Visiting my senior high school alma mater/Carlos Pueblo

 Visiting my senior high school alma mater/Carlos Pueblo

Every time when I return to Taipei, I always find time to visit my senior high school alma mater, the Affiliated Senior High School of the National Taiwan Normal University. Later on I did enter Taiwan Normal as my another alma mater in Taiwan back to the 60's and 70's of the last century. I have credited all my alma mater schools to prepare me to immigrate to the United States and have changed my life completely.

Back then and now in Taiwan, we must compete to enter schools with distinguished performance to satisfy parents and students; therefore, we always are required to study hard to pass various entrance examinations to get the admission to study at certain schools on every levels, the junior high school, the senior high school, and the university, etc. After college education, many of us must pass another examination to study abroad in order to obtain a better future in their life. Of course, it has changed now that Taiwan is a developed nation in the world and you don't have to study abroad to make very much difference in your life.

The school was built in 1937 when Taiwan was still under Japanese rule, 1895-1945. It was named Taipei #3 Middle School with the Japanese majority of the student body. It was gradually changed to be affiliated to Taiwan Normal University after the Nationalist Chinese took over Taiwan in 1945. The size of the campus has been kept the same with some additional buildings in the front, the 1937 original Japanese built red brick building is still very attractive. The indoor basketball gymnasium was built by my classmate Kuo after he graduated from the engineering college.

There are two tennis courts added in the back field. We didn't have such a facility back then in the 60's. I was very good in Tennis when I was at the junior high school and was interrupted after junior high until 1996 when my daughter Michelle asked me to play tennis by myself and not bother her with tennis anymore.

One day, my old classmate, Mr. Kuo took me to inspect two of his big construction projects south of Taipei. He has become a very successful owner of a construction company. One of the two projects is a museum of the fine art for the New Taipei City at Yingke Township facing my grandparents' hometown Shansha Township. I am so impressed by his achievement after he graduated from our senior high school.