Remembering 228: Yeh Te-chin, 75, native of Tamsui, Taipei County

Yeh Te-chin, at age 15. PHOTO COURTESY OF YEH TE-CHIN

Like Taiwanese people at that time, Yeh Te-chin (葉德進) thought it was the blessing of Buddha to see the KMT army take over Taiwan from the hands of the Japanese government as World War II came to an end.

"I was among those cheerful crowds welcoming the troops at Tamsui harbor," Yeh, now 75, said.

He expected the nation to thrive again under the KMT government although the soldiers coming down from the boats wore shoes made out of straw strings and carried their own pots and pans.

However, things did not turn out as he had expected. Instead of protecting the Taiwanese, the troops became the enemy at home. Mainland soldiers looted Taiwanese homes and raped Taiwanese women.

"I was so sick and tired of their behavior that I decided to teach them a lesson," he said.

One in 1947, Yeh met with five of his friends. The six put their hands in their pockets, went to the Tamshui train station, told the KMT guards that they had hidden pistols aimed at the guards and demanded that the guards hand over their guns.

The six managed to get three rifles, but a few days later they dropped the guns off at an auditorium at the township office and ran away from home.

Yeh the incident would end there, but it didn't.

Five after the incident, Yeh thought it was safe to come home, but was arrested when he returned.

He was later court martialed and sentenced to 12 years in prison for robbery.

Before he served his sentence, he was jailed in the basement of the Public Security Headquarters where they tied him up, blindfolded him and chained him to his cell with 10.8kg shackles.

Although he was 19, the avid jogger still had a hard time coping with relentless torture.

Sympathizing his hardship, veteran cell mates offered him a folk prescription to endure the physical plight: to drink the urine of baby boys.

"Since we couldn't find any baby boys anywhere in there, I drank the urine of younger cell mates," he said.

Two and eight months into his jail term, he was bailed out by a friend at the Keelung chapter of the KMT. The friend was one of the best friends of Yeh's uncle, who was a teacher at the time.

Because his unique past, Yeh had a hard time finding a decent job. He eventually ended up working for a shipping company in Keelung guiding boats to enter the port.

"It was a dangerous job because it required a lot of skills and energy," he said.

He stayed on the job until the age of 42 when he moved on to work at a conglomerate, whose name he refused to reveal.

His family was shocked to learn of his past when in 1999 he was granted NT$2.9 million in compensation for inappropriate sentencing during the martial law era.