Taiwan University and Me

My family used to live in a Japanese styled house near Taiwan University. Since I was a 4^th grade student of Lungshan Elementary School near the University, I grew up roaming on the main campus of the University as my playground. I discovered that the large football court was the best place to watch the sun rising early in the morning and glorious sunset in the evening. My father loved to take his children for a walk after dinner to have some ice creams across the street from the main entrance of the University. After enjoying ice creams and bean curd cakes, my father would buy a large watermelon from the street market for the whole family. I would pick a small watermelon without seeds; inside the small melon was yellow and very sweet. We walked home together in the moonlight. What a wonderful evening that was!

During my junior and senior high school days, I spent most of the summer vacation afternoons hiding in the attic of a tall University classroom building. Sitting near the window high above the green trees below and facing the endless blue sky, I read my favorite books quietly and daydreaming, my mind wandering across the ocean to all those exotic places I read about. It was the cradle of my dreams.

When I finally became a student at Taiwan University, my family moved to a new house in the suburb of Taipei City. I was able to live in the Third Women Students’ Dormitory right next to the Fu Memorial Garden. The Fu Garden with its beautiful trees, flowers, Greek Marble Temple and circular water fountain was the place my friends loved to visit and take pictures. Since many of my high schoolmates attended Taiwan University, I had good friends who had attended junior and senior high school, even elementary school with me. That kind of friendship based on long time understanding since childhood and youth is most sincere and ever lasting.

While I lived in the dormitory on the main campus, I used to get up very early in the morning to wait for the sunrise. Sitting next to a tall King Palm tree with the azaleas and daisies, I could see the morning mist floating amid the trees and dewdrops shining on the white daisies. Gradually, while the morning fog and mist disappeared, the sky on the east Mountains turned to pale rosy color. The red morning sun appeared on top of the mountain and it seemed to jump out from behind the mountain to cast myriad of light beams on the city of Taipei. Every morning, I witnessed the miracle of Nature with a book in my hand.

Many of my classmates in the Department of Foreign Languages were my high schoolmates, we knew one another well. It was easy to make friends with girls who graduated from other high schools. The boys in our class seemed to be more gentlemen-like than the boys in other Departments, few of them took initiative to talk to the girls. I had very little chance to get to know them well. Only years after we all graduated, I met David Liu in Illinois, later I met other classmates in Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Taipei at our class reunions and discovered how colorful the graduates in our class were. I met John Peng and his wife Nancy in Beijing. Many of them shared the same interests with me in poetry, music, painting and the arts of life. We became good friends naturally.

One afternoon in 1959, I was told that the University Office Manager wanted to see me. I tried to recall what I had done to deserve this honor. I remembered that I attended the Military Education Class with Betty Tsai a few days before, I did not wear the military uniform nicely, just casually put the uniform jacket on my shoulders; probably our teacher informed the University Office. Therefore, I dressed neatly to visit the University Office and prepared to be punished. To my surprise, the University Manager was very nice to inform me that I was chosen to represent Taiwan University to compete for the position as a Student Leader to attend the International Seminar at the University of Hawaii. He told me that every University in Taiwan would choose the best candidate to compete, we had to be interviewed by the Department of Education. The candidate chosen by the Department of Education had to be interviewed in English by the US Embassy to make final decision. I did not invest too much interest in the whole process and did not tell my friends about this possibility. In early December of 1959 while I was attending a class in English, our Professor’s Assistant asked me to go to his office. He informed me that I was chosen as the Representative of Taiwan to attend the International Student Leaders’ Seminar in Hawaii in December soon. He advised me to make preparations for the trip and I did not have to attend any classes because I would be on leave from the University.

My parents were more excited than I was. My Mother made many new clothes as if I was on a diplomatic mission. For the first time, I tried on a Chinese dress. My Mother told me that I looked the best in a Chinese dress. My whole family with friends went to the Airport to say farewell to me with flowers, loaded with good wishes I boarded the airplane to Honolulu. Judy Tien was added as a Second Representative for Taiwan because I was the only female representative, the two of us attended the seminar and toured around the United States for two months. I made sincere friendships with most of the Student Leaders from Asia and Africa, especially the two Japanese students, Yukio and Fumio. They were such highly intelligent, idealistic and gentle souls, their friendship dissolved all my prejudice against Japan and the Japanese people caused by the Second World War.

I always wanted to be a medical doctor since junior high school, but my parents did not give me approval to write down Taiwan University Medical School as my first wish when I had the opportunity to choose any University and Department when I graduated from high school. When I traveled in the United States, I had my transcripts with me, because I had decided to transfer to Premed Program of a University whenever I had a chance. In 1960, I was admitted to the Premed Program at New York University and moved to New York. I graduated from New York University and got scholarship to continue my graduate studies at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons where I graduated in 1968.

In September 1969, I returned to teach at Taiwan University as a Visiting Associate Professor of the medical School. I also offered a course, “Seminars in Biophysics”, on the main campus. The Biophysics course was very popular, many students of physics, biology, engineering attended the course with interests. I asked the students to choose a topic of their interests and do research on the topic. When they were ready at the end of the semester, they were asked to present their seminars on their topics and discuss with the whole class. The Taiwan University students were very intelligent and hard working, their Seminars were inspiring and meaningful. After the class discussions, my students would invite me to have red bean soups with them across the street from the main entrance. The girls and boys followed me around and talked to me about everything. My students at the medical school found me a good friend and advisor, we usually gathered at the small coffee shop in the basement of the new Science building to listen to good songs and enjoy some coffee and pastries. They would ask me questions about their private difficulties that they would not talk to their families and I tried to give them my best advice. They soon discovered with delight that I could play basketball games with them. My students invited me to enjoy rowing a boat in the Jade Lake in Hsintien and have a class gathering in a coffee shop in downtown Taipei. I also invited them to my nice dormitory for Visiting Professors to have some tea by the wood-burning fireplace. That year teaching at Taiwan University was the happiest time in my life, it also spoiled my interests to teach any place else; one simply cannot find students so intelligent, loving and respecting their professors as those Taiwan University students I taught.

Since I took an early retirement to do volunteering work to build clinics and schools in the poorest villages in China, I traveled often between the United States and China. Every time I passed by Taipei, I would find an excuse to visit Taiwan University and the Fu Garden. I realized nothing gives me more peace and satisfaction than seeing those village people being treated at the clinics and mothers delivering their babies at the clinics and those lucky newborn babies could get vaccines and immunizations including hepatitis B vaccines that would protect their health for life. In the Boarding Schools we built, children with HIV/AIDS and AIDS orphans are studying and living happily with village children without discriminations. My parents were right after all, I do not need to be a medical doctor to help others and what gives me most joy is writing poetry.

For publishing my poetry book, “Peace on Green Earth”, I visited Fu Garden of Taiwan University to take a picture with the green trees as the Author’s photograph. I am sending you one photo with Greek marble temple in the Fu Garden to remind you the golden days as students at Taiwan University and my sincere friendship. As the ancient Chinese saying: “With affinity we shall meet from thousand miles apart; without affinity, we shall never know one another face to face.” Affinity has brought us together when we were young; we shall probably meet again and again like the planets in the Universe.

Jane Hwa Hu

August 19, 2011