When family visits...

We were so happy to have our daughter I-Shuan, my sister Alice, my other sister Ling and her husband Stan, and their son Dennis, visit us, April 18 - 28, 2013.

To accommodate everyone on this trip, we rented a van.  Here is how it all transpired.

This was how we felt when we first got the rental car.

Renting a minivan for the 7 of us was probably one of the better moves.  We were able to get to places quickly without having have to wait for buses and trains.  We decided that we had had enough of that.  But following the GPS was another issue.  After much navigating through the Taipei Mass Freeway System, I called the rental company and told them the navigation system didn't work.  He agreed that we needed to go back and exchange for a new one.  Two hours later, the agent called to see if we were okay.  I told him we were so confused and frustrated that we decided to go on our trip by train, he could pick up the rental in front of the Taipei Train Station.  I had to calm him down and tell him the truth that we were almost at the town of YiLan where we were supposed to be.  After that, we were just fine, driving.

Highlights of the trip:

Day 1:  Saturday, April 19, 2013

      Since our mission started 7 months ago, we have researched and found many of the Song and Shi ancestors.  With the computerized system from the LDS Church website, familysearch.org, we were able to organize a lot of the information.  With the help of Elaine Wiley, our daughter, and her family, we set out to do some temple work for these ancestors.  What a happy morning it was for us to do ordinances for my great-great-grandfather, Song Zhang and his wife, Liu He in the Taipei Temple.  The Song Zhang 宋彰 and Liu He 劉蚵 stories were shared in previous posts.  We know there is much more work to be done.  A facebook page is dedicated to do the Song family history at https://www.facebook.com/groups/songagong/.  Take a look.  Contribute if you have any photos or stories to share.

      We had lunch with Meri Lin at the Hilton Hotel Restaurant.  Meri's mom, Shi Quan E 施瓊娥, was our mom's best friend growing up.  施瓊娥's dad is Mom's eldest brother, and she and Mom were close in age.  After lunch we went to visit her.  She has been sick, but smiled when she recognized us.

Pictured here are:  施瓊娥 in the wheelchair,  (from r to l), Ling Winters 宋鈴惠, Huang Li Yun 黃麗雲, Alice Feng 宋秋惠, I-Shuan Warr 戴怡萱, Shirley Davis 宋文惠, Elwin Davis 戴亞文, Aunt Shi MeiJuan 施美絹, her daughter Shi JinYu 施錦瑜, Meri Lin 林萌利, Huang ShiShi 黃奕時, Lin Feng Ji 林豐基 （They have an apartment in DaZhi大直 overlooking JiLong River)

方媽媽 w/Ling and Alice

I-Shuan's kindergarten in TianMou

     Next, we went to TienMou to visit our dear friend, Fang Mama 方媽媽, who used to work for us and helped us raised our kids when Elwin was working as the Engineering Manager for Philco in DanShui 淡水, 1977-1982.  The reunion was sweet as they, I-Shuan and 方媽媽, haven't seen each other for 31 years.  We left Taiwan when I-Shuan was 10 years old.  We also took I-Shuan to see her old kindergarten, St. Vincent Academy.










Stan and Dennis Winters arrived Saturday night.  We were able to hire a taxi to pick them up at the TaoYuan Airport and bring them to the hotel for US$35.  It was reasonable and convenient as it would have taken us more than 3 hours to go get them.

Day 2:  Sunday, April 21, 2013

We attended church at JinHua Jie where Stan and Elwin  both served the LDS Mission at one time or another.  Stan reunited with his old buddy, Brother Wang.  The two of whom served as President Kimball's bodyguards when he came to attend the Taiwan Area Conference back in 1979.  Elwin met an old friend, too, from when he served a mission in Taiwan.

We met again with our Aunt MeiJuan as she wanted to take us out to lunch.  It turned out to be her 84th birthday.  So Ling and I did the Chinese custom of fighting with her to pay for the lunch； we won and paid it.  Aunt MeiJuan is mom's youngest sister and we all love her.  It was a pleasure to be there for her birthday.  She is in good health, but Uncle Shi is bedridden now, he is 91 now.

After lunch, we went to a place near the famous LongShan Buddhist Temple to visit my cousin AhDing.  It was the only time slot left, so we took the MRT to meet her.  She's the daughter of our Dad's #6 sister.  She co-owns a karaoke shop.  We were happy to see her, and she, too, was delighted to meet the family.





Day 3 - 5:  Monday, April 22-24, 2013

We picked up the van and started our trip to YiLan, LuoDong, HuaLian and TaiDong.  The trip went well and we were delighted to see the beauty of Taiwan mountains and seashores.

One of the most memorable places during the Eastern Taiwan trip was the Buddhist Temple in LuoDong that our cousin Waka Song told us about.  It is a beautiful building in the middle of some rundown old homes.  The GPS did a superb job of taking us to the front steps of the place.  Waka is the daughter of Dad's #5 brother.  Her mom became a nun (a story to tell some other time) at this place.  She brought our Grandma Xu Tao's ancestral plate to this temple.  We didn't know what to expect, but what we saw was very interesting.

name plates at the Buddhist Temple

temple altar

candles for blessings

Waka and her daughter's names appear on the donors' list

Vegetarian lunch with the Master

Waka's mom passed away many years ago.  Because she gave up her secular life to become a nun (shaved head), she had a special place at this temple.  Her name plate is honored at the front of the temple next to their gods.  We don't know quite the reason, but she brought our Grandma Xu Tao's name plate here for her to have a resting place.  The master nun was very kind and welcomed us.  She even invited us for a vegetarian lunch.  We graciously accepted.  Everyone was surprised at how delicious the food was.  We sat at a round table with at least 10 dishes of food.  The food looked like chicken, some fish, beef, but were all made with some soybean derivatives.  We were glad that we gave it a try.  This time, Alice sneaked out and paid for the lunch.  We are doing well here to maintain the customs.

Some hotel accommodations are fine, but a little rough.  Since we only stayed at each hotel for one night, it was fine.  We did some hiking, lots of walking and just enjoyed the places we visited.  This would fast forward us to day 6 when we got back to Gaoxiong.

Day 6:  We got back to Gaoxiong at around 4 pm.  We got Ling and Stan settled at a hotel near the 85 Building in Gaoxiong.  We all went out to have some Korean food.  Since I-Shuan served a mission in Korea, we thought we'd surprised her with some good Korean food.  It was fine, but not great.

Day 7:  A big day as we plan to visit Tainan Old Homestead

I arranged for the Song village magistrate to meet us.  He couldn't be there because of a prior appointment, so he brought in his brother and several of the Song cousins to show us around.  They set up the front room in the community center for us to meet and chat.  Several cousins brought their genealogies with them.  Most of us share the same great-grandfather, Song Lu.  They had the record of Great-great-grandfather Song Zhang, whom I

We think Ling was born in this house behind the picture.

spent a lot of effort to find.  But they didn't have dates.
The village was settled by Song Zhang, and many of his descendants still live there.  They occupied important posts such as mayor, magistrate, commissioners, representatives, and union leaders.  They were all eager to share what they have with us.  One of them suggested that we should have a clan organization and build a memorial there since the Song's still own some land there. It was a delightful meeting as we exchanged contact information.  

My sister Ling was born in one of the few remaining original houses there.  This reunion was very special as our cousin Waka (daughter of Dad's #5 brother) came to meet us there.  Waka came to live with our mom and dad when she was very young.  She was assigned to be Ling's nanny.  She loved Ling so much that she carried her around on her back wherever she went.  Waka is 5 years older than I am, and I remember her running around with us playing in the fields with Ling on her back, as happy as she could be.  It was told that Waka never let Ling down on the floor until she was 3 years old.


After the meeting, one of the cousins, Song Shi Ying, drove us to our Grandfather Song Tian-An's gravesite.  Elwin and I were just there a month ago, but since we didn't drive, we couldn't quite remember where it was.  We brought some flowers and put them there.  It was special to visit Grandfather Song.  He was a great man.


Lunch was at the ChiMei Museum Coffee Shop as we were scheduled to visit the museum at 2 PM.  Song Shi Ying took us there.  He is the son of our cousin, Chao Yang 朝陽.  朝陽 is the son of our Dad's eldest brother.  Since Dad is the youngest of the Song brothers (except for the youngest one who died serving in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II), he and 朝陽 were about the same age and grew up together.  ChiMei has a frozen food division and served up very nice foods.  It was a western food style eatery and they have very good lunches.  Shi Ying paid the bills for our meals.

A Visit to ChiMei Museum:  Since our cousin Richard is the Chairman of the Board of ChiMei, we decided to pay a visit.  Besides, Chi Mei Museum is one of the finest museums in Asia.  According to its website -

Thinking Globally – The ChiMeiMuseum Chi Mei Culture Foundation was established in 1977 under the instructions of Mr. Wen-Long Hsu, the founder of Chi Mei Industrial Corporation. In February 1989, the Chi Mei Museum Preparatory Office was established, and the museum was opened to the public on April 1, 1992 with free admission. In 2001, a BranchMuseum was established in the TainanSciencePark, with displays that focused on the development of technology from primitive hand tools to modern machinery.The ChiMeiMuseum, which occupies the fifth to eighth floors of the Chi Mei headquarters building, covers a total area of approximately 6,600 square meters. The Museum's rich and diverse collections include ancient artifacts, violins crafted by world-famous instrument makers, centuries-old Japanese samurai swords, and classic paintings from the Renaissance and from later artistic movements; the museum also holds a large number of bird and animal specimens. At the ChiMeiMuseum, visitors can experience the finest masterpieces from different civilizations and cultures without leaving Taiwan, thus offering a broader view of the world. Chi Mei has gone into the frozen food business too.  So it was fun to have lunch there.  Their signature food is tiramasu.  Since it has coffee, we didn't try it.  But they do have a wonderful on-line radio station that plays classical music all day long.  Give it a try if you like classical music.  http://www.chimeimuseum.com/english/04_music/01_music_list.aspx Alice had a bad fall while we were at ChiMei Museum gift shop.  A worker left a cart carrier in the corner which tripped Alice and she fell with a big crash.  She was on the floor for a while and we didn't know if she had broken her bones.  Luckily, nothing was broken, but she was left black and blue.  It'll take a while for her to heal.  We were just so thankful that she was in good enough shape to sustain such as big fall. We were worried that she couldn't make the trip from Gaoxiong to TaoYuan to catch her flight by herself as she has 2 suitcases and carry-on bags.  The Taiwan High Speed Rail System was wonderful.  When we took her to the train station, the service people immediately took charge of her luggage.  At TaoYuan, some workers came to her seat to tell her that her suitcases would be taken care of and they would take them to the Eva Air counter at the Train Station and help her check in.  Wow, we were all thankful for the wonderful services they provided.  She got home without any problems.   Day 8:  A Visit to the Shi Lang Memorial:  All the Shi cousins, Mom's sister's daughters, all came to meet us there.  It was quite a reunion.  We hugged for a long time. Through our family search, we found that my mom's line, the Shi family, is related to the famous Admiral Shi Lang (1621-1696).  He was sent by the Qing Dynasty to Taiwan to drive out Koxinga and reclaim Taiwan for the dynasty.  So, he was a loyalist to some, but traitor to others.  Many stories have been written about him, even a TV series was created.  Even the first Chinese aircraft carrier was going to be named after him, until someone cautioned that if China name that aircraft ShiLang, it might imply that China was coming to reclaim Taiwan.  So, instead, the carrier was named after a seaport in NE China to avoid any problems.  I even was challenged on one occasion when a group of young people who came to church to learn English and visited the Family History Center.  I did a general introduction of the Center and encouraged them to come back if they were interested in search for their roots.  I told them we found out that I was related to Shi Lang, the Admiral.  One young man challenged me and said:  you are my enemy then.  I smiled and asked him if we still could be friends since it happened over 400 years ago.  He smiled back and said:  I guess. I felt fortunate to find that there is a memorial museum in Tainan.  It took me a lot of effort to find the place.  It's located about 40 minutes north of Tainan in the JiangJun (Admiral) District.  Shi Lang's descendants have built a big 4-story building to house the relics from Shi Lang's collections.  It was so amazing how these descendants were able to preserve and keep these treasures through out all these years of wars, Japanese Occupation, Chiang Kai-shek's army, and economic conditions which might have caused some of the descendants to sell some of the treasures.  It was amazing what they had in that museum.  They were all originals with some of the gifts from the Qing Emperor. The only thing lacking was stories of Shi Lang and descriptions of the treasures.  The old gentleman who everyone called Shi Bobo (施伯伯）was the tour guide.  He had so many stories to tell.  When some of the cousins challenged him about what they have learned from the history books, Shi Bobo told us:  History is written by whoever was in power.  These stories came down in our family.  It was so neat to be with him for a few hours to hear what he had to say. Afterwards, the Shi cousins took us to MaDou (麻豆）to have the famous rice gluten bowl.  We used to eat it during the holidays.  It was especially fun for Alice, Ling and me to have it again.  Then, it was off to the famous "Mango City" for us to experience the famous Mango shaved ice.  It was everything we remembered and better.  Wish we could show the pictures, but the blogspot uploaders are not working , so you'll have to take my word for it.  This famous dessert is layered with fresh mangos, shaved mango ice, mango syrup, more ice, more fresh mango slices, then mango ice-cream, topped with sweet condensed milk.  I think we all thought we had died and gone to heaven.  Even the Shi cousins said that they were looking forward to coming as it was too far for them to come normally.

     
It was a wonderful trip!  We are so thankful that our family members came to visit us.  We are grateful for the safety and for all the people who make it possible for us to take this trip.

Pictures will be posted later as we are having problems with the blogspot uploader.

Here is a copy of the itinerary for future references for us and for others who may be contemplating a visit here.