The A-bian Family

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) Minsheng E. Road residence doesn't have the regal splendor one might expect in a president's house. The color is simple; the decor is unadorned, poised and clean. And just like with many middle-class families, .there is a family dog, named Honey.

But this ordinary lifestyle cannot hide the extraordinary lives of Chen Shui-bian and Wu Shu-chen, (吳淑珍), whose story is filled with the stuff soap operas are made of. Theirs is the marriage between an assiduous, frugal man from an utterly destitute family and the spoiled daughter of a south Taiwan aristocrat. The story involves his political imprisonment and her politically motivated hit-and-run car attack that leaves her paralyzed. With two children, they persevered to become the youngest first family in Taiwan.

Sound like an FTV melodrama? Well, it will be. At least three TV channels have or are preparing versions of Chen's story, with the first being San-lih channel's "A-bian and A-chen" (阿扁與阿珍), released soon after the inauguration. But in an interview with the Taipei Times, First Lady Wu Shu-chen, noted that although their story may seem ripe with romantic intrigue, the leading man is indeed, "an unromantic, sometimes boring man."

The First Lady's early memories of Chen trace back to their school days in Tainan County. She remembers a dark, thin, small boy -- in other words, unimpressive -- from her elementary school who always earned top commendations from teachers. Many years later, during Chen's college years, Wu was still nonplussed, but nevertheless agreed to a date with the curious, bookish man with Coke-bottle glasses. During this first date, perhaps with the hope of impressing her with his academic prowess, Chen gave Wu "a tedious law textbook" as a present.

Despite such clumsiness at wining and dining, Chen had a patience and determination to be the best thing that ever happened to Wu.

In her biography, Walking Out of Silver Spoon (走出金枝玉葉), Wu said the turning point of their relationship was when Chen waited five hours for her at a train station. "My train was delayed due to an accident, but he was still there waiting for me," Wu recalled in the book.

She would later encounter more of the man's deep commitment to those he loved. After getting his license to practice law during his third year of university, Chen ventured into maritime law and made the beginnings of a small fortune early in his career. But he gave most of his earnings to his impoverished family and paid off the family debts. "It wasn't until that time that I realized Chen's family was in such a difficult position," she said last week.

As Chen and Wu grew closer, the latter's arrogance and stubbornness occasionally irritated Chen. "Don't take me as one of your servants," Chen once said, according to Wu. But these were also qualities that aided their decision to get married in the face of stiff resistance from her well-heeled family. "The more my father objected to this marriage the more I wanted to marry him," she said. He wanted his daughter to marry a doctor; Wu left home and married the young lawyer instead.

It was also Wu's stubbornness, combined with a strong sense of justice, that helped push Chen into the world of politics. It was Wu who persuaded Chen, at the time a successful lawyer, to join the defense team for the eight accused of inciting the Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件) in 1979, a human rights rally denounced by the Chiang regime as a seditious demonstration. "I thought we had enough fortune and that it was time to give something back. But I did not know politics could be this sinister. And when I realized it, it was already too late," Wu said.