One of the things I’m blessed with is dinner with lots of relatives every night.
Every now and then, Grandma gets chatty over dinner. I’ve taken notes and hope to spin a story to share some history and culture.
Part 1: Charcoal Penpals
My paternal grandma grew up in Ruifang, a coal mining town. Anything before my great-grandfather is just tombstones, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where their story begins. From what I can gather, her family had stayed in the mountains for generations.
Grandma wasn’t the typical coal miner’s daughter—she wasn’t typical anything. A head taller and then some, with a face that didn’t look very Asian, she certainly stood out. However, the most special thing about her wasn’t her appearance; it was her education. She went on to become a principal of an elementary school and even ran the kindergarten I attended. She graduated from high school, where her peers were all Japanese. Taiwan was a colony of the Japanese Empire from 1895 to 1945. At the time Grandma was in school, the typical education was probably a few years of elementary school, with two types: one for the Japanese and the other to serve them.
The coal in the mountains provided opportunities many didn’t have. I’ve been told by many that our family is incredibly traditional, yet Grandma’s education alone puts her father on the extreme progressive side of the spectrum. Grandma was the golden child and took on the task of caring for her three little brothers and two sisters because her mother was often very ill. At present, all her brothers have passed on, and only her sisters remain (and by God, they are still incredibly chatty).
So, at dinner, I’m spinning the lazy Susan around to get Grandma the first dibs on pan-fried fish, and I asked, “Grandma, what was your first trip outside of Taiwan?”
“Oh gosh, that would be so long ago.” At first, she’d rehash the story about her first trip to Cleveland, which I’ve heard many times, but Dad quickly gets in her ear that I was asking about something that happened decades earlier.
“Tell him about the microwave you brought home.”
A decade after WWII, the Nationalists had taken over, and with it, the coal in the mountains had slowed down. My great-grandfather was thrown in jail for a few years on tax issues during the regime transition, leaving my grandma to keep the lights on. The coal business is a dirty one, after all. Things were very tough, especially for educators, but the family made it through. Great-grandfather was always very grateful for how Grandma held things down, and now that times were finally better, he wanted to enjoy life. It was time for a nice vacation to Japan, and he wanted his daughter to accompany him.
It’s funny to think that Grandma went to school thinking she was Japanese, knowing all the geography and history from textbooks but never setting foot there until after she had five kids—fed them sushi rolls with pork floss. The irony is that her children were going through the same thing, only instead of Japan, it was the Republic of China—but I digress, that’s another story. Grandma was obviously excited; the trip was set to be a few months away.
It’s hard to imagine what a big deal traveling was back then. Dressed in suits with an entire family entourage for send-offs even at the train station was a common sight. So, considering that, this trip to get on a plane meant a lot.
Grandma was so excited that she went home to start writing letters. Every now and then, classmates would write letters to Grandma about how much they missed Taiwan. For many Japanese who left after the war, leaving Taiwan was like being ripped away from the home they grew up in.
Grandma was in a good mood; she always eats more when she’s chatty. My mom’s delicious braised eggs are no longer too salty for her to consume. “I wrote back to every friend I had in Japan, saying that I was visiting Tokyo in a few months. I listed all the things I wanted to see, all the things I wanted to do in the month I was there, and all the things I wanted to bring home. How nice would it be to reunite? I can’t wait to see my friends finally!”
We really take for granted how global communications are today. Grandma had no idea if any of her letters would be received because some of her addresses were decades old, and there was no way to know if any of her mail would be opened for suspicion of sensitive content under martial law. These days, we can send private messages over any number of encrypted channels instantly. Heck, streaming point-to-point real-time video globally all day isn’t out of reach either.
Eventually, Grandma got a response back just a couple of weeks before she was scheduled to leave.
The classmate who wrote back was her rival in math, who just couldn’t ever crack first place and hated losing to a girl.
“I don’t remember the contents of the letter, but he sent a wonderful poem and told me to visit a particular shrine. He added, ‘Madame, Japan isn’t Taipei with only a handful of hotels. There are thousands of hotels in Tokyo. How am I supposed to find you with only a date if you don’t give me the name of where you are staying?’”
“Oh crap, how did I forget about that?” Grandma seldom presents herself as anything short of brilliant, so hearing her poke fun at her younger self was hilarious. By now, I’m filling up her empty bowl with some radish soup, as my mom left the table to start slicing up some mangoes.
I don’t think even my generation realizes the conundrum here. There’s no “share location” button to send in an envelope, and it’s impossible to know when a letter sent back is received. Even leaving a phone number doesn’t solve the issue either. What if the other party is a day away from you when you call, and you’re moving on to the next destination? What would you do?
So, my grandma originally thought that meeting up with her old classmate wasn’t going to happen, but how could that be? The classmate in the story appears in my dad’s stories too.
“So how did you end up meeting up?”
“I got a phone call from my classmate mere hours after we checked in to the hotel. He called five hotels before finding me.”
“How did you know I was staying here?” “I asked around. The list of hotels that Taiwanese tour groups choose is very short. It’s good that it is this one; I’m not too far away. I will be in Tokyo for a week. Let me show your family around.”
The classmate was some sort of manager at NEC. He was most interested in helping my grandma fill out her number one priority on her shopping list: a washing machine.
Grandma ended up bringing home a microwave.