The Liaos are our cross-street neighbors who moved into their brand new house like we did twelve years ago. Compared to us, theirs is a "big" family, consisting of the couple Joe and Merielle, their newborn daughter (and a boy add-on later), and Joe's mom Leah and dad Bill, a three generation ensemble.
Through curbside conversations, occasional meetups at community events, and some lunches together, we got to know each other better: Leah and Bill were first generation immigrants from Taiwan like us, though 10 and 18 years our senior, respectively, Joe, their second son, along with another son and a daughter, were born and raised in the States.
Bill came from a reputable family in central Taiwan. His father went to Japan to study medicine before World War II, when Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule. After the war, he came back to Taiwan and started practicing medicine in his rural hometown 雲林西螺, instituting a first of its kind, "universal healthcare" system where for a fixed low monthly fee, everyone in town got comprehensive quality health care from him.
Then came the atrocious "228 event" (happened on 2/28, 1947, hence the name), when Taiwanese rebelled against the corrupt and inept administration of Chiang Kai-Shek's dispatch from China after Taiwan was reverted to China at the end of WWII, and the subsequent brutal crackdown by Chiang's troops on Taiwanese elites.
Bill's father was accused of harboring some riot leader, and disseminating "Socialist ideas" by setting up a community based healthcare system such as he had done. He was arrested and sentenced to prison for 12 years.
The whole family was on the government's black list, Bill couldn't find steady good jobs and was under constant surveillance by government informants. It was only through his marriage to Leah and some serendipitous incident, along with some personal connection to some higher-up in the government that he made it out of Taiwan, emigrating to the US in the 1970's.
From their new foothold in Northern California, Bill and Leah built out their new life in America: worked hard, ran their own businesses, raised three kids, sent them to colleges, before retiring and settling down in Southern California.
Now Joe, the son they live with, is a VP at Goldman Sachs, Joanne, their daughter, married with two kids, also a corporate lawyer at Goldman Sachs, and Tim, the other son, runs a coffee shop of his own. All are either within the same household or five to ten minutes away from their mom and dad. "You are the luckiest parents I know in America," I must have told Bill and Leah a couple times or more.
Bill was healthy looking yet didn't seem to do any workout. What's his secret? "Drink red wine every day," he'd say. Indeed once when we were at their house for a chat he poured out glasses of red wine from a five-liter wine box. "One glass a day, keeps disease away all these years," he said. It was the same kind of box wine he used when he was running a restaurant business in Northern California that he'd been drinking since.
He also kept up a sharp mind and good memories, name-dropping some old time high officials in Taiwan that were either his relatives or schoolmates or friends' friends, etc. He'd been back to Taiwan a few times since the old white terror days were long gone, and kept abreast of what's happening there through YouTube and the internet. And though he probably would never forget the tragic events the old regime did to his family (he still slept every night on an old, classy, family heirloom bed he took from their old home in central Taiwan), he didn't seem to let them cloud his assessment of political reality today. When I asked him, jokingly, "who do you want me to vote for the presidency this time" before I left for my recent trip to Taiwan, "the third party," he replied, like many young people in Taiwan had in mind.
Red wine drinking notwithstanding, his health started declining in recent years. First the bladder, then the liver, and finally the lungs, cancers and old age gradually took their toll on his body.
He passed away last month, just a couple weeks before his 84th birthday.
Just last year, the Liao's extended family, both in Taiwan and abroad, finished rehabilitation of their old estate in central Taiwan, setting up a memorial hall at the site in honor of Bill's father Dr. Liao Man-Tu (廖萬督). I know Bill would have wanted to visit that place had he been well. I think I will visit it and pay tribute for my sweet old friend to his family next time I am in Taiwan.
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