The group of exchange teachers (both university and high school teachers) of which I was part came from more than twenty countries, mostly from Europe and South America, with four each from Iran and Japan (perhaps they were in greatest need of peace exchanges). Also on the list was Go Ok-nam, a lecturer from Ewha Womans University in Korea, and myself from Taiwan. In Washington we received ten days of basic training, directed by Mr. Shamblin from the State Department. He made many incisive and humorous comparisons of American attitudes and lifestyle with those of our countries. I admired the attitude of this intellectual who worked in the service of his country.
We were then sent to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for two and a half solid months of English training. Fortunately, we made it in time to attend the last class with Dr. Fries, the founder, before he retired, and were able to hear his observations about ways of improving English grammar. The more than thirty of us were together day and night, so we had plenty of time to learn about the culture of each of our countries on a fairly deep level. Living with a host family that had been arranged for us, we were able to experience the American lifestyle for ourselves at first hand. I lived with Dr. Albert Wheeler, a biology professor at the University of Michigan, and his family. It was my first encounter with a highly educated black American family. His nickname at the university was Dr. Sunshine. In 1960, I read in Time magazine that he had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in biology. During my stay with them, they treated me very well and discussed issues between blacks and whites as well as answering my many cultural questions. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a family friend, and Dr. Wheeler was also one of the earliest and founding members of the Michigan chapter of the NAACP. During the 1970s he was mayor of Ann Arbor, and one of the city parks was later named after him. On language-teaching weekends, we visited automobile plants and Midwestern farms, watched several basketball games, and even learned to chant for the UM team.
I left the freezing state of Michigan that winter, having chosen to go to freezing Evanston High School in Minnesota for practice teaching, using the new grammar of Dr. Fries. Everyone was surprised by my choice, which I made because it was a little closer to Utah, where my youngest sister was studying, and I wanted to experience the same severe cold as northeast China, the home to which I had never returned. I was warmly received by the people of Minnesota, who rarely saw a young woman from China. Several ranchers took me to see their huge spreads. One older gentleman said it was getting crowded because someone had moved to a new ranch about fifty miles away. For three months, the temperature was ten below and colder, but the comforts of their homes, their normal life, even their cheerfulness fully demonstrated the American spirit, which sometimes reminded me of my father’s half-a-lifetime struggle for his homeland. One day the temperature dropped to forty below zero, and I got out of the car to experience the beauty of ice and snow for as far as the eye could see. Within five minutes I was picked up by a police car and taken home so as “to avoid a fool’s death.”
Our stays at an end, the more than thirty of us met once again in Washington, where we described our individual experiences and thoughts. It was really hard to say good-bye when the time came. I took the famous tourist train, the California Zephyr, from the east all the way across the country to San Francisco on the West Coast. Along the way I was able to observe the majesty of the country’s mountains and rivers and the scenery of the different states. It was really an eye-opening trip.
My coursework for the Fulbright Exchange was completed in the spring of 1957, and I flew back to Taiwan. On the plane back, I sat next to an older American gentleman who asked me all sorts of questions about Taiwan, which I did my best to answer. Before getting off the plane, he handed me his card: Dr. Anderson, the president of the American University in Washington. Once back in Taiwan, I returned to Taichung and resumed teaching at Taichung First High. At the time, Zhang Qiyun was head of the Ministry of Education. On one occasion he came to Taichung and informed Song Xinmin, the principal of Taichung First High, that he wanted to see Chi Pang-yuan. In those days only people of a certain status rode in pedicabs. Excited, the principal took me in the pedicab, which the government provided for him in his position, to visit the Minister of Education.
Minister Zhang said to me, “In several of his speeches, President Anderson mentioned you, praising you highly and saying that Taiwan has extremely high-caliber high school teachers. The ministry hopes that you can come and work in the Department of International Culture and Education.” Returning home, I discussed the matter with my husband and my father and, as I expected, they were against the idea. Later the minister wrote a letter stating that if I was willing, he could also make arrangements to have my husband transferred to Taipei, but my husband was not one to accept such offers. I wrote back saying that I was committed to teaching and learning, and I thanked him for his kind intentions.
“I HAVE A DREAM”
In the autumn of 1958, after I had taught at Taichung First High for two years following my return from America as an exchange teacher, I transferred to the Taiwan Provincial College of Agriculture to teach first-year English. This was the actual start of my academic life.
In 1961, the Taiwan Provincial College of Agriculture became Taiwan Provincial Chung-Hsing University; it later became National Taiwan Chung-Hsing University. English was a required course for all students along with Chinese, history, the Three Principles of the People, and physical education. All sorts of conversations took place in the faculty lounge for teachers of required courses; therefore I decided to push for a Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and to have a discussion and study group for those interested in literature.
Around 1960, the school started two classes of second-year English, which I was requested to teach. I also had to decide on the teaching materials.
That year, John F. Kennedy was elected president, and I acquired a copy of his inaugural address along with copies of Hu Shi’s last lecture (he died in 1961) and Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the USIS. I had probably read every literary work the service had on hand. In those days the Taichung City Library and the university library had pitifully few English materials.
To these materials, I added a number of good essays that I had read as a student, along with poems by Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. In class, I also compared the differences between Eastern and Western culture, and the students found what I said quite novel. This was especially so in the international climate after Kennedy and King were assassinated, because by then the tide of students going abroad to study in the United States was just beginning, so any articles about American culture and recent articles of any depth were most welcome.
The class was an elective course with seventy or eighty students enrolled, but about one hundred students actually crammed into the classroom. The seventy or eighty seats were insufficient, so chairs had to be brought in from the neighboring classrooms, frequently resulting in disputes.
The school president in those days was Lin Zhiping, and later Tang Huisun. In the days when Liu Daoyuan was president, I began to request that he establish a Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. He often asked me to be present at important events.
In 1965 Professor Friedrich A. Hayek, winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics, gave lectures at a number of schools in Taichung. I was asked to interpret. He said, “In a moment, I’ll speak a passage, and then you interpret that passage for me.” I was somewhat apprehensive, because even though I had studied the basics of economics, I hadn’t really understood much. At the venue, I saw that he was accompanied by a number of people from Taipei, among whom were famous professors from National Taiwan University including Shi Jiansheng and Hua Yan. The place was packed, which really alarmed me.
Professor Hayek didn’t give me a copy of his lecture and he spoke English with a German accent, making him difficult to understand. He usually spoke for five or six minutes before letting me interpret, which wa
s a tremendous challenge. Fortunately, he occasionally wrote on the blackboard. That was the first time I had heard the terms “open society” and “closed society.” My interpretations of the two terms caught on, which gave me a lot of encouragement.
Later Professor Shi Jiansheng of the National Taiwan University School of Law said to me, “In all the places I have taken him, you have been the best interpreter.” He also made the same comment to others.
Later, many important people visited Taichung. I interpreted for the Baptist bishop, which I was equal to. In the 1960s, President Chiang Kai-shek invited the chief editor of Reader’s Digest to Taiwan, because he had written an article about Taiwan being a new jeweled island. I was asked to interpret for him when he arrived in Taichung. Such experiences greatly encouraged me. Of course it was impossible not to be nervous: each time I stood on stage, I felt like a soldier in armor on the battlefield, and survival was my main concern. The translation of literature requires an even higher level of ability. Later I would promote several plans for the translation of Chinese books into foreign languages, an even greater challenge.
THE PALACE MUSEUM IN BEIGOU
It wasn’t something I had expected to do, but while teaching at Chung-Hsing University, I also ended up moonlighting for six years at the Palace Museum, which was then located in Beigou in Wufeng Township, Taichung County.
The phone rang shortly after the Lunar New Year, 1959. It was Li Ziyu, who was ahead of me at Wuhan University, and now in charge of the Palace Museum. The museum was in desperate need of a secretary and, flipping through the alumni directory, they found that I was a foreign-language graduate living in Taichung and that I had just returned from advanced studies in the Fulbright Program, so I seemed to be the best choice.
In those days, in addition to teaching, I had three children in primary school and kindergarten, so how could I go and work at Beigou? Li Ziyu said all I had to do was translate Chinese and English (in both directions) and that official documents would be delivered to my house and picked up when I was finished, so there was no need for me to go to Beigou. The tone of his voice sounded more like a command than a discussion, and the way the work was to be handled had been settled, so there was no reason for me to refuse.
The job was eye-opening. In order to translate each document, I had to ask experts such as Zhuang Yan, Tan Danjiong, and Na Zhiliang, among others, my art-related questions. I researched pertinent writings, took notes, asked them all sorts of questions, and without expecting to, learned all sorts of things. To have a better grasp of the materials, I remember as if it were yesterday holding my youngest while memorizing the names of famous kilns and their distinguishing qualities.
In addition to translating materials, I sometimes had to serve as interpreter when heads of state visited the museum. The two most memorable occasions were when Foreign Minister George Kung-chao Yeh accompanied the Shah of Iran and the King of Thailand. Meeting them in person left an indelible impression.
Mr. Yeh was of the generation of my teachers. Without turning to look at me directly, he would ask as if testing me, “What is that called in English?” Given his personality, I didn’t dare delay and would answer him immediately. There was also Kong Decheng, but I learned the most from Zhuang Yan, the most senior of them all.
The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was tall and handsome, and his imperial majesty was combined with the elegance of a modern gentleman. He was nothing short of the king on a white horse in fairy tales.
I looked upon him with something akin to adoration and took notice of any stories about him in the news. I’d like to look at a few books to see how he is judged by history. I feel deeply honored when I think of how I served to explain things to him at the Palace Museum. I still remember that day and how he closely examined the bronzes and porcelain. As he proceeded, he noticed that everyone there was a man and was afraid I would be ignored, so he made a point of frequently speaking to me. While looking at the porcelain, he commented to me, “In my palace there are a number of pieces of porcelain like these, but not as good.” He also asked me, “Are there many young ladies like you in Taiwan who work?” I replied, “Probably quite a few.” Actually, I had no idea, but I thought my answer sounded better. Iran is an Islamic country, so he probably had some difficulty imaging a working woman.
Mohammad Pahlavi was a wise ruler, not a tyrant. When I was studying in the United States in 1968, I read a headline that said: “He Did Not Want to Be the King of Beggars,” under which was a photo of him in his crown. He had waited more than ten years before being officially crowned, because he wanted to wait until Iran became a country without beggars; therefore, it happened only after the success of the economic reforms. The news made a deep impression on me. Never did I expect that the years of nation building would actually end in a coup, with the shah being forced to flee to France, where shortly thereafter he sadly died, an exile from his homeland.
That evening, returning to my ordinary home, putting on the clothes I wore there, and cooking dinner on a large coal cake, I could still see the shah’s majestic and elegant figure in the smoke. I suddenly thought of the story of Cinderella and wondered if the old car that had taken me home had become a pumpkin.
In a short period of time, the Palace Museum received a number of important guests. Later the King and Queen of Thailand arrived. King Hussein of Jordan, a number of presidents and vice presidents, but even more importantly, a host of art historians from the major museums and universities of Europe arrived at Beigou. All that glory and splendor along with the country road from Wufeng to Beigou often made me think of the palace in Beijing and the vastness of China’s rivers and mountains.
Hu Shi frequently came to the Palace Museum, and would stay in the guest house a few nights to escape the busy world and do a little work in peace and quiet. The year before he died, the museum held a banquet for him and I too was invited, probably because of my father.
That evening they talked about collecting antiquarian books. Hu Shi also talked to me a little about modern literature. I remember he said, “A woman writer recently sent me a book and asked for my opinion. I also received Jiang Gui’s Whirlwind. There is no comparison, the woman writer’s book can’t hold a candle to Jiang Gui’s; she just can’t write on the same epic scale.” His words had some impact on me, for in 1968 when I was studying in the United States, I took two courses on epic literature, to understand precisely what it is. He also said his own work fell somewhere between literary and historical research, and that he used literary techniques to express himself. He said, “But don’t feelings consist of only joy, anger, sorrow, and delight? Also there is depth, which is a difficult thing to talk about, but you know it when you see it. If you have it, you have it; if you don’t, then you don’t; but it can be cultivated.” His words were enlightening. Hu Shi understood my father’s situation and respected him and so sometimes had something to say. Later, when I taught or lectured, I felt that style, emotional appeal, and depth were all essential to literature, but impossible to expound.
While working at the Palace Museum, there was a spell when I thought I’d like to study art history with these scholars and learn another academic discipline. Considering it later, I knew I had insufficient background and that I liked nothing more than talking about literature, so I went back to teaching and planning for advanced study.
In 1965, the Palace Museum moved to Shuangxi outside of Taipei. I would visit on occasion because I still knew quite a few people, until they passed away, one by one.
BROADENING AND DEVELOPING MY TEACHING
In 1967, Yuchang was notified that he was being transferred to headquarters and that he would be in charge of research on railroad electrification in preparation for implementation, so as a result the whole family moved to Taipei.
At the beginning of the year, I received a letter from the prestigious American Council of Learned Societies via the USIS, which said that they were just starting to offer two large scholarships for
advanced study to people in the humanities from Taiwan. Among the requirements was that the scholarships were only open to those under forty-five years of age. I would be forty-four that year and had entered middle age. When it came to advanced studies, I had missed out on ten years without even being aware of it! For many years my father had told me on more than one occasion that it was unfortunate that I would spend my entire life as a mere teacher. He seemed to have forgotten that after I graduated, he had been opposed to me going abroad to study during wartime, despite the fact that I had been accepted by Mount Holyoke College. He was afraid that we would lose contact, and even more fearful that I’d become an eccentric bookworm and delay getting married. In that ten-year period, the school had received a number of notifications about international exchanges, but my husband was busy and exhausted and we had three small children, and so I never dared look at them, much less consider them. But now I realized that forty-five was the age limit for such funding. Since we were moving to Taipei, we could move someplace close to my parents to make it easy for my mother to help out. If I wanted to continue teaching at the university level and not be left out, then this was my last chance.
My application made it through the first round, but I had to be in New York prior to August 30 for an interview before a final decision could be made. I also applied to the Fulbright Program for travel funds and money for books, which meant yet another interview by committee. One of the Fulbright committee members was C. T. Hsia, who had just come from Columbia University to visit Taiwan. He asked me my opinion of T. S. Eliot’s dramas. By coincidence, the previous summer I had read his three dramas Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party, so I did have something to say. That summer our two older boys were preparing for the first and second year of high school, and the youngest tested into his first choice of Da’an Junior High School. (I thought everything had been settled, but looking back now, I see how naïve I was.) Chung-Hsing University arranged for me to receive sabbatical pay for one year so that I would be eligible for the scholarship. However, upon completion of my course of study, I had to return to the school and teach for three years. That summer, the Ministry of Education authorized my promotion to regular professor. Twenty years after arriving in Taiwan, I was still struggling to obtain a degree to establish myself in academia!
The Great Flowing River Page 36