Part 3
Building A Life
Chapter 10
Waiting Outside New Park
Every afternoon, when the working day drew to a close, Grandpa would
make the same journey.
He left the bank on Bo'ai Road and walked towards New Park, where
阿嬤's office was only a short distance away. There was no need to
arrange a meeting place. After enough days, routines become their own
kind of promise. He knew when she would finish work, and she knew that,
if she looked towards the entrance, he would probably be there waiting.
Then they would walk home together.
阿嬤 remembered those walks as naturally as she
remembered the evenings he spent at her parents' house or the Saturdays
they wandered through Ximending. They were simply another part of
everyday life. Yet, like so many of the memories in this story, it was
the ordinary rhythm of those days that quietly built the life they would
one day share.
阿嬤's first job was with a Japanese trading company.
The opportunity was not entirely unexpected. Years earlier, her mother
had encouraged the young railway employee who would become Grandpa by
teaching him Japanese so he could sit the bank entrance examination. Now
that same language, passed from one generation to the next, unexpectedly
opened another door.
阿嬤 belonged to the first generation educated entirely in Mandarin
after the war, while her mother belonged to the generation educated in
Japanese. Although 阿嬤 had not grown up speaking the language
fluently, she had learned enough from her mother to work confidently in
a Japanese business environment. A skill inherited almost by accident
became one of the foundations of her professional life.
Taiwan itself was changing quickly. Japanese companies were returning to
invest in the island as its economy gathered momentum during the 1960s.
For many young graduates, they offered opportunities that had scarcely
existed a decade earlier. 阿嬤 never spoke about these changes as
economic history. She simply remembered going to work each morning.
History formed the backdrop.
Work was simply life.
When the office closed each evening, Grandpa was waiting.
Sometimes they walked through New Park before heading home. Today the
park is known as 228 Peace Memorial Park, but in those days almost
everyone simply called it New Park. Situated in the heart of Taipei, it
offered a welcome pocket of shade and quiet among the city's busy
streets. Office workers crossed it on their way home, elderly men
gathered beneath the trees to talk, and young couples found excuses to
take the longer path instead of the shortest one.
阿嬤 never described those walks as dates. She described them as conversation.
After spending the day in different offices, they caught one another up
on the small events that rarely become part of history. A colleague who
had made everyone laugh. Something amusing that had happened at work.
News from their families. Plans for the weekend. The sort of
conversations that seem ordinary while they are happening, yet become
some of the memories we miss most years later.
There was no urgency to reach home; being together was destination enough.
Through all these stories, she rarely separated work from family.
Her career was important, but never because of titles or promotions.
Work gave structure to her days. It introduced her to people from
different backgrounds. It allowed her to contribute to the family and to
build a life alongside Grandpa. Most importantly, it became another
place where the values she had learned from her parents—kindness,
diligence and humility—were quietly put into practice.
Those values travelled with her wherever she went. Just as Grandpa's kindness had been recognised by the ladies serving lunch in the bank cafeteria, 阿嬤 earned the respect of the people she worked with through quiet competence rather than self-promotion. Neither of them ever seemed interested in impressing the world. They simply wanted to do good work and come home to one another.
As 阿嬤 remembered those evenings, she never spoke about them with
nostalgia for a lost Taipei, but with gratitude.
Those walks through New Park were never remarkable because of where they
took place. They were remarkable because they happened so consistently.
Day after day, two young people at the beginning of their working lives
found time to walk side by side before returning to the responsibilities
waiting at home.
Without realising it, they were already practising the partnership that
would sustain them through every chapter that followed.