Maesalong's Taiwanese Daughter-in-Law

More than a decade ago, Tzeng Hua-yi and her husband met in Taiwan when he was studying horticulture at Taiwan University and she business at Ming Chuan Collage. "We went out for four years, and I never knew his citizenship," Tzeng says. She didn't find out until he finished school and was going back home to work that her boyfriend of so many years was from Maesalong.

Where was Maesalong? Tzeng hadn't the faintest idea. She had never even heard of it. But only a month after graduation, Tzeng boldly went with her boyfriend to Maesalong to teach. Less than a year later, she married that young man from Maesalong, becoming one of a small number of Maesalong daughters-in-law from Taiwan.

No longer impoverished, Maesalong is a place suitable for developing tourism.

Returning to Childhood

"My father and mother were both opposed to a marriage that meant moving here," recalls the delicately beautiful and soft-spoken Tzeng. "They worried for me, and when they visited from Kaohsiung, they only grew more despondent!"

Her parents hurt inside about their daughter's living environment, but Tzeng, who actually had to live there, was free from inner struggle or gripes.

Pigs and chickens ran helter-skelter through the streets. There was no gas, making a wood fire necessary to cook a meal. Electricity was supplied only three hours a day, meaning that kerosene lamps or candles had to suffice the rest of the time. It was a very simple and primitive way of life, but it was all very interesting to this woman of Henanese origin who was raised in a military dependents' village in Taiwan. From her point of view, the primitive thatched houses were "cool and well ventilated"--even if they were a little difficult to keep clean.

Was she homesick? Tzeng shakes her head no. "I didn't feel as if I was in a foreign land," she says. In the village people spoke Mandarin and lived as they had in the Taiwan of decades past. "It was like going back to when I was a kid again." Tzeng has a limitless capacity for nostalgia.

Restaurants, hotels. . . the various businesses of the Tuans are all personally overseen by Tzeng.

From refugee camp to tourist trap

The truth is that all these scenes just described no longer exist. Tzeng points out that ever since the Free China Relief Association started providing guidance with agricultural techniques as well as building up the basic infrastructure (helping to supply water and electricity and build roads), life in Maesalong has markedly improved.

And six years ago, the Thai government built a road to the outside, further accelerating development.

Now Maesalong has already shed its skin as a refugee village to become a tourist attraction. Thatched houses have been swapped for those made out of reinforced concrete, and they're complete with plumbing, electricity, and gas.

Villas for let to travellers on vacation, restaurants advertising Yunnan-style Chinese cuisine, stores selling local produce and handicrafts, karaoke bars with flashing neon lights, tastefully decorated tea houses: all are on offer in Maesalong.

Tzeng's in-laws, the Tuans, are a prominent Maesalong family, and their business interests have made them even more conspicuous. Besides planting tea, the Tuans also have restaurants, hotels, tea houses, handicraft stores, etc. Because her father-in-law General Tuan Hsi-wen has passed away, her husband has taken over as Maesalong's mayor and is very busy with his public duties. So Tzeng has taken charge of the family enterprises. Having studied business, she now has a chance to turn theory into practice.

The environment is changing and so are people's sentiments. As the leaders of the older generation die, the people of this refugee village are losing their ability to rally together. The photo shows the General Tuan Wenchiang Memorial Hall.

Passing time in their mountain home

Tzeng Hua-yi is not the only example of someone coming to northern Thailand from distant Taiwan. Several of her husband's friends' married Taiwanese girls. "But out of ten such brides, eight or nine won't be able to deal with life here and will return!"

Yet Tzeng has stuck it out for 12 years. Rarely returning to Taiwan, she seldom even leaves the mountain. The climate in the mountains of northern Thailand is cool and crisp, the air is clean, and she loves the environment there. On the contrary, down below the air is muggy and the cities are full of noise and dust. She finds it a difficult adjustment.

"Just coming off the mountain is like going to the big city. After buying clothes and books, I want to make a quick escape," she says laughing. You can't glimpse the slightest trace of pretense in her eyes.

Adults can live for long periods up on the mountain, but it's not the same for children. Tzeng has three kids, the oldest of whom is ten and the youngest six. To attend school, they have all had to leave home at a young age and live with relatives in Chiang Mai. In school there they study Thai and English, brushing up on their Mandarin when they go home.

Even so, Tzeng feels that her children, "seem as if they lack something." Children in Thailand are spared the exam pressure of Taiwan, she notes. They're very happy-go-lucky, but perhaps a little "lazy."

"I know all too well how the pressure for educational advancement in Taiwan leaves a bitter taste. But I just hope that my children learn something of the Chinese ways of thinking," Tzeng says, believing that otherwise they'd be missing something. She plans to send her children to Taiwan for junior high.

The village's hope

Though worried about the education of her own children, Tzeng shows even greater concern for an overall solution to the problem of Chinese education in Maesalong. "Establishing a Chinese school is the hope of the more than 1000 households and 6000 residents of Maesalong," says the always gentle Tzeng with excitement.

Maesalong used to offer Chinese-language education, via the Hsinghua Chinese Elementary and Junior High School. Well regarded, it attracted students from as far away as Bangkok. But since the Thai government shut down Chinese schools in 1984, Maesalong's children have been forced to attend schools with lessons conducted in Thai, studying Chinese in the time left over before and after school.

Now that the Thai government has softened its stand, the Chinese of northern Thailand have rekindled hopes for establishing a Chinese school. As the mayor of Maesalong, Tzeng's husband is doing everything he can to get such a school established. "Now all the relevant agencies say there's no problem, but they can't formally issue the papers for it," says Tzeng with frustration.

The cost of growth

In faraway northern Thailand for 12 years, Tzeng has adopted Maesalong as her own home. Many regarded the bold decision she made back then as a foolish one, but she has never regretted it.

This Taiwanese daughter-in-law of Maesalong has witnessed a transformation in the town. The great changes in the living environment are visible to the eye--but not so those changes in people's hearts. "Life has improved for everybody. But that feeling of togetherness is disappearing," she says with a tone of regret. "Now it seems that people are just looking out for themselves!" Yet she doesn't give any concrete examples.

Perhaps there is always a price for the process of development--whether on the Pacific island of Taiwan or in Maesalong of the Indochinese peninsula.

[Picture Caption]

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In northern Thailand for 12 years, Tzeng Hua-yi has adopted Maesalong as her own home. Not only does she rarely go back to Taiwan, she rarely even leaves the mountain.

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No longer impoverished, Maesalong is a place suitable for developing tourism.

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Restaurants, hotels. . . the various businesses of the Tuans are all personally overseen by Tzeng.

P.125

The environment is changing and so are people's sentiments. As the leaders of the older generation die, the people of this refugee village are losing their ability to rally together. The photo shows the General Tuan Wenchiang Memorial Hall.