While Du said she learned to fit in quite quickly and that she gained "this great adaptability" because of her frequent moves, she said her younger brother did not fare so well.
"He was unable to adjust to new environments quickly and lacked a sense of security. Every time our surroundings changed, his self-esteem would be effected. So when he returned to Taiwan for college, he was at one point rather depressed," Du recalled.
Aside from identity issue and adjustment challenges, sometimes Taiwanese diplomats' children may lose contact with mandarin-speaking environments thus finding themselves unable to manage Chinese very well.
For example, when retired ambassador Loh I-cheng (陸以正) published his book titled If this was America: Taiwan through the Eyes of a Retired Diplomat (如果這是美國:一位退休外交官看台灣) in March, he shrugged off his wife's suggestion to send a few copies of the book to all of his children, now residing in America, given their limited reading ability in Chinese.
But when these challenges are dealt with skillfully, the chance to widely explore diverse cultures can be a great asset for diplomats' children.
The professional interpreter said that it was this "traverse of dual cultures" that enabled her to choose a career as an interpreter.
"The best part [of being a diplomat's child] is that I was able to make contact with another culture," said Du, who received 16-years of education in South Africa before returning to Taiwan for college as well as graduate school.
In Yui's case, he said it was his father that encouraged him to pursue a career as a diplomat, telling him the diplomatic "front line" was the "real battlefield" for the tug-of-war between Taipei and Beijing.
Yui said witnessing his father's endeavors as a diplomat made him believe that "it's an honorable direction to take."
"I saw how onerous my father's job was during the 1970s when Taipei and Beijing engaged in a fierce tug-of-war and when Taiwan withdrew from the United Nations ... Seeing my father's generation serve the country as diplomats when the overall environment was shabby and the salaries were poor -- I found them very admirable," said Yui, who joined the foreign ministry in 1989.
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