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“Jade Islands”
June 21st, 1988
Hi again, Uncle Mitch and Janet,
I was 20 when I landed in Taiwan and I’d never met a Chinese, eaten Chinese food or studied Chinese history. My knowledge of China derived entirely from the TV shows Bonanza (Hop Sing, the cook) and Kung Fu. I felt betrayed when, years later, I learned that Kung Fu star David Carradine wasn’t even Chinese.
An Air Force captain briefed me on China. Though ancient China was a marvel that had in-vented everything from perfumed toilet paper to pi and ice cream, modern China had an army of 200 million bent on devouring the entire world from Vietnam to Vegas. “Do not underesti-mate them,” the captain warned, “In the world today, one in four people are Chinese.”
I laughed. “Sir, our family has 4 people and none of us are Chinese.” The captain didn’t laugh.
I knew the only way I was likely to return was in a pine box so I wrote my will and gave my Chevy Nova to my sister. But Taiwan was not the end of my world but a window on a new world. The Air Force, true to its promise, had bypassed the moon and flown me to a completely different planet.
Taipei airport was a shock for a 20-year-old who’d never been outside the U.S.. For one thing, it was loud – a cacophony of horns, bike bells, shrill brakes, fruit vendors and pancake peddlers. And everyone was shouting. I had read that Mandarin Chinese had 4 tones but it sounded like only one tone: loud. No wonder the 19th century Amoy missionary, John Mac-Gowan, wrote, “Chinese love loud.”
The sergeant assigned to meet me in Taipei never showed. After waiting a couple of hours, I used hand motions and made “Whoo whoo, chugga chugga” sounds to ask a Chinese youth how to find the train to Taichung. He replied in perfect English, “I’ll take you there.” He laughed and added, “Whoo whoo, chugga chugga.”
I bought the cheapest train ticket, which landed me in a cattle car for 8 hours with squatting peasants and their goats, chickens and pigs. But I relished every aromatic moment as we snaked slowly past exotic villages set amidst emerald rice paddies, stopping at every one-ox town. I bought a box lunch, but instead of a burger I got a pork chop, tea egg, pickled veggies and rice – and two sticks instead of a fork. I ended up tossing the two sticks and eating with my fingers. The Chinese stared at me; some chuckled. But as a friend from India once said, “I know where my fingers have been, but you never know where a fork has been.” I supposed that ap-plied to chopsticks as well.
By the time I reach Taichung’s CCK Airbase that evening, China was in my blood – or at least the Taiwan patch of China. One year later I received an Inviation Letter straight from the heavens.
Scraping By By 1976, we had only a few token missiles in Taiwan, so our officers went to great pains to justify our continued presence. They called their solution “Mission Preparedness.”We called it “busy work.” Instead of using my two years of missile training to help save the Free World from the Apocalyptic “Yellow Peril”, I was armed with single-edged razor blades, rubber gloves and vats of trichloroethylene and ordered to scrape the paint from our missiles and their containers and repaint them. It took us five months – and then they ordered us to do it again. When we mutinied, they defused us by granting us 4 1/2 hour workdays, four days a week. I was so excited that I volunteered for a second year in Taiwan – and prayed the Air Force would not send me to Greenland on sheer principle.
I spent my free time playing ping pong and racquetball with Chinese airmen and practicing Kung Fu each evening with bald monks in a temple. Even though I barely made it past the first level, I was asked to play a blonde villain in Taiwan Kung Fu movies. I declined.
Combining 30 days annual leave with 3 day weekends and holidays allowed me to spend almost a fourth of my time biking and hiking every corner of Taiwan. I was probably the first person to cycle completely around the coast, carrying my bike on the bits with no road. I used the bike ride to raise funds for a children’s hospital run by Norwegian missionaries. People in Taiwan had never heard of a “bike-a-thon” but caught on quickly and donated generously. But when I tried it a second time, a truck crashed my bike and the base commander grounded me, so I hitchhiked. I caught rides on farm tractors, dump trucks, semis, motorcycles – even oxcarts. I slid down the polished marble rocks of the 19 km. Taroko Gorge and bathed in hot springs known only to local farmers. I used rocks to form a hot pool in a cave. A year later, it had become a resort, with a steep charge for admission.
In remote mountain villages, I terrified peasants who’d never seen a foreigner. The sun had burned my skin deep brown and bleached my hair almost white, and I wore clothes I’d had made from thin, white Chinese grave cloth to survive the sweltering heat. “Devil!” Some villag-ers screamed! But an elder who remembered World War II said, “Foreign devil!”
I took a blond, blue-eyed Frenchman to one mountain village. A boy yelled, “Americans!”The Frenchman protested, “I’m not American.” The boy stared, then asked, “Chinese?”
I loved Taiwan foods, though balked at some delicacies. Elders of one mountain village milked a cobra’s venom into a shot class, added rice wine, and offered it to me. The village head grinned and said, “For honored guests!”
“I have no honor. You drink it!”
“It will make you virile!” he insisted.
“I don’t need it,” I said. Their eyes widened. “That not what I meant! I’m single!” Rather than offend them, I drank the venom. I’d been told it was deadly only if you had ulcers or cuts in the esophagus. I was sure I didn’t have ulcers – at least until after I’d drunk the venom.
It is no wonder the Portuguese called Taiwan “Formosa”, “Beautiful Island.” It has more natural beauty and diversity per square mile than anywhere else I’ve been. I hiked Jade Mountain, the world’s 4th highest mountain on an island, explored deep, misty valleys that a century ago were home to headhunters (probably ancestors of the folks who served me cobra venom), and ascended Ali Mountain on a small Japanese train that looked like a toy beneath a Christmas tree. But my favorite spot was the white sands of Eluánbí (Imperial Goose Nose鹅銮鼻).
Seeing Red The Jade Island, like most gems, is beautiful but small. As island fever gripped me, I spent more time on the beaches, gazing across the Taiwan Straits – curious about the “Yel-low Peril” that we fancied we kept at bay with our few dozen missiles. And like Newton and his apple, the answers to my questions dropped right on my head.
By 1976, both sides of the Strait were launching not weapons but words. Taiwan propa-ganda balloons frequently deluged the mainland with literature, candy and trinkets like cheap watches, but Beijing graciously reciprocated. And as yuánfèn would have it, one batch of Red propaganda landed dead center upon CCK airbase as I was walking to my dorm.
Like ants on the scent of sugar, soldiers scurried out of the woodwork and stuffed the con-traband leaflets into sacks. I had no interest in the leaflets because I could not read the Chinese, but the soldiers screamed, “Don’t look at them!” When they added, “Touch them and you go to jail!”, I knew they had to be good.
I bent to tie my shoes, stuffed several leaflets in my pocked, and returned to my dorm room. I locked the door, drew the curtains and pulled the contraband from my pockets. I could not read it, and would not have believed anything anyway, but I was startled that the Mainlanders resembled the people in Taiwan I’d come to love. Until then, I’d never thought of Mainland Chinese as people, only as the Enemy. After all, you don’t really think about killing real people, with real lives and families. Killing an anonymous, generic enemy is a different matter – especial-ly when hi-tech can exterminate them from a distance at the push of a button no different than the controller on a video game.
I tried to learn more about the Mainland but Taiwan censored everything that mentioned Communist China – be it magazines, novels, dictionary definitions. They blanked out entire lines, paragraphs, even pages. But I persisted, and when I learned that 3/4 of the residents in Taiwan were related to Mainlanders, I determined to someday visit the other side of the Strait –though I was careful to not say anything to either the people in Taiwan or my own superiors. Had I betrayed my intentions then, I might not have ever left Taiwan, and certainly would not have been recruited to be an OSI agent.
My Best Wishes,
Bill