Graduation Taiwan Style With the President
Having just returned from a friend’s graduation, and watching President Obama and Michelle Obama address graduates reminded me of that 1991 Graduation Day at Providence University in Taichung, Taiwan, where I was a teacher.
There was a different air around the campus yesterday in addition to the pollution. It was graduation day, and since this may be my only year as a university professor, I wanted very much to go.
The campus had flags flying and was filled with happy parents, grandparents, and siblings all busily taking pictures of their daughters, granddaughters, and sisters in their black caps and gowns. It is a Taiwanese tradition for the girls to carry a bouquet of beautiful flowers. And so the girls made a wonderful garden together.
I went into the auditorium, which had been transformed into a garden too. The front of the stage had several large pots of flowers with ribbons and Chinese writing. As a professor, I got to sit in the front row. Soon after I walked in, the ceremony began. All the officials of Providence University marched in, plus what looked like an important man because of several security guards. The guards were not dressed in uniforms, but they all looked alike in navy blue silk suits, intense watchful eyes, and one earphone.
I wondered at all the security, but I had never been to a big event here, so I thought it might just be normal. Two people sitting next to me were asked to move and were replaced by two silk-suited men.
Not understanding the speech in Chinese, I entertained myself by watching the security guards. The ones next to me never took their eyes off the speaker. There were three men on each side of the stage, but not on the stage, whose eyes continuously swept over a very defined area of each part of the audience. When some people from the audience crowded forward to take pictures, the security men next to me got nervous.
I looked at the cameras. It was better than a camera exhibition, and presented enough money to build a small university. After the crush of photographers left, a young man came up with two magnificent Nikon cameras with different lenses. He very carefully arranged each photo before taking it. The slow, deliberate way he framed each picture reminded me of the way one of my Chinese friends takes pictures.
When the important man finished his speech, all the security men rushed forward to flank him as he walked out of the auditorium followed by the enthusiastic camera-clicking group. I asked the man next to me who the speaker was. “The President,” he said. “The President of what?” I innocently and ignorantly asked. His reply, however, was drowned out. Later, I learned that it was indeed the President of Taiwan.
I loved watching the students receive their degrees and have their tassels placed on the opposite side of their mortarboards to signify “graduate.” There was an orchestra playing traditional Chinese music as the graduates marched. How nice to be at a Chinese graduation! However, I felt sad that my students in mainland China graduated without any ceremony, caps and gowns, pictures, or bouquets.
While watching the ceremony, I had a little chat with a very huge picture on stage. In the Chinese way of idolizing leaders, the huge picture was placed on the even huger flag of Taiwan, which I’ve been told is also the Kuomintang flag. I thought the good-looking face up there belonged to Chiang Kai Shek, the Kuomintang leader, and I thanked him for my good 18 months in Taiwan. I was later told that this beloved man was Sun Yat Sen. But, perhaps he would forgive me, a dumb foreigner, for such a mistake.
I doubt I could have been happier had it been my own graduation. I thought back to how I had cried in 1983 on the day I received my Master’s of Social Work and knew I was soon to leave the U.S. to emigrate to Israel. It’s only a ritual, to be sure. But I have come to appreciate such rituals.
Tags: Graduation in Taiwan; Providence University; teaching i, Travel
