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Old Hong Kong, New China

Originally published in Consequence Volume 15.2 (November 2023).

I couldn’t stop consuming news about Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. It was political theatre: Beijing threatened Taiwan with sanctions and military action; Washington maintained its commitment to the One China Policy while celebrating Taiwan’s democracy. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, people ate their braised pork over rice at local diners, and the TV showed news clips of Pelosi shaking hands with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen.

After Pelosi’s departure, the Chinese military shot missiles into the Taiwan Strait. Some landed twenty kilometers (12.4 miles) off the coast of Taiwan. When reporters interviewed Taiwanese residents about the military exercises in the southern city of Kaohsiung, they shrugged. Some said they went to work, and others claimed they took the ferry for their weekend getaway to Luiqui, the idyllic island known for its sea turtles.

I want to think I’m just as carefree about the impending invasion, but the truth is I’m panicking—as a Taiwanese Canadian woman married to an American who lived in Hong Kong for eight years, I have reasons for concern. The Taiwanese had indeed lived with the constant threat of Chinese aggression since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek and the then-ruling party of Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War. In Chiang’s lifetime, he vowed to take back the motherland from the “communist thugs” while ruling Taiwan with an iron fist. However, towards the end of the twentieth century, many countries began to recognize the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the legitimate ruler of China, and therefore, the United Nations suggested dual representation—allowing both Taiwan and China to be a part of the UN. However, Chiang withdrew from the intergovernmental organization, effectively removing Taiwan’s participation in global affairs. Thus, 1971 was the year China joined the UN, and Taiwan lost its status as a country.

The cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan have always been contentious, and they escalated under Xi Jinping’s leadership. Xi declared that “reunification” between Taiwan and China must be fulfilled and that Beijing may use force if necessary. However, many of us in Taiwan, myself included, have no desire to be ruled by a government with a dismal human rights record, known for imprisoning Muslim minorities and crushing a democratic movement in Hong Kong.

In 2019, while most Taiwanese watched the news in horror as militarized police brutalized young Hong Kong protestors, I lived in the midst of it.

§

I attended the Tiananmen Square vigil on June 4, 2019—the only annual event commemorating the 1989 massacre in Chinese territory—not knowing it would be my last one. After the serene candle-lit ceremony to remember the democracy-seeking Chinese students who died at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, people began walking from Victoria Park through Wan Chai. They ended up at the Legislative Council Complex, about four kilometers (2.5 miles) away. This was the start of the 2019 protest movement—almost every week from then on, a protest happened every weekend. I could see the procession from the window of the Wan Chai apartment I shared with my husband, Derek. One day, we decided to join them. We donned black t-shirts and marched the streets with Hong Kongers—young and old, students and professionals, the elderly with their canes, and parents with their toddlers in strollers. Shoulder to shoulder with millions of Hong Kong residents, we shouted: “Reclaim Hong Kong; Revolution of Our Times!”—a common slogan that appeared everywhere in 2019. It reflected Hong Kongers’ desire to shelve the extradition bill—proposed by Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Lam used a murder case involving Hong Kong citizens in Taiwan as a pretext to propose extradition agreements with Taiwan, Macau, and China. Lam said the bill would prevent lawbreakers from committing crimes in one region and fleeing to another. The reality was that the bill would let the Beijing government arrest people the CPC deemed unsavory—activists, journalists, and even business executives, and subject them to its justice system with a 99 percent conviction rate. Naturally, Hong Kongers didn’t want this extradition bill—they feared getting caught up in the unjust Chinese legal system and rotting in a Mainland prison.

That summer, I observed the gathering each weekend and watched the number of protestors swell. In June, one million people were on the streets. By the first weekend of July, two million people marched and chanted through the major roads of Wan Chai. The government, however, ignored people’s demands and cracked down on peaceful protests. Soon, there were allegations that police officers beat commuters on the MTR, Hong Kong’s subway system, and some had died at Prince Edward Station, a station I passed through every day to and from work. No one knew what happened—according to the news media, the security footage disappeared, and there were speculations that the government destroyed evidence to conceal their atrocities. As a result, many young people in Hong Kong felt pacifism was futile and resorted to violence. Believing that the MTR was colluding with the police to harm them, they trashed subway stations. Furthermore, they also vandalized businesses—belonging to those aggravated by the protests that disrupted their livelihood—and branded them pro-Beijing. The police ramped up their presence around the city to maintain order and protect property. As Derek and I walked home with our groceries one day, we bumped heads with a group of militarized police. We dropped our shopping bags and raised our arms as they sped past us, chasing black-clad protestors.

Bearing witness to the atrocities in Hong Kong, I couldn’t help but think about my ancestral homeland of Taiwan, which made me root for Hong Kong even more. However, after six months of constant turmoil, the political situation drained and depressed me. Despite myself, I was also resentful: I had already fled political unrest in Bahrain ten years ago—how did I get thrust into another? Friends called me after hearing about the situation in Hong Kong. “It seems like revolutions follow you wherever you go!” they teased.

I chuckled along, but the city’s ordeal was no laughing matter. People were hurt; lives were upended. Life in Hong Kong would never be the same again.

In 2012, I moved to Hong Kong not knowing a soul. I had just separated from my first husband and escaped the Arab Spring and Bahrain’s sectarian conflict—where burning tires blocked highways, and the smell of tear gas lingered in my neighbourhood—and landed in a maze of disorientating skyscrapers in the metropolis of “Fragrant Harbour.” Worn down by my failed marriage and driven by my desire to gain more professional experience, I moved to Hong Kong for a librarian position at a local university.

At this time, I was more concerned about establishing myself and finding love in my new city than worrying about the CPC’s growing power. So, I immersed myself in online dating. Many potential matches were excited that I lived in Wan Chai, famous for bars lit by neon lights that promised dancing girls and two-for-one drinks. “Shall we meet in your ‘hood for happy hour drinks?” They texted with the winking emoji.

I soon learned to steer clear of men who spent their weekends getting drunk in the red-light district of Wan Chai. On its main drag of Lockhart Road, the domineering, grandmother-aged madams congregated in front of bars shrouded by black draperies, tugging at men’s sleeves as they staggered by. When someone paused, smiled, or showed interest, a troop of young Southeast Asian women in cakey make-up and miniskirts swooped in and led him into their curtained establishments for a good time.

Back then, as a young Taiwanese Canadian expat in Hong Kong, the only thing that made me think about the other side of the border was who could be there. One day, I went to Shenzhen to meet a man I matched online. I gripped my Canadian passport with my single-entry visa at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border. I was worried that a customs agent would see my face and demand that I produce some other kind of identification that showed that I was “Chinese.” Since my place of birth was Japan, I could pass for a non-Chinese person, but my Taiwanese surname might have given me away. I was wracking my brain with scenarios where I got into trouble as a foreigner imposter, but to my relief, the agent barely looked at me as I crossed the border.

My date met me at the train station. He was an American English teacher working on his first novel and not nearly as cute or cool as his profile suggested. However, since I had paid for the visa and gone through the two-hour ordeal of coming to Shenzhen, I let him play tour guide for the day. We walked through a shopping district and visited some tourist sights, but I couldn’t recall anything noteworthy—except that we walked by a Walmart. While having a mediocre meal, I complained about the lack of decent cocktails. After spending a day in Shenzhen, I deemed it unruly and unsophisticated, a stick in the mud in the backwaters of China.

By early 2014, I was bored with my job and the glitzy city that offered endless shopping expeditions and boozy weekend brunches. I was also frustrated by my lack of romantic prospects and the city’s noncommittal Romeos—the bankers, teachers, or journalists who wanted to get drunk and hook up. I didn’t feel connected to Hong Kong and found nothing and no one to keep me there. Therefore, I plotted my escape—instead of finding a professional librarian position in Canada when I finished my contract, I would move to the Philippines and become a dive instructor.

My plans fizzled when Derek entered my life. He was a typeface designer, a professor, and a “gentleman redneck” who hailed from the Indiana side of the Ohio River. He didn’t just want to get drunk and hook up. Instead, we went to a David Sedaris performance and a music festival. After that, we spent almost every waking moment together and texted each other nonstop when we were apart. Then, two weeks after we officially started dating, he told me he loved me and asked me what kind of engagement ring I wanted. Within four weeks, we flew to Taipei so he could ask my father for my hand in marriage. Ten months later, we were wed in Hong Kong, surrounded by family and friends.

After Derek and I married, he moved into my apartment in Wan Chai. We decided to make the Fragrant Harbour our permanent home, and I grew to love my neighborhood, which was more than a depraved watering hole. It existed at the intersection of contradictions—the seedy bars near a high-end shopping centre and a historic temple sandwiched between skyscrapers on Queen’s Road East, a major thoroughfare built on reclaimed land where the harbor used to open up to the South China Sea. On my way home from work, I stopped by my favorite stall in the Wan Chia market to buy Korean-imported socks in the narrow streets filled with kiosks selling tchotchkes, from the tacky “beckoning cat” lucky charms to counterfeit Calvin Klein underwear. I shopped for fresh vegetables and freshly butchered chicken on the weekends while hopping over puddles in front of live seafood tanks and snake soup stalls. In the bustling centre of Wan Chai was a ballpark with bleacher seating that separated the seedy part of the district from the rest, where people of all ages gathered to play sports and have picnics.

Hong Kong seemed to fall under Chinese rule overnight—I barely had time to catch my breath. Less than a year before the 2019 protests, the new high-speed rail service commenced between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. At that time, my wariness of the CPC had faded enough that I was tempted to visit when my friends boasted about inexpensive massages and spa treatments on the other side of the border. The pampering appealed to me, so I convinced Derek to join me for a leisurely weekend in Shenzhen.

Months before the trip, my mother convinced me it would be more economical and convenient to enter China with the “Taiwanese Compatriot Permit.” It is a travel document for Taiwanese citizens to enter China since the Chinese authorities don’t recognize the Taiwanese passport as a legitimate travel document. I agreed to let my mother apply because I otherwise would have had to pay for a non-transferable ten-year tourist visa on my Canadian passport, which was expiring in less than two years.

On a Saturday morning in late September 2018, Derek and I arrived at the newly built Hong Kong West Kowloon train station. We went through security and stopped at a well-stocked duty-free shop. Recalling my annoyance about the lack of quality alcohol in Shenzhen six years ago, I picked up a bottle of Roku, a Japanese gin, before going toward the passport control area. A thick black line with a thinner yellow line was in the middle outside the duty-free shop. In both Chinese and English, it said, on one side, “Hong Kong Port Area,” and on the other, “Mainland Port Area.” Once we crossed the threshold, all the signs changed from traditional to simplified Chinese. This jarring shift in the writing system indicated that I was entering the realm of the authoritarian CPC.

The passport control area has two sections: “Chinese Nationals” and “Foreigners.” Derek made his way to the 

“Foreigner” section. In the past, I entered China as a Canadian, a foreigner. But this time, by showing up with my “Compatriot Permit,” I was no longer Canadian—as far as the border customs agent was concerned, I was Chinese.

I sighed. “Hey, sweetie,” I said, turning to Derek. “I think I should probably go to the other line.”

We kissed each other goodbye, and I made my way to the other side, hating every minute. In my head, I was screaming: “I’M NOT CHINESE! I’M TAIWANESE!” But, I barely felt Taiwanese—I wasn’t even born there and had only lived there for four years as a child. Even though I grew up in Canada and spent most of my adult life in the Middle East and Hong Kong, in the eye of Chinese border control, I looked the part, and with my travel document, I was definitely a “Chinese National.” At this moment, I wondered if the money I had saved and the convenience my mother had touted were worth this identity crisis.

The line moved faster than I expected. Within ten minutes, I was through. After my weekend bag went through another security check, I was surrounded by thousands of people in the terminal. Derek was nowhere to be seen.

Where are you? I texted.

Still in line. Derek texted back. It barely moved since you left.

I found our gate and texted Derek again. Hey, the train is going to leave in twenty minutes. Are you almost through?

I hope so. He texted. 

I groaned. I distracted myself with Instagram, calming my nerves with luncheon spreads, beach vacations, and cat portraits.

Then, five minutes before the train was supposed to depart, I called Derek, “The train is leaving soon. Are you going to make it?”

“I am running toward you,” he yelled into the phone. Then, I spotted him scrambling to gather his bag at the security checkpoint and making a beeline toward me. Together, we sprinted to our gate. We made it on the train seconds before the doors closed.

Once we got off the train, we found ourselves in a spacious, spotless train station and followed the sign to an orderly taxi stand. In the cab, I told the driver the name of our hotel in Mandarin. Unlike some taxis in Hong Kong, this one was clean, free of stale cigarette smoke stench. The driver was courteous, and his driving etiquette was impeccable, unlike the cabbies in Hong Kong who crisscrossed the city in jerky, vomit-inducing brakes and cussed loudly when stuck in traffic. To my delight, I felt a breeze on my face—in Hong Kong, if the cab window were open even a crack, we would have been suffocated by exhaust fumes or deafened by the incessant honking. However, public vehicles and taxis in Shenzhen were electric, making the air cleaner. On the fourteen-lane highway, there was enough room for everyone, reducing the need for honking. There were even bike lanes.

We explored Shenzhen via the MRT, the public railway system. First, we had a relaxing massage and ate delicious and cheap spicy mudbugs—Derek’s favorite. Then, we went to the Overseas Chinese Town at night, famous for hip bars and restaurants, not unlike those in Wan Chai. We saw paintbrushes in a jar poking out of a window as we walked around.

“Look, they have studios here,” Derek said, pointing toward an old industrial building. “I bet you can rent a space here cheap.”

“Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a studio?” I sighed as my head filled with visions of life economically unattainable in Hong Kong.

On our final morning, we visited the Dafen Oil Painting Village, famous for oil paintings dedicated to the reproductions of masterworks, from Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Starry Nights to Monet’s Lily Pond. This village supplied the world’s doctor’s offices and gift shops with the most realistic-looking fakes.

In a taxi to Dafen, we drove by massive housing complexes still under construction.

“I wonder how big those flats are.” Derek mused, “I bet we could get more space for our buck out here.”

Shenzhen seduced me. Not knowing what would happen to Hong Kong within the year, modern China almost convinced me that it was more advanced than Hong Kong, with abundant housing, electric cars, and bike lanes.

When we arrived in Dafen, it was drizzling. Easels were set up before every storefront, where artists demonstrated their painting techniques, copying the masterpieces from photographs. Even up close, the fakes were impressive—serious training went into creating them. But after we got over the initial marvel, we realized that the whole village was the same thing on repeat. I was wet and bored and demanded we leave.

“But isn’t it ironic that while China is trying to demonstrate progress and innovation, it has a whole village dedicated to copying masterpieces from the West?” Derek chuckled as we stepped out of Dafen.

We stood by the main road but couldn’t find a taxi. So, we searched for a subway station. This was an older part of town, rowdier and dirtier. The electric vehicles were gone; the clogged roads were filled with exhaust-spewing cars—this was China that matched the image in my mind. Then, we stumbled upon a Walmart. It wasn’t the same one I saw on my first trip to Shenzhen, but I convinced Derek to go in with me. Unlike the North American megastores, this one had no spacious aisles and logical signages. Instead, salespeople hollered at the top of their lungs, and shoppers elbowed each other through the crowded space. The scent of death clung to the air as we walked near butcher stalls.

“Ugh, even the Walmart is a rip-off,” I moaned.

Derek pointed to something behind me on the jam-packed train on our way back to the hotel. Our train accelerated through a three-block-wide housing estate. They were about fifteen stories each and no older than thirty years. Some buildings remained intact among the imposing cranes and menacing bulldozers, while others were half torn down. Most of their windows had been knocked out, revealing dark, empty interiors, and the cityscape of Shenzhen poked out of the jagged concrete structures. The view was fleeting but made an impression—it was the first of many we witnessed—remnants of homes torn down to pave the way for the newer, shinier Shenzhen.

Spending a weekend in Shenzhen gave me a glimpse into Hong Kong’s future. I couldn’t help but wonder: In the eyes of new China, how much of old Hong Kong would survive? Reflecting on the smog-free fourteen-lane highway, the trendy artist district alongside the copycat painting village, and the half-torn-down housing estates, I was disheartened to imagine Hong Kong’s future devoid of its contradictory charms: The upscale French restaurant in the puddle-filled street market, the prurient, neon-lit Lockhart Road next to a basketball court where children play, and the tiny temple dwarfed by glass skyscrapers. I love Hong Kong because it was a haven where quirks and weirdness were allowed to exist, a city that had room for resistance and diversity instead of snuffing them out. 

§

Derek and I left Hong Kong in December 2019 after witnessing months of crackdowns. Militarized police patrolled Wan Chai daily. Public transportation and businesses halted operations anticipating new clashes between the protestors and the police. Like in Bahrain, I was again subjected to unpredictable road closures and tear gas thrown around my neighborhood. International companies shuttered their Hong Kong offices, and our friends left in droves. As a Taiwanese woman, I felt unsafe in Hong Kong, even with my Canadian citizenship. When Derek got a job in Sri Lanka as a dean at a design university, we packed up our Wan Chai apartment and bid our Fragrant Harbour goodbye.

Two years later, after shuffling around Sri Lanka and the US during a global pandemic, Derek and I made Taiwan our home, despite its volatile relationship with China. Friends and family worried about our safety, but we reminded them that Hong Kong and Taiwan differed. The former was always going to be reunified with China according to the Sino-British Joint Declaration—but instead of maintaining Hong Kong’s capitalistic status quo until 2047, the CPC took control of the territory twenty-seven years ahead of schedule. With the implementation of the National Security Law in 2020, freedom of speech in the former British colony vanished overnight. The government banned the annual June Fourth Vigil. The popular slogan, “Reclaim Hong Kong; Revolution of Our Times!” became illegal, and anyone uttering it or displaying it was arrested. The border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen will soon be a thing of the past—old Hong Kong will be integrated into new China—the carefree, freewheeling city-state will solely exist in the collective memory of those who called it home.

On the other hand, in Beijing’s eyes, Taiwan became a renegade province when the rebel Kuomintang fled to the island in 1949. Chiang Kai-shek established his government in Taiwan and always planned to retake mainland China. He never succeeded. During his reign, he imposed martial law to squash dissidents and created an environment of terror until his death. In 1987, his son Chiang Ching-guo lifted martial law, and Taiwan had its first election in 1996. Slowly but surely, Taiwan shed its brutal authoritarian past and emerged as a beacon of democracy.

For the last decade, my feelings about CPC have oscillated from indifference and apprehension to panic—with a brief and misguided moment of enamor. As CPC under Xi’s rule becomes more powerful, Taiwan’s future is uncertain. Beijing’s track records in Hong Kong and Xinjiang are not reassuring, and I worry about what will happen to Taiwan if the CPC takes it by force. Yet, Derek and I love this island my Chinese ancestors made home over three hundred years ago—with its modern convenience, superb healthcare, and proximity to the rest of Asia, we can’t imagine living elsewhere. Therefore, I have to learn to channel the carefree attitude of my fellow Taiwanese—eat braised pork over rice at my local diner, enjoy a weekend island holiday, and live one day at a time. 

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Were My Great Grandparents Bad Parents For Leaving Their Daughters Behind?

A Portrait of Ama’s adopted mother hanging in the gods’ room, by Wei-chen Li

It’s no secret that my Ama was adopted. For as long as I can remember, there’s been a black and white portrait of my adopted Great Grandmother hanging in the gods’ room. In the picture, she wore a Buddhist robe and held rosaries. Her face was kind, but her expression was stern, with a hint of a smirk like she was pretending to be serious just for the photoshoot. Though I don’t remember meeting her, her face is familiar—I’ve been looking at her portrait my whole life. Yet I know almost nothing about her, except that she was a devout Buddhist whose husband died young, she was friends with my Great Grandmother and was childless until Ama came into her life. Other than that, I learned that she was born in 1903 and that she was illiterate—information I gleaned from a 1950-era household registration within Ama’s archives.

Sometimes I feel like I recall memories that are not mine. They’re my Ama’s, so I have to imagine what she went through and try to see the events of her life from her point of view and in the context of Taiwanese history. I will probably never know precisely what happened to my grandmother and how she felt about her life, but I can use reimagined memories to try to understand my Ama as a woman of her time.

I don’t know how old Ama was when her parents gave her away. I asked my father, but he didn’t know. “Didn’t you ask Ama?” I asked.

“Of course I did!” my father said. “But she’d just yell at me and told me not to bother with the past.”

Ama (bottom row, far left) and her adopted family, 1930s. I believe her adopted mother was the first woman on the left in the second row.

I know almost nothing about Ama’s adopted family except the snippet I learned about my adopted Great Grandmother from Ama’s archives. From how fondly my father spoke of her, Ama loved her adopted mother very much. Allegedly, one of the reasons Ama chose Agon, my grandfather, was that Ama wanted to have the means to take care of her widowed adopted mother and live with her. Agon was a handsome and successful obstetrician who was thirteen years her senior and already married. Perhaps Ama believed that she couldn’t live with her adopted mother and care for her if she had married because it was standard Taiwanese practice for a wife to move into her husband’s ancestral home and care for his parents. Perhaps Ama feared that no husband would allow her to bring her adopted mother into their marital home, so she chose a married man instead.

I will never have the answer to my burning questions about her birth or adopted family and why she chose a life of a mistress instead of a wife. I wish I had asked her more questions when she could answer them. However, I am thankful that in a rare moment when Ama still had her mental faculties, she brought down her box of photographs. This is the only reason I know what Ama looked like as a child—it was the only reason I could identify her in these almost-a-century-old photos.

Ama (far right) and her siblings, 1930s. I’m unsure if this picture was taken before or after the family uprooted to Vietnam.

My Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother share seven daughters and two sons. The firstborn, a daughter, died as a child. When my Great Grandparents moved to Vietnam, they took both sons and some of the daughters, leaving behind the second sister, who was probably married off, the fourth sister, and Ama, the fifth sister. Ama’s fourth sister was two years older, and the two girls were given away to be raised by different families. I don’t know if Ama was the youngest at the time of my Great Grandparents’ departure—I don’t know if the sixth and seventh sisters were born in Taiwan or Vietnam. However, I know that the youngest two children, a son and a daughter, are born to my Great Grandfather’s second wife after my Great Grandmother’s death. They also adopted another son.

In the 1930, my Great Grandparents moved to Vietnam at the height of Japanese colonialism as it tried to expand its territories across Asia. My father guessed that her family probably left Taiwan when Ama was old enough to be out of diapers but still young enough to be moulded into someone else’s daughter. I understand why Ama’s parents took the boys—sons carry the family name in a patriarchal society. But I can only guess why they gave away the three daughters. Perhaps there were just too many children, so my Great Grandfather gave away some of his daughters to whoever would take them. Regardless of the reasons, Ama must feel abandoned or traumatized knowing that her parents didn’t want her or couldn’t take her to their new home.

Ama and her sisters as adults, 1950s. From left to right: Second Sister, Fourth Sister, Daughter of the Fourth Sister, Ama, and the Seventh Sister.

My Great Grandfather did eventually return to Taiwan in the late 1940s or early 1950s. It was a turbulent time in Taiwan. World War II ended with the Japanese surrendering, and they lost control of Taiwan and all its colonies. The United States negotiated with the Republic of China (ROC) and gave control of Taiwan to its ruling party, the Kuomingtang (KMT). My Great Grandfather and his new life moved back to Taiwan as it was going through massive changes in governance and a shift in allegiance.

As far as I could tell from Ama’s records, the only ones that returned to Taiwan with my Great Grandfather were the second and third son, the adopted son and possibly Ama’s cousin. None of the daughters came back to live in Taiwan. I also found some records that indicated that Great Grandfather came back as Ama finished nursing school and was working at a hospital where she contracted a serious illness. Great Grandfather took care of her, provided her with Chinese medicine, and nursed her to health.

When Saigon fell in 1975, the remaining Wu family fled Vietnam—some to France and others to the U.S. I don’t know precisely where the Third and Sixth sisters relocated to, but the Seventh sister, who moved to France, visited Taiwan regularly. Her sons, who are about my father’s age, studied in Taiwan. She was the only one of the sisters who grew up in Vietnam who showed up in Ama’s photos.

Sometimes I wonder if my great-grandparents were terrible parents for leaving their daughters behind. If they hadn’t left Ama as a child, perhaps she would have married and led a more conventional life—but I wouldn’t have existed. So the point of this exercise isn’t to judge my ancestors or scrutinize their decisions—instead, I try to see them as people through a compassionate lens—I try to see them as people from different eras and try to learn about them in the context of Taiwanese history.

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The Astonishing Discovery of Chiang Kai-shek in my Family Archives

Chiang Kei-shek and his supporters. My Granduncle is on the far left.

“Hey! That’s Chiang Kai-shek!” Wei-chen exclaimed.

“You’re right!” I inspected the black and white photograph. “What the hell is he doing in my Ama’s photos?”

Wei-chen is a Taichung-based photographer who I have befriended this year. After several hang-out sessions, we figured out our families are connected by marriage, which makes us distant relatives. We were excited and started a quest to understand our families and ancestry better. Since I am living in my paternal grandmother’s house in Taichung, we began our research with Ama’s archives and belongings.

How many people have a picture of the infamous Generalissimo in their family’s archive? I had no idea why we had this picture. I showed my father the photograph and asked him why Ama had a picture of Chiang Kai-shek in her possession.

It turns out that the man on the very far left was my Granduncle, my Ama’s oldest brother. He, like his father, was also a successful Chinese medicine merchant. He was an overseas Chinese merchant in Vietnam, and I supposed he donated to the Kuomintang (KMT). I guess this is why he had the “honour” of having his picture taken with the leader of the party and the then-president of Taiwan.

I was shocked. I had no idea that we had family members who supported the KMT. Both my parents and I are supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which advocates human rights and promotes Taiwanese nationalism and identity.

“What about Ama?” I asked.

“Ama supported the KMT,” my father said.

“Why? They killed thousands of people during the 228 Incident and tens and thousands more during the White Terror!”

“Well, your Ama thought the KMT people are decorous and cultured,” my father said.

“But they were terrorits!”

“Ama didn’t think so. She admired Soong Mei-ling,” my father said, his attention already drifted toward the television.

Soong Mei-ling was Chiang Kai-shek’s third wife. Chiang was technically still married when he pursued her. Besides partnering with a much older man who was already married, my Ama and Soong Mei-ling didn’t seem to have much in common. I looked up Soong to figure out why Ama had admired her. In the 1937, Soong and Chiang Kai-Shek shared the hounour of Time‘s Man and Woman of the Year. By 1943, Soong had appeared on the cover of Time three times, and she was the first Chinese national and the second woman to address both houses of the U.S. Congress. Perhaps Ama idolized Soong because she was elegant and eloquent, well dressed and spoke English fluently. She also helped her husband promote his image and built relationships in the U.S.

While I was wondering about why Ama was a fan of the KMT, it occurred to me that I didn’t know my grandmother at all. I didn’t know who she looked up to and why. I didn’t know which political party she supported. I didn’t even know her favourite food, colour, or books. All my life, I just knew her as my Ama, my paternal grandmother. But who was she as a woman of her time?

Ama, 1950’s

Since September 2021, I’ve moved back to Taiwan and into Ama’s house in Taichung. Ama is now ninety-four years old and in poor health; her house requires repairs. While my husband Derek began the repairs, I started organizing her belongings and archives. As a result, I’ve found a wealth of information, from black and white photographs to half a century old, onion paper thin documents.

I have so many questions. However, Ama is no longer verbal, so she can’t answer my questions. As a result, I can only make educated guesses about her life based on the information in her archive and photos. I’ve also been reaching out to relatives and associates who had known her.

Wu Qiao Qing (born 1928) was the fifth daughter of Mr. Wu Fu-ke and Mrs. Wu Zhan Zu. Ama came into the world at the height of Japanese colonialism to a Chinese father from Chaozhou, Guangdong province. He is the only one of my great grandparents who wasn’t born in Taiwan.

My Great Grandfather, date unknown.

I learned a bit about my Great Grandfather, Wu Fu-ke, from my Grandaunt, Ama’s youngest sister—she is the eighth and youngest daughter born from my Great Grandfather’s second wife. She said that my Great Grandfather came to Taiwan as a youth probably around the early 1900’s or 1910’s— I haven’t found any records about when he arrived. According to my Grandaunt, Fu-ke’s family had means but a fortune teller claimed that he would curse his parents. So, his family sent the young man away. My Great Grandfather didn’t have any means to support himself when he first came to Taiwan. One day, a cousin of his, a Chinese medicine merchant who also hailed from Chaozhou, gave him some second rate ginseng for him to sell. This was how my Great Grandfather started his career as a Chinese medicine merchant.

He eventually left Taiwan and moved to Vietnam for better opportunities. He left Ama and two other daughters in Taiwan and took his wife and the rest of the children to his new home. In Vietnam, he became prosperous.

My Great Grandfather, 1959

Fu-ke eventually returned to Taiwan sometime in the 1940s, when Japanese colonialism ended, and the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war. He eventually died in Taichung, Taiwan, before I was born.

The photographs of my Granduncle and my Great Grandfather are only the beginning of my quest to understand my Ama as a woman in the context of Taiwanese history. Through this project, I want to understand Ama as a person and, simultaneously, learn about Taiwan— my ancestral homeland that, until last year, I had only lived from the ages of six to ten.

Wei-chen and I have been uncovering her belongings and documenting them through text and photographs. We will be working together on a book. He will be in charge of the visual element of this project and creating new images to complement my family history.

This is the first post of a series called “You Can Have it When You Grow Up.” It’s where I will document my process and research in learning about my Ama, Taiwan, and myself.

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Ama’s Aurora Borealis Bead Necklace

This is a picture of Ama, my paternal grandmother. Undated. (I suspect she was probably in her early 30’s)

One of my favourite things to do as a child was nosing around Ama’s drawers in her massive bedroom. I was about 8 or 9, living in Taichung, Taiwan. My parents and my brother lived on the fourth storey of a low-rise building Ama owned, and she occupied the third floor. This is the same building my Ama had raised her children–my Baba and his older sister and younger brother. On the weekends, I headed downstairs to spend time with my Ama, who was my favourite person at the time. While she watched the television, I opened all her drawers and boxes, digging for treasure. There was one object that held my attention: an aurora borealis bead necklace made of sparkling, multi-faceted Austrian glass. When Ama wore it with one of her pretty floral dresses, the necklace glistened in a spectrum of light, radiating rays of pinks, yellows, and blues. I thought it was the most glorious thing in the world. When I pulled it out of one of her jewellery boxes, I held it up to her. “Ama, can I have this?”


“You can have it when you grow up,” she said as she took the necklace from me.


Three decades later, I found myself in Ama’s room. It was late at night, and I snooped around her drawers, as I had done when I was a little girl. Since the autumn of 2019, Ama has been living in a nursing home where she can receive full-time care. When Derek and I visited for Chinese New Year’s, we stayed in her room. It felt surreal to be in the place I had spent so much time. So much has changed–I am no longer a child, and my relationship with Ama had hardened over the years. As a little girl, I idolized Ama. Even after we left Taiwan, I was still close to her–Baba had found a stack of letters I had written to Ama from my first couple of years living in Canada. However, the physical distance had taken a toll. As I became more westernized in my behaviour and thinking, Ama ceased to be important in my life. Then, in my 20’s, our relationship took a turn for the worse.

The top picture was taken in Canada, the bottom one was in Taichung.

As a young adult, every time I’d visited Taiwan, Ama was critical of me. The minute she laid her eyes on me, she tsked. “How did you get so fat?“


I was already subconscious about my body, and though I am sure she didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, she did. She was also unkind to Mama, which upset me. I witnessed many times when Ama belittled her cooking, commented on her appearance, and said unflattering things about her family. For many years, I was angry at Ama. Despite my animosity, I made annual pilgrimages to Taichung during Chinese New Year’s. Each year, I bore Ama’s verbal lashings and thought that I was doing it out of my love for Baba. Lately, I am starting to think that maybe it wasn’t just for Baba, after all.


As Derek snored in Ama’s queen-sized bed, I opened one of the drawers. It was jam-packed with stacks of papers–electricity bills from the ’80s, old bank statements, receipts from a doctor’s visit. I opened another drawer and found a round, plastic orange box commonly given away by jewellery stores in Taiwan. Inside, glistening beautiful vintage rings of jades and pearls with unique settings that are no longer in production. Then I found a bottle of Rémy Martin XO Cognac, a pair of diamond studs, a red envelope filled with 10,000 NT (about $330 USD). I had forsaken sleep and was driven by an obsession to open more drawers and cupboards. I peered at old letters and photographs, flipped through ancient address books and notebooks, and found many old fashioned brass keys that no longer open any doors. The more I discovered, the more insatiable I felt–subconsciously, I was looking for one thing–the aurora borealis bead necklace. As dawn drew near, I gave up my search, laid down next to Derek and slept.

The next day, I poured over the letters and the photographs. Old love letters she wrote my grandfather that she probably never sent. Black and white photos of relatives that I never met. Through her things, I got to know a side of Ama that I had always known but forgotten. Perhaps I am not so different from her after all–my obsessive need to hang on to memories is not too different than Ama’s. Instead of keeping every scrap of paper, I store my thoughts and sentimental objects in my notebooks, which I have done since I was 13. Ama and I are both hoarders in our own right. Unlike her, I don’t have a house to put away my memories. However, I do keep a box of bound journals that I lug around the world–my life in words and images for the past 25 years.


My resentment towards Ama has thawed, exposing the tender feelings underneath. Though I was embittered for how Ama treated Mama and me, deep down, I was always looking for Ama’s aurora borealis bead necklace. A few years ago, I found something similar when I was living in Savannah, GA. I bought the necklace without thinking twice. Now, I know that I have always wanted to be close to Ama, whether or not I wanted to admit it. During my last visit to Taichung, I visited Ama in the nursing home. I held her hand and spoke to her, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. I was sorry for the wasted time, all the years I could have asked her about her youth, what her dreams and aspirations were, and why she chose to be with a married man for all of her adult life. But I didn’t. Now, I can only get glimpses of who she was–filtered through her pictures, words, and possessions. I suppose that is better than nothing.

Edited by Mohini Khadaria

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The Rosewood Sofa

Published by Jaden Magazine, Issue 03

THE ROSEWOOD SOFA

“Whoa, Kayo,  how did you get so fat?” Ama asked in her dramatic, judgemental tone.

This was how Ama, my paternal grandmother, greeted me during my yearly Chinese New Year pilgrimage to Taichung, Taiwan. Although I hadn’t seen her for a whole year, she never seemed to have anything nice to say to me—the only grandchild of hers who regularly visited her during the holidays. I wanted to shrug off her harsh words, but I couldn’t. She had always made me painfully self-conscious about my body. I stormed off.

“What’s she so angry about?” Ama asked, knowing I was still within earshot.

When she was still able to walk, she used to meet my parents and me in the dining area of her house when we arrived from Taipei. In the center of the dining room was a large rosewood round table with eight matching chairs. Along the walls, Ama had a collection of stone paintings depicting classic Chinese motifs – birds, deer, and flowers made of jade and coral. But in the corners of the room, Ama stored stacks of stock market magazines dating back to the 80s, next to layers of flattened shopping bags from famous bakeries and department stores in Japan, along with folded paper bags made of old magazines, used for discarding pumpkin shells, a popular teatime snack in Taiwan. The clash of luxury and hoarding never ceased to amaze me.

If Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant and author, came to Ama’s house, she would say, “Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.” In Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, a Netflix’s hit show, Kondo helps many cluttered and messy Americans organize their homes and make them happier. “Does it spark joy?” she often asks.

The truth is, Ama has little joy in her heart and no desire to change her lifestyle.

Ama hasn’t spark joy in my heart for a long time, but I couldn’t just dispose of her like old, unworn sweaters in my wardrobe. Baba, my father, justified his mother’s behavior as “the way of the older generation.” Apparently, her calling me fat was supposed to demonstrate her concern for me. She was trying to be nice, he said—but the way she expressed her sentiments didn’t make me feel nice.

 “Ama is very old, and she isn’t going to change.” Baba sighed, “She’s lonely. You should spend more time with her.”

When it comes to matters regarding Ama, I always obeyed Baba. As with any pilgrimage, I took my suffering in stride.

Bracing myself for the moment when she would say something mean, I sat next to her in the living room while she watched a Taiwanese soap opera. Ama’s living room, like her dining room, reflects her twin sensibilities of having the best of everything and never parting with any of it. Shortly before my family left Tokyo and moved in with her, she had renovated her house. Back then, it had brand new, top-of-the-line everything, but that was over thirty years ago. Now everything is dated, dusty and depressing.

Ama’s living room is also cluttered with junk and contains furniture made from polished, dense rosewood that glistens in the fluorescent light. With mother-of-pearl inlay in the shape of sparrows and cherry blossoms on the backs and the armrests, the furniture is grand—reminiscent of Qing Dynasty royalty. If I could find a more appropriate word for the three-seater ‘sofa,’ I would. Normally, I associate ‘sofa’ with something to relax on, something soft, padded with a cozy quilt on top to curl into. Not this one. Like Ama, the sofa felt like solid steel—unbending, unrelenting, and uncomfortable. Ama had placed thin Japanese-style cushions as a buffer between the sitter and the hardwood. These cushions are greenish brown—maybe at one point they were gold, but now they are the color of a half avocado a few days past its prime.

Throughout the living room, Ama displays her collection of artwork, statues of Chinese gods, and old photographs. Between faded bouquets of dried roses, mismatched candles, and other junky knickknacks, Ama hangs the family photographs. There is a professional studio portrait of me when I was about twenty-two. I am wearing a form-fitting red t-shirt and a striped knee-length skirt in pink, red and white. It cinches in a way that shows off my tiny waist. My long, shiny black hair is in a high pony, my smile wide and confident.

“See, you used to be so pretty,” Ama mocked me as she pointed to the photograph. “How did you ever get so fat?”

I shrank deeper into my uncomfortable seat.

There is also a family portrait of all of Ama’s children and grandchildren, taken when I was about eight. Ama, all smiles, sits next to my grandfather, Agon, in the front row. He was an obstetrician and an aspiring artist, who had collected many of the paintings in Ama’s house. The picture captures a time when my relationship with Ama was easier. When my family and I moved in with her, she lived on the third floor of the house, and we lived on the fourth. On weekends, my younger brother Davis and I used to have sleepovers with her. She would gently clean our ears with a Q-tip until we fell asleep. The next day, she would take us to a 7-11 for a Slurpee and a hotdog, which were rare treats. During the week, I hollered at her door to say hi before I went to school.  She always handed me a few coins to buy candies—I had the best treats in my class. On the days when Mama yelled at me for misbehaving, I’d go running to Ama.

“Your mama is so mean,” Ama said, standing between Mama and me. There was nothing Mama could do when I used Ama as a shield. As a child, I noticed that Mama and Ama had an uneasy relationship. I exploited it to my advantage.

Ama was my favorite person for a long time, until we moved to Vancouver when I was 10 years old.

Two summers later, my perception of Ama changed forever. I was 12 when Baba introduced Davis and me to our ‘cousins’ visiting from California, Frankie, Tommy, and Michael. Baba said they were children of his brother, my Uncle Steven. We hit it off right away. Baba took all of us around the tourist attractions in Vancouver, like the aquarium and the suspension bridge. We went to Stanley Park, and Baba bought us ice cream cones. We had a great day.

Despite the fun, I harbored a nagging question: If they are our cousins, why didn’t we meet them sooner? I decided to talk with Tommy, also 12. We established that we had the same last name, Chang. When we started to share our memories of Agonand Ama, I realized that we call different women ‘Ama.’

How could this be? Even as a child, I knew my burning question pointed to something bigger than me. There was an air of taboo about it. Before the age of 12, I didn’t realize there was another branch of the Chang family. However, I always knew something was amiss. When we still lived in Taiwan, I wondered why Agon didn’t live with us. On Sundays, he would come by the house and take all of us—Ama, Baba, Mama, Davis and me out for lunch. We would spend the afternoon in a department store or a park. My favorite was when he took us to Baskin-Robbins. To this day, when I taste the tangy sweetness of Rainbow Sherbet, I think of Agon.

I have fond memories of those Sunday afternoons. But I noticed he never stayed for dinner, let alone spent the night with Ama. When I was about eight or nine, I asked Baba why Agon always left.

“Agon is a very busy doctor. He needs to go back to his clinic to see his patients,” Baba said, eyes downcast.

When I made my discovery at age 12, instead of confronting my parents, I talked to my Aunt Christine, who also happened to be visiting us from Taiwan. She is Mama’s brother’s wife, my favorite aunt, and an adult I trusted.

“Why do Tommy and I have different Amas?” I asked her in private.

“You are too observant and smart for your own good,” she said. “You are right. You and Tommy do have different Amas.”

She didn’t explain why we have different grandmothers, but I pieced together a partial story of the open secret: For most of her adult life, Ama was Agon’s mistress. They met at the Taichung Hospital where he was an accomplished obstetrician, and she was his young, pretty nurse. Despite the 13-year age gap, and the fact that he was already married with children, they fell in love.  Over the years, Ama bore him three children. Baba is the middle child—he has an older sister and a younger brother.

When Ama and Agon were young, it wasn’t uncommon for accomplished men to have mistresses. Though he couldn’t give her the legal status of a wife, Agon took care of Ama bygiving her stocks, jewelry, and property. Ama became a wealthy woman. In the upper society of  Taichung, people gossiped. Back then, Ama was known as a beautiful, cunning man-stealer.

 Despite her reputation, she raised her three children with the best of everything.  When Baba finished college, he moved to Japan for his master’s degree—where affluent Taiwanese people sent their children to be educated. There, he met Mama. Soon after, I was born in Tokyo. When I was six, we moved in with Ama in Taiwan. To prepare, she renovated her house, furnishing it with the best of everything—she bought many expensive things that sparked joy for her at the time, like the opulent rosewood furniture.

In many ways, Ama did well for herself—she had a house, money in the bank and three successful children. Though I have spotty knowledge of Ama’s upbringing, I know that as a baby she, along with a few of her older sisters, was left in Taiwan while her parents took the younger children and moved to Vietnam. A kind, childless widow, a friend of her parents, adopted Ama and raised her. It couldn’t have been easy for Ama to grow up knowing her parents had left her. I don’t know what kind of resources her adopted mother had, but it couldn’t have been easy for a single woman to raise a child. And I can’t help but wonder why Ama chose a married man over other eligible bachelors. She was pretty, educated, and clever—she probably had a lot of suitors. When Agon presented Ama with the prospect of a more comfortable life, she took it in order to better take care of her aging adopted mother—at least that was what I was told. Or maybe she was desperately in love. Either way, it must have been agony to be with a man and watch him leave for the arms of another woman. What did she tell herself to live this way? I think there was genuine love between Agon and Ama, but at the end of the day, Ama chose financial security over love. It’s something unthinkable for me as an educated 21st-century woman.

A couple of years after I unearthed the secret, Agon passed away. Shortly after, Baba moved to Taiwan for work, and Mama soon followed. They visited us regularly in Vancouver, but Davis and I hardly ever went to Taiwan. I only visited Ama once or twice through my teenage years. When I was a senior in high school, she came to visit us—the only time I saw her in Canada. When I was a sophomore in college, I flew to Taiwan when Baba told me that Ama was dying of colon cancer. The doctor snipped a big chunk of her intestines, and she survived. The following summer, I was told to visit again because she was dying of breast cancer. The doctor removed both her breasts, and she survived. She was one tough lady. While Ama was sick, Mama took care of her—cleaning her surgery wounds, bathing her, feeding her. In Mama’s eyes, it was her filial duty as a daughter-in-law to take care of her husband’s mother. She made no complaints, though Ama wasn’t always kind to her. 

It wasn’t until I finished graduate school and started working abroad as a librarian that I began to visit my parents and Ama regularly. By then, my relationship with Ama had been changed by years of neglect. I started to see a side of her I hadn’t when I was a child, and how unkindly she treated Mama. After Ama had recovered from her second cancer, and was well enough to eat with us during Chinese New Year Eve dinner, Ama always held her nose and grumbled about Mama’s cooking.

“How does she expect me to eat this overly salty fish?” she complained, while Mama sat next to her. “Does she want my cancer to return?” Mama never said anything at the table, but her face was distorted with anger.

 One year, I happened to be in Taiwan during Mother’s Day and we all went out for dinner.

“Your mother’s father didn’t like to study and he only became an anaesthesiologist,” Ama said to me while I sat with her in the backseat on the way to dinner, “unlike your Agon, who was a famous doctor.”

I didn’t reply and she continued her monologue, “Just because her family has money, doesn’t make him a good man.”

The dinner was ruined before we even started.

Around this time Ama started to be hostile towards me — I am my mother’s daughter, and I look like her. Calling me fat was her favorite insult, and it was effective in ruining whatever tender feelings I had towards her. If it weren’t for the fact that she was Baba’s mother, I would have had nothing to do with her. There were times I wish I could have used the Marie Kondo method on Ama—I wanted to abandon her. Not only did she not spark joy, she was hurting me. I resented having to visit her year after year, but I continued my pilgrimage. If Mama stuck around Ama after all the years of emotional abuse, surely I could too.

Lately, as I get older, I have begun to see Ama in a more humane light, and try to see the world from her point of view. Maybe she called me fat and complained about Mama’s efforts to take care of her because she had spent her youth vying for the attention of another woman’s husband. In that situation, I suppose I would have become bitter too. 

In more recent years, instead of suffering in silence, I have started to pipe up when she calls me fat.

“Ama, if you are so mean to me every time I see you,” I said with a forced smile, “I won’t come to visit you anymore.”

She pretended she didn’t hear me, and started to fuss about how much luggage we had brought.

The closest I’ve come to having an open conversation with Ama was years ago, when she still had her wits. I don’t remember what prompted her, but she brought out a box of old photographs, containing pictures dating back all the way to her childhood.

“My Mama and Baba.” Ama pointed to a black and white photograph of a couple. I don’t remember what they look like now, but I remember feeling a little connection with Ama—she was, after all, somebody’s daughter.

There were images of the young and beautiful Ama, smiling with other young women in nursing school—the Ama with whom Agon had fallen in love. I love the pictures of Baba and his siblings when they were young, dressed in fancy western-style clothing that must have cost an arm and a leg. Baba and his siblings look like any other happy children playing together. There were pictures of me, Davis and our cousins as babies—her grandchildren. All of her memories were inside that box. She didn’t speak much as she shared its contents, just who’s who. I was transfixed. Touching the fading yellow-hued photographs, I didn’t ask any questions. I wish I had.

The photos were a contrast to the rosewood sofa of the latter part of Ama’s life, captured in endless awkward family portraits taken over the years. Each year now, after Chinese New Year Eve dinner, Ama, Mama, Baba, my Uncle and Aunt gather to share pleasantries and force a smile for another portrait, under the gaze of our younger selves, forever frozen in time. I have a loving relationship with my parents and younger brother, but Baba never shared a close bond with his siblings and neither of them took care of their mother. Except for the fact that they look like each other, there is little evidence that they are related —just forced smiles and visible distance.  The Changs are an extended family by blood, yet our relations are as rigid and uncomfortable as the very sofa on which we sit.

Time has been unkind to Ama. From a strong-willed matriarch, she has been reduced to a feeble 90-year-old woman who can no longer take care of herself. Her body has shrunk and confined to a wheelchair. She has lost all her teeth and has trouble eating. Her razor-sharp tongue has dulled. She hasn’t called me fat for a couple of years now. I do my best to see her through a lens of compassion. Part of me feels sorry for her. After all, if she hadn’t done what she did, I wouldn’t exist.

Now, instead of greeting us in the dining area of the third floor when we arrive in Taichung, she lies in bed. Last year, I went to see her at her bedside and held her weathered but soft, cool hand. When I turned her hand around to look at her thumb, it was like seeing my own. She is family, I know. I wish I could put aside my childish resentment and ask her: Why did she choose to be with Agon? Does she regret her choices? If she could do it all over again, would she choose differently? I have no idea if my questions would upset her. I don’t know if my shame—for her and for myself for wanting to know—should even be vocalized. Maybe next year I will work up the courage to ask Ama for her stories—but I probably won’t. I can only try to be at peace with what little I know.

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Death, Mortality and Patriarchy: Ancestor Worship, Part I

Hello my dear readers, this is a new series about the Chinese observance and ritual of death: ancestor worship. I hope you enjoy it.

In 2015, Derek and I went to Taiwan for his first Chinese New Year’s celebration with my family. We arrived just before supper time, and Mama was running around in the kitchen, getting our feast ready. Since the gods and ancestors must eat before we do, as she finished preparing the food, I would bring each dish to a large round table in the altar room where Buddha, Guanyin, and our ancestors live. In the center of the room is a picture of Buddha wearing a yellow robe under the Banyan tree, a golden statue of Guanyin, and our ancestors are next to them, represented by a wooden plaque in a glass case. 

While Mama was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, I sat in the bone-crushingly hard cherry wood sofa in the living room, mindlessly tapping on my phone. Derek walked into the living room, his nose crinkling, “Oh man, that food smells amazing!” He exclaimed. After a moment of pause, he asked, “why aren’t you in the kitchen helping Mama?”

“Oh, she’ll holler when she needs help carrying the dishes to the altar,” I said without looking up.

“But don’t you want to learn what she’s making?” He asked.

I turned my attention to Derek, this handsome man with twinkling blue eyes I was about to marry. Honestly, the thought of cooking with Mama had never crossed my mind. What business do I have in the kitchen? I would only get in her way. Besides, he was the cook in our family. But then again—if I don’t learn what Mama knows now, her knowledge will go when she goes. I pushed away this morbid thought. It’s not that I didn’t want to learn, but by learning, I am acknowledging her mortality.

The first time I was reminded of my mother’s mortality was at the funeral of my maternal grandmother. During the service, I sat next to Mama in the front row, my nose twitched at the sharp sting of the formaldehyde. While the monk chanted, Mama was heartbroken and bawling her eyes out. I gave her my hand to comfort her. She clutched it so hard my knuckles turned white. At that moment, I thought about the day I would have to cremate my mother—who is going to offer me their hand when that day comes? I hate having to think about the day when Mama will no longer be with us. But, I stood up anyway and walked towards the kitchen. 

“You are right. I should learn so I can cook for you.” I smiled at him. 

By the time I got there, Mama had finished cooking. “Okay, start bringing the dishes to the altar,” she instructed as she wiped her hands on a towel.

I was too late to learn anything.

Before we eat, we say our prayers with three burning incenses. First, out the window, praying to the Jade Emperor, the Zeus-like deity in the Chinese folk religion. Then, we pray to Buddha and Guanyin, and finally, the ancestors. After the prayer, we place each incense in their respective pots, one of the Jade Emperor, one for Buddha and Guanyin and the final one for the ancestors. When the incenses are burnt about halfway, Mama tosses two moon-shaped wooden blocks while asking if the ancestors were happy with their meal. If the blocks land in two opposite directions, it meant they were satisfied.  We could then bring the dishes to the dining room and start eating.

This is a typical Chinese New Year’s Eve feast prepared by Mama. Some of the items are store bought, like the bird.

In the Taiwanese tradition, like many Chinese speaking communities in southern China, the veneration of ancestors, or ancestor worship, is a significant ritual in the Chinese folk religion. It is how Chinese people understand and deal with death. When our parents pass away, they join the older generations of the family and become gods. It is the responsibility of the younger generation to remember our parents, our roots while asking for their blessings. The values of ancestor worship can be traced back to the Confucius concept of filial piety, the virtue of respecting one’s parents and elders by submitting to them. Not only do we love and obey our parents while they are with us, but we also continue to honor them in the afterlife with daily prayers and offerings. On special occasions, such as Chinese New Year’s, the offerings are more elaborate.  

On the first day of the New Year, my family always continue to worship our ancestors. First thing in the morning, we would visit the temple to worship Ama’s family. Then we head to the cemetery, where my parental grandfather, my Agon, had purchased the mausoleum for his family and descendants.  Derek and I got up early to help my parents load up the car with offerings, which consisted of fresh fruit, candies, and bottled tea. Then, we would stop by a flower stall and pick up freshly cut white Chrysanthemum, a gift to our ancestors.

The temple where we keep Ama’s family’s ashes is a short distance from Taichung. Most families only worship one set of ancestors, as the responsibility gets passed down by the oldest son in the household. However, my family is unique. Based on what I gathered, Ama’s family moved to Vietnam to pursue wealth and fortune when she was an infant. They only took the older boys with them, leaving Ama and her two older sisters behind in Taiwan. It seemed unthinkable for people nowadays to leave their children. But back then, the journey on a boat to Vietnam would be treacherous with young children.  Ama’s parents decided to keep the boys, who carry the family name and gave their three daughters away. A childless widow adopted Ama who raised her with love and kindness. Ama claimed that the reason she chose to be with Agon, a married, wealthy doctor, was to have the means to take care of her aging adopted mother. 

When her adopted mother passed away, Ama, as her only child, took on the responsibility to worship her. Ama also worshipped her adopted grandmother, who doted on her, as well as her ancestors. Their ashes are kept at the columbarium next to the temple. Now that Ama is getting older and less mobile, it’s Baba and Mama who make the trip to venerate Ama’s ancestors. Since 2012, when I moved to Hong Kong, I would join them on every Chinese New Year’s. And now, Derek also participates in the ritual. 

The temple was destroyed by the “921 Earthquake” in 1999, and in its place are some temporary structures. Before the earthquake, it was a beautiful place— a broad, concrete staircase led to the grand temple,  the railings on both sides are in the shape of dragons. One dragon was blue, and the other was red. As I walked down the stairs with my hand trailing down the back of the dragon, I felt the grooves of its scales. The sculptor painstaking painted each scale of the dragon in the hue of vivid sapphire. At the bottom of the stairs, the dragons had their mouths wide open, revealing their sharp teeth and blood-red tongue. There was also a garden on the grounds where my brother Davis and I used to play with our cousins, chasing each other around near the pond where koi fish swam in lazy circles, surrounded by luscious tropical plants.

In the year 2018, there are no remnants of its former beauty and magnificence. The temple raised funds to rebuild it, but somehow it never got finished. On the top of the hill where the temple once stood is a half-built structure, an abandoned construction project. Currently, the temple and columbarium are housed in flimsy, make-shift structures, though the earthquake took place almost twenty years ago.

The next post will illustrate the rest of the ancestor worship process. Have you been to a columbarium before? It’s super creepy but cool at the same time.

 

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Lessons on Love, Part I

Hello, my dear readers.  You are about to read about an event that shaped the course of my life and how I view relationships. This is also a part of my writing sample that I’ve been sending to agents. I welcome any comments or feedback. Thank you for reading.  

When I was fifteen, something happened that changed my life forever. At the time, my family and I lived in a two-story suburban house with four bedrooms, a games room a three-door garage in Surrey, sprawling suburbia about 35 km south of Vancouver. My father, Baba, was working as a tour guide and lived in Taipei most of the time. Every two weeks, he would fly with a group of Taiwanese tourists and take them on a 10-day tour around western Canada. They went to the Rockies, spent a couple of days in Jasper and made their way to Banff to look at the stunning glacier-fed, impossibly turquoise Lake Louise. Before they flew back to Taipei, Baba took them on a city tour in Vancouver, and at the end of the day, he always came home to spend time with us. The next morning, he would leave again for two more weeks. Sure, I missed him, but his schedule had become routine. And on one fateful morning, nothing was amiss, until the moment Mama found a letter in Baba’s black nylon travel bag.

Mama visiting our old house in Surrey, BC, taken years after my parents had sold it. This is the house where Davis and I grew up.

I was eating my eggs sitting on the high stool next to the kitchen counter when I heard Mama shout Baba’s name. I am not sure what business Mama had poking around Baba’s black nylon side bag— maybe she was putting something in there, or perhaps she was looking for something for him— either way, she pulled out a love letter in Baba’s handwriting, addressed to another woman.

With this discovery, Mama lost her mind. She wanted answers. She demanded Baba to explain himself. Baba, however, couldn’t deal with the situation because he had a flight to catch. He left Mama a wailing mess. I don’t remember how I got to school that day.

When I came home from school, I found Mama standing disheveled in the middle of the kitchen, wearing her frumpy, pale pink cotton nightgown even though it was three o’clock in the afternoon. With tears streaming down her face, she was howling that she wanted to die. She clutched the crumpled-up love letter in one hand and with her the other hand she made slashing gestures with a kitchen knife as if she was going to slit her wrist.

At this time, Mama was in her mid-30s, but she dressed and acted like a much older woman— a dedicated mother whose husband had been away for long stretches of time. She mostly wore dowdy, faded sweatsuits. Spending her days cleaning and cooking, Mama never did her hair or makeup. She paid little attention to herself. Her world revolved around Baba, my younger brother Davis, and me.

Several days later, when I came home from school, the house was quiet. I expected an aroma of something delicious to greet me, since Mama usually had a snack ready by the time I came home from school, like a steaming bowl of Taiwanese-style beef brisket noodle soup. When I wandered into the kitchen, she wasn’t at her usual station in front of the stove, engulfed in steam coming out of a bubbling pot that she was stirring, and telling me that my snack would be ready soon.

I began to search the house to make sure that Mama wasn’t hurting herself. At the entrance to my parents’ room, I held my breath, turned the doorknob, pushed open the door and tip-toed inside. As I entered the room, the stale odor of unwashed hair and desperate sadness overwhelmed me. Mama was gone to the world, snoring away even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Her jet-black hair matted on the cream-colored pillowcase, her usually smooth forehead crinkled with despair. Her skin was oily; her lips pointed downward in a permanent frown. Even in her sleep, she was in agony. On the nightstand, I noticed bottles of pills. Sleeping pills, seductive, secret sleeping pills that promised peace and a pain-free slumber. I picked a bottle up and rattled it. It was almost empty. I gathered every bottle and took them with me. I rushed out of the room and threw them in the bottom drawer of the nightstand in my bedroom where I had stashed all the knives in the house a few days prior.

The next post will illustrate the aftermath of this event. 

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The Mysterious Zi Wei Dou Shu, the Purple Star Calculations

In early 2015, Mama was so excited about my engagement to Derek, she told everybody about it. Her friends congratulated her, of course.  She was beaming. Most of our family members were also happy for me, except for Aunt Lily. According to Mama, she was hesitant about my engagement.

Mama wanted Aunt Lily’s approval since she’s a reader of Zi Wei Dou Shu (紫微斗数), also known as the Purple Star Calculations, one of the Chinese astrological forecasting methods known to be accurate.

“Why can’t you be happy for Kayo?” Mama demanded.

Finally, Aunt Lily spilled the beans. She told Mama that according to my chart, my first marriage was supposed to fail.

Mama considered my first marriage to be a shameful family secret and didn’t tell anybody about it. She was a little rattled that Aunt Lily knew of it. At the same time, Mama was impressed with her ability.

“It’s okay,” Mama told Aunt Lily, “She’s already been married once. This is her second marriage.”

Relieved, Aunt Lily congratulated Mama. “Kayo will be very happy in her second marriage. She’s found her perfect match.”

Mama and me on my wedding day, October 31, 2015.

When Mama told me this story, I was a bit skeptical, but unlike when I was younger, I was also a little curious. For as long as I could remember, Mama always saw Chinese fortune tellers. I always considered it to be some silly superstition—the whole thing seemed so nonsensical to me.

When I was young, I used to crash my car on a pretty regular basis. Do you know the stereotype of an Asian woman driver? She drives with both hands on the wheel in a death grip, make a left turn from the right lane and never checks her mirrors because she never moves her head from the “straight ahead” position–that was me.  I was a hazard on the road.

Every time I crashed my car—anything from a minor fender bender to a huge accident where half of my car was totaled, Mama shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let you drive, the fortune teller did tell me that this is going to happen.”

After high-school, I wanted to take a year off before university. I might have even said I wanted to go to a community college first. She wouldn’t have any of it. According to the fortune teller, I was supposed to be “well-educated.” I scoffed. I went to university as I was told and almost flunked out my first year. I tried to defy what the fortune said.

18 years later, I am working on my third master’s degree.

There were other things Mama told me, but I don’t remember what they were. For the most part, when she started to tell me something about my future, I shook my head and told her I didn’t want to hear about it. At that time, I believed that fortune telling is a bit of a sham, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As an adult living in Asia, my feelings towards fortune telling has shifted. I thought it was wild that Aunt Lily could see that I would be married twice, though she didn’t know that my first marriage had already happened. I still wouldn’t call myself a believer, but I am intrigued. I did some research to get the gist of what Zi Wei Dou Shu is all about.

This is an example of a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart. I used Kurt Cobain’s birthday as an example (and guessed the time of his birth).

Zi Wei Dou Shu is a complex system involving using “stars” to tell a chart, which represents someone’s life or destiny. The chart is organized by the 12 “palaces” arranged and plotted in an anti-clockwise rotation.

  1. Self Palace (命宮)
  2. Siblings Palace (兄弟宮)
  3. Spouse Palace (夫妻宮)
  4. Children Palace (子女宮)
  5. Wealth Palace (財帛宮)
  6. Health Palace (疾厄宮)
  7. Travel Palace (遷移宮)
  8. Friends Palace, or Subordinate Palace (交友宮)
  9. Career Palace (官祿宮)
  10. Property Palace (田宅宮)
  11. Mental Palace, or Karma Palace, Ancestor Palace (福德宮)
  12. Parents Palace (父母宮)

There are 100+ stars in the system, and they are graded according to brightness. The brighter the star, the more influence it has in a palace. Some stars include Ziewei (The Emperor, the Purple Star), Tianji (The Advisor, Heavenly Machine or Heavenly Secret), and Wuqu (The Finance Minister or the Military Bureaucrat, Martial Tune).

Like the Chinese Gods,  Zi Wei Dou Shu is part of the Taiwanese culture and I find it fascinating. It’s not an infallible guide to what will happen, but it’s more of a forecast that provides a direction. While I used to scoff when Mama told me things on my chart, now I can’t help asking Mama, “What does my chart say about Derek and me having kids?”

I am sure Mama had Aunt Lily look at my chart. However, her answer is ambiguous. I guess it will the revealed itself to me when it does!

 

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Who are the Chinese Gods and Why Do We Worship Them?

The Chinese folk religion is polytheistic. Illustration by Ahmara Smith.

One of my favorite stories to tell about my time in Dubai was the fact that I needed an “infidel card” to purchase liquor in the Emirates. There are, of course, unofficial channels to purchase booze in the country, but it’s not as easy as popping into a store. The infidel card comes in handy when you had drunk the last bottle of wine and suddenly remembered that you were invited to go to a birthday party over the weekend. This is when you need to go to the MMI—the government liquor stores. It’s more convenient, but it’s a lot more expensive.

In the Emirates, Islam guides every aspect of life. This is why alcohol is so severely regulated. In that part of the world, asking someone about their religious belief is completely legitimate and expected. When I got an offer for a librarian position in Dubai, they sent me a form that asked for my personal details, such as my name and address. They also asked for very personal information, such as and my birth date, who my parents are, and my religion.

I used to write “Buddhism” in the religion section because that’s what made sense to me at the time.  I thought it might have been better to write that than “none.” Besides, my family is Buddhists, sort of.

My parents would consider themselves Buddhists, but they are more than that. My family practices rituals that are associated with the Chinese folk religion. The Chinese folk religion is complex—it is polytheistic and borrows from multiple sources, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.

I am not entirely sure if Chinese folk religion is a “religion” in the strict definition of the term. It doesn’t have a definitive text. It doesn’t have a congregation, each family just does their own thing. My family, for instance, worships Buddha, Guanyin, and our ancestors. My Mama’s side of the family is also a huge fan of Mazu, less so on Baba’s side. 

I was first introduced to the Chinese folk religion when my family moved from Japan to Taiwan. We lived with my Ama, my paternal grandmother. As a six-year-old, I watched Ama change the water in little cups in front of various statues.  Then she’d gave me three sticks of lit incense and showed me how to bow to Buddha, Guanyin and the ancestors in the worship room while she said a prayer.

The worship room at Ama’s house. Photography by Derek Black.

In the worship room, a picture of Buddha hangs above the altar. Below the picture, the golden figure inside a glass case is Guanyin, the goddess of compassion and mercy. On the right side, there is a picture with three bodhisattvas. In the center is Buddha, to his left is Guanyin, and I have no idea who the third one is. To the left is a wood plaque inside the glass case—that’s our ancestors.

The worshipping of ancestors reflects a virtue in the Chinese folk religion: filial piety. It basically means to be loving and respectful to one’s parents and elders and to obey and make sacrifices for them.  It is a Confucius idea—he believed that filial piety is the foundation of a good society. Like many Taiwanese families, ancestor worship is an important ritual in my family,  a way for us to remember our roots and our loved ones who have passed away.

Ancestors are basically gods. Buddha and Guanyin are too. These are the ones that are important to my family. The gods live in our hearts, and they guide our actions. We worship them to be in their good graces, so they would protect us and bring us good fortune.

People worship different gods for different purposes. For business owners, they may have an altar of Kuan Ti, the god of war, facing the front door. This is to ward off ghosts. For a couple wanting a healthy baby, they might pay a visit with Zhu Sheng Niang Niang, the goddess of marriage and fertility. For students preparing for exams, they would worship Wenchang Wang, the god of literature and culture. The thing is, each of these gods come from different sources. For instance,  Kuan Ti and Wenchng Wang are based on historical people. Zhu Sheng Niang Niang came from Taoism. In the end, none of it matters.

In the Taiwanese soul, gods are important, and the more gods the merrier.

 

 

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Do You Speak Chinese?

There are many different Chinese languages with up to 200 dialects, and most of them are mutually intelligible. Illustration by Ahmara Smith.

With Beijing’s growing influence, its dialect, Mandarin, also known as Putonghua (the common language), has become the most dominant Chinese language. But this wasn’t always the case, not according to the speakers of other Chinese languages.

In the late 80’s, my family moved from Japan to Taiwan. This was just a few years after the Taiwanese government finally lifted the martial law. I was six years old.

Let’s quickly revisit Taiwanese history and its languages: Historically, at least up to the 1940s, most people in Taiwan spoke Hokkien, which is a version of a southern Chinese language from Fujian province, where many Taiwanese people came from during the 1700’s. During the Japanese occupation, some Japanese words and expressions were integrated into the Taiwanese Hokkien language. I remember clearly my grandparents speaking this Japanese-fied version of Hokkien.

When the Kuomintang (KMT) took control of Taiwan, they made Mandarin the official language and forced everyone to learn it.

I spoke neither Hokkien or Mandarin.

This is me as a Kindergartener in Japan.

Regardless, my parents threw me into a local school.

During class one day, I needed to use the toilet. Unable to communicate with the teacher verbally, I stood up and made my way towards the washroom. I only made it halfway down the hall when my teacher caught up with me, led me back to the classroom and sat me back down in my little wooden chair at my desk. A few moments later, I got up again and made another attempt. The teacher got me again and scolded me as she led me back to my seat.

I didn’t know exactly what she said, but I understood that she was displeased with me. I didn’t dare to get up again. Instead, I sat in my chair and concentrated on holding it in.

Eventually, a warm stream trickled down my legs and created a large, dark stain on my pleated navy blue skirt and a yellow pool around the legs of my little wooden chair. I burst into tears—I was powerless without speaking the language.

This sad little story is a segway to discuss the power of language, and specifically, the Chinese language. Spoken Chinese is organized into five main groups, Mandarin, Yue, Min, Wu, and Hakka. These languages are mutually intelligible.  Within those groups, there are hundreds of dialects, limited to small geographical areas.

Mandarin is only one of the hundreds of spoken Chinese languages. The Beijing dialect is the most common, spoken by approximately two-thirds of the Chinese population. At 55 million speakers, Cantonese, which is part of the Yue family, is the second most common Chinese language.  Hokkien, a language that is common in Taiwan and other countries where Fujan ancestry is common, is part of the Min language family.

How did Mandarin become “Putonghua,” the common language of China?

When Sun Yat-Sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Beijing became the capital of the new China. After some debating, the leadership decided that Mandarin is the official language of the new republic (This is strange because Dr. Sun and many of the leaders of the new republic are from Guangdong Province, and their mother tongue would have been Cantonese).

In Taiwan, Mandarin is known as “Guóyǔ”, literally translates to “the national language.”

During the occupation, the Japanese didn’t force the Taiwanese people to learn the language of their colonizers.** However, when the KMT arrived, they did. Baba told me a story of how his classmates were punished for speaking Hokkien at school. They had to wear a humiliating sign that said, “I spoke Hokkien” for the whole day for speaking the “uncivilized” tongue.

Here in Hong Kong, 97% of the population speaks Cantonese. If Beijing had their way, they would eliminate Cantonese completely. However, that would create an outcry that Beijing is not prepared to deal with. Instead, they slowly influence the educational curriculum in Hong Kong, to teach the next generation their version of the history.

The truth is, Mandarin is already common in Hong Kong. When my parents passed through Hong Kong in the early 90s, they said people didn’t speak Mandarin and yelled when spoken to in Mandarin. Thirty years later, the majority of people still speak Cantonese, but I can now get by speaking Mandarin if English fails.

Hmm. I wonder what the common language will in Hong Kong in another thirty years.

**As it turns out, The Japanese implemented an imperialist movement during their occupation. It was an assimilation initiative that forced Taiwanese people to adopt Japanese names and learn to speak Japanese.