2008 TAA-NNJ Scholarship Recipient -- Megan Kao

West Windsor – Plainsboro High School South, Grade 12

Identity. It’s something we all struggle with, as kids and as adults. And even when we don’t know what our own identities are, we fight to keep them. And always, we ask the question “Who am I?”.

I am five foot, one inch, with the build of a soccer player and long hair that comes halfway down my back. I have purple highlights in my hair and four ear piercings. I have a guys sweatshirt that I bought from American Eagle, and wear consistently. I play ultimate frisbee, and french horn. I’m also in marching band. I like drawing, music, physics, and sports. These things make up my identity, but there is one important detail that I take much pride in. I am Taiwanese American.

Princeton Junction, New Jersey. A rural town of quaint houses, green lawns, and quiet woods. I have lived here all my life, and the number of times I’ve been to Taiwan I can count on one hand. But inside my mind my memories are still there, in bits and pieces, like random snapshots taken by a freelance photographer. I remember a courtyard in a yard, my cousin’s, a small concrete fountain sitting in the middle, with tadpoles swimming in its murky depths. A new scooter, shiny against the dirty pavement of the park under my feet as I wove between small nodes of clear substance embedded in the pavement. A rooftop covered with banzai, the touch of my grandfather’s hands on the wires that bent the trees to their shape. A small, dark shop that served plates of gloriously cool, delicious shaved ice. A dog and her puppies, which were unbearably adorable but incredibly irritating. My cousin, sitting in front of a mac computer, playing Starcraft. Countless motorcycles crowding the narrow streets of the city, lined up along the sidewalks or waiting for the light. My arms wrapped around the waist of my uncle as he took me for a ride on the back of his motorcycle, through the darkness of the night. A dark apartment, crowded with fascinating relics: an hourglass filled with pink sand, colorful bracelets, bells, and all sorts of odds and ends. The familiar shape of the white sleeveless shirt that every man wears inside his home. Small and insignificant these memories may be, but they are an essential part of who I am, because they draw me to the place where I set my roots: Taiwan.

I am only seventeen. I have only so many memories from the time I have been alive. But from my parents, I have several lifetimes over of memories. I know that when my parents were still kids they were poor. Time at home was spent helping the family keep the house. Families were bigger – six kids to my mom’s family, seven to my dad’s. They didn’t have computers. For fun children played kick the can, running recklessly through the houses of their neighbors without qualm. Or they would play with tops, or marbles, digging holes in the dirt roads, bringing the curses of passerbys down on their heads. Sometimes they would play with firecrackers, the cheap kind that could take your eye out if you weren’t careful. It was not unusual for them to steal the occasional bunch of grapes, or ripe pineapple from nearby orchards. Boys captured beetles and cicadas out of trees and tied their legs to string. Bikes were the best method of transportation. My father once biked almost 100 miles to another town, and suffered the repercussions of it. Booths sold soda in bottles sealed with marbles of higher quality than the ones they played with, and paid to get the bottles back. On New Year’s, they would get money from their relatives, the thickest and heaviest packet going to the eldest son. School was strict, and guys and girls were trained to hold and shoot rifles. Graduates from high school were drafted into the army for a year or more before their release. People made money as best they could, opening small businesses, even bootlegging. Women who worked outside of the house were not necessarily an oddity – in hard times, people did what was necessary to survive. Vacations and trips were hikes up into the mountains, into the peace and breathtaking beauty of nature. It rarely snowed, and only in the mountains. People would drive up in cars and bring snow down as temporary souvenirs.

People lived under the shadow of “white terrorism” and Chinese dictatorship. Professors and politicians from Taiwan were jailed, or worse. People who spoke out against the government would vanish from their homes. And then there was the infamous 228 incident, in which the injury of a cigarette seller and death of a passerby provoked riots all over the country. Thousands of citizens were killed by the government, and the rebellion crushed. Schools had new professors who taught information meant to brainwash students into believing that the Chinese were saviors and in the right. Speaking Taiwanese was forbidden. Married couples leaving Taiwan were separated: the husband went, and the wife remained behind, a virtual prisoner and hostage, for years before she could also leave. Those who emigrated to the US to speak out against the government were blacklisted.

And before Chinese rule, the Japanese controlled Taiwan. Older generations of Taiwanese knew how to speak Japanese and knew Japanese customs. Besides being fluent in Japanese, my grandmother knew calligraphy, could make silk flowers and Japanese cuisine beautifully. The culture that the Japanese brought with them to Taiwan became intertwined with that of the original, and both underwent a change, blending together.

All of the history behind Taiwan, the small island that the Dutch named Formosa for its beauty makes it the country it is today. And it has also made me into who I am now. I may never live in Taiwan, or know how to speak or read in Chinese. But my roots are there, and I will never forget that. No matter where I am, what language I am speaking, or what clothes I am wearing, I will always be Taiwanese.