Even When the Waves Crash, the Mountain Stands

When looking back at those days, I marvel at how far I have come. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe I will never find out.

My journey began in Nantou City, Taiwan, on June 6, 1938. Yes, that certainly was a long time ago. Back then, Nantou City was purely a rural farming community. It is in the middle of mountains and a river, and is only miles away from the everlasting kiss of the Pacific Ocean. I grew up as the third of five children, virtually the middle child, of my parents, Lin Zhuanchen and Lin Hongzu. Father worked as a goldsmith and my mother came from a poor family, so she was uneducated and illiterate. Even with my father’s career, we were poor, but we did our best to get by with what we had.

Not long after I was born, my father started drinking to cope with our financial strain. But it was something else that would begin our family’s capsize. In 1939, my two-year-old sister fell asleep in the corner of a room. Her tiny body silent and still. Someone who was wearing the Japanese-style Geta wooden sandals accidentally stepped on her, crushing her little body beyond recognition. This death devastated my parents.

The death and our financial strain weighed down on my father. On top of caring for his own family, with ages ranging from the oldest being six to the youngest being just a newborn, my father was also supporting his younger brother, who at the time was studying in Tokyo to become a lawyer. It did not take long before my father’s regular drinking became complete alcoholism.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

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