"First" Lady of Chiayi --Hsu Shih-hsien

Outsiders may not know who Hsu Shih-hsien was, but when you say she's the mother of Chang Po-ya, the current director of the Department of Health, and also of Chang Wen-ying, the current mayor of Chiayi City, they'll know who you mean right away.

Strictly speaking, Hsu is not a personage of the Japanese occupation era. She was only 38 years old when Taiwan was retroceded to the Republic of China, yet she was already the first woman from Taiwan--and only the third in Japan--to earn a doctorate in medicine. At that time she and her husband, Dr. Chang Chin-tung, opened the Shun Tien Tang Hospital in Chiayi. People at the time called them the "Doctors in Love," and they became quite famous.

"You could say that Hsu Shih-hsien is classic case of a doctor in Taiwanese society going into politics," states Wu Mi-cha, an associate professor of history at National Taiwan University. There have been doctors representing Taiwan in the Provincial Assembly since Li Wu-tsung and Li Yuan-chan and also in the Legislative Yuan since Hung Wen tung, Wu Chi-fu, and Hsu herself in the early days, down to Shen Fu-hsiung today. As for county executives, both Kao Chih-peng of Penghu and Chang Wen-ying of Chiayi City come out of the hippocratic fraternity. "You can still see this pattern of doctors gaining stature and going into politics in the countryside in Japan even today, "he adds.

In the Japanese occupation era, physicians were the most important leaders in Taiwanese society. At that time Taiwanese were discriminated against by their colonial masters, and not permitted to participate in politics; business was also monopolized by Japanese. As a result, the best routes upward for Taiwanese were to study at Taipei Normal University (to become a teacher) or the Taipei Medical school.

Doctors earned more, and had more control over their own environment, than teachers. Moreover, teachers were supervised by Japanese administrators, and they were only able to teach the Taiwanese. Medical practitioners, on the other hand, had access to both Taiwanese and Japanese. "You could say that doctors were the only people not pinned down by the colonial system," concludes Wu Mi-cha.

Wu Wen-hsing, a professor in the Department of History at National Normal University, discovered some interesting statistics in the course of a documentary study of elites in the Japanese occupation era: By the 1910s, still in the early period of the Japanese occupation which began in 1895, individuals educated under the old system (including those who passed the Chinese imperial examinations and studied the Chinese classics) still constituted one half of the leadership strata. Of the new generation of elites, about one half of these had graduated from medical schools.

In the 1920s and 1930s and to the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, Taiwanese who had graduated from technical schools in Japan gradually came to fill the dominant leadership roles. Of these, the largest number were again physicians, especially when you add in those who graduated from medical colleges in Taiwan itself. Clearly doctors have long held an esteemed and important place in Taiwanese society.

"Doctors were the newest high-level intellectuals at that time, and in a society with a low degree of specialization ordinary people tended to see graduates of medical colleges as being capable of knowing everything. Add to this that they had a great deal of income, so they could build up a quite important social status and reputation," wrote Wu Wen-hsing in the book A Study of Elites in Taiwan in the Japanese Occupation Era.

Wu Mi-cha also examined the families of these physicians and the cumulative political resources they built up.

"Those who studied medicine were all from leading local families to start with," indicates Wu. For example, Hsu Shih-hsien's father had finished first in the lower level imperial examinations under the Ching dynasty. "Originally the local gentry looked after their locality with roads and bridges, but now they could also bring them medical care. By providing free or discounted care to those who couldn't afford it, they built up a huge resource --the support of the people of their neighborhoods and townships." Wu continues: "From building roads and bridges to medical service to political services, the level of activity became increasingly broad. They accumulated support from individuals and from neighborhoods and towns in a geometric progression, thus strengthening the leading role of the clan."

It is easy to see how, under this system, Hsu Shih-hsien was able to utilize her Japanese era medical practice to build up the Hsu family to the extent that she and her two daughters could run Chiayi city one after another for nearly twenty years, creating an epic political dynasty that outsiders could not topple.

Hsu Shih-hsien was a tomboy from the time she was small, being active and restless. Her family home in Tainan was broad and deep, and the impatient little Hsu would scurry about and careen heedlessly. But the door thresholds were a little too high for her, and "whack!" noises often reverberated in the house. Hsu Shih-hsien's mother would often sigh of this child that, "You hear her coming five minutes before she arrives."

Perhaps this training in "getting over thresholds" prepared her for later life, since she was a high jumper in school. She also played tennis and ping-pong deftly at Tainan Second Girls' High School. And when the Crown Prince of Japan came to Taiwan for a visit, she was sent to Taipei to perform on the balance beam in front of the Governor-General's Offices.

But this is not what Hsu, who studied the Chinese classics under a tutor beginning at age 4 and who travelled with her mother to China at the age of 11 to seek her roots, aspired to. At the time of the birthday of the Crown Prince, each pupil in her class was instructed to write a congratulatory letter, but she and one other student (Chuang Tsai-fang) were not willing to do it. The school later discovered they were short by two letters, and, after matching each letter to its writer, finally found the culprits. The two girls were nearly expelled from school.

Chang Po-ya reveals another instructive anecdote about her mother: When they got to the section in their texts on the history of Japan which covered the Japanese arrival in Taiwan, Hsu and Chuang ripped those pages out of their books, because they were infuriated that the person who guided the Japanese troops into the city was described as a hero. Little did they expect that the teacher would call on Chuang Tsai-fang read from that very chapter; she only escaped by faking a stomachache.

After graduating from Tainan Second Girls' High School, Hsu, encouraged by her math teacher, went to Japan to study in the Tokyo Women's Medical College (today called the Tokyo Women's Medical University). At the time the president of her school was an activist in the women's movement, and she had a great effect on Hsu's thinking about women's rights.

At this time, Hsu, who had been reading Chinese classics like The Comprehensive Mirror For Aid in Government and The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Lu since she was a child, was drawn into the political movements sweeping Japan. She went to meetings and lectures nearly every week, learning just during that time about a great Chinese political thinker--Dr. Sun Yat-sen. After completing her studies and returning to Taiwan, Hsu not only brought with her Sun's master work the Three Principles of the People, and a picture of Sun, she even hung the portrait over her bedroom door. Her mother got a fright thinking that her daughter had taken up with a much older man.

Before she was married, Hsu opened shop in her home town of Tainan. When she was 26 she married Chang Chin-tung, a native of Chiayi who had graduated from medical school in Japan. The newlyweds were both talented and attractive, and at the time the Chang family reserved a train car to go to Tainan and pick up Hsu, creating quite a stir.

After getting married, the couple set off immediately for Japan to continue their medical studies. Chang earned his doctorate in medicine in 1938, and Hsu picked up hers a year later. Returning to Taiwan, the couple borrowed money and opened the Shun Tien Tang Hospital in Chiayi. He was chief administrator and handled internal medicine; she was in charge of gynecology and obstetrics. Thus the pair embarked on their life of bringing relief to the suffering.

"They were the leading authorities in their respective fields in Taiwan at that time. Not only did they draw patients from all over the island, even people from doctors' families sought them out for treatment!" recalls Lin Shan-sheng, now a Chiayi City councilor.

Lin relates that he met the husband and wife team early in the Japanese occupation era, when he was still on the staff of the Tungmen Police Station in Chiayi. Lin was sent to do a survey of damage from an enormous earthquake in the Chiayi-Tainan region, a task which brought him to the recently opened Shun Tien Tang Hospital. Thereafter they all became intimate friends. Lin says, "They practiced medicine for more than forty years, but didn't build up their assets or property, and all they had were the diplomas from their four daughters."

Chu Teng-peng, who worked at the hospital after retrocession and later became chief of nursing, is clearest on this point. "They had great medical ethics. When they came across someone with no money, they would either give a big discount or not take payment at all. After the big August 7 flood, they did voluntary medical service for a month, giving up hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. Chu points out that many of these beneficiaries later took it upon themselves to campaign for "Hsu Sensei" when she later ran for office. Some factories even closed up for a few days to do voluntary work for her campaign.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that doctors were indeed respected in the Japanese occupation era, and in the old society local gentry always had the obligation to play a role in determining public policy, under the Japanese local elites only had the opportunity to occupy low level administrative posts like neighborhood chief, assistant, or secretary, or else the nominal "assemblymen" at various levels who had no power to pass legislation or even resolutions. It was only after retrocession that they could begin to bring their political resources into play.

This is the way it was for Chang Shan-chung, a famous doctor from Pingtung, and his son Chang Feng-hsu, and Hsu Shih-hsien was no different. She was completely unconnected to politics in the occupation era, and even at the end of that period, when the colonial government began compulsory "Japanization" of Taiwanese, she made no effort to make political capital out of her refusal to adopt a Japanese name for herself. It was only after retrocession, when Hsu became principal of the Chiayi Girls' High School, that she embarked on a new life path.

In her term at the high school, she showed great talent for administration. She devised a system for student evaluations of teachers so that she could maintain the quality of teaching at the school as she released the Japanese nationals and brought in new staff. Further, she divided each class into two classes in order to achieve the class sizes fixed by the provincial educational authorities so that the school could be certified as a high school. At that time she also stood for the women of Taiwan as one of four representatives (with one each from agriculture, industry, and commerce) sent to the front lines of the Kuomintang-Communist civil war to present flags and pay their respects.

"My mother presented 100 flags on that occasion alone, so I've known how to do that since I was a child!" laughs Chang Po-ya.

Hsu formally entered politics in 1946 when she served as a member of the Chiayi City assembly. Over the course of democratic development in Taiwan, she served four consecutive terms in the Provincial Assembly, became the first woman ever elected to be a city mayor, and won the highest number of votes in the entire country at the time of the first "supplementary elections" to the Legislative Yuan, setting many "firsts" along the way.

But she also left the Kuomintang after the party refused to let her interpellate about the case of Chiayi County executive Li Mao-sung in the Provincial Assembly, and became one of the leading political independents at that time. In 1960 she was part of a group led by Lei Chen that tried to form a new opposition "China Democratic Party," giving the Kuomintang even more headaches. It is impossible to find the name of this renowned figure of the late occupation and early post-war period in the Chiayi gazetteers published before political liberalization.

Besides her respect for the thought of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, another factor pushing Hsu onto the political stage was her insistence on equal rights for women.

After returning to Taiwan with the MD she earned in Japan, Hsu established the first ever women's association in Taiwan to strenuously promote women's rights.

"I remember that at that time, many couples who were fighting would come to mother for mediation. Once the couple next door starting arguing, and I heard the husband shout at his wife, 'Go ahead! I'm not afraid! Go and get Hsu Shih-hsien,'" says Chiayi mayor Chang Wen-ying, still finding the matter amusing after all these years.

To secure rights for women, while in the Provincial Assembly Hsu petitioned to have licensed prostitution abolished, inciting procuresses from all over the island to protest at Shun Tien Tang.

In 1950, when local self-government was initiated, six autonomous cities formerly directly under the jurisdiction of the province were placed under the jurisdiction of their respective counties; one of these was Chiayi City. During the first elections for the county assembly (which preceded the elections for county executive) by law five seats were reserved for women, but they found only four women willing to run. So the then-director of civil affairs, Yang Pi-chia, said to Hsu: "You're always going on about women's rights, but we can't even find five women to run for county assembly." Hsu was so angry she retorted. "I'll run for county executive and show you a thing or two."

At that time there was definitely a social bias against women in politics. Chang Po-ya recalls that some people scoffed, "With a woman as county executive, will all the men have to wear skirts?" But today, says Chang with pride, Chiayi is the place in all of Taiwan that least resists the idea of a female head of the local government.

"That those two [referring to Chang Po-ya and Chang Wen-ying] have what they have today is due to the foundation that the other two [their parents] laid before them," says Chu Teng-peng, speaking with the wisdom of long-time Hsu family supporter.

The things about Hsu that most Chiayi citizens miss are her determination, her courage, and her incorruptibility.

Hou Li-tang, formerly the chief secretary of the Chiayi City government, says that Mayor Hsu always worked late, feeding herself on crackers. Under her administration, all public works spending in Chiayi was open and above-board. Not only did she not take a penny for herself, she was criticized for "blocking the road to wealth" for others.In her term she completed the paving and widening of Chungshan Road without taking a dime in special assessment benefit taxes.

"Mayor Hsu not only didn't take public monies, she often paid for things out of her own pocket. For example, after meetings when we would all go out to dinner, she would put it on the tab of the Shun Tien Tang Hospital," recalls Hou.

Chu Teng-peng, who worked for many years in Shun Tien Tang, remembers that she often saw people coming in to collect payment for bills. "Generally speaking, Dr. Chang was the behind-the-scenes hero, earning money in the hospital so that the women in the family could remain good, honest officials." Hsu and her husband Chang Chintung lived simply, little different from ordinary people. "Some people say that honest officials live like nobodies, and that's just the way they were. If they had started early on to keep assets for themselves, who knows how much it would add up to today?" Standing in the tiny residence of Hsu's, located on Kung-ho Road in Chiayi, she says this with unbounded emotion.

This woman politician, shaped in the Japanese occupation era and exercising her political influence in the post-retrocession period, has been dead 11 years now. "The people still miss her deeply." Chang Wen-ying reveals that once when she went to a temple a city resident came up to say to her, "Mayor, just before my mother died she told us we must carry on and always continue to support you."

"Seniors in Chiayi over 50 years old have 40,000 votes, accounting for one quarter of the total electorate, and the overwhelming majority of them are iron votes for the Hsu clan," says Tsou Ching-lang, the Chiayi correspondent for the China Times, continuing: "No matter how strong the candidate the Kuomintang nominates, it's no use."

Hsu has been virtually deified in the hearts of the people of Chiayi. In a small temple in a village in the suburbs of Chiayi it is said that the Emperor of Heaven revealed that Hsu has become a goddess, returning to Chiayi to protect the people there. The temple got someone to carve a likeness which was then ritually carried into the sanctuary, and indeed there really are people who come to worship there.

Going back to Chiayi, the area in front of the train station is vibrant with bookstores and fast food chains. The "Chiayi Fountain Chicken Shop," setup next to the multi-colored fountain in the rotary there, has long been a popular stop for visitors. But this fountain that Hsu built to beautify Chiayi has become a major cause of traffic jams. Yet, though some city councilors have advocated tearing the fountain down, no one presses the issue too hard, because the landmark has become something of a symbol of Hsu herself.

Returning to the Shun Tien Tang hospital on Chunghsiao Road, this building with its brick construction on the first floor and unattractive steel for the second and third floors has already been here 53 years, and is falling apart. The facility has been closed since Dr. Chang Chin-tung died ten years ago, except for when it was used as a temporary campaign headquarters when the Chang sisters ran for office. Chang Po-ya reveals that some precious old plaques and wooden tablets have been stolen because there is no one to look after the place. One antique dealer who acquired them, after seeing the plaques and tablets engraved with the names of her parents, sent someone to ask her if she wanted to buy them back--for NT$130,000.

These thieves and antique dealers really don't understand the people, because the name of Hsu Shih-hsien has been engraved on the people's hearts. This woman doctor of the Japanese occupation era still has a great deal of influence today.

[Picture Caption]

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This humble little home accompanied Hsu Shih-hsien in her life of service to the community of Chiayi.

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Hsu Shih-hsien was often to be found mixing with the people when she was mayor of Chiayi, showing her parental concern for them. (photo courtesy of Chang Wen-ying)

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Hsu's Shun Tien Tang hospital is no longer used. But Chiayi residents need only lay eyes on this building where countless people were treated to remember the kindness of Hsu Shih-hsien and her husband Chang Chin-tung. The building was also the inevitable choice for Hsu's daughters to use as campaign headquarters at election time.

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This old photo from the Japanese occupation era is the wedding photo of the "Doctors in Love" --Chang Chin-tung and Hsu Shih-hsien. (rephotographed from an original provided courtesy of Tsou Ching-lang)

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(above, below) Compared with the famous "Yu Family" political faction of Kaohsiung County, the Chiayi "Hsu Family" is especially interesting because it is all women--including Chang Po-ya, now director of the cabinet-level Department of Health, and Chang Wen-ying, current mayor of Chiayi City. A saying in Chiayi says that there's no reason to think a son any better than a daughter if that daughter is anything like Chang Po-ya.

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In the Chung Cheng Memorial Park, planned in Hsu Shih-hsien's tenure as Chiayi mayor and completed under Chang Po-ya, a statue of Hsu has been erected. The last three sentences in the inscription read: "In life she gained wide and sincere respect; in death she is deeply missed. She deserves the title of the most outstanding woman public servant in the modern political history of Taiwan."

Hsu's Shun Tien Tang hospital is no longer used. But Chiayi residents need only lay eyes on this building where countless people were treated to remember the kindness of Hsu Shih-hsien and her husband Chang Chin-tung. The building was also the inevitable choice for Hsu's daughters to use as campaign headquarters at election time.

This old photo from the Japanese occupation era is the wedding photo of the "Doctors in Love" --Chang Chin-tung and Hsu Shih-hsien. （rephotographed from an original provided courtesy of Tsou Ching-lang）

（above, below） Compared with the famous "Yu Family" political faction of Kaohsiung County, the Chiayi "Hsu Family" is especially interesting because it is all women--including Chang Po-ya, now director of the cabinet-level Department of Health, and Chang Wen-ying, current mayor of Chiayi City. A saying in Chiayi says that there's no reason to think a son any better than a daughter if that daughter is anything like Chang Po-ya.

In the Chung Cheng Memorial Park, planned in Hsu Shih-hsien's tenure as Chiayi mayor and completed under Chang Po-ya, a statue of Hsu has been erected. The last three sentences in the inscription read: "In life she gained wide and sincere respect; in death she is deeply missed. She deserves the title of the most outstanding woman public servant in the modern political history of Taiwan.".