When we were separated by 12,000 miles and 12 months from June 1975 to June 1976, Mike and I wrote hundreds letters (yes, snail mail letters on thin aerogram paper). He was in a grueling internship in the huge and busy Veterans General Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, and I was in graduate school in Albany, New York.
After two years of serious dating, we were encouraged by both sets of our parents to separate for a time to see if our love was “real” or “an illusion”. In 1973 there were almost NO matches between a Chinese man and a Caucasian American woman and all 4 parents worried about the challenges we would have to face from narrow-minded thinking everywhere. Since Mike was going into the “black hole” of internship in Taiwan and my younger brother was getting married in the US, we decided on a period of trial separation . . . maybe for 6 months, maybe a year, maybe . . .?
I went home to Canajoharie, NY and lived with my parents while getting a masters degree. Amazingly, one of the very few existing and early programs in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the US/world was offered at SUNY Albany, just one hour away from home.
I have just re-read the letters and scanned to digital files. We never could have imagined that our letters would end up digital (or “in a cloud” or the subject of a “blog”). We have gone from “two whole sets of” (his/Taiwan and mine/US) small and naive worlds/ worldviews to a larger and connected global village in the length of one 45 year romance! Amazing and wonderful. The half written in Chinese took me awhile because I had to re-learn vocabulary. Mike was carrying the main burden of communication because his English was better than my Chinese.
Because we were both SO busy trying to get done in one year what usually takes almost 2, we probably would not have had as much attention from each other as we got in the letters that we exchanged. Like email today, we could open the letters when we had time and leisure to enjoy . . and we could ignore if necessary and if time was pressing. For example, in Letter #273 (I archived and organized the set; a few are missing from the sequence) Mike said he received 2 letters at once from me but did not have time to open, read and enjoy; instead, with the few minutes he had he wrote me a half letter and sent it knowing that it was SO disappointing to go to the mailbox . . . and see it EMPTY! At the time, Taiwan was under “Martial Law” (which, in fact, was imposed by the nervous government for 28 years, the longest period of martial law in world history). We knew that censors could and would be reading our letters so we we careful to not discuss any politics and modest in discussing anything really personal. Who knows what fun, inspiration, or shock those nameless censors might have gotten from our correspondence!
I have enjoyed Mike’s written narrative of his intern year. Because he did not have time to write a diary or journal for himself, this set of letters constitutes his account of intern year. When he changed from one department to another, he would describe the circumstances, the cases, the social factors, and his own reactions. He experienced joy in being able to serve, fear that his skill would be insufficient to meet needs, and compassion for the patients. Many patients were single, elderly veterans of Chiang KaiShek’s army who escaped to Taiwan with the Communist victory on the mainland leaving spouse, children, and extended families behind in Mainland. Often those family members suffered at the hands of the Communists because of their ties to Chiang and the veterans aging alone in Taiwan suffered loneliness and despair especially when ill.
I am so grateful for this treasure trove of letters. I certainly HOPE that we can find the “matching set” of the letters I wrote to him somewhere in my 40 bankers’ boxes of books and papers that I packed up from “the big house” and moved untouched (so far) to “the retirement house.” I know that the hundreds of letters I wrote home to my mom and dad while I was “on adventure” in Asia 1973 to 1978 are lost — too many moves, difficult transitions and early deaths to have preserved them. So, I am doubly grateful for this set of letters from my then “boyfriend” — who has grown into a wonderful husband and father, and a physician who was able to take good care of his patients.
Susan Olmstead Wang 