b'Chapter 2:A Familys Journey to ReunionThe Long Journey to TaiwanWhile Father arrived earlier in Taiwan alongside students and faculty members, my mother didnt follow until spring of 1949. She and her mother-in-law took my siblings, four children aged 12, 10, 2 and 1, on a long journey starting from Hunan to Guangzhou, then by ship to Keelung (), Taiwan, and finally to Hualien via the Suhua Highway. Fortunately, the loyal house-keeper, Mr. Wei Cheng Li (), whom we respectfully referred to as Li Lao Ban (Chief Li ), accompanied them the entire way and was of tre-mendous help. Our family finally reunited with our father in Hualien safely.However, our familys struggles were still not at an end. Though Tai-wan is one of the safest countries in the world today, it offered a slightly more precarious living experience in the late 1940s and 50s. The island had suddenly found itself home to millions of desperate refugees in need of shel-ter and food, neither of which were readily available. We were fortunate enough to have a house big enough for all of us, but that same fortune made us into a target as well. One night, as Mother stood by a bedroom window, she heard someone attempting to force open the sliding door downstairs. With Father and Li Lao Ban away, she reacted instinctively, screaming and seizing Fathers pistol, ready to confront the intruder. My sisters, alarmed by Mothers cry, converged in her room. The potential burglar, realizing the presence of people in the house and uncertain of their number, fled. If he had known that there were only women, children, and the elderly in the house and that Fathers pistol was not loaded, the end result could have been something too terrible to imagine. 27'