Historian Tsao Yung-ho (
Born in 1920, Tsao was 78 when he became an Academia Sinica fellow. He was the oldest person ever to receive the honor and the institute's fourth fellow without a university degree.
PHOTO: WANG CHIA-CHUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsao had never received a formal secondary education after graduating from Taipei No. 2Junior High School (now Cheng Kung Senior High School) in 1939 because he failed his high-school entrance exams.
At that time, there were two sets of entrance exams: one for humanities students and the other for science students. Tsao wanted to study humanities but his mother wished him to become a physician.
Under his mother's pressure, Tsao took the science entrance exams. After failing the exams, Tsao's schooling came to an end.
"It was the beginning of his self-learning journey," said Tsao's biographer Tsao Ming-chung (
Encountering the failure in his high-school entrance exams, Tsao Yung-ho "only wanted to flee from the reality and place himself in exile," Tsao Ming-chung wrote.
Escape into words
A library in Taipei became Tsao Yung-ho's refuge. Every morning,the historian-to-be walked one-and-a-half hours to a Taipei library from his home in Shihlin -- and spent another 1.5 hours returning home in the evening.
Six months later, Tsao Yung-ho's father found him a job at a cooperative in Shihlin, which later became today's Shihlin Farmers' Association. Tsao Yung-ho worked as a secretary in the cooperative from 1939 to 1945.
During those years, Tsao Yung-ho's challenges were to find a way between the reality and his ideal and to seek opportunities to accomplish his ideal, Tsao Ming-chung said.
Tsao Yung-ho was born into a literary family in Shihlin. He was the eldest boy and had 13 siblings.
He was sent away from home to stay with a nursemaid shortly after his mother gave birth to his brother because his mother did not produce enough breast milk for two babies.
When he returned home several years later, Tsao Yung-ho felt somewhat alienated from his family.
Tsao Ming-tung described the historian as an introvert.
"His feeling that his mother did not love him enough became a shadow in his heart and deepened his melancholic temperament," the biographer observed.
Tsao Yung-ho's father Tsao Szu-ying (
"In Tsao Yung-ho's memory, his spectacled father was quiet, gentle and loved reading. Unlike his mother, his father neither scolded nor hit him. He felt his father influenced him a lot," Tsao Ming-tung said.
After working as a secretary for six years, Tsao Yung-ho married Chang Hua-tzu (張花子), the daughter of a timber businessman and a midwife, in 1945. That same year, he resigned from his position because of health problems.
Respiratory suffering
Tsao Yung-ho suffered lung problems and was hospitalized for a whole year. In 1947, Yang Yun-ping (楊雲萍), a Shihlin historian, allowed him to become a librarian at the National Taiwan University Library.
Tsao Yung-ho worked in the library for 38 years.
"He did not have a degree and never dreamed he would someday become an academic. But he took any leisure time to read books. The library was like his own big study," Tsao Ming-tung said.
"He studied very hard ... Step by step, he worked out a way of his own," the biographer continued.
Under the Japanese colonization, Tsao Yung-ho and many Taiwanese intellectuals harbored "a motherland dream" to serve China, wrote Tsao Ming-tung.
But the KMT troops' oppression of Taiwanese students and elites on Feb. 28, 1947, or the 228 Incident, and the KMT government's strict rule disillusioned Tsao Yung-ho's from that dream, according to Tsao Ming-tung.
Meanwhile, Tsao Yung-ho recalled Belgium writer Maurice Maeterlinck's Children's Blue Bird. The story depicted a brother and a sister's quest for a blue bird that brought blessings.
After looking for the bird in many places, the brother and sister discovered the bird in their hometown. Tsao Ming-tung said Tsao Yung-ho also remembered a Zen proverb which reads: "Take care of the land under your feet."
The Zen of history
The Zen proverb, added Tsao Ming-tung, reminded Tsao Yung-ho that he should take care of the place where he lives.
"From then on, his attachment to Taiwan grew stronger," wrote the biographer.
In 1990, Tsao Yung-ho proposed for the first time the "Taiwan Island History" concept in an article in a magazine published by the Academia Sinica as a guideline for Taiwanese history research.
The article, Another Way for Taiwan History Research -- the `Taiwan Island History' Concept, is divided into three sections.
Tsao Yung-ho summed up the first section: "In the past, Taiwanese history focused more upon political aspects.
However, it would be difficult to catch a holistic view of the people's history through merely observing the political aspects of history."
"It would help enhance the levels of research and reveal the true face of Taiwanese history if researchers can overcome the confinement of political history and the boundary of a nation to look at the people and the region's history."
In the second section, he wrote: "Taiwan is an independent historical stage. People of different ethnical grounds, languages and cultures had been acting [on the stage] since the prehistory. All the history they created is the island's history."
"It would be difficult for Taiwan researchers of history to avoid being politicized if they emphasize too much on political changes and the Han people's perspectives."
In the third section, Tsao wrote: "Historical interpretations change with the times. In the past, historical interpretations often focused on rulers' perspectives and neglected the people's viewpoints."
"The trend of the modern world emphasizes on human rights. [Researchers] should study and interpret history from people's points of view. Our age cares mainly about [people's points of view]."
To conclude the article, Tsao wrote: "To look at the true face of Taiwan history, we have to set the Taiwan island as the basic space background and the island's people the main body for research."
"On this foundation, [researchers] can view the various relations Taiwan has established with the outside world through the ocean."
"They can also observe Taiwan's positions and roles in the global trend and international community in different periods of time."
Tsao Yung-ho is proficient in Japanese, English and Dutch. Besides, he also managed to learn basic Spanish, German and Latin.
"Tsao Yung-ho realized it is necessary for a historian to be multilingual," said Chan Su-chuan (
"As a librarian, Tsao Yung-ho had to handle many foreign books. He spent a large amount of his leisure time to learning foreign languages. His enormous efforts made him a rare `multi-lingual animal' among Taiwan's historians," Chan said.
The holland connection
One of Tsao Yung-ho's most famous accomplishments is his research on the early history of Taiwan through his knowledge of old Holland, Chan said.
Tsao Yung-ho's acquaintance with Japanese academic Iwao Seiichi (
Tsao Yung-ho mailed two of his essays to Seiichi, who once taught in the Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University) but returned to Tokyo University after World War II.
Seiichi highly valued Tsao Yung-ho's essays and helped him obtain a UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) fellowship to do research in Japan for a year.
In 1965, Tsao Yung-ho departed for Japan to participate in the one-year UNESCO Major Project on Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values.
Tsao Ming-chung said the one-year of research in Japan meant a lot to Tsao Yung-ho.
"He only wanted to a librarian and did research in his leisure time. It never occurred to him his research would be appreciated," Tsao Ming-chung said.
After arriving at Japan, Tsao Yung-ho rent a room in Tokyo and concentrated on reading and research.
"In Tokyo, Tsao Yung-ho only knew how to get to certain research institutes by trams or by the subway. He did not know any other places," he added.
In 1984, Tsao Yung-ho was invited to be an adjunct professor in National Taiwan University's Department of History.
Tsao Yung-ho has three sons. They are impressed by how hard their father studies.
"He studies from morning to evening. When we get up in the morning, he is already studying. When we go to bed at night, he is still studying," Tsao Yung-ho's sons recalled.
"He stays up late at night to study as if he has exams tomorrow. He brings books with him at all times so that he would not waste any bit of time," they said.
Tsao Ming-chung said Tsao Yung-ho is a man with strong will. Before he departed for Japan for the one-year-long research project, he took a cold shower every day to train himself because Japan was cold.
Tsao Ming-chung said: "Without [his wife] Chang Hua-tzu, Taiwan would not have the historian Tsao Yung-ho."
Born to a Christian family, Chang's two brothers were both doctors and her sister also married a doctor.
"Chang, with her family background, beauty and college degree, was expected to marry a doctor ? But she chose to marry a secretary who worked for a cooperative and had lung problems simply on the virtue that they felt so right with each other," said Tsao Ming-chung.
When Tsao Yung-ho first met Chang, he was 17 and she just graduated from the primary school. Chang's brother invited Tsao Yung-ho to his house to listen to classical music.
According to Tsao Ming-chung, Chang's close friends said Chang's first feeling for Tsao Yung-ho was sympathy. Her sympathy grew into love because he never gave up studying even though he could not enter a university.
Chang was talented musically. In order to support her family when Tsao Yung-ho stayed in the hospital because of his lung condition, Chang worked at a radio station and joined a chorus to earn pocket money.
A garrulous scholar
In an interview with Ren Jian magazine, Chang said she was a talkative person.
"But Tsao Yung-ho loved reading. He held up to his book even during meals," she said.
"For 40 years, Chang devoted herself to her family so that her husband could study without care. She could tolerate her husband studying 15 hours a day," Tsao Ming-chung said.
Chang passed away in 1996. When Tsao Yung-ho was elected as a fellow at the nation's top academic research institute, Academia Sinica, in July 1998, he was doing research in Holland.
Tsao Yung-ho returned to Taipei to receive the honor. The first place he went to after arriving at the CKS International Airport was his wife's tomb. He wanted to share the glory with his late wife.
Tsao Yung-ho chiseled his name on his wife's tomb.
"He knows he will come here to accompany his wife [when his time comes]," Tsao Ming-chung said.
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