One last look...

190213

One last look at the view from the living room window of the house my mum last lived in. She moved there around four years ago. I've stayed at that house for months, weeks, many, many days. Most of those days were difficult, as it was through a period when life was toughest on mum, and death seemed always lurking around the corner. Some days were so beautiful, filled with memories of family gathered together, filled with laughter and smiles, filled with the sound of tv in the background, or the echo of mum chatting with my brother and skyping with my nephew on the computer.

I didn't realise the last time I saw that house would be the last time. Over the past few weeks, much of mum's possessions have been "dealt with". Most donated, some given away, and the rest--- I don't know what happened to most things. I only got a phone call two days ago to say the house has been emptied and that my belongings, or what I have previously said I wanted, have been packaged in boxes and shipped. They will be shipped to me here in Canada. What is inside them I will not know...

In the meantime, after two weeks of little contact, my brother told me the painter came to give the place a new coat of paint, so did an estate agent. Soon, it is the hope, the place will be rented out.

I don't know when it happened or how it happened. But my share in the house my mum last lived in was sold. All I know is an amount of money is now "mine".

I am sitting on an amount of money. Several figures, more than I have ever seen and perhaps will ever see. It feels so empty to have a sum on my bank account, so meaningless. And that sim is supposed to represent the value of the home I lost, the home which holds so many memories, mumories and so much more.

All sold, all packaged in boxes, all in the past now...

Hospital visits

8 visits to the CyberKnife surgeon, over 100 visits to the oncologist, mum's main physician, over 60 visits to the neurosurgeon...

Records do not lie. They reveal the unbelievable extent of mum's visits to the hospital in the course of the last six years. Brother went to the two hospitals where mum received her treatments to collect all the documentation necessary to file insurance claims. And the records prove that over the span of six years, mum has undergone such an ordeal. Her will has been so strong, she has been so brave, but the cancer is stronger. Too strong and now she is much weakened and close to defeat...

In and out, in and out, and in recent months more time has been spent in the hospital than outside of it. Appointments, checkups, indices, scans, blood tests, consultations filled with hope of treatment, and consultations filled with dreadful diagnoses and expectations of the worst to come. It has been such a long, long and difficult journey. One that mum embarked mostly on her own.

And it is perhaps coming to an end now that the hospice agreement has been signed. From now on, it is just a matter of treating the symptoms, soothing pain and reducing suffering.

2-28

Memorial plaque on Green Island, a former penal colony:

In that era,

How many mothers

Wept through the nights

For their children imprisoned on this island?”

Exactly 65 years ago, began a terrible tragedy in Taiwan's modern history. A scuffle broke out in downtown Taipei when policemen confiscated contraband cigarettes sold by a simple lady trying to make a living. The police fired into the crowd and killed many people. A mob gathered. More people were killed. Martial Law was declared, and Taiwan descended into chaos as the military ran amuck all over the island, shooting people, arresting people. 28 February 1947 (2-28)marked the beginning of the massacre of tens of thousands of Taiwanese people, and the beginning of close to forty years of Martial Law.

It was not just a simple scuffle caused by the  confiscation of contraband cigarettes. Taiwan, a part of the Japanese Empire prior to WWII, was delivered to the Chinese Nationalist government under trust. It was commonly agreed that a more permanent solution to the status of Taiwan would be sought after the dust has settled. The Chinese Nationalists came with their administrators and army, took political control and nationalised all assets. Fighting a Civil War against the Communist Chinese, they plundered Taiwan and shipped everything to China to sustain their war efforts. Inflation was rampant on the island, so was crime, disease and lawlessness-- all these social ills did not exist under the Japanese colonisation. As a saying goes at the time: "The Americans were merciful on the Japanese. They only dropped the atomic bomb on them. They dropped the Chinese on us". 

Social injustice was brewing, for Taiwanese people were treated like second-class citizens in their own homes. Many Taiwanese could read and write, many studied in Japan and had university degrees. The influx of Chinese Nationalists saw these people as "traitors" and "Japanese lackeys" and stripped them of their professional positions. The Chinese soldiers came and took everything valuable. They were uneducated, rude, and spoke a foreign language, Mandarin Chinese, which the vast majority of people at the time did not understand at all. My grandparents were Japanese citizens, grew up speaking Taiwanese and Japanese. These foreign Chinese people suddenly arrived in their homeland and were parading the streets like they were the overlords.

The events leading up to the scuffle on the streets of Taipei, and which spread to other cities throughout the island on 2-28 was an accumulation of pent up anger and frustration. Colonised by the Japanese, and now the Chinese came... what happened to the idea of self-determination that the world was so fond of in all former colonies? The Chinese Nationalist government made a mess of the economy, and corruption was rampant. Taiwanese professionals were sacked and replaced by 'people who happened to know people'. 2-28 was the result of racial tensions and ill feelings between the colonised and colonisers. And the latter responded with brutal force.

My aunt told me at the time of the event, she was around five years old. The square in front of the train station in Chiayi ran red with blood. The square was a public execution site. That was just one city. In dozens of other cities, people were rounded up and shot. Others were dragged from their homes and never heard from again. The Chinese Nationalist government used the excuse that these were "Communists" and that these people were rebelling. Most of the victims were doctors, lawyers, politicians, people who had influence in the local community; people who posed a threat to the new regime. Terror reigned throughout the island and for four decades, a period commonly known as the White Terror...

All things Taiwanese was suppressed. The language was forbidden, and speaking Taiwanese would be subject to a fine in school. Taiwanese music was banned, Taiwanese theatre prohibited, Taiwanese history erased, to be replaced by all things Chinese. Chinese and the idea of a great China was promoted and propogandised in the media and schools. People were brainwashed into believing that we are all part of China, and that the Communists which took over on the "Mainland" were cruel bandits that needed to be ousted. But the reality was that the Chinese Nationalist were no less cruel, were no less inhumane and oppressive.

Throughout the decades of terror, many people were executed without a fair trial, and many more were imprisoned and forced into hard "labour reform". Talk of democracy was criminal, talk of Taiwan and independence was poisonous and treasonous. Many democracy activists  are now members of the opposition party, and many had their fair share of time languishing in prisons. Only until 1987 did Martial Law end and the democratisation wave begin. It was a bloodless coup and opening process, which eventually led to parliamentary and later presidential elections. Elections that till this day, some two decades after Taiwan began democratic, are held up as an example for other Asian countries to follow.

2-28 is a public holiday, and many forget the significance of this date in Taiwan's history. The Chinese Nationalist Party, which perpetrated the genocide against Taiwanese people are now back in power. Taiwan. There are those in the Chinese Nationalist Party who even deny tens of thousands were killed. In Germany, to deny the Holocaust is a crime, but in Taiwan the perpetrator of the gravest offence against citizens, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek ("Cash my Cheque" as the Americans liked to call him, for he was so corrupt...) can still be seen on coins and his name is used as  street names in cities around the island.

 2-28 is not a day to remember old grudges and open wounds. It is a day to remind ourselves of where we came from, what sacrifices were made by our predecessors, and also to remember that the government was once a cruel, oppressive apparatus that did not blink to shoot down tens of thousands of its own people. We must be vigilant against the return of oppression and be wary of attempts to deliver this country and its people into the hands of yet another foreign regime. Taiwan's democracy was won through decades of struggle, and many died or suffered at the hands of tyranny  for claiming the very liberties and freedoms we so take for granted today.

2-28 is not just a holiday. It is a day to remember...

Leidse Ontzet

I can't remember the last time I last so much and so hard. So much and hard that my head and jaw hurt.

Three days of ongoing celebrations related to the 'Relief of Leiden' (Leidse ontzet) kicked off last night. Some 433 years ago the Spaniards besieged the rebellious town of Leiden for a complete year. Citizens fought hunger, the Catholics and the mercernaries of the Spanish crown and defended their city and their religion and right to freedom of life. On 3 October 1574, Calvinist partisians fended off the Spanish army and liberated the city. Their first act was to donate to each person in Leiden half a loaf of white bread and a herring. To this day this tradition is repeated, and the two days leading up to the 3rd of October is celebrated all over town with a funfair, parades and festivals. The liberation of a city is a worth every moment of joy.

I arrived late at a friend's place where a bunch of us had agreed to meet. It poured and poured outside, and by the time I arrived my clothes and shoes were drenched. I needed something to keep warm. Bottles of vodka and other hard liquor as well as orange juice were already waiting. My friends were already red cheeked, tipsy and rambling. I was soon to join them.

We promised to go out and show our faces in the pubs so that we can say that we were at least there on the biggest day of celebration of the year. One cup of vodka orange led to another, to another, to another. And soon we ended up in someone's room where bottles of wine and martini were cracked opened to the cracking sounds of giggles and laughs. Once the 40% alcohol seeps through the veins, everything becomes funny, and everything came out. Secrets were unstoppable. Someone mentioned she has two boyfriends at the same time, another random stranger none of us met before told us how much he 'loved cock'. I think my reaction to that was 'Oh yeah!', which didn't leave much to the imagination to all those who heard me ...sex, sleaze, secrets and shame all poured out, and once again we dug deeper and deeper into each other's lives and past. Not sure how much of what happened or what was revealed people actually remember, but I think I 'outed' myself in a number of different ways, in a number of different times. Dare I say it was liberation...?

At 1am we decided it was time to head out. We stepped over a puddle of puke and a couple of collapsed flat mates on the way down the stairs, our visions and heads spinning and in total confusion. The cold rain and wind slapped against us, making it seem like the treacherous journey of six crazy adventurers venturing in the dark on their way to the city centre. The pavement was just right next to the canal, and we suprised ourselves for managing to walk without falling in. Some other people were not so lucky.

My head spun so fast it was hard to hear, and I was even unsure what I was saying. We wandered the streets, going from one party event to the next. We greeted people we knew, high-fived people we didn't. Plastic cups and beer cans littered the streets. People crowded in the alleyways and squares dancing to live bands and music. The whole city was under siege by a frenzy of celebration, drunkedness, and the onslaught of the first forces of the autumn weather. When you're so out of yourself, even bad techno music, or the fact that there were plenty of strangers around didn't seem to be a bother anymore. By 4am we were drenched, and cold, and the effects of the alcohol had more or less worn off...but wow, was it a few hours to remember.

Surprisingly we actually managed to make creme cheese penne and smoked salmon (for others lunch-dinner lumped together) at close to 5am. I was not in a mood to take the 1hr journey home. He and I made our temporary beds on the floor of a girl's room. My clothes were so wet we both had to borrow clothes from the girl to wear... two grown and tipsy guys, in girl's pajamas, sleeping on the floor next to each other. Nothing I've experienced recently can beat the hilariousness and surrealness of it all.

The floor was hard, and my head hurt. Altogether I probably had around three hours of sleep last night, and was awakened by a bunch of Americans slamming their doors and raving about what a night it's been at a little past eight. My throat was sore, my mouth parched, the back of my head felt like I had strike myself somewhere and ached with a vengeance. But as I turned my face, he lay next to me, breathing softly. I reached out almost wanting to touch him, but afraid to wake up, and unsure whether he could see me looking at him. A couple of times he stirred and turned, and I quickly closed my eyes tightly to pretend I was asleep. I'm somewhat sure he knew I was watching him. I turned my back against him, curled up my body into a ball, and leaned in closer. But I couldn't sleep any more. And my headache and sore throat soon subsided.