Relationship Issues

Relationship issue has been a crucial cornerstone in maintaining a harmonious society since human being emerged on the earth. I believe this is so because in Confucius’ day, which is about 2500 years ago, there was already education delivered on relationship issues.

The Confucians categorized relationship into 5 main issues saying: Leader & group member; parent & children; husband & wife; siblings’ relationship; friends’ relationship. Among the 5 types of relationship, Confucians believe husband/wife relationship is the foundation of maintaining a harmonious society. So if one can manage to hold a marriage of average quality level over 20 years, he is contributing a lot to the peacefulness of the society.

It will be the 30th anniversary of our marriage on the next 15th of January. Across the 30 year period, there was no serious quarrelling or even a physical fighting between us. Yet, that doesn’t mean the prince and the princess lived happily throughout their marriage life. There were argues on tiny matters from time to time. The place where our conflict occurred most often is the kitchen. Each of us has our own ways and ideas in making a dish.

For example, I tend to add some corn flour to thicken the soup that comes out of the vegetable in stir fry so that the flavour in the soup can evenly coat over the vegetable. But Jean prefers to turn the heat up high to vaporize most of the soup. So we often criticize each other about cooking differentials in the kitchen. The drama naturally resulted in an unpleasant dinner.

There are other areas where we can start a cold war lasting a couple of days such as child discipline, holiday ideas and various other day-to-day matters. The result of the war normally ended up with an apology from me initiatively, and Jean usually accepted it by saying ruefully: “mei2 shi4” meaning there was nothing happened signalling the end of the war.

Most of my family friends are leading a harmonious marriage relationship except one who had failed his first marriage and was going through a breaking up process with his second marriage recently. I review these good and bad cases and come to a conclusion that to maintain a good relationship, the husband has to be a modest type of person, and either side has to have a reasonable level of tolerance. My parent taught me with an old saying: “there is no one-hand clap” meaning a fight will not erupt if the other side takes no reaction.

I am very grateful that my parent had taught me good values and shaped me into a modest type of person so that I can enjoy the fruit of various relationships.

In the above mentioned 5 categories, Confucians believe that marriage relationship leads the other 4 ones because marriage is something to do with “manufacturing” the next generation. Without a harmonious marriage, a decent citizen can by no means be produced for the society, thus a peaceful world can not be developed. Based on this logic, don’t you think we, the married people, are bearing a very important mission if we mean to contribute to the human society?

When I was 24

This picture was shot in 1975, during the spring season. I was then serving as political trainer sub-lieutenant at the air force cadet training centre based in a small town called Huwei (a vegetable farming area in the mid west coast of Taiwan).

In the picture, I am on the far right. The one on the far left was my colleague, Chou Zhonghou. I left the air force in June 1975 which was the end of my 2 year obligatory service, and Chou Zhonghou took over my position. The two officers in the middle were my colleagues whose name I can not remember.

Many of my friends, whom I have shown this photo to, would usually comment on my good looks. Some of them tried to match me with someone they knew. There was a maid working in the student centre as a clothes alternator who arranged a meeting for me with her daughter. At the same time, a colleague introduced me to a girl in April. He took me travelling to Kaoshiung, a harbour city in Southern part of Taiwan, to meet her.

The rain poured down by the time when we arrived her residence, and we did not have an umbrella to prevent us from getting wet. So at the time of meeting her, both I and the match-maker were drenched in water. However, the first glance of her really impressed me, and I said in my mind she is the one I want to marry. Her name is Cheng Chen. She was studying to be a school teacher for the last year in the university.

The next day, the match-maker arranged a tour for us to a nearby recreation area by Cheng Ching Lake. He aimed at seeing some progress between me and Chen. Unfortunately, both of us were very shy and conservative and in the whole day I only asked her silly questions like: hey, Miss Cheng, do you have sisters or brothers?

Happy times passed really fast. We said goodbye to her and took the evening train back to the air force cadet training centre. Throughout the journey, I had been in silence and my mind was filled with Cheng Chen's smiling images.

After many letter exchanges (actually I wrote her letters most of the time), and a few personal visits, our intimacy had developed to a degree which convinced the parents of both sides that they we were an inseparable couple. So on the 15th of January 1977, we were married.