Shieh Jhy-wey (
Little did he know that 32 years later, he would become Taiwan's representative to Germany. In fact, he is the country's first representative to Germany who speaks fluent German. His three predecessors spoke little, if any, German.
"I cried for two reasons. Firstly, Soochow University is not a public school. Secondly, I wanted to study English, not German," said Shieh, now a German-language professor at his alma mater.
The 50-year-old professor was born to a poor family in Keelung. His father, a fisherman from China's Guangdong Province, died when Shieh was in his second year in university.
Shieh's mother, a homemaker, opened a noodle stall to earn a living after her husband's death. Every day, Shieh worked in a restaurant in downtown Taipei and got only one day off a week. He made NT$1,200 per month.
"Life was very hard. I was often exhausted," Shieh said. He worked in the restaurant and lived in an apartment for restaurant employees until he graduated from university.
"In daytime I went to school. At night I worked in the restaurant. But my grades improved after I started working in the restaurant. I used my spare moments intensively, because I had so few," the newly appointed diplomat said in an interview.
Shieh earned first place in his department in his final year of university. His difficulties while in university convinced him that nothing is too hard for people if they are only willing to try.
After graduation from Soochow University, Shieh enter the Fu Jen Catholic University's Graduate Institute of German Language and Literature.
He got the highest grades possible in the institute's entrance exams, and secured a scholarship that supported him for the three-year master's program.
Shieh performed his mandatory military duty from 1980 to 1982. In 1982, he obtained a scholarship from the Deutcher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) Taipei and flew to Germany that year.
Describing himself as "a standard product" of the educational system designed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government, Shieh said he was filled with the pride of being "Chinese" when he flew to Germany in 1982.
"Three days before I boarded the plane to Germany, I bought a blue robe from the market and placed it in my luggage," Shieh said. Blue robes were the traditional dress worn by Chinese academics.
"It was my first time going abroad. I wanted people to know I was Chinese. My heart was full of the grandeur of the 5,000-year-old Chinese culture," Shieh said. History textbooks, under the KMT regime, taught people in Taiwan that they were Chinese.
In Germany, Shieh told everyone he met that he came from China.
"These people started talking about Beijing, Shanghai and the Great Wall. I was perplexed and thought in my heart: I do not know about these cities and the Great Wall," he recalled.
In Shieh's university, there were about 300 "real Chinese" -- students from the People's Republic of China.
"I observed the ways they addressed each other, ate and did activities. I distinctly felt I was different from them," he said.
With growing awareness of his difference from the Chinese students, Shieh's pride in being "Chinese" crumbled.
"I still remember the low self-esteem I suffered after coming to realize I was not Chinese," he said.
In university activities, Shieh was often assigned to join the Chinese teams. But his teams never picked him to represent them or speak for them.
Gradually and reluctantly, Shieh began telling people that he was from Taiwan. It was not a pleasant experience to adjust to a new identity, Shieh said, and he sunk into anxiety and despair for a while.
Shieh remembered he went through fierce conflicts in getting used to the reality that he was Taiwanese.
"I understood that Taiwan was not China, and no longer held the illusion that we had to reclaim China," he said. "Reclaim the mainland" was a common slogan chanted in Taiwan before 1990.
Shieh obtained his doctorate in German literature at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany in 1987. That year, he returned to Taiwan and started teaching in Soochow University.
He began participating in social movements in 1990. His talent for hosting massive election campaigns and TV talk shows was quickly discovered. Since then, people who frequented the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) election campaigns have grown familiar with Shieh's face.
His eight years in Germany made him aware of the importance of identifying with his own land -- Taiwan. His fluent German also gave him an edge in being the country's representative to Germany. What was equally important was his identification with the country, he noted.
Jackie Wang (
Occupied with academic research and campaign activities, Shieh does not have much time to spend with his family. Yet he is a dutiful father, Wang said.
"He has a soft heart. Now he wears a crown of glory, but he constantly feels guilty," Wang said.
Shieh often feels guilty because he does not have enough time for his family, according to Wang.
When their two daughters were small, Shieh read them bedtime stories he made up before they slept. He bathed his kids and fed them at his wife's command. He described caring for his daughters as "a sweet burden."
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