A Zoom Reunion
"Tea House at night in the Maokong mountain in Taipei Taiwan" by AlexanderY is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
In this brief piece, Daniel Nardini reflects on the Taiwanese after reconnecting with an old friend.
That Friday, my wife Jade was off of work, and we decided to just take it easy. When I went outside to check on the mail in our mailbox, there was a UPS parcel just outside the door.
I opened it and found packages of some of the finest tea from Taiwan. The tea had been sent by one of my former students from Taiwan, named William.
From 1990 to 1994, I was an English teacher in Taichung City; it was thenTaiwan's largest city. William was one of my students, and a very good student at that. He was just a teenager in high school, but he did so well in my English class.
Long after I had left Taiwan, we had stayed in touch. I last saw him in 1993, and we simply kept in touch by mail (now e-mail) and on occasion by phone. Through his Facebook, Jade found out William was visiting California the same week we received the parcel.
On that same day, Jade was able to get a hold of William on his cell phone, and for the first time since the 1990s we were able to see each other. I am obviously an old man now, and he is now a middle-aged man in his 40's, but still we talked for an hour, and it was a wonderful meeting. We would have talked longer, but he had to catch a plane back to Taiwan that same day.
After 30 years he still remembers me!
William has done very well. He worked with his parents in their small business before he went on to study business at an American school in Connecticut for two years. He then landed a job selling fans. The fans are made in Vietnam, and he is one of the company's leading representatives selling their products. Because he is a sales representative, he has been able to travel to many countries, especially to the United States and Japan.
Like so many Taiwanese, William truly appreciates the United States. He appreciates America for helping to provide aid to protect his country, for giving him the chance to live and study in America, and because of me. He appreciates the United States because it helped keep his country free and independent of the People's Republic of China, and because he, like so many Taiwanese, understand how democracy equals a better and freer quality of life.
Had William lived in China, he would most likely not have any of these things, and certainly not the freedom to say what he feels.
While there may be some countries and peoples who do not appreciate what the United States has done for them, Taiwan is not one of them. The Taiwanese know they owe America a great deal of gratitude for their being able to stay free and democratic in the face of threats and militarily aggressive behavior from China.
If he ever comes to my house, I want William to know he will always have a home here with me and my wife.
Daniel Nardini spent 22 years as a newspaper correspondent for Lawndale News and The Fulton Journal. He has published six books, including his eyewitness account of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, The Day China Cried. He is listed as an Illinois author in the Illinois Center for the Book.
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The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.
Opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute or its members.
