Japanese Immigrants in Taiwan
In the spring of 2004, I lived in Hualien on the less-populated side of Taiwan. One of my short term jobs was to write a children’s story about the Japanese immigration in Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. There had been a Japanese settlement close to Hualien. The following is from my travel journal as it appears in my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, published in 2006.
March 24, 2004
I eventually pieced together that China gave Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after losing a war. In the early 1900’s, Japanese immigrants came to Taiwan to set up small communities and establish farms. Generally, they went into mountainous areas of Taiwan with aborigine populations as well as Taiwanese. Socially and environmentally, life was very different from Japan, which made the beginning very difficult for these new and unwelcome immigrants. After years of hardships and perseverance, the Japanese had thriving farms where they intended to stay. However, all Japanese in Taiwan were forced to leave almost overnight in 1945 after they lost World War II. The younger generation had never even been to Japan before.
There had once been such a thriving Japanese settlement not far from Hualien. A rotting old Buddhist temple from those days had recently been beautifully restored as a tourist attraction and a community center. While that period of history had been a sad time for Taiwan, they wanted to acknowledge their history and teach children about it. One of the people who hired me had hope that the center would become an English learning center for the poorer children whose parents couldn’t afford the private after-school English schools.
I developed the tale of a mythical Japanese family of immigrants and told the story from the perspective of the children in the family. Each week I go to a local sixth grade class to tell them one more chapter. Because their English level is so low, my partner is the principal of the school who translates the story into Chinese. I make a simple English lesson out of it and add a type of activity such as drawing or having the children enact what is going on in the story.
Another unusual job that came about through my newspaper ad has been assisting a professor at the Buddhist University in one of his upper level business classes. He lived in the U.S. for years and speaks English fluently. However, he wants his students to be forced to communicate with someone who can’t speak or understand Chinese. He feels so strongly that the students need to overcome their fear of talking to a native English speaker that he is willing to pay me most of his hourly salary for the three hours a week that I come.
Through my host family’s connections, I have several private students to tutor that range in age from high school down to elementary school. I particularly enjoy private tutoring because I always learn more about the culture through my students.
April 12, 2004
My time in Hualien is winding down to its end. The time of saying goodbye is hard. As a treat before leaving, my hostess took me, together with two high-school-aged students I’ve been tutoring, to an incredible spa in a mountain called Jiaosi. We spent the entire day dipping in hot springs that resembled an artists palette — the brown of added coffee, the deep pink of rose petals, the bright yellow of sulphur, the bright purple of I don’t know what.
In other pools, cleverly positioned jets and sprays squirted hot spring water, massaging our backs, chests, legs, and arms. There were steam rooms and saunas. And, when we were waterlogged, we dried out on wonderfully warm, relaxing stone floors. I left as wrinkled as a prune and wondering when I would ever be able to find such a fantastic watery playground again.
I bought some little gifts for my Hualien friends and host family and took them out to a good buffet as a small thank you for all they had done for me. My host family had insisted on weighing me when I first came to their home. Before I left, I had to get on the scale again to see how much I’d gained from the father’s great cooking. To his delight, I had gained three pounds. But, he had gained six!
The Hualien press was invited to the restored Japanese temple to observe my last lesson with my sixth grade students right inside the temple. The children’s drawings of the mythical Japanese family I had invented were hung around the temple compound. The children expressed their thanks to me with words and cards. One goal had been for these children to experience being close to a foreigner, and they showed how successfully that goal had been reached.
In so many ways, my time in Hualien has surpassed anything I had expected. I will leave this small city surrounded so picturesquely by ocean and mountains soon. Only one of many things I will miss are its city sidewalks of bright green stone that this area is famous for.
Tags: Hualien, Taiwan; Japanese occupation of Taiwan; Teaching in Taiw, Travel
