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Welcome to the Hearts in

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Taiwan podcast, where we explore and

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celebrate our connections to Taiwan. I'm Angela, and today

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it's just me and my mom.

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One of the things we appreciate

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most about this podcast is that we

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recorded the conversations we had

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with our parents when we interviewed

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them for our first episodes. This project spurred me to have new

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conversations with my mother, other than

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those centered around our daily lives,

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and as a result, I've been able to

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understand her as a person better.

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A story she told me recently was

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entertaining in several ways, so

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I thought you might enjoy it too. And then afterward I'll share a

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little bit more about why this

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story has deeper meaning to me. So my mom recently almost lost her

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physical photo albums, which she's

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kept since her time in Taiwan. That spurred me to finally get off my butt

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and, scan them with an app on my phone.

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And then on Mother's Day, I showed

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the photos to her and I hit record

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on my phone's voice notes feature

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to ask her about some of the photos.

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This is the story she told me about one

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of the photos in which she's smiling and

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walking on crutches as a young woman.

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For context, my mom went to Tsing

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Hua University in the sixties for

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college, which is a couple of hours away

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from Taipei where her parents lived.

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If you wanna see the photo we're talking

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about along with some other photos I

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searched for to illustrate this story, see

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them on our Instagram or Facebook page.

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That is because every

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morning we have to ride down the

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bicycle to attend this morning service.

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Can you believe it? You know, to sing the national

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song and then raise the flag

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every morning, you have to do that

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almost like a military school.

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Can you believe it? And then we ride the bicycle down

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from the uphill, from the dormitory

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to this to this underground. The school is like on the half in the

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mountain, and then the flat surface has

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a, like a oval shaped ground, grass.

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And then around it is all like a driveway

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car can driving and of course bicycle can.

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And then we all going down from

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the dormitory it's in, early in the

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morning and I was riding the bicycle

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and then I had to turn this way to

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go to the, like a place to park.

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Then I can go into this green

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grass where the ceremony is.

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But when I was turning, you know, you

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know, when you have a sharp turn and

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then, you know, maybe I was not so good. So I was totally thrown away

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thrown to the bike, you know,

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like the, the, you fell off.

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Yeah. I fell off and fell off and then

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totally thrown on the ground.

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And then. Of course, then the,

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the leg hurt very much.

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And then that's of course my good

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friend, you know, behind me, you know,

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trying to hold me up and then take

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me back to the, at, to the dormitory.

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Maybe that's after the ceremony. Like, you know, when you, usually,

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after the ceremony, you go to your

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first class, whether your calculus

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or your physics class, whatever, but

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that day, then she took me back there. And then even our dormitory we

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have like 教官 (jiào guān), like

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a supervisor, she's a military.

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Supervisor, but she worked in our school

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especially for the girl's dormitory.

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She's the only person that means she's

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very authorized to make any decision.

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And then she saw me and then

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say, oh just be careful.

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And then this friend of

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mine actually took me.

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She said, oh, she know acupuncture

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or something in the downtown

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in Hsinchu, in downtown. So she offer, so she

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took me to that place.

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Huh? No walk. No, of course. I sit on her bicycle.

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I cannot walk. Of course. You know, and I cannot bike myself.

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So I, you know, at that time

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sitting on people's bike is a very

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common transportation because,

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you know, you know what I mean?

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Right. At that time only the women's

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bike have a, have a, have a, this

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bar for you to sit down there. So she, she took me down to downtown, to

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this person, who is like a acupuncture

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and they don't have xray or anything. They just take a look at my

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ankle and say, oh, it's twisted.

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So she want to twist back. And I was crying.

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I was so painful. What? Right. But anyway, she said, okay, go home

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and put this something on the outside,

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you know, just to try to prevent the,

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the blood to spread or something.

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Mm-hmm so a wrap bandage wrap, not, not

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a wrap is like sound some, some medication

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to, so your skin or something that way.

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But anyway, it's so bad. Half, fortunately that then Friday

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I took the train back to Taipei.

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So because when we living in the

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dormitory, there we not, everybody go

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back home every week, you know, only

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once a week, once a month, maybe mm-hmm

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And that week I happen to

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be going back to Taipei.

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And so when your granddad, when my

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father saw my leg, he was so angry.

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He said, I have to take

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you to see a real doctor.

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And then of course the first thing

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that real doctor do is to x-ray.

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And when you do the x-ray, then you

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find out, it says a broken ankle.

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Thank you otherwise. And the wonder it was so, so, so painful

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when you twist it a broken ankle.

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And then of course, then this

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person is a Western medication,

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so x-ray, and then put a.

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So the cast you cannot remove

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for almost a month, so I'm really

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protected by the cast, right? That's why the all this is the cast look

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to protect it and can my, my father was

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so angry because that person not only

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no cast the Chinese people to twist it,

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Worse. I know. That's why I was so painful, oh man.

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See those people, they don't have any

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x-ray and they just, you know, whatever.

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So that take a whole month to,

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before I can take out the cast.

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Can you believe it? So how can I go to from the dormitory to

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the, yeah, so every day, oh, that's a,

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that's a friend of my, in my own class.

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Okay. he's the one who very nice.

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He organized my whole classmate

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mm-hmm did I say my whole class are 45

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student, 44 boys and me only the girl.

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So he arranged Monday.

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These two people take care of you

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drive her to, to the class, you know?

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So I would sit down on, on top of

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the bicycle bar and go to the work.

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And then the next day. The other dormitory, the other, I mean, he

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arranged that for me for the whole month.

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You couldn't, you can ride both

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the boys men's and the girls bikes.

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Oh, actually the boys bike.

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I don't think they have a

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place, you know, so they, right.

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Yeah. Bar is flat.

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You're right. No. And he, for some of

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them, they are so nice.

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Put a seat for me. Okay. Okay. No, it's the, the, this supervisor

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in my dorm dormitory, he ordered

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he went to maybe a maintenance

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person and he made a seat for me.

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That seat would fit into the

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bike so I can sit on the seat.

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Can you believe it? So every day it's a different, different

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dorm, different room responsibility.

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Then you take this, you know,

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then you can take to school.

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I'm sorry. But anyway, see, I am the

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only girl in that class.

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Can you believe it? And, but anyway, I was never

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intimidated by them because

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maybe I grow up with two brother. What do you think?

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so I never have any problem. Mm-hmm . But anyway, so after a

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month, you know, it was taken down

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and you know what I was, so I was so

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I should express my gratitude to them.

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So I told my father, and then we

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all went to a shop to buy the, the

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ping pong set that, so every dorm

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room get a one set of ping pong.

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Aw. That's why they, they become so

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good at ping pong play because

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they all play against each other,

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You gifted to the whole class?

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Yeah. Each room, get a one set.

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Wow. So it's like a, it's only ping pong.

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It's only two, two the paddles.

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So two paddle plus one,

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one set of ball, the pong.

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And then what about the net? You, you had to go to a table somewhere?

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They have, they, they know

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how to pay themselves tables in the, yeah.

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They have in their dorm

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to know where to play.

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Maybe not everybody have the set, so they,

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they have to rotate among themselves.

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But now every, every room have a set. That's why eventually they, they set a

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competition between the two of which room

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has a, it, it is between them anyway,

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but at least, I mean, that's a fun story.

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Yeah. For our class. That's cool.

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So my mom repeats this story and

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another story like it, whenever she gets

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the chance and a common theme among

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the two stories is how her father came

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to her rescue by advocating for medical

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care, when she was seriously hurt.

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Her father or my grandfather died before

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I was born, so I only know of him through

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photos and my mom's occasional mentions.

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In the context of present day, like

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this year of 2022 lately on social

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media, I've been noticing that a lot of

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people celebrate how their parents are

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constantly offering them cut up fruit as

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a non-verbal way of saying, I love you.

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And I see this as a healing process,

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where second generation Asian

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Americans are learning to recognize

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their parents' love languages, which

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are different from how we expected love to look based on what we

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saw in mainstream media and at

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our non-Asian friends houses. Except my mom, wasn't interested in the

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kitchen at all, so she didn't do the cut

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fruit thing or the food is love thing.

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And so I've had to look

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harder for how she shows love.

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I should also mention that she raised

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me as a single mom, so I really felt the

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full force of her parental attention with

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no other family members to deflect to.

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So back to my mom's story, when I

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listened to my mom talk about her

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father, I think she felt the most loved

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by him when he was advocating for her.

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She's a very self-assured person, and is

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really proud that she didn't need much

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help from anyone for most of her life.

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But the two times that she

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did need help, he saved her.

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Other times that she's talked about

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him, she talks about how stern he was.

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And I think it's really just a

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justification for how strict her parenting

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was to me and how she's not that bad by

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comparison to him, but in the incidents

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of these two stories, his anger was

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directed outward in protection of her.

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So for me, that reminds me of the

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many times that I've heard my mom

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arguing on the phone with various

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customer service representatives

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and me just being glad that she's

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yelling at somebody else and not me.

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So by recognizing this pattern, I can

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kind of see how the way she experienced

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love from her father probably shapes how

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she translated that into how she could be

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the best parent she was capable of being.

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As I mentioned in our last episode

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where we talked about tiger parenting,

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I'm trying to break unhealthy

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patterns in my own parenting.

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So in the show notes, I'll link to

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a couple of Instagram accounts that

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I follow, which celebrate how Asian

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Americans can connect with their parents.

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I'll also provide a link to the

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app that I use for photo scanning.

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I've used it for years and it's amazing

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at scanning physical photos without the

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glare when I don't have the patience for

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using a flatbed scanner or like the photos

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are so old, I don't even wanna touch them. Cuz in my mom's photo albums, they're

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kind of stuck to the pages with that glue.

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And so I didn't even wanna like take them

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out of the album to put them on a scanner.

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And the best part is the app is

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free and now I have the photos

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safe and digitized in case anything

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happens to the physical copies.

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By the way, thanks also to our supporters

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who have bought us a boba through the

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link at the bottom of our show notes. This episode is the product of new

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editing software that we're trying out

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thanks to your donations. Once again, you can see the photo

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behind my mom's story at @heartsintaiwan

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on Instagram or Facebook, and you

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can comment or message us there to

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let us know your thoughts or you can

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email us at [email protected].

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Until then, follow your

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curiosity, and follow your heart.