accepted my request to visit him at his farm house at Toufen, Miaoli. This is a newer farm house different from the one which I visited in the summer of 1970. The old farm house is a square shape in perimeter while this newer one is a 3,000+ square feet 3 story building with a stone wall surround it. That year, I met with his grandfather who could speak Amoy language and his father who could speak Hakka only. He took me passing an old hill road where I saw a huge snake that year. It was a hog breeding farm of Taiwan Sugar Company. There is a certain limit for a permit to build a new farm house in a farm. That night Mrs. Huang was preparing my dinner and he brought in two green onions from the garden outside. I was very convenient. I was very impressed of Toufen when I first visited 43 years ago. That summer, we planned to peep through a store front of a girl whom one of our classmate admired. We were not successful and yet we did ran into a pretty high school girl. He remembered the first girl who was one year younger than us at the department of Social education while had no idea of the second one. I must remove that one from my mind from now on. He was a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Tokyo University and had been in Japan for 21 years. His talk carried with some weight, especially when he said at our previous lunch about school study and search for something became a burden to the society. I was very curious, thought of it for a week, and asked to see him to explain it to me again. Under his permission, I took a train from Tounan north to Hsinchu and he picked me up after a speech in Kaoshiung south of Taiwan. I haven’t been so busy lately. My question was because that his description was correctly. A famous Chinese proverb Said, a man had studied 10 years in front of a cold window and nobody noticed until one day his success made it known all over the nation. The cold window is school study while success is degree, such as bachelor, master, and Ph.D. etc. The degrees would make you famous to the nation and you could return home in glory. This will make yourself, your spouse stressful, and even a burden to the society. This is a subject of a philosophy forum which I ask him more in details. My Buddhist monk teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, concludes that we must live on a meaningful life. The only life which we search for. He is an intellectual person who always carry something to read, of course, now is i-phone. When the national Bureau of weights and measures sent him to Houston during 1980’s, stayed with us and always in the room prepared for the lessons. My little boy put the coins into the video machine damaged two in the roll. If we had the proper tools, he might fix them because you never knew these Ph.D. in chemistry could do with the instruments. He pointed it out that after Japan severed the diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Both Taiwan and Japan had ignored the trading activities. Taiwan was forced to build the relationship with Europe and the U.S. Two nations Lost the previous close relationship. Now China is the largest trading partner with and both nations have realized how important to rebuild closer relationship. Japanese take notice of the dynamic economic activity of Taiwanese sole proprietorship. They believe that is the most active in the world. I suggested him teach Japanese free at a community center and he didn’t think that was proper. Actually we scarcely have this kind of Japanese expert in Taiwan. He is currently manage a Friendship Force International and lecturing everywhere in Taiwan. There was a pretty township councilwoman coming to visit this old scholar. It Was very interesting to listen the local politician to explain her effort to improve the quality of life in the township. Regional political system is very vital to the national system of rule and law. Taiwan is making huge progress nowadays. After this we have another lunch and a ride back to Taipei through a series of Cities and townships from Chungli to Taipei.