More Tales of Taipei

As I have mentioned before, we lived in Taipei, Taiwan when I was a kid. We lived in a nice cinder block house that was completely surrounded by a bamboo fence about 6-7 feet tall. This fence was great as it completely surrounded the property and kept us safe and secure from all outsiders. There was a tall double gate that opened to the outside world and to gain entrance, all comers had to ring a bell and wait to be admitted. Inside those "walls" the life of my family took place for over a year.





The Cinder Block House

This house was in Tien Mou (Tin-Moo) and it had been built especially for our family. There were no government quarters available for us when we arrived on the island and, as I’ve mentioned previously, we lived in The Grand Hotel while they built our house. After we moved out of the hotel and into our house, we lived there for a while and then government quarters became available. When that happened, we moved into military housing and lived on Grass Mountain. Dad sold the Tien Mou house and our family moved on. However, I’ll never forget our days in the little cinder block house with the bamboo fence.














Little Brother, Mom, Me & Little Sister

The pictures attached to this post show you the house, the yard and the bamboo fence in all its glory. The people in the pictures are various family members as they looked all those many years ago.














Little Sister















Dad and #1 Son

I recall the weather in Taipei as being pleasant enough. It seemed warm and there was a lot of rain for it was a very humid environment. I believe the weather could be compared to what we see in northern Florida in the USA. Since the climate is/was semi-tropical, that part of the world is subject to terrible storms called typhoons. I checked the dictionary to see what the difference is between a typhoon and a hurricane and apparently there is no difference. It seems that “typhoon” is a term for a hurricane that occurs in the Western or Northern Pacific or the China Sea. I wonder why they call it a different name??

Anyway, during the time we lived in our house surrounded by the bamboo fence, a HUGE typhoon hit the island of Taiwan. There were all the things you normally associate with a hurricane such as howling winds, pouring rain, lightning and thunder, power outages, trees going down etc. etc. My whole family was huddled indoors, in the center of the house, away from the windows and possible flying glass. However, even from our hidden spot, we could still partially see outside. While watching, we saw “something” large and brown and circular go flying by and away into the sky. Think Dorothy and Toto and unbelievably large objects being sucked up and blown away by the incredible power of the wind.

We huddled there together for what seemed an eternity but was probably just a few hours or so as the worst of the storm went by. The worst thing was the terrible noise of the howling wind and thunder. It sounded as though a freight train was going through the house right next to where we sat and waited.

Finally, it quieted, the wind slowed, the rain stopped and we got up and went outside to see what, if anything, the storm had done to us. When we stepped out the front door, it was the strangest feeling, for we could see for a long, long way. In the distance, we could see the rice patties and other houses and we could look off down the road. It took me a second to realize that the reason we could see the surrounding countryside was because the fence was gone! Not torn down, not shredded or damaged, but completely, totally, absolutely gone. It had been picked up, intact and in one piece, and whirled away to Never Never Land and we never, never saw it again! There was not a shred of bamboo left anywhere. It was surely one of the most unusual phenomenons I’ve ever seen. I would not have been surprised to see the fence torn down and destroyed, but to have it just disappear was very strange indeed.

Obviously, our perimeter fence was quickly rebuilt and we once again returned to our lives inside the confines of our “walls”. But in my mind’s eye, I can still see that huge circle of bamboo whirling through the skies all ready to land somewhere and provide someone with a ready made fence.