A narrow escape (Taiwan)

When I got the job with Conoco Taiwan, my father asked around trying to find someone who could put me up in Taiwan — I was only* 21, so the family was a bit concerned about me having to fend for myself all alone in a foreign country.  (*By Oriental standards, in those days anyway, 21 is young, especially if it’s a single female.)  

He eventually found a distant relative who had a factory in Taiwan making suitcases and bags.  The arrangement turned out to be sharing a flat with his female employee and her brother, who also worked for him.  The distant relative said they were from the south and he was not paying them a lot of money, so the least he could do was to give them rent-free accommodation

My mother warned me before I left that she thought the female employee was more than a mere member of staff, and that I should keep an eye out for trouble, because this distant relative was married.  A few months later, I got news from home that his father had found out about the affair so I might be accused of snitching on him; in any case, the father might fly out to Taipei to have it out with the woman, so I should move out to avoid getting embroiled.

One of Conoco Taiwan’s three radio operators, Ken, said his friend had a spare room going in the family home as his younger sister had gone to America.  I duly turned up one day after work, with our Accounting Assistant Peggy kindly tagging along to help, to inspect the room and meet the friend’s parents.  The older brother and wife were also present, which I thought might’ve been a coincidence: that they were just on a routine visit.

As they were my colleague Ken’s friends, I couldn’t just ask to go straight upstairs to look at the room without the ritual small talk first.  So, there I was, sat in an armchair, with the five of them positioned opposite me on sofas and armchairs.

Questions were asked:  “How long have you been in Taipei?”,  “What kind of work do you do?”, “What kind of company is it?”, “How old are you?”, “Do you have any siblings?”

All very standard questions the Chinese pose, often during the first meeting.  It’s a cultural practice to establish the relative positions between the two parties, i.e., who’s more senior in age and professional/social status, so that they can address each other appropriately, especially when it comes to respect language (cf. French vous and tu).  One doesn’t want to look silly using respect language on, say, a road sweeper if one was a managing director of a big company.

Throughout the questioning, the senior members of the family (i.e., except Ken’s friend, the younger son) would nod and smile at my answers approvingly, saying things like, “How clever and capable you are!”, “So young and you’ve already been sent abroad to work!”

All of this was to be expected, because such is the Chinese perspective: a young female, aged 21, being accepted by an international oil company for a post abroad, must be very clever and, therefore, most admirable.  

What made me feel that all was not what it seemed on the surface, however, was the married brother laughing heartily and interjecting with, “You’re from Singapore, which is a long way away, yet here we are meeting each other.  Hahahahaha!  Such is fate!  Hahahahaha!  有缘千里来相会 yǒu yuán qiān lǐ lái xiāng huì!”  He kept repeating this phrase whilst laughing and looking meaningfully at his younger brother.

有缘千里来相会 yǒu yuán qiān lǐ lái xiāng huì is a common Chinese saying, which sort of translates as: "Fate has brought [the two parties] together, in spite of the distance."  It can be for describing two parties hitting it off in a platonic relationship, but is also often used to describe two people getting together in a romantic relationship.

Once the penny dropped, I decided to bring the interview to a close, and asked to see the room (which was just like a store room, not made up for a lodger to move in at all), then made some excuse (that it was getting late) and took my leave.  

On the way out, Peggy said, “They were not looking for a lodger!  They were looking for a daughter-in-law!  You had a narrow escape there!”

(Taiwan, 1975)