The Silenced Generation

My mother always made a big deal out of my birthday when I was young, and the most memorable was my tenth birthday. It was almost unheard of then in Taiwan, but I had a birthday party at the house! My mom bought this big doll cake, and my classmates came to help me finish it. However, for as long as I can remember, my mother never celebrated her birthday. "What's there to celebrate?" she would say. I used to think it was because of the old-fashioned concept of womanhood that people in her generation shared: For women in that time, the sense of "self" slowly diminishes once she becomes a wife and completely disappears as she becomes a mother. It wasn't until recently that I learnt not only does my mother feel indifferent about the date of her birth, she actually kind of loathes it. To explain the reason, there are some important years and dates to be noted.

The Japanese ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Both my maternal grandparents were born and raised in colonial Taiwan. After he graduated with a degree in Japanese Literacy from Meiji University in Japan (that would have been around late 1930s), my grandfather came back to Taiwan and found a teaching job in a high school in Keelung, a little fishing town at the north tip of the island. He fell in love with one of his students' older sister who was educated in Japan's All Girls Senior High School. Both fluent in Taiwanese and Japanese and having been educated in Japan, the two of them hit it off right away. Soon after they got married, my grandfather found a better job in a Japanese government agency in China's Guang Dong Province. They had two sons. My grandfather was able to put his language skills to work. Life was good.

When World War II ended, Taiwan was placed under the control of the Republic of China (the KMT). The KMT sent over Chen Yi as the Executive Chief of Taiwan. However, the KMT military was nothing but a bunch of corrupted thugs who monopolized major industries upon arrival. Consequently, soon after the takeover, tension grew between the Taiwanese and the KMT military.

Two years after the KMT took over Taiwan, an anti-government uprising movement started on February 27, 1947. On Feb 28, it was "handled" violently by the ROC military. This "incident" (as the KMT called it) is remembered by the Taiwanese as the 228 Massacre. The killings continued through March. Chen Yi did to the Taiwanese what the Japanese did to the Chinese at the Rape of Nanking. 1947. That was the year my grandparents returned to Taiwan from Guang Dong. That was also the year my mother was born.

My mother's ID Card states April 13 as her Date of Birth. Back then, however, fatality rate was so high that parents usually wouldn't report the birth of a child until they were certain s/he would survive. That meant at least a month after birth. For this reason, my mother thinks that she might have been born right around the time the 228 massacre happened.

"What's there to celebrate?" she would say.

Now I understand.

The 228 Massacre was only the beginning of a 40-year power struggle between the Taiwanese and Chinese Nationalists. After the KMT lost China to the Communist Party and retreated to Taiwan, it ruled Taiwan as a one-party government and there began the "White Terror" period. Any voice about or against the KMT government was silenced. Among those were many Taiwanese elites and intellects. With a university degree and a job history working for the Japanese government, my grandfather went in exile to Prastas Islands from the time my mother started elementary school until she was in senior high.

My grandmother never told my mom her actual birthday because, to her, it was not worth remembering. Born in colonial Taiwan, raised and educated with traditional Japanese values, my grandmother only valued her sons and didn't pay much attention to her daughters. This is why my mother and my aunt know the dates on their ID Cards are not their actual DOBs. Neither of them knows what they are, and neither celebrates their birthday.

Aside from not knowing when her actual birthday is, my mother doesn't celebrate her birthday because she thinks the tragic events surrounding her possible real date of birth depicted her doomed fate of a lonely life. Unfortunately, later events in her life in fact support her suspicion in some ways: the tragic deaths of all her brothers and her parents, her destined-to-fail marriage to the first-born son of a KMT oppressor and the 10-plus years living with his passive-aggressive, abusive mother, her own ongoing struggles with health issues and the health scare of her only daughter..... All this is for another post though.

This year, my cousin Karen and I used Kai as a reason and talked my mom into celebrating her birthday. As shown in these pictures, my mother, in her quiet way, basked in the presence of family, of a new generation, of hope.

Happy birthday, Mom