Time in Danville, affectionately known by my family as “Snoozeville,” is used to do just that – snooze. Danville – where my extended family lives – is not the most exciting place to visit, but this Thanksgiving, it’s been particularly relieving to decompress given life on campus. My grandparents are now mostly sedentary, so we spend quality time in the house.
I do miss the days when my grandpa and I would go to the local school to shoot some hoops. Towering over 14 year-old me, my grandpa at 6’2’’ would stand tall and wide, challenging me as I tried to shoot over his head. My grandpa was a center for his university basketball team, and my love for sports definitely comes from him. I remember when visiting my grandparents wasn’t characterized by lounging in the house, but rather, playing all the sports you could possibly imagine. To this day, the garage is still scattered with gear – tennis rackets, footballs, golf clubs, basketballs, etc. But now, they collect dust and deflate in the corner.
One thing that hasn’t changed is a sports game always playing on the TV. Maybe the volume’s a lot louder than before, but it’s still the same. I write this now, on the couch, as my grandpa mutters under his breath “笨蛋” (dummy) to the Michigan State men’s basketball team as they fail to rebound, letting University of Arizona make an easy lay-up. While he may not be able to play anymore, recent treatments (see: EMBP) have relieved some of his anxiety and depression symptoms and made him more lively, so I cherish comments like these.
My grandpa is a very proud and stubborn man, and he hates to admit that his health has deteriorated over the last few years. For example, it took us a while to convince him to wear hearing aids. It’s hard to watch this man, who taught himself English by reading Time Magazine, in such a vulnerable state. A continued tradition may be watching games, but I also watch my grandpa get burped every day, watch him apply tiger balm to his head every 10 minutes, and watch him ask the same questions over and over after forgetting people’s responses one minute later.
While my grandpa’s memory has been fading, his personality still remains. When I first saw my grandpa this break, a huge smile broke on his face, and he squeezed my cheek in that grandparent-ly way. He asked me where I came from multiple times (to which I responded “school,” multiple times). He asked me what my major was three times. Each time I told him, he smiled, patted me on the back, and told me how proud he was. At dinner, when my uncle was sharing thanks, my grandma gave me the side-eye and animated his face to make goofy faces. His memory’s not completely gone; he remembers the names of the technicians who supported his treatment last month. Small wins.
My grandpa comes from a family of scholars in China’s Fujian Province. For some more context, here’s a documentary, travel guide, and video clip on our family’s legacy. In our ancestral home, photos line the walls of those who have either received a PhD or ranked a general or higher in the army. My grandpa is on that wall, having received a PhD in Chemical Engineering.
Before his PhD, he went to Michigan State for his M.S. in Chemical Engineering, and it was there, at a Chinese Students group, that he met my grandmother who was getting her master’s degree in Mathematics. They learned that they lived a few doors down from each other on the same street in Taiwan. “Small world,” he said as he chuckled and shook his head, reminiscing their fond times together.
Most of our conversation circled around my grandpa’s family’s departure from China to Taiwan. The family had moved to Taiwan when my grandfather was a young child before the fall of mainland China to communists. One day, during the rebellion uprising in the mid-1940s, my great-grandfather was at work, and the workers – who were Native Taiwanese – warned him to not go home because the Native Taiwanese were threatening the Chinese immigrants. Some Native Taiwanese showed up to my grandfather’s home and threatened my great-grandmother. Quick facts for context: The Fujian province, where the Chen family is originally from, is considered by some Native Taiwanese to be their ancestral home – a part of mainland China that most resembles Taiwan. The MinNanHua dialect is similar to that spoken in southern Fujian.
Because of the Fujian/Taiwan relationship, my great-grandmother happened to know a little bit of the dialect, which gained her some trust from the rebels. She urged them to not hurt her children who were sleeping and instead take anything they wanted. They took a bedspread full of goods and left them safe. My grandfather then told me (3 times) that a month later, Chiang Kai-Shek’s supporters were killing innocent groups of Native Taiwanese – if even groups of two were together, they would be shot. He said that the Chinese refugees were scared and knew to stay in, but a lot of Native Taiwanese were killed. Each time my grandpa recounted this story, he repeatedly told me how it was horrible and scary. In fact, because of this incident, my grandfather, his siblings, and my great-grandmother left Taiwan and moved back to China. My great-grandfather stayed.
However, when the communists truly took over China in 1949, my grandfather and his family fled back to Taiwan. This time, they took a freight boat – the only mode of transportation they could get. His older brother and sister chose to stay in China – the communists were successfully pulling in / recruiting the young. Only 6, my grandpa, his mother, and three other siblings went to join my great-grandfather, who was managing the Taiwanese railroad system (something my grandpa told me three times in this story). There they stayed until my grandpa came to the U.S. for graduate school.
Parts of this story are ones that you can find online… The Chen Family dynasty, the February 28 Massacre directed by Chiang Kai-Shek, the Chinese Revolution of 1949… But hearing the story from my grandpa – even with his fading memory – made it much more personal.
The history books fail to provide color and reveal all the complexities of these major geopolitical events. I didn’t realize how much animosity there was between Native Taiwanese and the Chinese refugees until my grandpa told me what it was like when he was at school, in the stores, at work, etc. The Taiwanese and Chinese shared the same enemy (the communist Chinese), and yet, there was such a divide. It made me wonder where else might we see this same dynamic occurring in history.
There were many reasons why I asked my grandpa about his past in Taiwan. With his memory fading, I was hoping to get his memory muscles working again. On the same end, I want to preserve these stories. He lived through the White Terror and has endured through so much, and these stories deserve to be told.
I can’t do his stories justice. All I have is what he has to share today. I don’t know if his recounting of these stories in a distant, non-emotional way protects himself from reliving those painful times or a consequence of his fading memories. Regardless, the best I can do is share who he is from what I know.
Whether it’s time spent on the couch or on the court, embrace those imperfect little moments with the people you love. These invaluable moments of connection are what I’m grateful for today and everyday, and I’ll hold onto them for as long as I can.
爺爺, 我愛你。 敢按節快樂。
