2nd visit to the Song Homestead

A couple of weeks ago we posted a blog called "Doing family history in Taiwan".  We were able to follow up on a lead and visited DaJia 大甲 again.  My cousin Waka's friend, Mr. Cao, drove us around last time while we were there visiting.  He mentioned a person with keen memory of the history that we should talk to.  He helped us make an appointment to visit with her on Friday, November 16.

宋冬菜, Waka and Shirley

宋金樹, 宋冬菜, Waka and Shirley

Mr. Cao picked us up at the little Bao-an train station.  We went to a place in town with a large yard, a shop, and a row of apartments in the back side of the property.  The man who came out to greet us is 宋金樹, the local magistrate and a cousin of ours.  My great-grandfather is his great-great-grandfather's brother.  He's a kind man with gentle demeanor.  He took the day off for us to visit with him and another cousin.  There were a few men sitting there chatting.  They were distant cousins.  There was also a table set up for us to visit.  We waited for a few minutes and the cousin with a good memory came.  She came on a bicycle.  宋冬菜 was sprite and looked no more than 80 years old.  I guess we were all expecting a sage who might be 95 years old and with long beard.  Her great-grandfather and my great-grandfather are brothers.  We share the same great-great-grandfather.  I asked her if she was born in the winter since her name means "winter vegetables".  She said it was Lunar September 9, and she was a chicken in the zodiac sign and said that I could figure that out.  She was 80.  :-)  She was friendly and started talking right away.  She knew my dad and remembered him as a nice man.  She said my grandfather was a very wealthy man, appointed by the government to be in charge of sugar and salt sales.  Isn't that what makes family history interesting?

We continued to visit until almost lunch time.  We offered to take everyone out to lunch, but the two cousins had to go somewhere.  Waka's friend, Mr. Cao, took us to Tainan to a SiChuan restaurant.  We had a special fish that was caught in the wild.  They steamed half of it and made the other half a miso soup.  It was so good, and so beautiful.  The food was excellent.

We visited a couple more cousins before heading home.  One is cousin Lin Hong Ji, the 2nd son of my father's eldest sister and Maylin's brother.  Maylin is one of my favorite cousins who lives in Manhattan, New York.  She came to visit us in Hong Kong while we were on our mission.

While we were in Tainan a couple of weeks ago, Elwin dropped his wallet in the taxi when we got out at the Tainan train station.  It had cash, our foreign residency cards and a Costco card.  It was truly a miracle to find his wallet again.  We didn't even know the wallet was lost until we were on our way to Jia Yi for a family history training meeting the next day.  We thought Elwin got pick-pocketed, or left it in the local bus on our way home.  Waka told me to report the incident to the police because it had foreign residents' cards in the wallet.

We didn't get a chance to call the police until Sunday afternoon.  The policeman came right to the church to meet us.  When he found out that Elwin was with me, he went back to the police station to pick up the cruiser instead of taking me to the police station on his motocycle.  It did crack me up when I found out he was going to take me to the police station on his motocycle though.  For some reason, it just wouldn't be right for me, a sister missionary, to ride with him...alone.  The ride in the cruiser was fine since most people were still in church when the police came.  They had to take a report from us.  They were very nice.  We also called our cousin b/c we took the taxi from his apartment complex.  My cousin's wife, Ah Hua, was so smart.  When we left their house a couple of weeks ago, she took us down to take the taxi and talked to the taxi driver.  The doorman also took pictures of the taxi.  So when I called her, it didn't take her long to find out what taxi company took us to the train station.  She called the taxi company and asked them to look out for the wallet.  The next day, she received a phone call from the local police station that someone had turned in the wallet.  Apparently, the taxi driver was washing the car Monday morning and found the wallet.  He took the whole thing to the police station and called his boss.  They contacted my cousin and she called me.  Wow, it's amazing.  Everything was there.  We asked my cousin to give the taxi driver $2000 NT as a reward.  He first refused, but was told it was okay to take it.  What a special event that was for us to find such honest people in Taiwan!

Before coming home that day, we went to visit Waka's brother 宋博明.  He owns a car detailing shop by the freeway.  He has a book including the village where the Song family settled.  He was so sweet to give it to me.  He believed that I would put it to good use whereas it would have just stayed in the drawer in his house.  I felt so blessed to have such wonderful cousins who value what I'm doing to gather information for the Song family.

Shirley, Waka, 宋博明/his wife, and Ah Hua