My father, Dr. Shyr-Chyuan Hahn, was not an ordinary man. He was a caring son, a supportive brother, a devoted husband, an understanding father, a trusted friend, a dedicated doctor, and a good citizen. I decided to translate his Sixty Year Memoir from Chinese to English so that his grandchildren and their descendants who do not read Chinese can read about his life, know what kind of person he was, and be proud of their heritage. I also think that most of my father's generation of Taiwanese worked as hard and went through the same hardships as my father did. Therefore by publishing this memoir, I can make it possible for the Taiwanese American to learn more about their ancestors' experiences in Taiwan.
Throughout the book, I have inserted explanatory notes within [ ] wherever I have deemed it necessary. My transliteration of names was done without consultation of the persons concerned nor with their relatives. I apologize if any of the transliterations are inaccurate.
I thank my brother, Liang-Shin, and my sister-in-law, Hwei-Shien, for their encouragement in getting me started in undertaking this task; I thank Professor Bernard Epstein, my friend, Mrs. Jane Huang, my nephew, James Hahn, and my daughter, Lisa, for their help in making my translation smoother and more understandable; and I thank my son, Ivan, for the drawing of my father.
Susan Shwu-Jen Huang
June 1989
Irvine, California
During the time Japan ruled Taiwan, I longed for my motherland, China. The longing revealed itself in the various articles I wrote. One day in December of 1923, my house was searched by Japanese police in the name of law and order. They took my five diaries for inspection. Although they could not find anything against me, they discovered the name of a woman who had been corresponding with me and subpoenaed her for criminal interrogation. That was a blow to my spirit. After that, I lost interest in writing a diary.
All of my diaries were returned after the closing of the case. Unfortunately, they were burned to ashes among all my possessions in my house on March 1, 1945, when the Allied airplanes raided my hometown, Tainan.
A decade has passed since the raid by the Allied air forces and I have been thinking of resuming my diary again. Unfortunately, my clinic duties take away almost all of my time and my energy. Recently, my nine-year-old son, Liang-Hsien, started diligently writing his diary every day. If he continues writing the diary and saves it, it will eventually become a genuine record of his life, even if it is not necessarily a literary masterpiece.
I am nearing the age of sixty and I have been constantly reminding myself to strive for excellence all my life. I am not able to live up to my own expectations for various reasons. Recently, I was inspired by my best friend Dr. Tu's book Dialect of Chon-Ming Tu. I think it will be worthwhile to leave some traces of my life to my descendants. Although they are ordinary events that happened to an ordinary person, they can serve some valuable purpose if one can learn from the past by examining the past. I write my memoirs in this frame of mind. I dare not compete with the memoirs of the great men of our time such as Winston Churchill and Harry Truman.
I was born on October 2, 1897 [lunar calendar date] in Tainan, Taiwan. Japan began its occupation of Taiwan the year before that. My father named me Shyr-Chyuan in memory of the time when he traveled through Amoy, China and drank the sweet stream water along the country side. I like the name because it means "clear stream water flowing through the rocks."
The Ching Dynasty gave Taiwan to Japan after losing the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Many patriots escaped to China after resisting the Japanese occupation in vain. My father was among the fortunate ones who reached Amoy with his whole family before Japan took hold of Taiwan. There were many horrible stories of rape and murder when the Japanese army came to the island. One particularly sad incident was about a group of people in hiding who, in order to keep their hiding place a secret from the Japanese, suffocated an infant to prevent him from crying. This was the beginning of the long Taiwanese struggle against the Japanese.
My father took the family back to Taiwan in the following winter and set up a household across the street from the Confucius Temple in Tainan. The "Tainan First Public School" was located in that temple. I could get to school on time after hearing the first bell ring. In the fifth grade I was transferred to "Hai-Tong Academy" where I graduated in the spring of 1910 at the age of thirteen.
My father could not find an appropriate job after he came back from China. He worried constantly about not being able to make ends meet. My mother either sold or pawned all of her dowry to support the family. She did this without my father's knowledge to shield him from more worry. After a while my father found out about it. There were times he would pretend to be sick to avoid the creditors at the door and he would leave my mother to cope with them. It was a real life drama.
My maternal grandfather arranged for my mother to be engaged to my father. My father was from a poor, scholarly family. My grandfather liked my father's intellectual ability so much that he not only promised to marry his beloved daughter to him but also gave him financial assistance to go to mainland China to take a civil service examination. Unfortunately, my father did not pass the test. Not long after the Japanese occupation of Taiwan began, my grandfather passed away. My mother's brother tried to break the engagement of my parents but my mother insisted on honoring the engagement and fulfilling my grandfather's wish. Although they suffered great financial hardship, my mother never uttered a word of complaint after the wedding. She and my father respected and loved each other. Every time my father got sick my mother took tender care of him. She would recite to him out of The Four Books [ancient Chinese philosophy books: The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, Confucian Analects, and The Works of Mencius] to ease his boredom. My mother had a very good memory. She memorized many passages from The Four Books as well as many birthdays and anniversaries of relatives and ancestors. Her abilities were probably a result of my grandfather's constant encouragement and the reward system he applied.
My father opened a private school to teach Chinese literature. It was located in the heart of the city. He had many pupils. Several years later the Japanese authorities forced him to move to a secluded location because they thought the closeness of his school to the public school would interfere with Japanese education. My father and his brother became next door neighbors. They both passed the civil service examination in the same year. My father ranked third and my uncle seventeenth. The fact that two people from the same family passed in the same year caused quite a stir among fellow residents. My father was industrious and enduring. He always behaved properly and guarded his reputation. The harmony in our family life was due to my mother's good character and my father's devotion.
When I was six, Mr. Tsai of the "Choun-Chin Academy", conducted a "first day of school" ritual for me. I remember carrying incense and red eggs to the Confucius Temple. After I finished kneeling and kowtowing before the statue of Confucius, Mr. Tsai rolled the red egg forward through my parted legs from behind me. It was believed that by observing the straightness of the rolling egg, a tutor could judge the intelligence of the pupil.
Mr. Tsai was addicted to opium. Once, after reciting four sentences for me from Three Character Precepts [a primary text for children], he lost himself in his opium bed and started to snore loudly. I did not know what to make of it or when I would be dismissed. I felt very sorry for myself and cried aloud. The sound of my crying startled Mr. Tsai and woke him up. He stared at me for a while and then tried to comfort me. He did not punish me because I was a new student. Shortly after, my older brother came to take me home. My father sympathized with me because of my young age and did not send me back to that school.
The following year when I was seven years old, I entered "First Public School". I spent six years at that school. Mr. Suzuki, the Japanese principal, knew a little Taiwanese. I remember only a few of the teachers, like the fifth grade teacher, Mr. Inoue; the sixth grade teacher, Mr. Shimokawa; and the Chinese teacher, Mr. Wang. There was a wide range of student ages. The older male students were already interested in the opposite sex. After school they often played tricks on the females or the younger students. They did not even show any regret or fear after being severely punished by the teacher. I was one of their targets. Even to this day my heart pounds when I remember those events. Once, my back was badly beaten by some older students; I hurried home crying to my mother. My mother took me back to school to talk to Mr. Inoue. She tried so hard to describe my ordeal using half Japanese and half Taiwanese. This particular incident stands out in my memory after almost fifty years.
Physical abuse was the principal method of punishment used by the public-school teachers of that time. It was not uncommon to see bleeding shins caused by kicks, or swollen and bruised heads and backs caused by whippings. Even so, it had no effect on the behavior of some of the rougher students with nicknames such as "Bandit", "Cutting Board", etc. It is difficult to describe their terrifying behavior. Mr. Inoue was the most moderate among the teachers in his way of dealing with the students; he pinched them rather than whipped them. He was ridiculed by other students for being a sissy. Nevertheless, I admired his thoughtfulness.
I was stricken with amoebic dysentery in my fifth grade year. I had bloody bowel movements countless times a day. I fainted several times and was bed-ridden for six months. Three doctors who examined me said that my condition could not be cured. My parents had me admitted to Tainan Hospital. Four patients shared one room. The other three died, one by one, a few days later. I was so scared that I asked to be discharged shortly thereafter.
Dr. Kao, my family doctor, made housecalls every day. I recovered several months later. Medicine was not as advanced then as it is now. I was never definitively diagnosed and there was no effective cure. It was a heavenly blessing that I recovered. I ate only milk and rice cereal during those months. My flesh emaciated to the bone. I lost almost all of my hair; only a small bit of hair was left hanging down to my neck. I was ridiculed by my classmates. That was the most humiliating period in my life. I remember that my mother made several trips to the hospital in her little bound feet [It is an old Chinese custom that a girl should have her feet wrapped tightly in cloth at around age five to inhibit growth of the feet. Small feet were considered beautiful.] and my aunt chanted the Buddhist's chant at my bedside. Half a century has passed and these two loving and loved ones in my life have since passed away.
I am amazed at the changing of time and events. When I was ill my school put out a warning on the bulletin board. It stated that my illness was due to my excessive eating of "green mangos" [unripe mangos] that I loved so much. It warned that all students be careful of what they eat.
Chinese was taught by Mr. Wang. It was a basic Chinese class, only two hours a week. Mr. Wang was a gentle soul. He never resorted to using force for punishment. The bad students would even play tricks on him. He liked to call me up to read new text. It made some students jealous of me. They made fun of me every chance they got. I could only try to avoid them. My childhood experience taught me great endurance.
There were sixty-three students who graduated with me. Among them, fewer than forty are still alive. We have reunions every once in a while. Mr. Shay, a poet, wrote a poem titled "Back to Childhood Banquet" on one occasion.
I graduated approximately tenth in my class at the age of thirteen. Taiwan Medical School would not accept anyone before the age of sixteen. I was perplexed as to what to do for the next two years. When I was wandering around on the street of Tainan one day, I saw an advertisement for a "kyuji" position at the City Hall. I did not know what kind of work a "kyuji" did, nevertheless I applied for it without hesitation. Later, I found out the position was that of an errand boy. I tolerated the work and yet I was ashamed of it. I tried to hide myself every time I saw somebody I knew. The pay was eighteen sen per day. I could get five yen and forty sen a month if I showed up every day. I got a uniform, hat and shoes. I had not had any leather shoes in my life before. Once I embarrassed myself by having the left shoe and the right shoe mixed up. That incident brings to mind the old joke about the "country gentleman" who wears his pants backwards.
I worked in the local tax collection department. Mr. Shirai was the head of the department. He was especially kind to me. If he saw me studying he would avoid giving me orders and call other "kyuji" instead. As a result, I was disliked by the other "kyuji". After I got off work at five o'clock in the afternoon, I hurried home for dinner and then went to night school. I studied mathematics, Japanese and English until ten o'clock at night. There were no street lights on the way home. I often stumbled over the pigs wandering in the street, and was startled by their screeching sounds. For more than a year, I worked during the day and studied at night, rain or shine. I made a deal with my friend that he would accompany me home in exchange for my helping him with mathematics.
I was ordered around at work and used what little spare time I had to study. When I had problems that I could not solve, I would find someone that was not too busy and ask for his help. A man named Mr. Tobo was very fond of me. I would run errands for him and he would teach me mathematics and Japanese. I made great progress. Later, Mr. Tobo was promoted and went to the South Pacific Islands. He published a magazine titled "South Pacific and Japanese People" on the Islands. We lost contact with each other. However, in 1923 (when I was twenty-six) I was jailed by the Japanese government, along with my friends Mr. Tsai and Mr. Chiang, for "disobeying law and order," according to the Japanese authorities. The news spread to mainland Japan and eventually to the South Pacific Islands. Mr. Tobo wrote an article describing my diligent youth and published it in his magazine. That magazine issue he mailed me was the most valuable souvenir in my life. Unfortunately, it was burned to ashes together with many of my albums, diaries and essay dissertations on March 1, 1945 - the day the Allied air forces raided Tainan.
I remember that Mr. Tobo liked beer. Every time I went to visit, I saw him drinking beer by himself and sometimes he would invite me to join him. I got my first taste of beer then. He was not married at that time. He also gave me some chemistry and physics books, which I did not understand at that time.
I wrote tax collection notices during the tax reporting periods and received extra pay. I would work long days and through long nights in order to help with our family finances. My father was very pleased with my industriousness. My father's friend Mr. Chen would fondly say to me, "You may be a 'kyuji' now but you will be a 'sanzi' in the future." "Sanzi" was a prestigious position in the Japanese government.
Two years later I took the entrance examination for Taiwan Medical School. I had worked through all of the problems in several mathematics books before the test so I was well prepared and quite confident. I did well on the mathematics portion of the examination. The topic for the Japanese essay was "Wind". We did not take any science classes in public school; luckily, I had read enough scientific literature to enable me to take bits and pieces of what I had read and come up with an essay. Otherwise I would have had to hand in a blank piece of paper.
Dr. Yoshida asked me during the oral exam why I wanted to be a doctor. I answered with a quote from a famous Chinese scholar Mr. Fan, "Man shall be inspired to be either a great statesman or an excellent doctor." I was accepted along with my friends Mr. Lin and Mr. Liu. My co-workers collected money to give me a scholarship. My supervisor even gave me my wages for the day I missed work to take the test. My pay had increased to twenty-two sen per day, which was four sen more than when I first started. I was moved to tears by the generosity people showed me.
Before I describe my life at medical school, I would like to mention a few things about my father's one-tutor private school. The subjects he taught ranged from the basics of the "three R's" [reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic] to the Chinese classics, such as The Three Character Precepts, The Four Books, and The Five Classics [The Book of Poetry, The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Book of Li - Social Forms and Ceremonies, and The Book of the Annals]. My father taught his pupils according to their abilities and their individual needs. For example, he would teach business letter writing to pupils from merchant families. He was patient with the slow learners. He was strict, yet gentle. The school celebrated the great Chinese teacher Confucius' birthday with a play and a banquet.
I studied at my father's school after I got home from public school. That is why I have a good foundation in Chinese literature. I had a good memory and I persevered in my studies. I could recite many long passages in the Chinese classics. A friend of my father once fondly told me, "If you were my son I would treat you with one pound of meat every day" [only a rich family could afford to consume this much meat every day]. When I graduated from public school I had read almost all of the classics except the romance fictions which were prohibited by my father. Even so, I read some of them secretly under my bedcovers before going to sleep.
My father taught in the city during the day and at home during the night. When the Japanese government changed its policies in order to assimilate the Taiwanese, it restricted the Chinese classes from the public schools and also closed down the private schools. Thus my father was forced to move his school to a secluded area to resume his teaching.
I entered Taiwan Medical School in Taipei in April of 1913. Quite a few students were affected with a leg infection during that time. Some deteriorated to a very serious state. The cause of the infection was unknown. People commonly believed that water and soil from a new environment could cause ailments, therefore my mother gave me a bottle filled with the water and dirt of my hometown, Tainan, and instructed me to drink it as soon as I got off the train and stepped on the ground of Taipei. According to common belief, this practice would ward off the infection. I followed my mother's instructions and drank the dirty water. Strangely enough, I never got the infection during the five years I was in Taipei.
I received a scholarship from the Japanese government which amounted to seven and a half yen a month. I used six yen for food and the rest for pocket money. I also received clothing, hats and shoes. Therefore, during my five years of medical school I only spent about six hundred yen total, which included the travel back and forth between school and home, and the cost of textbooks. My father's income could only support the family's daily expenses. The extra expenses I incurred came from the sale of the pigs that my mother raised.
My classmates came from every corner of the island. There was a wide range of abilities among the students. Some were accepted to the school on their first attempt. Others took the entrance examination several years in a row before finally getting accepted. Some came with a family. Some even had concubines. Mr. An-Shi Lin and I were relatively young. We were targets of abuse, although it was not as bad as when I was in the public school. There were two kinds of extremes among the students, namely, the diligent kind and the wild kind. Detention, expulsion from school, or even sexual incidents happened rather commonly among the wild students. Those older students with strong sexual desires often sneaked out under the school fence in the dark of the night to a district in Taipei where many prostitutes roamed and sneaked back in before dawn as if nothing had happened. The dormitory guard would sometimes raid the dormitory and catch the people that went out at night. Those caught could receive severe punishment.
Because of the shortage of textbooks, we took notes from the teacher's lectures in most of our classes. Some of the lecture notes were written on Chinese calligraphy paper, some on western writing paper. It is a pity that I lost all of my medical school notes in the fire during the war. Otherwise they would now serve as evidence of the backwardness of the medical field at that time. The teacher spoke quickly. Those slow in note-taking often missed large portions of the lecture. The conscientious students would borrow other students' notes and try to fix their own notes. Even so, it was twice as much work and far from perfect. The lazy ones would put off the work until test time and then borrow others' notes and try to cram as much as they could. It was both funny and pitiful to see them in such a sorry plight.
Some of the students were self-proclaimed geniuses. They boasted that they did not need to prepare in advance. But there was so much material that no one - not even people with three heads and six arms - could study everything in the short period of time. Therefore, if you procrastinated, you had to study selectively and count on your luck. The procrastinators jumped for joy if they had studied the correct questions. If they studied the wrong material, they pounded their chests and stamped their feet in dismay. At test time, a nervous atmosphere filled the school.
There were not many schools around. Other than the medical school, there was a linguistic language school, an industrial-technical school and an agricultural experimentation school. People paid the greatest attention to medical school students. The grade of each student was public information for the whole island of Taiwan. Those with good grades went back to their home towns with great pride. Those with bad grades would "lose face" and thus go back shamefully. There were three terms in one year. At the end of every term, there was a test, and at the end of every year there was a final. A student's advancement was based 50% on the average of the three tests and 50% on the year-end final.
One could finish medical school in five years (one year premedical and four years medical). Students came directly from public schools and skipped high school. We were expected to learn high school courses in the premedical year. One needed the combination of both ability and diligence in order to absorb the wide variety of medical courses. Most of the students were of high quality. A few older students with poor memories eventually became mentally ill. Some were very weak and came down with tuberculosis. All kinds of diseases affected the students. It was a miracle that I finished all five years without illness. I jogged around the schoolyard early every morning with my friends to remain physically fit. Often we saw playboys sneaking back under the fence after their night's excursions. Students stayed up all night to study for finals. They occupied the few available lighted areas, such as the study hall, the cafeteria, the hallway, etc. The school had a curfew after midnight. Everybody ran and hid when the dormitory guard's footsteps were heard and returned to their previously occupied spaces after the guard was gone. The students had to study very hard in order to survive the rigor of the tests. The saying "Candlelight and rooster's crow accompany a boy's study all through the night" describes exactly what it was like.
The diligence of my fellow students is still vividly in my mind. Students such as Jiunn-Ming Ong and Wui-Sui Chiang were patriotic. Chon-Ming Tu was scholarly. These three students were high achievers.
Chon-Ming Tu was from the town of Tanshui. He made use of every available bit of time he had. The fact that he would carry a book with him even when he went to the men's room is a reflection of his great diligence. After graduation, he entered Japan Imperial University in Kyoto. He studied under Professor Morishima and specialized in pharmacology. He was the first Taiwanese to get a Ph.D. degree from a Japanese medical school. He devoted himself to medical education after he came back to Taiwan and became a School of Medicine professor at Taiwan Medical School. After World War II he became the dean of National Taiwan University Medical School. In 1953, he resigned from National Taiwan University and founded the private Kaohsiung Medical School. He is a perfect example of a man of sincerity, perseverance and tirelessness in teaching. He has left a great mark in Taiwan's medical field.
Wei-Sui Chiang was from the town of Yilan. He was very interested in social and political issues. He was brave, skillful in debate, and had leadership ability. He did not particularly care about how he looked. He was a revolutionist and participated in many political organizations which made Taiwanese aware of injustices and labor problems. He was closely watched by the Japanese authorities. Unfortunately, he died of typhus at the young age of forty-two.
Jiunn-Ming Ong was from the city of Tainan. He was smart, handsome and very talented. He mastered Chinese and learned Chinese history well. He went to mainland China after graduation and founded Jiunn-Ming Hospital in Shanghai. He hired Chin-Sheng Lin and An-Shi Lin to take care of the hospital so that he could involve himself in industrial and political affairs. He was a key member of the Kuomintang political party. He died before the end of World War II. If he had lived longer he would no doubt have become an influential person in Taiwan's politics.
The three persons mentioned above were the cream of the crop among the medical school students during my years at the school. I was younger than they. Besides working hard in my classes, I also took a special interest in the welfare of our motherland, China. I often discussed the situation of our motherland with my friends Jin-Nan Chien, Te-Ho Cheng, Chin-Chun Chen and Hong-Nan Chang. We agreed among ourselves that we would go to mainland China to work after we graduated. All four of my friends fulfilled their wishes to work for the motherland. I am the only one left working in Tainan till now because of my family responsibilities. I have a tinge of regret deep in my heart.
During the final examination at the end of my second year in my medical school, I received a telegram from home informing me of my father's serious illness. The telegram advised me to go home as soon as possible. I was stricken with grief and hurried home. As I entered the door, I saw my father's weakened body lying flat on the bed. He was only half conscious. But as soon as he saw me he asked why I came back in the middle of my finals. I lied to him, "Don't worry, the finals are over." He fell back to sleep after hearing my reply. I stayed at his bedside and took care of him for several days. My father went back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness during those days. Both western and Chinese medicines were tried to no avail. He died on February 21, 1916, survived by his wife, a daughter and four sons.
My father's illness had started as a stomach ache. Because of overwork and lack of rest his condition worsened. He had also taken a strong Chinese herb and had gotten a kidney infection. He finally died of uremia. I did not have much medical knowledge then. Seeing my father's symptoms, I felt helpless, as if I was not fulfilling my duty as his son.
I thought of my father's lifelong struggle with poverty. I wanted to help with the family finances after my graduation from medical school. Who could have guessed that my father would die at the age of forty nine? The situation upon his death was that I had not yet finished my schooling, that both my elder brother and my elder sister were still single [in Taiwanese tradition, a person was not considered settled down until he/she was married], and that my two younger brothers were still very young. My mother warned me after my father's death, "The whole family is counting on you from now on. You must work even harder to finish your schooling earlier so as to comfort your father's soul in heaven." I took my mother's advice and went back to school as soon as the funeral was over. I made up for my finals and finished at the top of the class for that term and managed to stay at the top until graduation.
We were poverty-stricken when my father died. In order to get some money for the funeral expenses, we had to sell our only real estate property to my uncle. My uncle would not pay us a single penny until all of the paperwork was done. When my father was gravely ill, we needed money badly. We asked our relatives for help but were repeatedly turned down. I experienced both the warmth and the coldness of human relationships at a very young age, indeed.
Although my father was poor, he was an avid scholar. He loved to recite poems and to work on puzzles in his leisure time. He also loved Chinese opera. He would occasionally take us to watch a Chinese opera and explain the opera's plot in detail to us. Sometimes he would use vivid descriptions to tell us stories. He was both a strict and a gentle father - strict during classes and gentle outside of classes.
I remember one event most vividly during my medical school years, that of my conflict with the dormitory supervisor, Mr. Takino. Mr. Takino had great power, and he showed and used it to his advantage. He was like a dictator whom nobody dared defy. Once during a midterm, his daughter ran back and forth in her wooden shoes in the study hall. The students were greatly annoyed and could not concentrate on their studying. Mr. Huang of Chiai told Mr. Takino's daughter that she was being too noisy. When she cried to her father, Mr. Takino dashed into the study hall full of retribution. His daughter pointed to Mr. Huang, and Mr. Takino slapped Mr. Huang's face several times without even asking what had happened. Mr. Huang could only bow his head and apologize. Mr. Takino was not only the supervisor of the dormitory; he also taught history, Japanese and geography. He had the power to promote us or to hold us back. The relationship between the students and him was like the relationship between mice and a cat - our fate depended on his mercy.
There was a janitor who was good at flattering Mr. Takino. He got Mr.Takino's permission to sell food in the dormitory by offering milk and eggs to Mr. Takino every day. He made a good profit and had concubines and maids in his house. He acted as a spy for Mr. Takino and reported the students' behavior and thoughts to him in secrecy. He had Mr. Takino's complete trust. You could be sure that you would be granted permission for a leave if you had the janitor asking Mr. Takino for you. What a convenient arrangement they had!
I was the president of the student body during my third year in school. One early morning after winter recess, Mr. Takino stormed into the dining hall and ordered some of the students to hand in their pots and pans. He made it clear that those who disobeyed would be severely punished. The reason for this commotion was that some of the poor students who had no money to travel back home during the winter recess had formed groups of three or five to cook meals together to save money. They continued this practice after school reopened. Consequently, the janitor's business was greatly affected.
After Mr. Takino left the room, I stood up and made a speech. I reasoned that this incident was initiated by the janitor. I asked everyone to cooperate and not buy anything from the janitor's store from then on. Everybody applauded and agreed.
That same night, the janitor bought many "Pau-a" [pork buns] and "Ba-tzang" [sweet rice and pork wrapped in bamboo leaves] anticipating a large profit from their sale. Alas, no one bought any of the food and he suffered a great loss. He found out the following day that I had initiated the boycott and told Mr. Takino. Mr. Takino called me into his office. He scolded me and called me a bandit. He asked why I had disobeyed his orders. He said he was going to report me to the president and have me dismissed from school. I answered that I was not in defiance of his authority, but that I was only concerned about the students' financial situation. The janitor marked up food prices so much that some of the students were deeply in debt to him for as much as several hundred yen. It was more economical to buy from the stores outside. He scolded me for being argumentative. He was determined to have me expelled from school. In his opinion, I would be a menace to society after my graduation.
I quivered as I left Mr. Takino's office. I could not sleep for several days while awaiting my fate. I wondered what kind of future I would have if I were expelled from school. I would probably end up being a vagrant. Although some rich families sent their children to Japan for medical school after they failed the entrance examination to Taiwan Medical School, I could not afford to go to Japan. I had the will but not the means.
Mr. Takino summoned me again several days later. Not knowing what was in store for me, I felt like an ox on a butcher's table waiting to be cut up. I must have been protected by God; to my great surprise, Mr. Takino was moderate in his manner. He observed that what I had said was not without reason. If I would persuade the students to buy from the janitor again, he would forgive me. He said that having the store in the school to sell food was for the nutritional benefit of the students. If the students would not buy from the janitor then they would not be allowed to buy any food from outside either. I answered that I would pass his words along to the students but it was out of my control whether the students would resume buying from the janitor or not. The janitor did not regain much of his business even after several months and suffered great losses. I was deeply touched by the love of the president, Dr. Horiuchi. I knew that he did not agree with Mr. Takino's proposal to expel me from school. That was the reason Mr. Takino had to back down and reconcile with me.
Dr. Horiuchi was a courageous pioneer, a great educator and a sincere scholar. He went back to Japan after War World II and died on May 12, 1955 at the age of eighty-three in his hometown. His students from Taiwan Medical School held a memorial in honor of him on June 25 at Kaohsiung Medical School. We reminisced about his great deeds. I delivered the following eulogy:
During the fifty years that the Japanese occupied Taiwan, they ruled by the policy of imperialism. The motive behind the entire governing policy was to benefit Japan. The only benefit for the people of Taiwan was the improvement in the areas of health and medicine. The person to be credited for this achievement was our teacher, Dr. Horiuchi. This courageous pioneer, great educator and sincere scholar died on May 12 of this year at the age of eighty-three in his hometown in Japan.
Sixty years ago, Taiwan was plagued by many diseases including malaria, dysentery, bubonic plague and beriberi. We did not have a public health system. Medicine was still in the dark ages. With his great and courageous pioneering spirit, Dr. Horiuchi fought the plague in Taiwan the same way Dr. Schweitzer fought in Africa.
The medical knowledge in Taiwan sixty years ago was incredibly naive. For example, people thought that malaria was caused by methane gas from a lake. They would hang a piece of glass on a tree beside a lake to find out the origin of the disease. They did not know that the disease was spread by mosquitoes. Some people said that malaria and beriberi were of the same origin. The germ that caused the bubonic plague had not been identified. People did not know the connection between the bubonic plague and ticks. About two to three thousand people died from bubonic plague every year.
Three days after Dr. Horiuchi reached Taiwan at the turn of the century, he was ordered to fight this plague, to prevent it from spreading and to cure this serious disease. Over a period of ten years, 30,101 people were afflicted by bubonic plague, 24,104 of whom died from it. One can imagine the cruelty of this disease. Finally, in 1917, the plague was overcome because of Dr. Horiuchi's work. For forty years (from when he was twenty-four until he was sixty-four) Dr. Horiuchi devoted the entire prime time of his life to the Taiwan Medical School. He taught Taiwanese youth impartially. He taught with his broad knowledge, his clear thinking, his gentle manner, his enthusiastic spirit, and his tireless effort. His students now practice medicine all over Taiwan. They eventually established Taiwan's good public health system.
Dr. Horiuchi was a man of merits. He was a man of wisdom, honesty, diligence, sincerity, calmness, simplicity and gentleness. His father died when Dr. Horiuchi was very young. He worked as a store clerk to help with the family finances. He was ill-treated by his boss. Later, he worked at the pharmacy of a clinic. He studied on his own at every opportunity. He passed the test to become a certified pharmacist at the age of sixteen. With his perseverance, he went on to enter Sendai Medical School to study medicine. He worked as an army doctor after graduation. After that, he dedicated his life to medical education. He published many research papers on bacteriology, hygiene and epidemiology. They all serve as valuable academic resources.
Dr. Horiuchi was different from most Japanese. He started to learn Taiwanese as soon as he came to Taiwan. He would teach Taiwanese youth Japanese in exchange for his learning Taiwanese. This kind of attitude is indicative of his greatness.
Many of Dr. Horiuchi's students were active in the Taiwanese Movement which worked for the basic human rights of the Taiwanese people, and worked against the colonial government's policy. It was not that Dr. Horiuchi was not sympathetic to this movement, but he was justly worried that his students would be punished by government authorities. I was one of the people to whom he secretly gave advice. At that time, I did not want to hear his advice. As I reflect upon it now I can understand Dr. Horiuchi's concern and the awkward position he was in.
On this day of memorial, I reminisce about the past to express my sorrow.
Of all the professors, Professor Yokogawa was the most devoted to research. Rain or shine, hot or cold, you could be sure he was staring into a microscope in the laboratory. He discovered a parasite of the intestine. It was named Metagonimus Yokogawai after him. He became famous worldwide. Professor Yokogawa liked me. Other than doing research, he also taught anatomy. Memorization is important in learning anatomy. I was young and had a strong memory. I memorized all three volumes of anatomy written by Imada. It was no surprise that I got the highest score in Professor Yokogawa's class.
Although there were vicious people like Mr. Takino, there were also gentle people like Mr. Sinka among the faculty members. Mr. Sinka had grey hair and a long, beautiful beard. He was very concerned about the students' well being. Often he came to the dormitory at midnight to see how everybody was doing and to straighten and clean things up for the students. On stormy nights, he was always the most concerned. Unfortunately, he did not live to a comfortable old age. I visited him in the suburb of the city Nagoya, Japan in the fall of 1940. We had dinner and had a picture taken together. His eyes filled with tears at my departure. Years apart did not weaken the bond between teacher and student.
Dr. Takagi was a masterful speaker. He did things with an air and with political flair. He was a top student of Dr. Kitazato, a famous Japanese bacteriology scholar. Dr. Takagi was one of the pioneers in Taiwan's public health and medical education systems. He contributed a great deal in these areas. He was called "the Health Premier" by the Taiwanese. His wife was German.
Recreation among the students included playing chess, reading poetry and drawing pictures. There were quite a few poets who came from the town of Changhua. Athletic activities were also very popular. Mr. Tsai-Fu Kao was the champion of track and field. He was a celebrity.
The majority of the students were law abiding; only a few deviated. Once, slippers and shoes disappeared one by one from the dormitory. It reached several tens of pairs. Nobody could figure out the reason, so the dormitory guard decided to raid everyone's belongings. Eventually the shoes were found in the luggage of a fellow roommate. He was expelled from school. It was said that he came from a wealthy family. He must have had some kind of behavioral disorder.
Competition was keen on the graduation tests, because one's entire future depended on the result of the tests. Some students only slept a couple of hours every night for as long as one month to prepare for the test! An-Shi Lin studied the hardest among my classmates. No wonder he graduated second in the class (he was fifth before the graduation test). Altogether, thirty-eight of us graduated. Seven of the thirty-eight have passed away. I wonder how many will still be living ten years from now? [My father, himself, did not live past ten years from when he wrote this!]
We graduated in the spring of 1918. Mr. An-Shi Lin returned to Tainan to work at the ophthalmology department of Tainan Hospital. I stayed in Taipei and worked at the department of internal medicine of the Japanese Red Cross Hospital, Taiwan Branch. I was under the guidance of Professor Yoshida and Professor Kojima. The department of internal medicine was the most advanced on the island at that time. Professor Fujihara, of the ophthalmology department, tried to persuade me to be his assistant, but I turned him down because I had my heart set on internal medicine.
Most of my classmates returned with great pride to their hometown to work. Their happiness was apparent on their faces. I was the only one with a heavy heart, and I was not able to tell anyone. Logically, I should also return to Tainan to work so that I could take care of my family. Unfortunately, there were no openings at the department of internal medicine in Tainan Hospital and I was not interested in any other fields. I had no choice but to enter the Red Cross Hospital and remain in Taipei. Thus, once again, I had stepped onto a thorny path. My family members had to borrow to sustain themselves after my father's death. My mother's only hope was that I would return to support the whole family. It is so true that there are more disappointments than fulfillments in life, that the more one hopes for the more one gets disappointed.
New graduates could not do very much because of their lack of experience. Most of the new graduates worked for the Red Cross Hospital without pay. I was paid fifteen yen a month. My younger brother Shyr-Fu wanted to come to Taipei to prepare for the medical school entrance examination. He lied to our mother that he was going to Taipei to look for a job. In reality, he roomed and boarded with me. I sent a large portion of my fifteen yen's pay home and used the little remaining to support the two of us. Needless to say, I endured much hardship.
I rented a room over a retail store for a yen and a half per month. In order to save money, we did not consume any electricity. We went to the library during the day and burned candles at night. Mr. Hon-Tu Chang came to visit often. He would joke, "I won't stay for long, so you can save your candles." I cooked and cleaned by myself. Every night, before I went to bed, I washed rice and got it ready in a pot and I also arranged wood and coal in the stove. First thing in the morning after I got up, I would start the fire to cook the rice. Then I washed my face and went to exercise in the park. The rice would be cooked when I came back. Sometimes I did not have a penny left for anything else. So I mixed soy sauce and lard with my rice. It tasted so good to a poor fellow! Occasionally I would have some money left for the movies as a treat.
Later, my brother-in-law Yiu Kuo and my classmate Chiu-Te moved in with us. It became a lively place to live. I left the place for Tainan a year later. The place continued to be rented to poor students and was nicknamed "The Bohemian Cave". The lifestyle at that place was the most unforgettable experience in my life.
As I mentioned earlier, the department of internal medicine in the Red Cross Hospital was under the direction of Professor Yoshida and Professor Kojima. They took turns being in charge of the clinics. The two professors had very different personalities. Dr. Yoshida was serious and meticulous. In contrast, Dr. Kojima was bohemian and carefree. So although Dr. Yoshida graduated from a small medical college and Dr. Kojima from a famous university with honors, patients had more confidence in Dr. Yoshida. As a consequence, the two professors could not work together in harmony. The conflict between them also made it hard for the people working under them. For example, Mr. Akagi admired Dr. Yoshida and despised Dr. Kojima. When Dr. Yoshida was in charge, Mr. Akagi was willing to skip lunch to work with him until three o'clock in the afternoon.
Dr. Yoshida had written a book called Yoshida's Internal Medicine Diagnostic Method. Later, he started a clinic and practiced medicine. Many patients sought his help. Dr. Kojima continued teaching until 1935, 25 years later. He liked to play chess and write poetry. He sent me some of his works when I was working at Tainan Hospital. Dr. Akashi, who was the president of Tainan Hospital then, composed a poem in response to one of Dr. Kojima's poems. Japan was in the process of planning to attack China. Dr. Kojima and Dr. Akashi were both worried about the situation. I can still remember the poem by Dr. Akashi:
An excellent doctor worries about his country.
He does not accumulate possessions for his descendants.
Buried in his voluminous books in his simple cottage,
Earnestly, he discusses the situation of the five continents.
I was twenty-one when I graduated. Although I worked diligently while I was in school, it was not possible to acquire a tremendous amount of medical knowledge in five years' time, especially when some of that time had to be devoted to studying high school subjects. People were naive then. They looked up to graduates of the medical school as if the graduates knew everything. And we, the graduates, also thought rather highly of ourselves. We should have known better - that knowledge has no boundaries, and that experience is more important than what we've learned from books.
I made two mistakes during my service within one year at the Red Cross Hospital. In one incident, at the request of the family, I filed a patient's death certificate with a date that was one day earlier than the actual date of death. Consequently, I got a good scolding from Dr. Yoshida. From that experience, I became extremely careful about everything I did. I never gave in to that request again during my practice. I was ridiculed as being stubborn. The second incident was that a mayor of a certain city asked for a shot of 606 antiluetic drug to ease his pain. Considering the distance he had traveled, I gave it to him. Within five minutes he became pale and fell unconscious. Alarmed, I administered CPR and gave him a strong dose of cardiotonic. Luckily, the mayor regained consciousness. My entire shirt was wet with nervous perspiration. I was deeply embarrassed because the patient's relatives witnessed the entire event, even though such events were common in medical practice.
Once I was in charge of curing an old acquaintance's tuberculosis. There was no miracle cure for this illness. A shot of tuberculin was considered the most advanced method. Even that did not help my patient and he died. The man confessed to me his deepest regrets about his indulgence in prostitutes and alcohol. People usually utter wise advice just before death. Unfortunately, the regrets often come too late.
There was also a tragedy. One of my classmates contracted typhus immediately after graduation and was admitted to the hospital. He died soon after. This classmate was very handsome. He liked nice clothes and looked charismatic in his gold-rimmed glasses. Many nurses in the hospital wanted to marry him. He came from a very rich family. It was said that the family put on feasts and shows for three days when he graduated. He died so unexpectedly that nothing could have surpassed his family's grief.
Another heartbreaking tragedy involved my best friend, Mr. Yin Shieh. He came from the town of Changhua. He was honest and not pretentious. His father died when he was very young. He showed great filial piety to his mother. He taught in a public school away from home before entering medical school. Every Saturday he walked a long distance home to see his mother. His sister helped finance his medical school education and the Japanese government supplemented this with a yen and half monthly for his pocket money. He even tried to save this small sum for his mother. Nobody among his classmates could out-do his thrift. He wrote in his diary faithfully every day. He had beautiful calligraphy and wrote in a detailed, descriptive way. I greatly admired his ability. We became very good friends. He worked for Miton Provincial Hospital after graduation. One winter vacation on his way home he visited me. He showed me a pair of new shoes, and I jokingly asked him what they were for. He answered that he was going home to get married. Several days later came the tragic news that he died of an acute illness! I went to pay my respects. I was given one of his diaries as a souvenir. The diary was also destroyed by the air raid of March 1, 1945!
One year after I began working for the Red Cross Hospital I heard that there was an opening at Tainan Hospital. I asked President Horiuchi for a letter of recommendation and was accepted in 1919. The president of Tainan Hospital was Dr. Akashi. He was one of the Japanese that I respected. He was an expert in internal medicine and had done extensive research on Taiwan's epidemic diseases. He wrote two chapters about malaria and dysentery in a Japanese internal medicine encyclopedia. He had a great sense of justice. He learned in depth the teaching of the Chinese philosopher Yang-Ming Wang. This philosopher's sayings: "Practice what you've learned" and "Refine what you practice" were Dr. Akashi's way of life. It was said that he was called a "student teacher" when he was doing his research at Imperial Kyushu University. The name implied teaching by learning and learning by teaching. He was different from other researchers who were quick to fix a line of thought and then refused to listen to different opinions.
Once, he overheard a discussion between some of the department heads during a break. They were unable to come up with a solution to a problem. Although the problem was not in Dr. Akashi's field of specialty, he researched it thoroughly and came up with a solution the following morning. The problem was then easily resolved.
People did not dare argue with him, not because he was the president of the hospital, but because he was genuinely admired. He did not discriminate against Taiwanese. He was fifteen years older than I was, yet he treated me as his equal. I was young and energetic then. I was not satisfied with just copying the diagnosis, doing laboratory work and asking about the patient's symptoms-things that an assistant doctor [equivalent to an intern] ordinarily did. I asked for the kind of work that a resident doctor or a staff physician was responsible for, such as diagnosis and cure. Dr. Akashi broke precedent and allowed me to be in charge of some of the in-patients. I was also allowed to take care of the out-patients if the patients asked for my services. Some of the Japanese doctors were not happy about that. Some of the Japanese nurses looked down upon me or even refused to do what I asked them to do. I was in a very difficult predicament. What I depended upon was my knowledge, and I did not care what others thought of me. I earned twenty-two yen monthly at the start of my career. I was promoted to the position of an assistant medical officer three years later. There were three levels above an assistant medical officer. I was the first Taiwanese from the department of internal medicine to get promoted to this position. Mr. Sou-Lu Wang was the first from the department of surgery, the second one was Mr. Chin-Ho Huang. Mr. Te-Chu Chen was the first from the department of otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat).
Japanese nationalism began to spread in Taiwan. Segregation between Taiwanese staff and Japanese staff began taking place. Mr. Ito of the department of otolaryngology, Mr. Notani of the department of dentistry, and Mr. Kanuma, the Chief of Affairs, were the most prejudiced and unreasonable persons among the Japanese. Mr. Ito was short. He was aloof and conceited. He had a strange temperament and he spoke to hurt others. He was unkind to patients. You could say Mr. Notani and Mr. Ito were birds of a feather. They were typical Japanese militarists. When the battles in the Pacific began, Mr. Notani was an important figure in the so-called Japanese People for Self Defense. He teamed up with Mr. Kanuma's son and inflicted much violence upon Taiwanese.
As for Mr. Kanuma, he liked to flatter the people in high positions and abuse the underlings. Once, he treated the Taiwanese staff unfairly when he was in charge of a business trip. I, too, got into conflicts with him. I reported his misdoings to Dr. Akashi. Dr. Akashi gave him a good scolding. Dr. Akashi gravely despised Mr. Kanuma. Mr. Kanuma would often bring a load of documents for Dr. Akashi to sign when it was close to lunchtime. Once, the president scolded, "I can not blindly sign those important documents. You should have known not to come in such haste for such important matters."
Another incident I remember took place while I was making rounds at the hospital with Dr. Akashi. As we passed Mr. Kanuma's office, Dr. Akashi smiled and asked me, "Would you like to see Mr. Kanuma embarrassed?" Then Dr. Akashi entered Mr. Kanuma's office and asked him, "Do you know how many kinds of beds this hospital has? Their differences in heights? Tell me the highest and the lowest in feet." Mr. Kanuma was at a complete loss. The president ordered him to make a survey of all the beds and to report back. Mr. Kanuma's face was red to the ears and Dr. Akashi had a good laugh.
Dr. Akashi considered Mr. Kanuma useless. He did not accept Mr. Kanuma's son's application to Tainan Hospital either. Mr. Kanuma often visited prostitutes. As a result, Mrs. Kanuma had a breakdown and hanged herself. What a family tragedy! I hope it serves as a lesson to others who do the same.
There were many different personalities in the department of internal medicine. During my four years there, I learned a great deal from Dr. Akashi and was influenced by him the most. Those experiences were very helpful when I had my own clinic. Tainan Hospital was known as Yama Hospital because it was surrounded by mountains [yama means "mountain" in Japanese]. It was the best in southern Taiwan. People regarded it highly. The longer a doctor served in that hospital, the more respected he became. I earned a good reputation from my four years' service there.
Dr. Akashi's desire to learn and to do research was unequaled among his peers. He complained often about the lack of time and money for research. The hospital's main function was patient care. As president, he also had many affairs to attend to, so when Dr. Yoshida resigned from Taiwan Medical School, Dr. Akashi aspired to that position. He was opposed by Dr. Kojima because they were both graduates of Imperial Kyushu University, and Dr. Kojima, the elder of the two, did not want Dr. Akashi to have a position higher than his own. In anger, Dr. Akashi went back to Japan. He was appointed professor at Kumamoto Medical School. Soon he was elected to head the medical school. The usual academic procedure was that, unless one stayed at the school after graduation to do research work, it was extremely hard to get a position as a professor afterwards. On top of that, Dr. Akashi had worked for such a long time in a local hospital that people in the academic world could have doubted his research ability. If it hadn't been for his good reputation in the academic world he could not have gotten those positions at Kumamoto Medical School; there was no precedent for it.
Most of the nurses and technicians in the hospital were young Japanese girls, the rest were Taiwanese girls. I still did not have a steady girlfriend. A few of the Japanese girls were interested in me. They even swore to me that they would learn to speak Taiwanese and observe Taiwanese customs (like wearing Taiwanese clothes) if I married them. One laboratory technician, who was a high school graduate, often came to my room when I was on call for the night. She wanted me to promise to marry her. She tried to persuade me to join her in predicting the outcome of our relationship by way of Japanese folklore - by burning two matches held by two persons. I was embarrassed and refused to do so. Finally, I succeeded in making her leave my room. If I had wanted to I could have sinned. But I stuck to my principle that one should not show affection towards another unless he loves that person and is willing to spend his life with that person. To do otherwise is not only dishonest to oneself and the other person, but also will lead to future troubles. During my bachelor years I arranged a marriage by introducing Te-Ho Cheng to Chin-Cheh Cheng.
At this point, I would like to describe my social and my love life. I began being interested in the opposite sex when I was about thirteen. There were a few girls in my father's private school. I was attracted to some of the pretty ones. I played with one of the girls and we visited each other's house quite often. It was a pure and innocent kind of feeling between us. We lost contact after I entered the medical school. When I came back to work at the Tainan Hospital she came to visit frequently and bombarded me with love letters. She tried to resume our old friendship. Although she loved me, the feeling was not mutual. To me, she was a friend and nothing more. At the time I was like a lottery winner - surrounded by nurses in the hospital and suitors in and out of my house. Rumors had it that I was in love with so-and-so from the west side of the city or that I was engaged to so-and-so from the east side of the city, etc. Some of the girls even resorted to tactics of self-promotion by spreading rumors in order to fend off others. There were parents who offered me a choice of any of their daughters. One girl wanted to marry me even though she had already shaved off all her hair and had become a Buddhist nun. Some promised to bring to the marriage a large dowry and acres of land. Some were bold enough to come to my house to work on my mother. What a display of characters! As an old Chinese saying goes, "If you study hard enough you will never be without good companionship - there are beautiful girls awaiting in the books." Amidst all the fuss I kept my cool and searched for my ideal mate. I had my own principles regarding marriage.
The principles I held for a marriage partner were:
My good friend An-Shi Lin knew exactly what I wanted in a marriage partner. He informed me one day that there was a girl named Shiu-Luan Chuang who came to his clinic for treatment of her ears every other day. He said, "If you are interested, come and steal a look. I will help you with this good opportunity for marriage." I replied, "Good firewood can't pass by the town of An-Ping without being selected. Why don't you help yourself? Aren't you in the same boat as I?" And he said, "I prefer the elegant and active kind of girl. This girl's personality does not suit my taste."
The following day, I went to An-Shi's clinic and waited upstairs on the veranda. I hurried downstairs when I saw her arrive with her father. I sat in the waiting room and pretended to read a newspaper. Later when I went over to talk with An-Shi, I observed her secretly. She was not overweight and yet not too thin. Although she did not possess the kind of face that would make the fish and the bird faint with envy, [Chinese idiom for describing a beautiful face] she was nevertheless as pure and clean as an orchid in a deep valley. One glance was enough for me to lose my heart. I began an active pursuit. I asked An-Shi's father, the uncle of this girl, and my own aunt to go to the girl's father and ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. The response I got was that she was still too young for marriage. I was dreadfully disappointed.
For half a year I acted like the man described in The Book of Poetry. I was beside myself and could not fall asleep at night. Why did they not accept me right away? Did they prefer a rich family's son? Or was someone more talented and more handsome competing with me? Why did I not want the many girls who wanted to marry me, and instead wanted this girl whose family rejected me? If her parents really wanted her to marry another man, and if this man could offer her more happiness than I could, then I would wish her all the happiness throughout her life. But why didn't either of her parents consider that I would make a good son-in-law?
I was starting to feel that if my proposal to her absolutely failed, I would decide to marry a suitable Japanese nurse. But then something happened to make me understand the meaning of the famous poem's passage: "Just when you reach the top of the mountain and the end of the river, and you think there's nowhere else to go, you see - through the willow trees - the village on the other side of the mountain where beautiful flowers are blooming." I heard that the girl's family was reconsidering my marriage proposal! I was ecstatic.
Thereafter I gathered up more courage and asked Mr. Chiang-Chiu Wu, who was the girl's Chinese tutor, to play Cupid. Mr. Wu was a good communicator. He did not mind trying again and again. He finally convinced Shiu-Luan's parents to allow the marriage. June 26, 1921 was decided upon as the engagement date. "Where there's a will, there's a way." I hope that all the lovers in the world will join in marriage! The engagement was a simple procedure. I had Mr. Wu the match-maker bring an engagement ring and a few gifts in a red basket to the girl's house. There was no ceremony, no banquet. I didn't even have a chance to be with my fiancee.
Later, I tried every possible way, sought every opportunity, to meet her somewhere. Fortunately, a nurse in Tainan Hospital who went to the same school with her was willing to act as our messenger. The nurse's name was Su-Shien Lu. Our first meeting after the engagement was at Su-Shien's house. At first Shiu-Luan was awfully shy. I tried to touch her hand and she would shrink away. I kept on trying and finally I held her hand in mine. It was like being struck by lightning. My soul left my body and I was lost in space! After that date I tried to invite her to the theater but her father would not let her go out alone with me. Naturally, I was very disappointed. She was so near and yet we were light years apart. I was able to see her but I couldn't be near her.
In order to have common interests when we spent our life together, I convinced her to continue her education. She had graduated from elementary school three years earlier. It was rather difficult for her to study for the high school entrance examination, so I got her parents' permission to tutor her. My friend Jin-Nan Chien and his fiancee Su-Shien Lu [the "messenger"] were in the same situation. So Jin-Nan and I took turns tutoring our fiancees. Jin-Nan was also working at the department of internal medicine in Tainan Hospital. We two young doctors worked more enthusiastically and more patiently as tutors than as doctors. Luckily both Shiu-Luan and Su-Shien were accepted to Tainan Girls High School the following year. On the first day of school, the four of us, good friends and lovers, went to school together. No wonder the Japanese Principal, Mr. Kusunoki, could not resist teasing us.
After Shiu-Luan entered high school I had good reason to go to her house. For four years, it did not matter whether it was rainy or windy, cold or hot - I went to tutor Shiu-Luan whenever I had time. I was no longer working for Tainan Hospital. I had a clinic and my associate was Mr. Chin-Ho Huang. My family set up a household at the clinic. [It is not uncommon to have living quarters and a clinic together in the same building in Taiwan.] I lived by myself on the second floor of the Society for Reading. The Society for Reading belonged to the Taiwanese Cultural Association. It was a place used by the public for reading newspapers and for holding cultural awareness meetings. I was in charge of the place. Shiu-Luan came to visit me often. My friend Kan-Ho would accompany her home at night. Kan-Ho worked for the Taiwanese Cultural Association. He was an honest and dutiful young man. It was a pity that he had tuberculosis and for that reason decided to remain single.
The Taiwanese Cultural Association sponsored a summer camp in August of 1924 at the villa of Mr. Shien-Tong Lin. Shiu-Luan attended the camp for the whole week's lecture series. I went to join her on the last day of camp. On the way home, we spent a night with Mr. and Mrs. Hon-Yuan Chen at a hot spring resort. We did not do anything inappropriate, but Shiu-Luan's school received a report on us. It was unusually lenient that the school did not gave her any punishment. At school, whenever Shiu-Luan had problems that she could not work out, her teacher would jokingly say to her, "Why didn't you ask Mr. Hahn?"
In the fall of 1924, Mr. Te-Ho Cheng and Miss Chin-Cheh Cheng [This was the couple for whom my father was match-maker.] were married in the town of Chi-San. Shiu-Luan and I attended their wedding. We stayed the night at their place. My mother-in-law-to-be was not pleased about that because she was afraid that we might have done something inappropriate. I suppose in a person's lifetime he or she cannot be completely above suspicion.
Before my engagement to Shiu-Luan I went once with friends to a "Special Bar," which in reality was a brothel. Some of my friends spent the night there. I asked the madam to open the door and let me go. She ridiculed me as the number one fool in the world. I was glad that I did not commit a sin. Another time when I was twenty-four years old, I went to Taipei for a medical meeting. After the meeting, friends suggested that we all go to a brothel and have fun. It was out of curiosity more than anything else that made me decide to go along. I was on the verge of committing sin that night. Since that experience I have not cared to try again.
I resigned from Tainan Hospital in the winter of 1922. Mr. Chin-Ho Huang and I opened a clinic together and we named it the Joint Clinic. I was responsible for internal medicine and Mr. Huang took care of the surgery. Japanese nationalism had spread throughout the whole island of Taiwan. People were dissatisfied with Japanese rule. I joined the activities of the Taiwanese Cultural Association. I also participated in the movement for the founding of the Taiwan Congress. On February 2, 1923 the Japanese authorities prohibited the founding of the Taiwan Congress in the name of law and order.
On February 21, the founding activities moved to Tokyo for reorganization and restrengthening. The Japanese authorities pressed hard to dissolve the organization. On the dawn of December 16, the government assigned many policemen to search the entire island of Taiwan. They arrested about one thousand people. I was still dreaming in bed that morning when ten Japanese policemen broke into my house. They escorted me to the police car without even asking any questions. We drove along An-Ping Road and arrived at a temporary holding place. It was a ward for epidemic disease patients. It was a new building; the paint on the wall was still fresh. A bunch of us were put together in one room. Although I did not know the specific reason for the arrest, I somehow had anticipated that this would happen someday. I was rather calm.
Several policemen searched my house. They looked into boxes and chests. They took away letters and papers that appeared suspicious to them. Among the papers taken away were five volumes of my precious diaries. On that day the Japanese police staged a very thorough watch. They stood guard from the roof tops and watched at back doors. They acted as if they were confronting a big army. I was detained for one week, then questioned by a public prosecutor, Mr. Shibanuma. I realized that my arrest had to do with my involvement in the movement for the founding of the Taiwan Congress. Dozens of people from the city of Tainan were prosecuted. They set most of the people free after questioning. At last only Pei-Ho Tsai, Hon-Yuan Chen, Hai-Sui Wu, and I were to be moved to Taipei for jailing. Was it the intention of the police escort to purposely drive past Shiu-Luan's house that night? I was devastated that I could not jump off the car and go into her house to kiss her good-bye.
We were jailed in the cells which were used for persons awaiting trial. The rooms were five feet by eight feet, single occupancy with thick walls on three sides of each room. On the back wall, at the top, there was a small window with iron bars. The window was the only passage for light and air. In the front wall was a thick wooden door with a lock. There were two small holes in the door for the janitor to look in. A rectangular hole at the bottom of the door was used for giving us food. A little square area at one corner of the room was designated as the place to relieve ourselves (there was no toilet). The janitor watched over us throughout the night.
We were called by an assigned number. My number was ninety-nine. The number sounds like "long time" in Taiwanese. I thought to myself that I might have to stay in jail for a long time. It was a severe winter. It was gloomily cold in the cell. Fortunately we received special treatment - we got five grey blankets; regular prisoners only got three. We could sit or lie down as we wished - unlike the other prisoners, who had to sit up straight all the time. The feet of those not used to sitting on the floor got numb in less than fifteen minutes. If they were found not sitting up straight they would be beaten by the jail guard. Their whole bodies, even the private parts, were strip-searched every morning to prevent the hiding of anything. We were spared this kind of treatment because we were political prisoners, not criminal prisoners.
We got up at five in the morning and went to bed at eight. Often the jail guard would call for us to get up or to lie down and we were not allowed to pull our covers above our necks when we lay down. The guard watched over us all night to prevent any suicide attempts or any unusual behavior. If we did not follow orders, we would be beaten or have water forced into our mouths. I would often hear weeping and crying in the middle of the night. It was cruelty beyond description - a hell on earth. We could bathe once a day and were allowed to go outdoors two to three times a week, but only for ten minutes at a time. The guard held a watch in his hand to keep accurate track of time. How I missed Shiu-Luan and my mother!
My mother was almost sixty years old. It was such a hardship for her. Every day, she leaned on the front door of the house awaiting my safe return. Shiu-Luan sent me letters from her school quite often. Those letters have since been burned and lost. I remember in one of the letters she advised me to trust in God. The phrase "to trust in God" has been imprinted in my mind since then. After being interrogated several times by the public prosecutor, I, together with eighteen of my comrades, was sent to the court for public prosecution. Five of us were set free after the initial hearings. I was in jail for a total of two-and-a-half months. When we got out people shot firecrackers to celebrate the occasion. At that time people's morale was high and comrades were willing to sacrifice.
The morale of the people was highest when everybody finally got out of jail. People crowded to hear the speeches given at the Taiwanese Cultural Association. The Japanese government had a hard time suppressing the meetings. They warned the speakers or tried to stop their activities and to temporarily detain them. But the more they applied pressure, the more people resisted. I was living on the upstairs floor of the Public Reading Place that had become the center of activity for the whole city.
The Japanese plainclothes police tried all methods to collect information. They would openly query you or secretly watch over you. They would resort to both harsh and persuasive methods. Every time Japanese dignitaries came to visit Taiwan they would redouble their watch over suspicious Taiwanese. They followed you wherever you went. I was followed closely when I made house calls to my patients or when I visited Shiu-Luan at her house. They would not leave me alone until I got home. Some of my comrades liked to play tricks on the Japanese police. They would come in through the front door and sneak out the back door right away. The Japanese secret police stayed at the front door for a long time without realizing what was going on. There were some cases where both parties made an agreement: a Taiwanese would tell a policeman what he was planning to do for the day and the policeman would not follow him around.
Unfortunately, in February of 1927, conflicts erupted among members of the Taiwanese Cultural Association. The Japanese government secretly rejoiced. In July of the same year we founded a new organization, the Minchongtang. I was elected as a key member in charge of the Tainan branch and served until June of 1931, when the Minchongtang was dissolved by the Japanese authorities. The speeches given by the Minchongtang were very popular. The Japanese authorities often tried to disrupt the meetings. Once I strode into the police station in my Chinese clothes to protest. The police chief was in the middle of a telephone conversation. He looked very nervous and ordered me to get out right away. Later, I found out that he was receiving a report on the Wusha Event at that moment. [The Wusha Event occurred on October 26, 1930. The aborigines in Taiwan could not endure any more of the Japanese suppression. They organized to fight the Japanese, but were overpowered by the Japanese military. Nine hundred aborigines were killed.]
Shiu-Luan graduated from Tainan Girls' High School on March 27, 1926. Several days later, on March 31 we were married at Tainan City Hall. Several hundred guests attended the wedding. I was not a Christian then, therefore we did not have a church ceremony. Yet I did not want a traditional wedding. We decided on a special ceremony that no one had ever had before. Several years later, in the January 1, 1933 issue of a newspaper called the Shinming Daily, there was an article about our wedding. It ran as follows:
When Mr. Hahn was working at Tainan Hospital, a friend introduced him
to Miss Chuang. The 'old man on the moon' [a match-maker in Taiwanese
folklore, equivalent to the Greek Cupid] must have arranged their
wedding five hundred years ago. They became lifelong companions.
When Miss Chuang took the entrance examination of Tainan Girls High
School, Mr. Hahn accompanied her to the test site. After she was
admitted, he again went with her on the first day of school. Whenever
they had time, they would visit places together. You couldn't find
one without the other at any beautiful park. Many times Mr. Hahn
tutored Miss Chuang earnestly. Time went by fast. After four years
Miss Chuang graduated from high school. They were married on March
31, 1926 at Tainan City Hall. Their wedding ceremony was rather
different from others. The new couple read their marriage oath in
front of all the relatives and friends that came to attend the
wedding. The following is a copy of the original marriage oath:
The Oath Of Our Marriage
Written on our Wedding Day, 31st of March, 1926.
We were engaged to be married on June 26, 1921. Our engagement lasted
for four and one half years and many trials had to be endured, but our
original intention of marrying remained firm.
Today we stand in this holy place to ratify our marriage by agreement.
We undertake here the responsibility to love each other always, to try
our best to make our marriage happy and to build up a good and sweet
home.
We also hope to be able to do our share to help the people and improve
the social conditions of our country.
This is our marriage oath now declared before our loving friends.
Shyr-Chyuan Hahn
Shiu-Luan Chuang
Mr. Hahn and Miss Chuang dared to abandon the traditional way and adopt a new style for their wedding. It is rare indeed.
I had strong feelings about how I wanted to be married. I wanted to abandon complicated and luxurious ceremonies for a simple and dignified one instead. I didn't like dowries and especially hated the custom of displaying the dowry and the money for the purpose of showing off. I wanted to abandon the custom of a maid accompanying the bride to the marriage. [Often, the "maid" serves as a concubine, or second wife.] Finally, I wanted to allow only a few close friends and relatives to the "fun party" on the wedding night. Big crowds who came to "view" the bride were not welcome.
It is worth mentioning here that my mother accepted all my principles about my selection of my mate and the wedding procedures. After my engagement to Shiu-Luan, my mother went to Chin-Cheh's house to take a look at her future daughter-in-law. She expressed her satisfaction when she came home. She had complete trust in my decision and she did not want to interfere in any way. She was indeed quite an extraordinary and understanding mother.
We went on our one and a half month long honeymoon five days after our wedding. We left Chilung Pier and reached Kobe, Japan. We visited Osaka, Kyoto, Kamakura, Tokyo and Nikko. Finally we arrived in Shanghai, China and came back to Taiwan from Amoy.
It was springtime in Japan. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom. They were so colorful and pleasing to the eye. We were also accompanied by our best friends at some points. We took our time and enjoyed the best relaxation life could offer. We stayed for half a month at the beach resort of Kamakura. Mr. Chiang-Shien Chen was staying at a Japanese friend's villa for treatment of his tuberculosis. We received his hospitality. It is a pity that Mr. Chen died soon afterwards.
Our friends Jin-Nan and Su-Shien had their wedding at Kamakura when we were there. Their experience, from their engagement to their wedding, was similar to ours except for one episode. Jin-Nan acted out a drama to test Su-Shien's love for him. He left for Japan a couple of days before the wedding date. Su-Shien was forced to follow him to Japan to get married. They had their wedding at a beach hotel. They flew a Chinese flag and a Japanese flag on the front door of the hotel. It initiated a protest from the Japanese government. Jin-Nan worked for Da-Lien Hospital in Manchuria after his marriage. He did not escape in time when the Communists took over China. He was an honest, hard working Christian. He gained the trust of the local people in Da-Lien. His clinic was called Jin-Ho Clinic.
After touring several cities in Japan, we and An-Shi went to Shanghai and stayed there for three days. I only remember visiting some playgrounds and seeing Chinese operas. On our way home we visited several schools of Chi-Mei. The principal's name was Yien Yeh. The schools included kindergarten, grade school, high school, normal school, marine school and business school. They also had a science museum and a library. Hong-Nan and Te-Ho had served as the school doctors. My brother Shyr-Lin, my brother-in-law Mo Lin and my friend Jin Huang were graduates of the school. It was rather difficult to go to China to study because the Japanese government opposed it. When the students came home during summer vacations the Japanese secret police would pay several visits to them. It was quite a nuisance. Unless one had courage and patience, one could not tolerate it long enough to graduate.
I started my own clinic on March 3, 1928 where it stands today. I was the first one to practice medicine as a specialist at that time [pediatrician]. Doctors were scarce and diseases were wide-spread. The percentage of infants and children catching diseases was very high. I was young and energetic. Patients crowded to my clinic day and night. I saw at least one hundred patients a day. I had rooms for the in-patients. These rooms did not have separate entrance ways. When patients died or had serious diseases, they used the same door as people entering the clinic. It caused some degree of inconvenience. Once, a maid of a rich family came for treatment. She died after being accepted as an in-patient. The master of the family was accused of ill-treating the maid and causing her death. I went through a great deal of trouble trying to pinpoint the exact cause and time of death. This incident strengthened my belief that one has to exercise extreme caution in the field of medicine.
I bought my current location for ten-thousand yen from a Japanese, Mr. Ohara, and fixed it up as a clinic. Later I spent another six thousand yen to buy a lot next to my clinic. I built rooms for in-patient care on the lot after I came back from my study in Japan. I was so busy with my patients that I always had to postpone my lunch until two or three o'clock in the afternoon. And I often had to get up several times during the night to take care of patients. Day and night, my only activity was practicing medicine. As a result, I got ulcers in my stomach. The bleeding often lasted from half a month to more than one month. Only then did I force myself to take a rest. I spent all of my energy practicing medicine. I did not have the wisdom then to take care of myself. Although I was as skinny as a stick after every illness, I plunged right back into my work. I did not think I could afford to take a rest or to take care of myself. How foolish I was. I am really surprised that I am as healthy as I am now despite overworking myself in my youth.
During the seven years of my practice from 1923 to 1929 I filled out death certificates for 546 persons (309 males and 237 females). There were three suicides, three stillbirths and one accidental death. One of the suicides was an employee of a bakery. He was accused of stealing jewelry from his employer. He could not withstand the punishment the policeman imposed on him. He promised that he would go back to the store to dig out the stolen jewelry, but after entering the store he swallowed a large quantity of petroleum oil when the policeman was not watching. It was too late for me to do anything to save him. He cursed the policeman's brutality before his final breath. It was a very awful scenario. Afterwards, the real thief was caught and the policeman was expelled from duty.
Every time a patient of mine died, I asked myself if there was the slightest chance that I might have not fulfilled my duty. In those acute cases, the patients' chances of survival were often extremely slim. There are limitations to a person's ability. I abide by the motto, "Do and learn as one ages." Although I have almost forty years' experience, occasionally there are cases that I cannot solve.
Every time I treat a patient I think the case through thoroughly.
My eldest son Liang-Teh was born on February 10, 1929. He was healthy. He had a wide forehead, big round eyes, white skin and a chubby body. He was a very lovable boy. Who could have predicted that his life on earth would only last for a year and a month? In March after his first birthday he caught pneumonia, later complicated by meningitis. Antibiotics were not available then. When the symptoms turned serious, I stood in front of him unable to do anything! When he died I was unable to turn him around and save his life! His death made me begin to think deeply about life and death. I became religious. Why do people die? How can they be resurrected? Is it all in the hands of God? I wrote a little book in Japanese From Death to New Life in memory of my son. Because of his death I have great sympathy and understanding for sick children and their parents. I pray for God's protection of the children.
As I have described, the education I received was informal, irregular and short. Although I worked very hard, I did not have the opportunity to refresh my medical knowledge because I had a medical practice and everyday affairs on the one hand, and my involvement in political activities on the other. After my son's death, I felt helpless. However, the Minchongtang had recently been dissolved, therefore I was not involved in any political activities for the time being. I decided to go to Japan to further my medical education.
My previous teacher, Dr. Akashi, was teaching at Kumamoto Medical School. He was also in charge of the department of internal medicine in addition to being the head of the Medical School. In March of 1935 I took my wife, my two sons Liang-Shin and Liang-Cheng and my two daughters Su-Yin and Su-Sing to Japan to enter the Akashi Internal Medicine Research Laboratory. Only a few days after I reached Kumamoto I received a telegram informing me of my mother's death. Hurriedly I packed up and took my family back to Taiwan by ship. After my father died, my mother had overworked herself. She endured much hardship. Her health deteriorated. She had chronic bronchitis. In spite of her poor health, she remained very meticulous. She would give a great deal of attention to detail and often suffered from migraines.
I was able to attend to her in her old age for almost twenty years when I was working in Tainan. But I was approaching middle age, so for the sake of my future I decided to go to Japan to further my studies. Although my mother did not want me to leave her, she kept her feelings to herself and did not oppose my departure. I left Taiwan on March 22. My mother took a pedicab every day to the clinic to fight off her loneliness. My clinic was being taken care of by my brother Shyr-Fu. On April 5 my mother started to cough and experienced difficulty breathing. She also had headaches. However, she did not have a high fever, so it appeared that her illness was not serious enough for my brother's attention. My mother herself also thought nothing of it. On April 8, my mother went to bed at ten o'clock. At eleven o'clock she let out two long sighs in her sleep. My brother Shyr-Fu thought of awakening her, but he was persuaded by my elder brother not to disturb her in her sleep. When Shyr-Fu checked her pulse at twelve o'clock it was already very weak. Shots and treatments did not revive her. She died at four o'clock on the morning of April 9. I think that my mother's death had to do with my not being at her side.
She missed me so much that she often sighed, "I am afraid that I won't live to the day when Shyr-Chyuan finishes his studies and comes back." I did not want to postpone my studies; therefore I had to leave her in tears. In only half a month our parting became eternal! My heart aches. My regret lasts forever!
She was buried on April 28, beside my father as she had requested. My tears had not completely dried from the loss of my son, and now I was mourning my mother's death. Alas! Why is my life so full of misfortunes?
My late mother's name was Lun Tseng. She was born into a well-to-do family on May 28, 1867. For generations, her family had lived on a street near the Confucius Temple in Tainan. She was married to my father at age 26, one year his elder. She worked hard and spent thriftily. She sighed occasionally, "Since I was married to the Hahns, I have been preoccupied by housework. Therefore I have forgotten most of what I read." During her rare leisure time, she would recite for us what she remembered from the Chinese Classics. Every time I think of that scene my heart trembles.
My mother was very honest. She was trusted by her father with all of his valuables before she got married. Even when she was stricken with poverty, she did not want to take anything from her parents. In the year of 1895 the whole island of Taiwan was affected by the bubonic plague. When her eldest brother came down with the disease and wanted her to go to see him in order to settle the family estate together, she refused. She wanted to avoid giving people the impression that she was greedy. When her sister-in-law (eldest brother's wife) also died, the whole family estate fell into the hands of her second brother, who was a good-for-nothing pleasure seeker. Eventually the family's assets were all dispersed by him. What a pity.
I can recall my mother's lack of greed. She was content with what she had. She often ate peanuts with rice as a meal. In her middle age she raised pigs to help support the family. She worked on her three-inch bound feet. My medical education expenses were financed by income from the sale of the pigs. She labored all day long without a word of complaint. She was a helping hand to her husband and a teacher to her children, and it was her wish that they would succeed some day.
After the burial, we went to Japan again to start my research work. Kumamoto is a big city at the southern end of Kyushu. It is an oceanfront city with mountains in the background. The residents are simple, ordinary folk. I spent more than five years there. In the beginning I suffered from sciatica for almost half a year. My children were young, and they took turns entering the hospital with dysentery, poisoning, pneumonia, etc. - all kinds of childhood diseases. My wife and I endured many difficulties. We experienced endless frustrations. At the beginning of 1935, I lost my mother, and at the end of the year, I lost my father-in-law. He had an acute kidney infection. The time between his first diagnosis and his death was only a few months. He died on November 27, 1935. Thus my wife made her second trip back to Taiwan in the same year for her father's memorial service. My father-in-law had attended my mother's memorial service. Who had the foresight to predict that he would die half a year later? He was forty-nine when he died.
I began to settle down after my long illness, but another wave hit before the first wave subsided. Dr. Akashi decided to resign and open his own clinic because he could not overcome the competition from other schools. I had to transfer from Dr. Akashi's internal medicine department to the biochemistry laboratory under Professor Kato.
Professor Kato was a strange man, very talkative. Japan was at the height of its invasion of China. The so-called "Imperial Army" occupied city after city as easily as if they were cutting down one bamboo shoot after another. When Nanjing was taken, Mr. Kato's laboratory celebrated the occasion. They brought peanuts to the laboratory and held the peanuts and broke the shells in their hands to symbolize the breaking of Nanjing. [Peanut is called "Nanjing bean" in Japanese.] They were beside themselves with delight. I was the only one who remained silent throughout the event. Professor Kato was surprised at my attitude and asked me what I was thinking. I answered that I had different opinions. He did not ask any more questions.
Some Korean students at the school changed their names to Japanese names to please the Japanese. Professor Kato tried to persuade me to do the same. I replied to him that there was no suitable name for me and that my Chinese name implied "clear stream water flowing through the rocks". I was rather pleased with it, and besides no Japanese name could be better than the name I had. He was dumbfounded by my answer. Several times I wanted to quit my research work with Professor Kato, but my wife dissuaded me from doing so and comforted me. So I endured and continued with my study.
Despite his political and military views, Professor Kato was nevertheless eager in his guidance of my research work. I got along well with the other research fellows. Therefore my research went on smoothly. My topic of study was "Studies on Spleen Phospholipids". We used puppies as our experimental subjects. We must have used more than one hundred of them throughout the entire project. It cost eighty sen for a small dog and one yen and twenty sen for a big one. We bought our dogs from "dog catchers". There was a father and son team. They looked like beggars. The Japanese called them "dirty guys". They held ropes in their hands and roamed the whole city. Every time wild dogs saw them, they would bark and run away. During the war, the fur and skin of dogs were valuable. The people in the city of Amakusa eat dogs. More than ten thousand dogs were caught and killed in Kumamoto city alone. Japanese people even erected a temple called "Faithful Dog's Tower" to comfort the souls of the dogs that were killed. After a dog went through the experiment the laboratory guard would take it away and hang it because we did not have enough food to keep it. It was a cruel sight but there was no better way.
I spent my leisure time with my family. We climbed mountains, played at the beach, viewed cherry blossoms, collected shells, picked strawberries, chestnuts and oranges, and admired maple trees. Every trip was full of delight. At the year's end we enjoyed going to a hot spring that was located in a mountain called "Aso San" which was one hour's train ride from Kumamoto. We stayed at a resort hotel and soaked in the hot spring watching the snowflakes falling outside the window. Going there made you forget who you were and where you were. The scene stays in my memory forever and ever. Since returning to Taiwan I have longed to have the opportunity to enjoy it again. It is a shame that our weather in Taiwan is so monotonous, lacking changes and stimuli. It does not refresh one's spirit.
I hate being idle and love working. I often worked to the point of forgetting to eat or to sleep. It did not make any difference to me if it was day or night. My fellow research students called me "man of tirelessness". Because of the prolonged pressure, my old stomach ulcer acted up again. Pain and bleeding tormented me, but I could not stop and rest in the middle of my experiments. Consequently, I lost a good deal of blood and lost consciousness in the winter of 1939. I was in a state of collapse. My pulse was about 200. I was very weak. I tried to catch hold of myself in my dizziness, thinking that I would not and did not want to die in a foreign country. I was taken to Akashi Clinic and stayed in the hospital for two months. Dr. Akashi gave me two blood transfusions. My wife had type O blood, so she gave me 200 cc. on each transfusion. I recovered gradually, and eventually continued with my unfinished research work.
In April of 1940 I finished my work. I sent my wife and six children back to Taiwan before me. My third daughter, Shwu-Jen, was only ten months old. She caught the measles, complicated by gastroenteritis and developed pneumonia right before they left. Luckily the sulfa drug was just discovered. I used it together with the Japanese medicines Trianon and Adiplon instead of the old medicine to treat her. She recovered as a result of the treatment. As soon as my family reached Taiwan, Shwu-Jen exhibited symptoms of pleurisy because of the long trip. She became seriously ill. My wife asked my friend Dr. Chiu-Wei Wu to treat her and also appealed to me to come back as soon as possible. There was no regular passenger ship between Japan and Taiwan. I did not want to fly for reasons of safety. At last I took a merchant ship back. Shwu-Jen recovered.
In the autumn of that year, I received notice that the dissertation I had presented had been accepted. I went to Japan with Pei-Long, my clinic technician, to accept my degree and to thank my professors in person. On the way I went to Nagoya to visit my brother-in-law, Ya-Shu and my teacher, Mr. Sinka.
I resumed my medical practice at the same location after I came back from Japan. I built rooms for in-patient care. I had more patients than before and I was busier than ever. There was no time for rest all day long. Unfortunately, my elder brother Shyr-Yien died of an illness one year after I came back from Japan. He was only forty-nine years old, the age at which my father died. My brother was a loyal and simple person. He helped me with my clinic's daily affairs. When I was in Japan he kept my household in good order. It was such a painful experience that he did not recover from his illness.
It was the height of the Japanese military invasion of China. Every Taiwanese activity was subject to inspection. There was no peace left for the Taiwanese. In the winter of 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor by surprise. The wartime atmosphere was felt intensely. Secret police roamed everywhere and harassed people. In addition, the Japanese government increased their pressure on Taiwanese people. Disaster would befall you if you were not careful. People lived in constant fear. Military personnel and police were especially brutal. They controlled all the important products. Every day there were cases where people were accused of violating the economic sanctions. They drafted the young and strong Taiwanese, including doctors, into the army. A lot of young Taiwanese died on battlefields in foreign countries.
At the beginning of the war the Japanese army intended to take over all of mainland China. They proposed the so-called "New Order in East Asia" or "Mutual Prosperity in East Asia" to confuse the Taiwanese people. Every time they took over a city or occupied a territory they held great celebrations. Although a handful of Taiwanese went along with them, the great majority of the Taiwanese deplored in secret. They often bemoaned the Chinese army's weakness. Why did the Chinese not fight back effectively and resist? Every time Taiwanese people heard about the ordeals that the Chinese had suffered in the conquered territories, they pounded their chests and stamped their feet in dismay.
Japanese egotism reached extremes. The Japanese applied great pressure on Christians. They proclaimed that the Japanese Emperor was God, that his authority was above all others, even Jesus Christ. They appointed a Japanese to replace the English principal of the Christian school. No words against the Japanese Emperor were allowed. Once, at a party, a man carelessly mentioned that he had a daughter whose birthday was the same as the Emperor's daughter's. A secret agent overheard the talk and considered it disrespectful to the Emperor. The man was jailed and whipped.
The military police were cruel without reservation. I once witnessed an event that stimulated a great deal of my nationalist feeling. A farmer, in his hurry to get on a train, squeezed through some wounded Japanese soldiers. Right away he was caught by a Japanese military policeman and slapped on the cheek several times. He was also held and kicked by the police. Seeing the incident I could only swallow my anger and hold my tongue then, but I hoped that someday I could raise my eyebrows and let out my breath to rebut them. The Japanese government collected peoples' gold, jewelry and any ornaments that contained gold. If one hid away items and did not report them, one was severely punished. The act was like draining the water from a lake in order to fish - taking care of the present and giving no thought to the future. I believe that that was an omen of Japan's future defeat.
The Allied forces started to counterattack. After October 2, 1944, air raids on Taiwan became frequent. The cities of Kaohsiung, Shinchu, Chilung, Chiai, Yensuei and Tainan were most severely bombed. People had two different opinions about where to go for shelter. One was to go to the beach, another was to go to the mountains. The beachgoers reasoned that if the war lasted a long time, there wouldn't be enough food in the mountains, and besides, malaria prevailed in the mountains and the city folks that went to the rural area would be good targets for mosquitoes. The mountaingoers said that the beach was open to air raids and would be the first target if the Allied forces reached the shore. Later, the beachgoers were proven correct in their choice. The air raids usually started at nine in the morning and ended at three in the afternoon. The beachgoers could easily return to the city to go about their business. They also had fish to add to their diet and experienced no threat of malaria. The mountaingoers came back suffering from malnutrition and many of them were stricken with malaria. There were no statistics to prove it, but the death toll from malaria was greater than that from air raids. Tragedies of entire families dying of malaria were very common. The Japanese military took away all the medicine for malaria. Very little was left for treating ordinary citizens. We doctors tried our best to acquire them, but a cup of water can do nothing for a truckload of burning wood. Sometimes we could only leave it all to God.
The Japanese government kept the defeat of their navy secret. They still tried to deceive the Taiwanese by saying that they were waiting for the right moment to strike back. And yet knowledgeable persons could see their deceit. Japan appeared strong outside and yet in reality she was weak inside. One can tell that autumn is here when the first leaf falls from a tree. The Japanese' strong military songs gave way to sad melodies. The appearance of the "kamikaze" ["Kamikaze" was practiced by the Japanese Air Force during World War II. The pilot sacrificed his life to dive with his airplane into an enemy target.] revealed their end-of-the-rope situation. Japan's defeat was inevitable.
During the fifty years that Japan occupied Taiwan, the Taiwanese were oppressed. We had no freedom and no equal rights. The police and the secret agents fabricated stories to put innocent persons in jail in order to further their own standing. Although the Japanese judicial court knew of the false accusations, the court still imposed stiff sentences on the innocent, because they wanted to protect their political privileges. For example, the Tongkang Case, was a great big malicious conviction. Ching-Shyr Ou, who was sentenced to life without parole, was the victim of false police accusations. He died in jail when the Allied air forces raided Taipei in May of 1945. Mr. Ou graduated from a teacher's college and taught school for several years in his hometown of Penghu. Later, he went to Japan to study law and passed his Imperial Examination in two subjects - judiciary and executive. He practiced law in Taiwan after he came back from Japan. He had a great sense of Chinese nationalism. He hated the Japanese rule and did not want to associate with any Japanese. He was very outspoken about the Japanese oppression of the Taiwanese. When the Pacific War started, the Japanese organized "Defense Groups" in various places in Taiwan. Mr. Ou refused to cooperate with the Japanese. The Japanese authorities considered him a threat to their power and watched him extensively. That is why the Japanese police fabricated the Tongkang Case. They accused this group of people of trying to separate themselves from Japanese rule. They accused Mr. Ou of being the key member of the group. Therefore he was caught and punished with all kinds of cruel methods, which were nicknamed "air plane ride", "lobster sculpture", etc. Mr. Ou wrote some poems describing the cruelty of his punishment in jail.
Some of the key members of the case, Hai-Sui Wu, Chiang-San Chen, and Chen-Chang Kuo, were doctors. Mr. Ou came to visit me to convey my friend Jin-Nan's information before his arrest. I also sent a letter to Hai-Sui Wu one day before his arrest. I received his wife's letter and wondered what had happened. When the news of their arrests reached me, I was terrified that I would be connected. Luckily, it did not happen.
The most heartbreaking event in my life happened at one o'clock on March 1, 1945. It was on that day that Tainan received the first and most damaging bombardment. My heart shivers to this day, thinking of what happened. The human mind has no way of predicting or imagining this kind of disaster. Since October of 1944, when the Allied air forces started to raid Taiwan, we heard often about raids over Kaohsiung, but Tainan was relatively quiet. Some superstitious persons attributed it to Buddha's protection of Tainan. Some naive and optimistic persons thought that the Allied forces would not blindly bomb every city, but would instead bomb only military bases. They also thought that the Allied forces could see clearly from the sky the houses down below and see how densely populated Tainan was. So they felt rather sure that Tainan would be spared. I was not as naive and optimistic as those people, but I was too busy with my patients to take any precautions. Besides, my wife did not want to leave our house to go to the countryside. So we procrastinated in taking action. Only some of my books had been moved with my sister a few days before. The rest of my belongings stayed behind. Before Tainan was bombarded, some foolish citizens would even go outside to count the airplanes when they heard the warning sirens.
At eleven o'clock on March 1, 1945, the air raid siren went on. As usual, I went to Hochun Clinic to be on call. At noon, when the siren stopped, I went home for lunch, then took a thirty-minute nap. At one o'clock the siren went on again. I was putting on my clothes to go downstairs and saw my eldest daughter Su-Yin sitting at the stairs. I advised her to go to the Girls' Rescue Unit to be on call. [Girls over eighteen years of age were drafted to the Unit. Su-Yin was several months short of eighteen. She joined because her friend wanted her company and also because the Unit was short of members.] She took my advice and followed me out.
As soon as I reached Hochun Clinic the surrounding areas were bombed. A thunderous noise sounded and the earth shook. The shelves tumbled down and the windows broke. Glass was flying everywhere. There was no shelter in the clinic, so I hid myself under a sink. Half an hour later I ran home to check on my family members. I met them at the corner of the road to my house. Their hair, faces and bodies were all covered with dust. Su-Yin was not among them.
I sent a man to go to the Girls' Rescue Unit's meeting place to look for her. I ran to my clinic and my house. The middle and the last section of the building had collapsed, only the front section remained standing. The man came back and reported that Su-Yin was not with the unit. I started to get worried. I hoped in my heart that she was taking refuge at her friend's house, and that she would be home soon. But no news about her whereabouts came. Men were sent to look everywhere for her and could not find her. My feelings changed from worry to terror.
Three to four hours later, fire reached my clinic and my house. Seeing the flames reaching to the sky, I realized that my whole life's work was being burned to ashes! Why was I always hit so hard? Yet I could accept my material losses - I wished only for Su-Yin's safety. It started to get dark. I searched every place, only to meet burning flames and collapsed houses. People just stood and watched helplessly. The fire drills did not serve any use. When night fell, the whole city was dark except for the raging fire burning down houses. I was beside myself. I walked through all the streets knowing that the odds were against me. At midnight, I rested my tired body at my friend Sou-Lu's house.
The next morning I started the search again. I stood in front of my destroyed clinic with an aching heart. An acquaintance came and told me that Su-Yin was at her friend's place. I hurried off to see her without hearing the rest of the remarks. Su-Yin lay dead. The lower part of her body was covered by bricks and the upper part was burned to coals. I could only vaguely recognize her from the unburned remnant of her blouse. My heart was broken into pieces. What a cruel thing is war! Yesterday, Su-Yin was still a cute, lovely little girl; today, she was unrecognizable. This innocent little girl became the victim of human sin. How I hope that through her sacrifice human errors will not be repeated and that her sacrifice will be valuable and will replace the pain people suffer. If so, maybe Su-Yin's soul in heaven can have some consolation.
The whole city was in a state of fear and uneasiness. I hastily hired someone to help Liang-Kan carry Su-Yin to the house at Wen-Miau Road. We lay her down in the living room. We could not buy a coffin. It was very kind of Sou-Lu to give me the coffin which he had bought for his father. I suffered as painfully as if a knife was cutting into my flesh. I wondered why such misfortune fell upon me. The following morning at three o'clock, Pei-Long and a few persons carried the coffin to a new cemetery for burial. Such an innocent eighteen-year-old girl died on duty because she followed her father's advice. What an eternal farewell! On every windy morning and every moonlit night my pain is especially deep. I remember that a few days before her death she commented, "If I cannot avoid death during the war I hope I can die suddenly to avoid any pain." Alas! Had she been prescient?
About two thousand people died in Tainan on March 1st. Most of the bodies were wrapped in straw mats and carried by horse and buggy to the cemetery. The whole city was like hell. There were quite a few cases where all the people in a family or in a shelter died together. The shelter across the street from Pau-Mei Building received a direct strike - all thirty to forty people died, creating a mixture of flesh and blood. I had passed through there earlier, and luckily did not seek shelter there. Instead, I ran to Hochun Clinic. Otherwise I would have encountered the same fate as those people. Or if I had just taken a few more minutes to nap in my house, I would have died in a pile of rubble.
One bomb fell between my house and my neighbor, Mr. Chen's house. Fortunately my family members except Su-Yin, and my clinic staff all had taken refuge in a shelter. They escaped injury and death. In Mr. Chen's household, however, four were caught in the collapse of the house. Two of them were saved. Mr. Chen and his eldest daughter died before being pulled out. Mr. Chen was more than seventy years old. He had a comfortable and leisurely old age. It is sad that he had to die in that kind of ordeal. How unpredictable human misfortune and suffering are!
The city of Tainan was bombed several times. The first was on March 1; the following were on March 17 and May 23. A lot of people thought that the whole city would be destroyed. People wanted to sell their houses cheaply, but nobody wanted them. The price of a house was less than that of a bicycle. A bicycle was at least valuable for using for transportation to the countryside. What was left of all my belongings were one pedicab, one medicine kit for house calls, two benches, the clothes my family members had on at the time of the bomb, and six thousand yen in an account at the Tainan Savings and Loan. One microscope that I rescued before the fire reached my house was later destroyed at my friend's house.
In the afternoon of the day my house was destroyed my family left Tainan and headed for the town of Toshia. When they reached the town of Punanliau, Mr. Kai-Yin Wu cordially offered his place for us to stay. One month later a Japanese doctor, Dr. Yoshimura wanted to sell me all of the furnishings, equipment and medicines from his clinic in Tainan because he thought he was about to be drafted. We reached an agreement to move first and pay later. I hurriedly hired several carriages and waited in between raids to move things from Tainan to Punanliau. I got things ready to start my practice. My swiftness in action paid off, because Dr. Yoshimura's clinic was bombed several days later. I paid him four thousand yen on April 7. On September 26, after the war was over, I paid him the rest of the money. It came to six thousand five hundred eleven yen and seventy-nine sen in total.
The opportunity to buy Dr. Yoshimura's clinical equipment was a fortune amid misfortunes; otherwise I might not have been able to start my practice again. How long would six thousand yen have lasted for us? No doubt we would have been short of food and clothing, enduring hunger and cold. During my lifetime I encountered many difficulties and yet sometimes when I thought that there was nowhere else to go, I would see a village on the other side of the mountain where beautiful flowers were blooming.
My practice in the town of Punanliau lasted four months. Pei-Long Chen (lab technician) and Mi Chiang (pharmacist) helped me at my clinic. We also received some help of a personal nature from Mr. & Mrs. Wang-Li Chiang. My clinic was as crowded as before. Transportation for the house calls was the most difficult thing about practicing medicine in the rural area. I was not used to riding bicycles and the pedicab that was spared by the bomb was not efficient on uneven country roads. Luckily Pei-Long was able to carry me on the bicycle to house calls. We set foot on almost every corner of the area during those four months. This experience remains in my memory forever. One can tell another person's sincerity during difficult times. Those who were willing to help were not necessarily the "good friends" before. And some who showed affection before were indifferent or even avoided contact. What a pity! A few days after my misfortune my friend Mr. Hsu came to comfort me. Before he left he commented, "We never know when disaster will strike with the current world situation." A few days later when Tainan received the second severe air-raid Mr. Hsu and his daughter died together in a shelter in the city. His son-in-law, Mr. Tsai died of an acute illness a few days later even though he had been spared in the air raid. Such a tragedy! Mr. Tsai was an honest and a responsible person. He had his internship at my clinic after he graduated from medical school.
My second son, Liang-Shin, took the middle school entrance examination during the time when the air-raid sirens were frequent. Later, some parts of the school were moved to the town of Ta-Wan. Liang-Shin stayed at my friend Chan Liu's house during school days and returned to Punanliau on Saturday. On Sunday night he walked the dark and quiet country road back to Ta-Wan.
Two months before the war was over the Japanese government ordered some doctors who had moved to the rural area to come back to the city to practice. I was one of them. For the time being, I rented my friend Yuan-Han Yang's clinic to practice. In the evening I walked one-and-a-half hours back to Punanliau to my family. Often, on moonlit nights, there would be air raids, and I had no refuge except for running to and hiding under a little bridge and trembling throughout the raid. I could endure the hardship because of the stressful state of mind I was in. After the war was over I lost the courage to walk long distances; I have never tried walking alone during a dark night again.
Near the end of the war, the Allied airplanes came and went all the time. Often they came around nine in the morning and left around three in the afternoon. People alternately worked and hid between the city and the suburbs. People rejoiced after the day was over if they were still alive. I routinely took refuge at a fish pond during the raids. The Japanese government had some Taiwanese on their blacklist. They had secret agents keep track of peoples' hiding places. It was said that if the situation became serious, the agents were allowed to execute those people at any time, in any place. How dangerous it had become!
The Japanese army was getting greedy. They lost sight of their abilities and counted on their luck. Their bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 prompted the United States to join in the Pacific War. At the beginning of the war the Allied countries were on the defensive, later they took the offensive. After Italy and Germany surrendered, Japan was fighting by herself. It was just a matter of time before she would be defeated and surrender unconditionally. On August 15, 1945, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies after the tragic Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Cairo Declaration in 1945 declared that Taiwan was no longer under Japanese rule.
After the ceremony of surrender took place in Nanjing, General Ando Rikichi represented Japan in signing the surrender documents at Taipei's City Hall on October 25, 1945. On that day, the Chinese military took over control of the island.
A myriad of Japanese emotions surfaced after the surrender. Some cried uncontrollably. Some showed great anger. Some hated the Japanese military's atrocious behavior. Some stated that Japan was defeated by the United States, and not by China. Most of them were saddened by the experience. They changed from being arrogant and cruel to being meek and flattering. They acted like homeless dogs.
On the other hand, the Taiwanese people felt relieved of oppression and were in great joy. Those who had been ill-treated by the Japanese took the opportunity to seek revenge. The public prosecutors and the secret police were among those most severely punished. Those Taiwanese who were hired by Japanese and had acted big like a fox in a tiger's skin were also punished. Some of them turned around and pretended to be the most patriotic fellows. They stood in front of the crowd, raised welcome banners and sang welcome songs to the Chinese soldiers. Some of them who were relatively conscientious hid and regretted their actions. Those Taiwanese who had resisted Japan and had been loyal to China rejoiced in the outcome. They competed with each other in seeking favors in order to become active in politics.
The general crowd hung lanterns, played music, put up banners and shot off firecrackers. The sounds of joy were like thunder in the sky. Fifty years of oppressed hatred exploded like volcanoes. The enthusiasm the Taiwanese showed at every welcome or farewell party for the Chinese was enormous and without precedent. Reflecting upon that time now, it is like a different world. In those days people volunteered to learn Chinese and the Chinese anthem. Those over forty-five-years old were the most enthusiastic. I had some foundation in Chinese language. I did not want to fall behind, so I started to review my Chinese. I promised myself that I should be able to give a speech in Chinese within three month's time. My promise was realized. I even acted as a translator on several occasions and received praise from others.
[Pages 64 to 110 of the original memoir are omitted from this translation. They are about political activities in Taiwan between 1946 and 1950.]
March 31, 1951 was our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We held a ceremony on the third floor of our house. My good friend Pei-Ho had been our wedding witness twenty five years earlier. He made a special trip from Taipei to Tainan for our anniversary ceremony. We had a religious service at two o'clock in the afternoon. After the service I made a speech about our married life. The speech covered incidents from our first meeting, our engagement period to our life together, our struggles and our happiness - all the things that I have described in this memoir. I also emphasized four points;
At the end I introduced all of our children to the guests. I was full of happiness on that day, just as I was on our wedding night twenty five years earlier. Our friends and relatives gave us all kinds of gifts and expressed their best wishes to us. The next day, the Changhua Daily ran a detailed account of our ceremony.
The first three years after the end of World War II, I was director of the Kuomintang, Tainan branch. [My father actively participated in politics for the first few years after Taiwan was under the Kuomintang's rule. Later he was disillusioned by the Kuomintang and lost his interest in politics.] I also served as a senator from Tainan and the principal of Kuang-Hua Girls' Middle School. People in high positions or celebrities came to Tainan often. Every day we spent a lot of time at welcome parties, farewell parties, banquets, meetings, and ceremonies in honor of these celebrities. I did not have enough time for my medical practice. My financial situation became tight. It was hard to believe that people would put on such big, luxurious parties for these dignitaries. Thousands and thousands of people, from heads of institutions to elementary school students, would line up in the streets to welcome them. Flags were flown and flowers were presented. Most of the time, the dignitaries did not arrive on time and people had to stand under the hot sun waiting for several hours. Once some officer was to come to City Hall. All of the people working in City Hall had to line up outside the City Hall building for half a day! Sometimes people even went all the way to the rural areas to welcome the dignitaries.
In my opinion, these ceremonies are meaningless and superficial. I hated these activities and I also did not like to neglect my patients. Life is short. One should not spend so much time on these types of meaningless activities. Also there were many rules and many institutions that enforced them. On top of that, the rules were subject to constant change, which therefore resulted in poor efficiency in carrying them out. Although President Chiang advocated so-called, "New, fast, realistic and simple rules" to improve government efficiency, it was actually just the opposite. What a pity! There were complicated procedures at every level of government institutions. There was no trust among people. The decline of social morality was alarming. [This new Chinese government was also very oppressive; it was very courageous of my father to criticize the government like this.]
I rebuilt my clinic in 1949. Although the number of patients per day was not as great as before the war ended, I was rather busy. By now, I spent most of my time on my medical practice [as opposed to political involvement, between 1946-1949.] I could only have freedom when I left my clinic without letting anyone know where I was going. I was rushed at my nap time, meal time, bath time, and even when I took a short break. Often I had to get up in the middle of the night to take care of patients. It is ironic to classify the medical practice as a "free profession". In fact, there is hardly any freedom. When a patient on his/her deathbed retains the desire to live and yet cannot be saved, it is extremely difficult for the doctor to face the patient's relatives. A doctor may get some credit if his patient gets better. Often, however, a doctor has to take responsibility when his patient gets worse, even when the worsening condition was inevitable. Besides, it is easy for the patient's relatives, amidst their worry and anguish, to place the blame on the doctor. A doctor is in a very difficult position, indeed. Few families would still have faith in a doctor if a family member being treated by the doctor dies.
I have been practicing medicine for nearly forty years. All of the records I had accumulated were burned in the war. My work, Thirteen Years of My Life as a Doctor was published in the Shinming Daily during the Japanese rule. The Japanese government prohibited its publication in book form. My original copies were also burned. The work describes the psychology of patients and their families and my experiences in treating them. I constantly think about writing again, but day after day passes, and I do not realize my wish. I hope some day I will.
On the sixth anniversary of Doctor's Day, in 1953, I wrote a Doctor's Ten Commandments to remind myself of a doctor's duties.
At six o'clock in the morning on April 20, 1955, I woke up and habitually felt under my pillow for my watch of thirty-some years. Finding no watch, I realized that something unusual had happened. I got out of bed in a hurry and saw that a large drawer from the chest beside my bed was gone. I realized then that a thief had entered my bedroom. I woke my family members and looked for the drawer. We found it on the balcony of the third floor. The thief had taken all of the valuables and money, and left the things he did not want scattered everywhere. The loss was substantial. It was quite a strange experience for me. My bedroom was on the third floor, and the chest was right beside my bed. How could I have slept so soundly as to let the thief ransack so freely?
Several incidents gave the thief his opportunity. I had skipped my one-hour nap after lunch that day to accompany my friend, Mo-Te Chen, on a visit to the Tainan Red-Cross Hospital. Because I was more tired than usual, I fell asleep during my nightly newspaper reading at midnight. I usually drink a cup of tea before bed, but I fell asleep that night without drinking the tea. When I woke up the thief was already gone. My son Liang-Jiunn had forgotten to turn off the light after studying, which provided the thief with good working conditions. And finally, the windows and the door that led to the balcony were not closed, which also provided the thief with easy access.
I regretted not being more careful about checking the windows and the doors. I remember that several days before the thief came, I was warned by a neighbor and also by a friend about my house's lack of security measures, and I laughed it off, thinking that nothing would happen to me. Although I did not care much about the material loss, I could not forget the fact that someone had easily entered our home and freely moved about at my bedside. We notified the police and reported the stolen items.
Five months later, my wife's platinum bracelets were found in the display window of a jewelry store near our house. A detective was sent by the police to Taipei to work on the case. He caught a young, well-dressed man, who was brought to our house to re-enact the crime. He confessed that he had come in through our third floor from the roof at two o'clock in the morning, and stayed in our house for about an hour. He had sold all of the jewelry and spent the money on women and wine!
Jesus said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moths and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moths nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasures are there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6: 19-21)
I have recorded all of the important events of my life up to now. Sixty years is only a flash within the entire history of the universe. Nevertheless, it is a long time for a living being. In the past sixty years there have been two world wars. Taiwan has experienced Japanese rule and also a return to the rule of its mother country, China. Unfortunately, Taiwan is now under the threat of communism. The beautiful motherland that I dreamed of as a youth has fallen behind the iron curtain. It is hard to predict what the outcome will be for my beloved land, because of the ever-changing international situation, the complexity of the relationships among countries, and the loose cooperation and different opinions among free world countries.
I am determined to start anew at my old, yet energetic, age. I will forego the past and concentrate on the future. I believe that I have done my best in my past. Yet I will work even harder in my future. I will serve mankind with conviction and to the best of my abilities. I will not seek fame, nor give in to any threats. I will let my conscience be my guide, and pray to God to guide me to an eternal life. I will not hold material gain as the utmost goal. I will accept any path God shall lead me through. Although many fortunes as well as misfortunes have befallen me in my sixty years of life, I thank God for my present condition. No matter what happens later in my life I hope that I will not be affected by external circumstances, and that I will not feel sorry for myself.
I hope that my spiritual and my intellectual development will continue to grow to their fullest potential and that they will not be slowed by my aging physical condition. I may have wasted some of my time in the past. I will try to avoid wasting time in the future. The old Chinese saying goes, "An inch of time is worth an inch of gold." I would rather say it in a different way: "An inch of time is an inch of life," or "An inch of time is an inch of history."
I have spent most of my sixty years on my medical practice. Although I believe I have achieved some accomplishments, it is also unavoidable that I have made some mistakes. Maybe there were patients who could have been cured and yet who lost the chance of being saved. I prayed for the patient's family late into the night when that happened.
Nowadays, people in our society lack common sense. We hold onto our traditions and refuse to make sense of them. Thus it hinders our scientific and our democratic progress. I wish deeply for our fellow countrymen to keep those traditions that are worth keeping and improve upon them, and at the same time to forego those that are not worth keeping. Rather than boast about our ancestors' great achievements, we should work on our shortcomings. We should seek knowledge from the entire universe, and find truth from its depths. We should work for the welfare of mankind. We should depend upon our mutual trust and our mutual love. We should not envy those who are wiser, but instead cooperate and work together for our society's progress and our cultural enrichment.
My motive for writing this memoir is simple. It is only to present truthfully what has happened in my life to both my acquaintances and non-acquaintances. I have experienced successes as well as failures, peace as well as turmoil, the sweet as well as the bitter. There have been trivial, everyday events, as well as problems that are related to our country and our society. I shall entrust my future to God's hands. I hope that I do not have to endure severe tests again, but, if unavoidable, I shall accept them as God's will. I hope to perform pure deeds. I hope to show steps, no matter how small, that will lead to eternal life. My hope for my children and their children is that they accomplish the most they can in academic, spiritual and moral areas instead of placing too much emphasis on wealth, power, and position. If so, my wish, still unfulfilled, shall be fulfilled.
Finished in October of 1956.
Dr. Shyr-Chyuan Hahn died at the age of sixty-seven. He had a rather happy life in his later years - enjoying a good name as a doctor and as a philanthropist, seeing six of his older children go to good universities, and seeing three of his older children married.
He fulfilled his ambition of writing a book which would describe the psychology of patients and their families, and his own experiences in treating them: My Thoughts Accompanying My Treatment was published in Chinese in softcover. His wife inscribed the title on the book in calligraphy and his son, Liang-Jiunn, designed the book cover. Shyr-Chyuan Hahn also worked on writing a continuation of this memoir.
One week before he died, he managed to get away for one weekend in Taipei to attend the college graduation ceremony of his daughter, Shwu-Ching. Then he hurried back to Tainan to attend Kuang-Hua Girls' Middle School's graduation ceremony, which lasted all day long. (He was the chairman of the school's board of directors.) He had to rush back and forth between the school and his clinic in order not to neglect his patients. That same night he conducted a board of directors' meeting that lasted until midnight. The following morning he did not wake up - he died of a stroke.
Three years after he died, his colleagues, friends, relatives, and even high school students whom he had inspired, wrote articles in memory of Shyr-Chyuan Hahn. These articles have been collected and published in a book, Collected Articles in Memory of Dr. Shyr-Chyuan Hahn. Numerous other tributes to Dr. Hahn have been written in newspapers, magazines and books since his death.