Sun Ta-wha's Eastern Dream

The railway journey from Taitung to Tawu, along a line that was only completed this October, takes around an hour. Leaving the spanking new station you are welcomed by a range of green mountains and the blue of the sea meeting that of the sky. Near and far there is not a person in sight.

According to the local page of the newspaper, Sun used to be the famous principal of a Catholic school in Taichung. At the age of 40, she gave up this prestigious position and came to Taitung to fulfill a dream she had in her youth. It is also said that she was a Catholic nun who came here so as to return to the lay world and leave her religious order. What are the reasons for all of this?

From room at the top into the deep mountains: With the monthly exam just over, Sun is to be found in the school's guidance office correcting the work of her pupils. The teachers have all gone off together for lunch but Sun is still worried about the children who board in the school. After the lunch break she goes to have a look in the dormitory.

Petite and bright, with a light, clear voice, Sun recalls how, at the age of 22, she went to Nantou's mountainous Hinsyi Rural Township to become a teacher after she graduated. Then, at the age of 29, she became a Catholic nun in Taichung where she continued to teach in one of her order's schools. Four years later she became the school principal. At the age of 40, Sun left her order and went to eastern Taiwan. "Actually, through all these stages, my dream was always the same," she says--to serve the common people.

It seems that Sun's dream remains both close and far. She describes it as though it were yester day: She was at university with excellent grades and was full of ideals and ambitions; she had not yet become a nun, but her belief was already very firm.

Sun was living in Taipei in those days and she often went to the Catholic Keng Hsin College. The teachers she was mixing with were of a lofty disposition, refined and well-mannered, bookish scholars. Although very impressive, such people had never penetrated very deep into life itself. When Sun read about the stories of Catholic fathers in East and West, such as St. Frances of Assissi, who had gone to the countryside to serve the common people her desire grew to learn from such flesh and blood characters who were so vividly portrayed on paper.

It was thus that Sun came to write a letter to a foreign priest living on Orchid Island, a man of great character who had come to Taiwan in his twenties and worked on Orchid Island ever since. She very quickly received a reply welcoming her to immediately go over and join him and telling her that all the necessary arrangements were already being made.

Perhaps because she was young, on the eve of graduation, with her eyes fixed on her fellow students who, if not going to teach at the top schools in Taipei, were going to study at foreign graduate schools, her doubts began to well up. "Am I deluding myself and not being realistic?" she began to wonder. "Dad still hopes that I will study some more!"

In addition to this, her concerned parents certainly did not support her idea very much and Sun's dream of going to Orchid Island was thwarted. However, she did still go to teach at a small school at Shuili in the central mountain area of Hsinyi Rural Township, hoping to put her father's mind at rest, seeing as he would insist that, "If you really want to work, then do it within this island!"

Weeping as she went: The early schools of the mountain areas were even more lacking in resources than are their counterparts of today. Some of them had a lot of children whose lives were both materially and spiritually very poor and there were also some "exiled frontier teachers" and principals there who were not really up to the job. Full of dedication and anxious to make her contribution, Sun made great efforts in every area of her work and in every area detested what she saw.

More than just a few of the teachers were only concerned with looking after their own affairs rather than managing the children's lessons. Some teachers even bought land near the school to grow sugar cane and got the pupils to help them do the planting. "If you could get the children to attend classes on time every day that was not bad," was the attitude, and it shocked her that all the teachers held it.

Both worried and angry, Sun began to doubt the wisdom of her decision to go to the mountains in the first place. Was it really possible, as a friend had said when she was leaving, that with the problems of the mountains being so longstanding, the power of one person could make much difference? Her determination ebbed away until she decided she would leave after a full year. She never thought that what happened to her just before she was to leave would lead her to change this decision.

Sun recalls how, at that time, because she was in high spirits and rather proud, she probably of fended many of her colleagues. Just before the semester finished a list was posted of the visiting activities to be undertaken for the junior-high school graduation ceremonies in her school district. Sun was given the most remote school of all, with no bus going there and a two-hour walk over the mountains.

Being of slight build, Sun worried that she would not have the stamina for the walk and took to the road early in the morning. She still remembers how strong the wind and rain were on that day. Soaked throughout the entire journey and thinking of how unfriendly her colleagues had been, all her grievances of the last year and thoughts of her uncertain future welled up in her until she began to sob as she walked.

Anybody is better than nobody: This was the scene all the way until Sun arrived at what she now still remembers as a beautiful little school. Sun describes how, although the school building was old, its grounds were immaculately well-ordered and planted throughout with azaleas. The school only had four teachers and they all ran to the door to greet her.

Before the graduation ceremony began, Sun first went to the teachers' dormitory to change her clothes. The building was leaking all over the place with buckets placed here and there to collect the dripping water. She diplomatically asked, "Are you used to living here?" "This is nothing," answered a woman teacher about the same age as Sun, with a slight smile. "Sometimes when you come back after lessons there are grass snakes lying on the concrete floor!"

After a while, Sun asked, "Don't you sometimes get the feeling that teaching the children of the mountains is a waste of energy?" "Sometimes!" came the reply, "but to have anybody doing it is better than nobody!" These inadvertent words struck Sun like a bolt of lightning.

At the graduation ceremony, there were eight graduating students and some 20 parents taking part. As soon as they heard that Sun was a junior high school teacher who wanted to come from the city to serve in the countryside, a group of parents got together and came over to her, saying "It is our great fortune, please look after us teacher!" At this, Sun felt selfish and ashamed and was not sure how to respond.

As Sun returned from the village she again cried as she went, although this time she wept tears of joy. "I suddenly discovered just how arrogant and impractical I had been before, just trifling over my individual sacrifice. . . . "

Sun spent three years in Hsinyi. Later, her religious calling took her back to her old home in Taichung where she entered a nunnery. Six years later she donned nuns robes as she had always hoped to do, and taught in a Catholic girls' school for near ly ten years.

Only when you have eaten can you begin to talk: But it was the east! The east, with the sound of the mountains and children's laughing voices, that kept calling out to her in her dreams. Moreover, so as to raise funds, the girls' school where she was working had to take the road of increasing gentrification, which took her further and further from meeting her ideal of serving the poor. She thus made the most important decision of her life and left her order to go east.

Compared to her compulsiveness of 20 years ago, Sun is rather more pragmatic today. She never stops telling herself to slow down, just how much she can do, what must be done first, and not to worry about other people but to get things done herself, "because everyone's life experience is different."

Without undue haste Sun has been able to start anew, going to the village congregation to pray and usually visiting people in their homes. She even wants to live in the village to get a better under standing of its problems.

One month after Sun had just arrived, while visiting homes she noticed that every family has a bamboo basket full of betel nuts. "You cut them, add some flavoring and eat them quite naturally," Sun describes, as though talking about eating fruit. That was how the aboriginal people originally lived and, to get closer to them, Sun learned how to respectfully eat the betel nuts offered her by parents. "Only if you eat can you begin to talk. Eating is the first step towards understanding," she says.

Returning to set up a library: It is the same with drinking alcohol. In the village the adults drink while the children join in at their sides. That is life and it is also something necessitated by the environment, especially in winter when drinking alcohol and eating betel nuts can warm you.

Sun thinks that such things are not crimes but she is pained because ignorance about how to use them can result in confusion for many young lives and even deaths. She says that every winter you will find a drunken child out in the wilds missing his lessons. Some children arrive early at school reeking of drink and when asked why just put it down to "a bad mood." Moreover, every winter there are children who end up having motorcycle accidents after drinking.

All of these things are not understood by city dwellers, but as soon as a mountain child shows signs of brightness, it moves people's hearts. Such was the case with a child Sun taught from Hsinyi Rural Township. At the moment this boy is still doing military service. His home is not well-off but he told his teacher that when he makes some money he has one ambition to fulfill. Sun assumed this meant something like he wanted to improve his home life or marry and start up a family. She never thought the child would say he wanted to return to his home village to build a library because children in the mountains not only do not read books but never even have an opportunity to see them. He wants to let the children of his village also have the opportunity to learn.

Control by eye and by stick: There are certain things that are different about the cities, such as the fact that if you want to take students out you just need to keep an eye on them. In the mountains, on the other hand, you have to rely on shouting and even then the students still line up into a rowdy bunch. So when the class leader saw Sun scolding the children without results, he quickly advised her, "Teacher, that way won't do. You have to beat them!" Because of this, she resorts to beating when there is no other way to get control, although in the end this is still not very successful and the other teachers dubiously ask her why her column is always so disorderly and noisy.

Yet Sun does not seem to be overly worried. "I always find just the right kind of method," she says. And in the mountains there are many things that bring a sparkle to her eye: When Sun tells the pupils to hurry up and eat their bread and come to class, the simple and honest children vigorously put their tongues to work at cleaning out the corners of their mouths; then there are the children who have to get up early and should buy alarm clocks, but just reply, "why not buy a cockerel?"; there are also those prickly fish caught off the coast of Tawu which are so hard to eat, but what a flavor!

At times Sun is lost for understanding. When a single-story building is rebuilt in the city, for example, around NT$100 million must be spent; in the mountains, however, NT$600,000 can rebuild a dormitory, a toilet, and pay for whitewashing the walls, along with many other things. Once Sun heard the school principal in Hualien say that parents had generously contributed NT$500,000 that year and the whole school was very happy. This made Sun think of the Catholic girls' school in Taichung, where the parents would donate NT$1 million or NT$10 million, but this was still not considered enough.

I need even more time! The changes of the times and the problems of the mountains are obviously more complex than Sun had once thought, a fact which leads her to make frequent self examinations.

Sun says that 20 years ago in Hsinyi, although the material and spiritual condition of the children was lacking in many respects, at least their families were mostly complete ones. The situation is different today, with there being a much higher rate of single-parent families.

When Sun went to Hualien, the discovered that the things she talked about in the city lecture hall were not what the students wanted to hear. Talking about ideals, the future, and the hopes of mankind was just over their heads.

Sun asks us to imagine it: After classes a junior high school student goes off to drive a mechanical digger. If he does not have a license he will still certainly want to drive so as to get the money to pay for medical treatment for his father. As soon as a holiday comes up, many students go all out working to get their living expenses and study fees.

Today, 15 children out of Sun's class of 38 pupils come from single-parent families. From a young age they have no sense of stability or feeling of security. This is something Sun has never experienced in her own life and can only quickly try to learn about. "I need even more time," she says, with a degree of urgency.

Starting life anew: "I have the feeling of having started to live all over again," says Sun. From the children cleaning their mouths with their tongues after lunch, to knowing the names of the local fish; from learning about video games and karaoke with a young teacher, to knowing the names of pop stars, Sun says that every one of such incidents has given her great satisfaction and a feeling of the joy of life with every passing day.

If you ask whether Sun has any regrets about going to Tawu, apart from leaving her family, she misses not being able to listen to FM music broadcasts. Although this has been the one lasting form of entertainment for Sun since she was a child, she can still say that things are not so bad without it, because here she has the mountain landscape--everywhere is beautiful. Sun might sometimes still wonder to herself, "What am I doing here?" but she will certainly acclimatize very quickly.

[Picture Caption]

Sun Ta-wha says that it you don't keep an eye on things from the back of the class you might be in for trouble. Envious of the free and easy nature of the children, she fears for their purity.

"Ahead under the mountain, that piece of flat land is Tawu," is how the natives describe the surroundings of Tawu's junior high School.

Sun Ta-wha worships at a Paiwan aboriginal village, 40 minutes from the school. This mother has eight children and to take care of them neither she nor her husband are willing to work outside the village. San Ta-wha says everything would be fine if all families were like this.

Arrange various sized stones into families, draw a watermelon and you have watermelon-chess. Lessons are like play and this one is for physical education.

Sitting in the student guidance office, Sun Ta-wha chatted amiably with her guests for an afternoon. She says she is very afraid of interference by the media because what she is doing is really for herself. She has come to Tawu to study.

"Ahead under the mountain, that piece of flat land is Tawu," is how the natives describe the surroundings of Tawu's junior high School.

Sun Ta-wha worships at a Paiwan aboriginal village, 40 minutes from the school. This mother has eight children and to take care of them neither she nor her husband are willing to work outside the village. San Ta-wha says everything would be fine if all families were like this.

Arrange various sized stones into families, draw a watermelon and you have watermelon-chess. Lessons are like play and this one is for physical education.

Sitting in the student guidance office, Sun Ta-wha chatted amiably with her guests for an afternoon. She says she is very afraid of interference by the media because what she is doing is really for herself. She has come to Tawu to study.