Q: In describing your life in Running Away to New Zealand, the influence of A Year in Provence can be vaguely detected. What kind of impact did translating A Year in Provence have on your attitude toward life or your decision to leave?

A: Ha! That's a very keen observation. I would put it this way: I read A Year of Provence, fell in love with it, and set about translating it. This demonstrates that in my attitude toward life, I was extremely close to the author, Peter Mayle. Later on when I myself left my country, it was this kind of outlook which enabled me to be more emotionally relaxed and anticipate that I would be happy. Also, because I had the precedent of Mayle's immigration, I was more able to shed my ethnic shell and placidly become a free person.

A view of the author's "cottage garden.".

Raising her son like a tree

Q: The part in which you discuss trees occupies a large portion of your book. It can't help creating an association between trees and education. What kind of special meaning or symbolism do trees hold for you?

A: When I wrote about the many different kinds of trees, I didn't consciously insert any special meaning like the ancient adage "It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to grow a person." Nevertheless, I can fully understand the sentiments the ancients had when they coined such a saying, because emotionally I appreciate trees just as much as people. Once I told a junior high school teacher, I feel my son is like a tree growing wild in a field; you can be amazed, enjoy and protect him, but you shouldn't trim him or force a certain shape upon him. Trees are like people. Each has its own disposition and appearance; you can't treat them all the same. Tea bushes can be planted close together to form a hedge. Oak trees can be planted in orderly rows. Each individual maple tree, on the other hand, comprises its own individual landscape.

The way I treat plants is very similar to how I treat children: If it is at all possible, I let them develop freely. Unless it is for the good of the tree, I don't trim it. In my garden, I've mixed together many different varieties of flowers, unlike some people's flower beds, where everything is very orderly and flowers of the same species are grouped together. The only reason I do this is that I can't bear to pluck any stray flowers. I read in a book that gardens such as mine are called "cottage gardens." They have a different allure from "urban gardens." I gladly accept this reality.

Q: The entire book is constructed in an epistolary form. Did this create any restrictions in developing the book? From ancient times onward, letters to family have tended to focus on the happy aspects and ignore the sad. Is this the reason why your essays for the most part express the brighter side of life and leave out bitterness and hardship?

Life in transition

A: It's not entirely epistolary in form. There are a number of individual essays which give me a chance to break free of the constraints of that format and say some things which can't quite be said in the context of a letter.

I agree that traditionally family letters played up the happy and played down the sad. But the times were different. In the past, family letters were primarily written by strong men, who had left home, for their fragile wives whom they had left at home or their aged parents. They could not and did not need to report on sad affairs. As for me, I am that "fragile wife" writing to the "manly man" in my family who is strong in both body and mind and to my friends, who are even stronger than my man. What purpose would it serve to avoid discussing sad issues?

No, like I stated in my postscript, I'm simply not very sad. Perhaps the most important thing is that I don't want to be sad, and I don't have the time or energy to be sad. I remember a person once asked me, when I go traveling, did I miss my family more or did my family miss me more? I immediately replied, of course my family misses me more, because their life is the same as always; the only thing missing is me. But I'm on the outside busily filling my eyes with new sights. Everything is fresh and fascinating; how could I miss them? The person I was talking to (it seems it might have been my husband) gave me a big tongue-lashing for being unfeeling. Actually, I was only being candid. I like to savor the flavor of life, especially in "places where life is in transition." I couldn't really say whether this flavor is sour or sweet or bitter or spicy. Maybe it's all of them; this only makes a person seek out life's flavor all the more.

Q: Your children's educational problems were the principal reason for your choosing to move away. It seems that after emigrating, these problems were largely resolved. On the other hand, how have you overcome the subsequent problems that have been brought into play, such as the father's absence while the children grow up, and your separation from your husband?

The price of running away

A: I think that you can't really talk about overcoming the problem of separation; it must exist. This is one of the prices that we have to pay. But it hasn't necessarily revealed itself in the form of a "problem." Modern telecommunications allows us to keep in touch on a daily basis. The fax gets there immediately. I often write him verbose reports on life's trivial affairs, mixing description with critique, so that the children's father, even though he is not "on the scene," can still take part in their growing up.

My husband also often writes us letters. Frequently, I send him a fax before going to sleep, and when I awake, I'll find that he has faxed me a reply. Any interesting articles he sees in the newspapers or magazines, he mails to us. Sometimes I find him a bit bothersome, but he says that in the future the children will remember how hard he worked at being a father.

One of the ways in which I'm fortunate is that I have an independent and open-minded personality. When my children get a little bigger, they'll have the strength to give me some support. All of these things are probably the reason why we dare to pay these "costs."

Q: In the final analysis, will "overseas children" identify with and assimilate into the culture and lifestyle of their new locale? Or will they only temporarily evade the perils of Taiwan's institutional education and finally want to return to their own society and culture? Perhaps this is a dilemma in the hearts of many parents. What is your view on this? Will there be any regrets in choosing the former? Will choosing the latter create new difficulties in adjusting a second time?

A: I will regret it if my children abandon Chinese culture. I have a completely open attitude to where they will choose to live their lives. There is a greater possibility that children will identify themselves with that society in which they have grown up and developed. "Identification" is certainly a question of value perspective, not language or lifestyle. In whichever society they feel most "comfortable," they'll choose to plant roots. "Adjusting" is a process that you have to go through in both cultures. The world is changing very quickly. The East and the West are mutually influencing one another. I hope in the future this question won't be a problem for them.

Farewell, former life

Q: In the whole book, only the chapter "Drifting Spirit, Uprooted Orchid" ambiguously reveals some emotional grievances and regrets. After leaving the country for some time, you seem to have some unresolved quandaries. What are they? And why?

A: My quandaries are mostly something like "Why am I here?" One time when I was chatting with my daughter, I pointed out: Only a few years ago, if someone told me I would settle in New Zealand, I would have split my sides laughing. One reaches one's middle years, and then makes a dramatic departure from the first half of one's life. Like passing through a time tunnel, you enter into a different world, and inevitably you make a general accounting of the first part of your life. And like a forensic expert performing a dissection, you really want to scrutinize how you came step by step to walk down this road. Looking at it this way, a few "pains and sorrows" naturally crop up. Quietly, in a distant foreign land, it's like your whole persons slowly running through the emotions left behind from the first half of your life. You become immersed in your former emotions to the point where you can distinguish their flavor, and then you realize where the emotion comes from. It's like you're filtering, separating out your heart. Nevertheless, in the midst of transition, you're placed into the new emotions that are created by a new environment.

Q: I've heard that after your book was published, it had some impact upon your life. Are you worried that Hamilton will become a hot region for immigrants? Are you worried that your peaceful life will be disturbed?

A: Actually, I'm not. The fact is that the number of Taiwan emigrants moving to Hamilton is growing. But I believe that's because it is close to Auckland. The new immigrants that can't be fit into Auckland naturally spill over into Hamilton. If this trend continues, Hamilton will probably soon "fill up" and spill over into other places.

I discovered that Taiwanese emigrants are very brave, and they are increasingly self-confident. All the little villages have the footprints of new immigrants, and there are people on South Island opening up ranches and growing tomatoes....

Q: Besides completing your children's education, do you have any other future plans?

A: I have no concrete plans. In the future I'll do nothing but carry on with my same old habits. I'll read books and do some writing, grow some flowers. A thick person like myself needs to do some living before she can write something, so I want to place the emphasis on how to live.

[Picture Caption]

p.122

The author, with her father and daughter, leisurely feeds ducks at the shores of Lake Hamilton.

p.124

A view of the author's "cottage garden."