My grandfather is a rough man, and my grandmother was from a good family surnamed Su. So, as far as I can remember, they didn’t talk to each other!
We don't have an ancestral tree, but it is said that our ancestors came from Quanzhou, Fujian Province hundreds of years ago!
Back then, the house they lived in was made of straw! During World War II, Taiwan was a Japanese colony. The U.S. military had launched air strikes on Taiwan, and we were evacuated from Tainan City to Taiye for almost a year.
A year after Japan's surrender, my family moved to Taipei with me when I was a sophomore at National Taiwan University.
When I was 18 years old, it was the beginning of a difficult life in my life. It was when I was a junior in high school, my father passed away, leaving my mother and eight siblings with no money!
My father's factory was auctioned off by creditors! My Tainan First High School was escorted to National Taiwan University, and my family moved to Taipei with me.
At the age of 28, I entered Yale University on a full scholarship, got married , and had enough money to send back to Taiwan to support my family!
I studied in the United States in 1962, got my LLM degree. Entered Yale in '64, wrote my doctoral dissertation in the summer of '67, and got my JS D of law degree in January '68!
The first year was at Columbia and the second year at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I entered the Ivy League with a full scholarship, and I went to work in a restaurant in New York during the summer vacation because I had to send money back to Taiwan to support my mother and younger siblings!
It was with my wife May’s income from her part-time job at the Yale Library our family already has enough income to live.
She came from Tokyo in 1964. I was teaching at Edmonton in 1967 and she entered the library department.
At that time, there were more than 60 people in the master's program in Yale Law School: only 5 people were chosen to the doctoral program. At the end there were two or three people who got a degree of JS D in law.
My 1965 master's thesis was written about the undecided international legal status of Taiwan, which was published by Yale professors. It was the era of the two Chiangs, so I didn't return to Taiwan for the first time until Lee came to power became the President of the country and removed the blacklist. I was 26 years old when went abroad, and was 53 when I finally returned home!
I didn't expect that in 2001, I was specially appointed by President Chen Shui-bian as a head representative to Canada: I then stationed in Ottawa for six years!
Time flies! I've been retired since last year!
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