Hey! The pair of stone lions in the photo above are standing at the entrance to the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Many of the older generation of media leaders, such as Ma Hsing-yeh, Wang Hung-chun, well-known television news anchors Li Tao, Li Szu-duan, and director of the Cloud Gate modern dance group Lin Huai-min, all graduated from this school of journalism. Perhaps they all have posed for memorial photos with these two lions. Currently the school has about eight students from Taiwan earning their master's or PhD degrees, and there are about as many students from mainland China.

This pair of Ming era stone lions also immigrated from China; their original home was Qufu, in Shandong Province. In 1932 China's Minister of Industry Kung Ta, a 72nd generation descendant of Confucius, presented them as a gift to the school of journalism. And since the lions crossed the wide ocean and settled down in this foreign land, new arrivals who set their eyes on them usually gain the warm feeling of bumping into old friends in a strange place.

The University of Missouri is located in the central United States, in Columbia, Missouri, a consummate college town. Besides the University of Missouri, there are two other institutions of higher learning here, so the folks that crowd the busiest boulevard in town, Ninth Street, are almost all students.

The University of Missouri was the first university in the United States to be established west of the Mississippi River, and currently it has more than 800 students from mainland China and Taiwan. With the addition of the two other colleges, the city of Columbia plays host to more than 2000 Mandarin-speaking students and dependents.

There is no Chinatown in Columbia; it only offers a Korean and a Chinese grocery store, neither of which are very large. But they do provide a way for homesick overseas students to buy such Chinese victuals as tofu, Chinese mushrooms and pickled cabbage. Of the two, the Chinese shop has fewer supplies and is less centrally located, but in order to enjoy the company of other Chinese, the students are still quite willing to travel several extra blocks to buy things like soy sauce, deep fried bread sticks and shacha sauce.

The shops sell ingredients for Chinese cooking, but a number of foodstuffs necessary for hometown specialties are not to be found; some products aren't particularly tasty, and others are too pricey. This, then, has become the impetus for a clandestine but fierce competition among student wives to demonstrate their "feminine virtues." Long before the Mid-Autumn Festival, they all begin concocting salted duck's eggs and buying sweet red beans to make bean paste, baking tray after tray of professional-quality moon cakes. When Chinese New Year is close at hand, they buy tofu and deep fry it to mix in fire pots. They even make sticky rice cakes and meatballs by hand.

The wives of overseas students often say in jest that theirs is the role of "royal tutor," and with this regal obligation in mind, they personally cook up batches of hometown treats. These have become their "report cards," and the pressure is considerable. These ladies that in Taiwan never laid their fingers on a knife or a spatula have turned into a group of gourmet chefs.

For the overseas Chinese students at Columbia, Missouri, sharing Chinese-language newspapers, exchanging news from home, occasionally dropping by the Chinese grocery to bask in the spicy aromas, cooking up some homemade food for a friend, and even making a special trip to the school of journalism to say hello to the pair of stone lions, must all be ways of conjuring up memories of home.

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These six stone pillars constitute the spiritual symbols of the University of Missouri, and they are the oldest remaining architectural structures on campus. University graduates love to have memorial pictures taken here. (photo by Hsiao Ma)

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When first arriving at an alien college campus in Missouri, one can see a pair of stone lions and gain the warm feeling of bumping into old friends in a strange place. (photo by Ko Tzu-ching)

When first arriving at an alien college campus in Missouri, one can see a pair of stone lions and gain the warm feeling of bumping into old friends in a strange place. （photo by Ko Tzu-ching）