[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 11, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1585-E1586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page E1585]]



          FOREIGN MINISTER JOHN CHANG OF THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

                                 ______
                                 

                      HON. WILLIAM F. CLINGER, JR.

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 11, 1996

  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Speaker, President Lee Teng-hui of the Republic of 
China appointed Mr. John H. Chang as his new Foreign Minister in June 
1996. Educated at Georgetown University, Minister Chang served 
previously as the Republic of China's political Vice Minister of 
Foreign Affairs and most recently as Minister of Overseas Chinese 
Affairs. At age 55, Minister Chang is a distinguished career diplomat 
and will certainly strengthen the on-going relations between his 
country and ours.
  Minister Chang came from a very deprived childhood. He and his twin 
brother, Winston H. (Hsiao-tz'u) Chang, were raised by their maternal 
grandmother and uncle. Overcoming their extreme poverty and lack of 
parental attention, the brothers struggled, worked hard and rose to 
positions of prominence: John H. (Hsiao-yen) is now the Foreign 
Minister and Winston H. (Hsiao-tz'u) was the president of Soochow 
University before succumbing to heart ailments last year.
  In a moving chronicle, ``Days of Shelled Peanuts,'' the late Dr. 
Winston H. Chang detailed the hardships he and his brother endured 
during those years of deprivation. I ask that the chronicle be printed 
in the Record for the reference of students of contemporary Chinese 
history.

                        Days of Shelled Peanuts

                     (By Winston Hsiao-tz'u Chang)

       My twin brother Hsiao-yen and I were born in Kweiling, 
     Kwangsi province, in 1941. Soon after our birth, our maternal 
     (hereafter, Grandmother) took us to her home in Kiangsi 
     province. In 1949 Grandmother and our maternal uncle 
     (hereafter, Uncle) moved us to Hsinchu, Taiwan where they 
     raised us.
       When our mother died, Hsiao-yen and I were infants. We have 
     no memory of our mother. But Grandmother described her as a 
     loving daughter who wrote a good script. Grandmother said our 
     mother was pretty, elegant, decisive and competent. I later 
     found some information about Mother, along with pictures of 
     her. I learned that soon after high school she volunteered in 
     the War of Resistance against Japan by joining the Youth 
     Corps. During her training in the Youth Corps, she worked as 
     hard as any man. Mother was not reticent; she was resolute 
     and ready to take on any assignment. Mother was considered a 
     modern woman with new ideas.
       My maternal grandfather (hereafter Grandfather), who lived 
     in Nanchang, was quite wealthy. I left his Nanchang home when 
     I was six years old. I remember Grandfather's home as being 
     very big. It had a very imposing main door with two huge 
     brass door rings. A pair of stone lions guarded each side of 
     the main door. A large courtyard was enclosed on four sides 
     by two-story buildings. It was an impressive compound. 
     Grandfather was a typical scholar. He recited poetry, 
     composed literary couplets, read classics, and practiced 
     calligraphy. As a young man he had passed a number of 
     examinations, including the village examination, the county 
     examination and the provincial examination. Local people 
     honored him with the title of ``Mini Triple Crown.'' He was 
     born too late to have taken the national examination; when he 
     was of age, the national examination was no longer given. Yet 
     he was so erudite that he would have passed the national 
     examination with top honors if he had taken it. Grandmother, 
     on the other hand, was a kind woman with a firm and 
     perservering personality. Despite her love for us, she never 
     wavered from her strict principles of child rearing.
       The 1940's in China were a period of upheaval. The family 
     elders deliberated much about whether the family should leave 
     China. Grandfather did not want to leave behind his vast 
     fortune, including land and property, or the children. But 
     Grandmother and Uncle finally decided to take Hsiao-yen and 
     me to Taiwan.
       Grandmother took some cash and jewelry with her to Taiwan. 
     Believing that her stay in Taiwan would be brief, she did not 
     take much money with her. What she brought with her was 
     enough to support her family for a short time. But it soon 
     became difficult to meet living expenses. Because everyone in 
     Taiwan was poor, everyone's living standards were about the 
     same. So our family's financial condition was not 
     exceptional. Even though we had little we didn't feel any 
     pain.
       To make a living, Uncle made bread buns at home which he 
     sold in the market. Later, he sold various small items, such 
     as fountain pens, socks, and plastic bags. I went with him 
     everywhere. I quickly understood that without Uncle's hard 
     work, we would have trouble making ends meet.
       We were so poor that we could not afford to buy shoes, so 
     Grandmother made cloth shoes for us. My brother and I were 
     usually barefoot when we went to school. All of our 
     schoolmates were barefoot too, so no one had anything to 
     complain about. Furthermore, not wearing shoes helped us run 
     fast. We loved playing. We didn't care how hot or how cold 
     the ground was. When we had to wear shoes on more formal 
     occasions, we felt uncomfortable.
       We dressed in our khaki school uniforms most of the time. 
     Pencils and paper were used very sparingly. Buying a new 
     pencil was a special occasion. A fountain pen was considered 
     a fantastic luxury item. At the time I most admired those 
     children who had bicycles; these children seemed to have the 
     most fun. I wanted to borrow their bicycles to see if I could 
     ride one.
       Our home was very modest. It didn't even have a bathroom. 
     At the time Uncle was peddling soap so we used a few wooden 
     soapbar crates to partition a small corner of the kitchen, 
     which we converted into a bathroom. To take a bath in winter 
     we boiled water in a kettle, poured the hot water into a 
     wooden tub and mixed it with cold water. Later, the wooden 
     tub was replaced by a thicker aluminum basin. We used a home-
     made soap to bathe ourselves. That was a good snapshot of how 
     we lived.
       Sometimes we were so poor that we could not afford to buy 
     rice. We had previously charged our rice and not paid our 
     bill on time, so the rice vendor would not extend us any 
     further credit. Then Uncle used flour, which was cheaper than 
     rice, to make bread buns, which was many times all we ate. 
     Sometimes Uncle would serve vegetables mixed with flour 
     balls. When we could not afford flour, we ate peanuts. When 
     we came home from school, if we saw Uncle kneading dough we 
     knew we would be eating bread buns. But if we saw a big 
     bundle wrapped in a newspaper, we knew we would be having 
     peanuts for supper. We would first shell the cooked peanuts 
     one by one and then eat them. Sometimes we ate peanuts for 
     several days. But I am glad to have lived through those early 
     days of deprivation. They helped build my character from an 
     early age. I had no doubt that life is a struggle.
       We had two bamboo beds in our house. Grandmother used the 
     small one while Hsien-yen and I shared the big one. We 
     pinched and poked each other every night until we reached 
     senior high school. Those days gave me fondest memories of 
     childhood.
       I attended the Tungmen Primary School in Hsinshu. Most of 
     my classmates were Taiwanese, so I learned to speak Taiwanese 
     fluently. When I was in junior high school, Ms. Lu Hua-hsien 
     was a mathematics teacher at a Chungli high school. A friend 
     of the family, she suggested that my brother and I stay with 
     her so she could help us build a good foundation in 
     mathematics. So during three years of junior high school my 
     brother and I lived with this Hakka lady and became very 
     proficient in the Hakka dialect.
       Grandmother and Uncle loved us totally, but they never 
     spoiled us. They were very strict regarding our studies and 
     manners. They had rules on grooming, dressing, eating 
     properly and greeting elders appropriately. But I was 
     certainly not a perfect child. I detested going to a tutor 
     for supplementary lessons. As soon as I got to the tutor's 
     home, I would quickly sneak out and go to a movie theater. 
     Upon spotting an unsuspecting paying patron entering the 
     theater, I would sneak in with him without paying. When the 
     movie was over, Grandmother and Uncle would be waiting for me 
     outside of the theater. They knew where I was. When they 
     caught me, I had to kneel on the ground for punishment. After 
     that, Grandmother would patiently explain why such harsh 
     punishment was necessary.
       Despite the strict discipline at home, I could not 
     understand why I had to study hard. My casual attitude 
     towards studying continued even during my junior high school 
     years. Most of my classmates were from farming families. By 
     our standards, they were extremely unruly. We would finish 
     eating our lunch by ten o'clock. Then during the noon recess, 
     we engaged in many activities. We filled our empty lunch 
     boxes with shrimp and worms we caught in the fields. We then 
     built a fire and feasted on what we had caught. In the summer 
     I would go swimming in the river with my classmates. I really 
     enjoyed the outdoor activities.
       Although I played a lot with my friends, I kept up with my 
     schoolwork because Grandmother and Uncle made sure I did not 
     neglect my homework. During our junior high school days, 
     Uncle made Hsiao-yen and me copy our Chinese and English 
     lessons after school. Otherwise he would not give us any 
     pocket money. Uncle believed that even if we didn't learn 
     anything, at least copying the lessons once every day would 
     help us remember something. In addition, we would learn good 
     penmanship. Yet, in primary and junior high schools I never 
     studied on my own initiative. However, seeds for learning 
     were planted early in life; they began to sprout when I was 
     in senior high school. I suddenly understood how to study on 
     my own. I tasted the joy of learning.
       Hsiao-yen and I attended Soochow University, but my 
     family's financial condition was not any better at that time. 
     A private school, Soochow charged high tuition. In addition 
     to tuition, there were the living expenses. We never had 
     enough money. We took our meals at a small eatery, but we 
     could never pay our board on time every month. The man 
     running the eatery was very nice. Even if we were behind in 
     payments, he didn't force us to pay and continued to let us 
     eat our meals there. He had an ingenious strategy. He hung a 
     blackboard in his eatery and underneath everyone's name was a 
     Chinese ideogram composed of five strokes. For each day that 
     we didn't pay for our meal, he would add a stroke to the 
     ideogram. He would later erase strokes, depending on how much 
     we paid. Every month, Hsiao-yen's and my name would go on the

[[Page E1586]]

     blackboard, sometimes accumulating more than ten strokes. We 
     could not pay until we received money from our uncle in 
     Hsinchu.
       We had the same problem with our rent. We lived in a very 
     tiny room with a bathroom right outside our room. We chose 
     that room because it was cheap. When we failed to pay the 
     rent, the landlord would embarrass us by raising his voice so 
     that others could hear him. My brother and I had no choice 
     but to swallow our pride and continue to live there. As for 
     tuition, we had more than once asked Mr. Shen Ping to be our 
     guarantor. He would take us to see the president of the 
     University, praising Hsiao-yen and me as good students and 
     asking that we be allowed to enroll before paying tuition 
     since we didn't always have the tuition money on time. He 
     also wrote a guarantee, pledging to pay our debts if we 
     didn't. Through these delaying tactics, we were able to 
     finish our college.
       From a very early period, Grandfather taught my brother and 
     me to recite poetry, and Uncle taught us classical Chinese. 
     Because of these early lessons we had an interest in Chinese 
     studies. After entering Soochow University, I enjoyed my 
     Chinese studies classes very much--like a fish taking to 
     water. But during my freshman year, a law suit against my 
     uncle determined my career choice.
       That trouble started with my uncle. He had borrowed money 
     from someone and did not pay it back. But the lender didn't 
     start any legal actions against my uncle; someone else went 
     to the court and asked the court to seize our house. Uncle 
     became very upset and he felt he was not being fairly 
     treated. It was true that he owed someone money, but he felt 
     it would be more appropriate for the lender to sue him 
     instead of a third party. After the lawsuit was filed, Uncle 
     had no idea about how to respond. He tried to study the law 
     books of the Republic of China. It was all to no avail. He 
     couldn't prevent his house from being seized.
       Uncle's trouble devastated me. I thought that if I were a 
     law student, I would know how to help my family. At the very 
     least, I would be able to write petitions and to comprehend 
     the legal procedures. Perhaps our legal rights would have 
     been preserved and our house might not have been seized. 
     After witnessing my uncle's misfortune, I made a quiet 
     decision that I would switch from Chinese studies and study 
     law.
       The first year, there were many candidates for the law 
     program. Only one space was available that year, but I placed 
     second in a competitive examination. So I didn't get into the 
     law program and felt very bad. The following year, there was 
     no space at all. The third year I still wanted to switch to 
     law, but a teacher told me that since I already had two years 
     of Chinese studies, I would have wasted a lot of time because 
     I would have to start from the beginning again. He advised me 
     to finish my degree in Chinese studies first. If I switched 
     to law after that, I would have a solid foundation in Chinese 
     language training and would be a better lawyer because of my 
     language skills. He also told me about a few well-known 
     attorneys who were Chinese majors first before they studied 
     law. The teacher suggested that I follow that route.
       He convinced me to wait. I finished my degree in 
     Chinese studies, served in the Army, and then returned to 
     Soochow University as a sophomore majoring in law. The law 
     program at Soochow takes five years to complete, so I 
     spent a total of eight years, earning two bachelors' 
     degrees from Soochow University.
       Because I had tasted the joy of learning, I was a better 
     law student than most. Right before an examination, my 
     classmates would often ask me to help them review our course 
     of study. Because of this type of prepping fellow classmates, 
     I gained a very good understanding of law.
       After Soochow University, I traveled to the U.S. for 
     graduate studies. First I received my Master's degree in 
     political science from the Southern Methodist University in 
     Texas. Later I received my L.L.M. and J.D. degrees from 
     Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. When I returned 
     to Taiwan in 1978, I was thirty-four years old. I was very 
     glad that I had completed my studies by the age of 35--in 
     accordance with the timetable I had set up for myself.
       I have always maintained that you have to be very serious 
     about your studies before you can reap any rewards. Your 
     determination decides what you will achieve. Regardless of 
     what stage or level of learning you pursue, you must always 
     be enthusiastic about learning and you must never stop 
     gaining knowledge. When I studied in the U.S., I totally 
     immersed myself in my studies. Nothing distracted me. For 
     example, my classnotes were sometimes sloppy because I had 
     taken them very quickly. After I returned home, I listened to 
     the tapes I had made of the class and recopied all of my 
     classnotes so I would have very neat notes to review later. 
     Only after such painstaking work was I able to identify the 
     issues I needed to focus on as well as grasp the professor's 
     main points. Later when I became a teacher, I shared my 
     learning experiences with my students.
       I was in the United States for six years. In order to earn 
     money for tuition I worked every summer. The first summer, a 
     friend of an American roommate gave me a ride every day to a 
     construction site. I helped lay foundations for houses. 
     American houses are very simple to construct. My fellow 
     workers and I would dig a hole in the ground, set up steel 
     rods and pour cement. The rest would be taken care of by a 
     different crew. So our foundation crew moved rapidly from job 
     site to job site. The Texas sun is very hot, and I perspired 
     profusely. The first day after work, my fingers were bruised 
     and bleeding so I had to wrap them in bandages. The following 
     day I wore gloves. A few days later, I wore out my gloves. 
     For the entire summer, I worked with my hands, laying crude 
     steel rods and pouring cement. I earned only three dollars an 
     hour. But it was good money then, and I didn't mind all the 
     hard work.
       I also worked as a waiter. I started out as a busboy; my 
     job was to help waiters move tables, to clear tables for 
     waiters, and to take the dirty dishes to the kitchen.
       Besides construction work and waiting on tables, I also 
     worked as a security guard at a beer factory and at a bank. 
     Wearing a tight-fitting uniform and carrying a gun, I made my 
     rounds every hour. The rest of the time was essentially mine. 
     It was easy work and the job was ideal for me. I had plenty 
     of time to study. That summer, I had enough spare time to 
     translate a law book into Chinese.
       Grandmother is the most important person in my life. Hard 
     times in Taitung did not overcome her. She always told us 
     that poverty would never crush anyone and that everyone must 
     have pride and ambition. She never mentioned our father. When 
     we were kids, we would ask her about him. She assured us that 
     our father was an upright and courageous man--a very good 
     man. Our thoughtful and loving grandmother enabled us to have 
     a normal childhood and taught us to be resourceful and 
     respectful.
       When I was in the last year of senior high school, 
     Grandmother was already in poor health. She still got up 
     early every morning to do some light housework such as 
     dusting tables and chairs. She patiently welcomed each new 
     day. Then one morning it was eerily quiet. I did not hear her 
     comforting activity. When I rushed to her bedside, she had 
     already died in her sleep.
       Grandmother has passed on. I will never forget what she 
     taught me. She instilled a typical Chinese attitude that has 
     deeply permeated my life. Grandmother has enabled Hsiao-yen 
     and me to live normal productive lives despite all the 
     speculation about our parents. Grandmother gave Hsiao-yen and 
     me the support to live our lives with dignity and pride.
       Ten years ago when I finished my studies in the U.S., 
     Soochow University happened to have a teaching position 
     available. So I returned to my alma mater to start a career 
     in academia. I have always been attracted to law. I have 
     always believed that for a country to thrive, it must have 
     its own body of law. For example, if the United States did 
     not have a strong legal system and Constitution, all of its 
     material goods and scientific progress would not be enough to 
     sustain its social cohesiveness. Here in Taiwan we must head 
     in a similar direction. It does not matter what career a 
     person has chosen--whether education, academic studies, 
     administration or any other field--he too can serve both his 
     society and country and find meaning in life if he is totally 
     dedicated and selfless. Even though not all of us will be 
     successful in all we do, as long as we do our best in our 
     chosen field, we will be completely fulfilling our mission in 
     life. This is my attitude towards life. This is what I expect 
     of myself. This is what I pledge to myself for now and the 
     future.

                          ____________________