Taipei Air Station - 1966 - - - " What you have in the end are memories"......... Photo Courtesy of Richard Reesh.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Youthful Times in Tien Mu

Brad Carpenter now residing in Minnesota forwarded an e-mail recently recounting his feelings of Taiwan. So many of the letters I receive have the same thread running through them. Taiwan truly shaped many of our hearts with everlasting impressions of wonder and joy.

My father was stationed as a captain and then major at MAAG from 9/72 - 6/75. I was a mere child at the time, growing between the ages of eight and three-quarters and eleven and one-half, but I too am deeply indebted to the memory and experience of my time in Taiwan.

I attended Taipei American School between the third through fifth grades. I can find but two scant YouTube videos to remind me of the location; the school moved to a new locale in 1989, and the old site is dilapidated and will, I'm sure, soon cease to exist. My memories are more similar to yours than we might imagine - chasing girls, who did not yet know if they wished to be caught or not; playing baseball, whether with local Taiwanese children (this was during their Little League hegemony, mind you!), American kids, or my dad.

The thrill of wandering - as adults, the term would metamorphasize into, "hiking" - along the Tien Mu trail, with a perpetual eye scanning for haboo, or pit vipers lurking evanescently in the green shoots of ever present bamboo. The seemingly secret knowledge of the whereabouts of a remote and pristine water fall, location reachable by Huffy or Converse only, where uncounted "young men" would lurk about in caves and occasionally thrill to the sight of amorous Taiwanese couples who would venture covertly to the spot, unaware and uncaring of their youthful voyeurs.

I have friends, neighbors - even family - who this day do not understand why I sometimes grow nostalgic, and melancholy, over my inability to grasp tangible evidence of my Taiwan experience. My sense of loss at childhood friends forever absent confuses, and possibly annoys, them.

"If you chose to cease being friends - that's either their call or yours," they say. "You can't go online and seek these people out - that's indecent and obtrusive," they add.

But I wonder, always. My decisions were not my own to make, as a young boy. My friends, subject to the same rules of military rotation as I, were never constant. But they were dear. "Serving my country" as a dependent did have a great affect on me through a child's level maintenance of a topsy-turvy inconstancy. I continue to seek out those names that I do recall, if only in the hope that I might grant an element of - hopefully - warm imagery and cheery reminder to those with whom I've shared that special Taiwan experience.

Thank you for sharing yours with me.

Brad Carpenter

4 comments:

Joe Chang said...

I'm about the same age as Brad, maybe we played baseball together before. My dad served in Vietnam as an allied officer during the 60's and early 70's. Taiwan is a good place and I'm proud of it. Feel free to contact me when you visit Taiwan next time, let's go for a drink...my email: joe@quazar.com.tw

Anonymous said...

Brad, you wrote well about your experience and feelings. I share many of those.
I was at that TAS the year it opened, in 4th grade. One of my memories was the punishments: for the boys, it was shoveling cinders from one pile to another. For girls, it was washing out their mouths with soap. Can you believe it!?
Go look at my Facebook pics of taiwan -- "Taiwan--NACC, MAAG". I was there 10 years earlier than you, but i am sure you will find some memories there.
---William

Unknown said...

Hi,

Getting ready to spend 36 hours in Taipei / TienMu for the first time since June '75. I'm going to try to hit the 'youthful' sites, e.g. TienMu trail, Yangminshan National Park (we used to bike up near the fumaroles, almost to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial I think it is), and maybe try to find the ruins of Taipei American School.

Anyway, hoping jet lag doesn't steal any good sunshine hours from me!

Bradly

Rory O'Neil said...

Wondering how your 36-hr return visit went Bradly. Rory O'Neil