To be humbled

The best word I can think of for yesterday is humbling. We started out with a nice visit with the Yu Shan Seminary staff and then headed out south of Hualien to a village called Honglin. We visited the home of Yu-chhan Chang. Her family story is a big legend among the Taiwanese and let me tell a bit of it here.

In 1947 the Chiang Kai-shek powers had occupied Taiwan filling a vacuum left by the retreating Japanese at the end of WW2. Although the western powers supported Chaing, it was a brutal time for the Taiwanese. In this village of Honglin was a doctor and his family. His two eldest sons also served as doctors and were well respected. They hosted the Chinese brass for a dinner at their home - I guess hoping to dispell some of the anxiety between the locals and the occupiers. After the dinner, some Chinese army people returned and dragged off the docter (Chhi-lang Chang) and the two eldest sons (Ko-jen and Chang-jen). They were tortured and murdered.

In the morning the doctor's wife (Chin-tsu Chan) looked for the bodies but the Chinese authorities would not help. Some sympathetic soldiers did give her clues, though, and she found her family, cleaned the bodies and buried them in a grave behind her house. The two sons were married, one widow was pregnant and there were five other children in the family. Chin-tsu raised a memorial over the grave and it is seen in this picture. At the time, the wording she used on the memorial were very provocative and dangerous, but she was obviously a strong and brave woman.

Around the grave she planted a grove of beetlenut trees and with the income from this crop she supported her remaining family. She died in 1982 and was buried beside the others. The woman who met us, Yu-Chhan is the widow of one of the sons and she continues on in the house alone to this day. She maintains the grave and the grove and the gardens around it. She had us into the house where she showed us pictures of the family and some art work that Chhi-lang Chang had done before his death.

The site has become a shrine - a testament to the spirit of an oppressed people. We could only feel humbled as we stood at the grave with Yu-Chhan. The meaning of faith, nationhood, identity, family, loyalty, community is shaped in dramatic ways for many people of the world. The faith of these Taiwanese is so strong and foundational compared to the easy religion and faith of Canada. I can only express humility in the presence of such history.

The widows were very careful not to talk about this experience to the younger children for many, many years. There was great fear about what may happen to them if they talked about it in front of the wrong people. The children do remember, however, waking up some nights and hearing the women singing, praying, and crying. It was not until they were adults that they could understand their family story.

Upon Chin-tsu's death her second youngest son wrote an elegy, the first verse is:

Oh, backed by stately mountains green,

Where stand the wooden houses old.

By night sing bugs the music keen;

Sweet stories are sung, but not told.

Yu-Chhan is seen in this picture closest to the stone on the left side. From left to right you see Anne, Scott, Sidney, Yu-Chhan, Carys Humphries, Doreen Thomas & Haydn Thomas (Wales).

The other visits that day were nice, but they don't have lasting memory to me after the time with Yu-Chhan.

Scott