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What Taiwan is reading

If Son of Taiwan (台灣之子) was really written by Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) himself, as it claims to be, then we have to say whether he triumphs in next Saturday's election or not, he surely comes out as a winner in the "presidential candidate who can write best" contest.

Now sitting near the top of many local self-help book lists, Son of Taiwan starts at the excruciating moment when Chen learned he wasn't going to win re-election as Taipei mayor in 1998. He recounts in detail the thoughts that flashed through his mind in the wake of that painful realization, telling us how he struggled to set his emotions aside so he could give a calming, heart-lifting speech to his most ardent supporters. He took the defeat as a gift from the public that would help prepare him for greater tasks in life.

The details Chen provides are what make this book a worthwhile read. They create a backdrop of hardship and poverty that gives readers a context through which they can measure his success. Details include how during the courtship of his wife, he once mistook the foldable wardrobe in her apartment for a refrigerator because he had never seen a real refrigerator in his life. That's what he says.

Chen took the poverty he was born into as the best possible gift from heaven, he writes. Compelled to strive harder than everyone else, he was the first in his class from grade one all the way to National Taiwan University. He received the highest score on the national bar exam and started practicing law a year before graduation.

The book also recounts all the defining moments in his career.

Chen tells of a political rally he attended as a university freshman, in which he heard a speech given by Huang Hsin-chie (黃信介), which inspired him to abandon a business major to try his hand at law and to join the pro-democracy movement. He writes about the perhaps-not-so-accidental hit-and-run incident that struck his wife instead of him, paralyzing her for life. Chen also writes about his love for his wife and children, his parents and in-laws. Tidbits like these make the book one of the most soulful political memoirs Taiwan has ever seen.
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