Shih Kuo-tsui was a renowned practitioner of Chinese medicine, skilled in bonesetting and therapeutic massage, and a devout Catholic. Shih Ming Te was the fourth child of Shih Kuo-tsui and his second wife, Chen Ying. He had three elder brothers, Shih Ming-cheng, Shih Ming-ho, and Shih Ming-hsiung; a younger sister, Shih Ming-chu; and a younger brother, Shih Ming-hsin. He was born in the Shih family home on Daren Road in Yanchengpu. At home, everyone called him Aki-Nori.
The Shih Kuo-tsui family was wealthy, and each child had a wet nurse of his or her own. When American planes bombed Taiwan, the family moved to the countryside; after the Second World War they moved back to Kaohsiung, to a row of five adjoining shop-houses directly across from Kaohsiung Railway Station. It was here that Aki-Nori witnessed the Kaohsiung students who, wave after wave, never retreating, bravely resisted tyranny in the 228 Incident.
Suddenly, a piercing siren split the silent sky. The child knew the American planes were coming to bomb again. “Kūshū” (air raid) was probably the first and most vivid Japanese word this child ever learned.
He sprang up and ran for the air-raid shelter dug into the side of the hill. Soon his parents and brothers ran in too, each clutching some valuables. After the urgent alarm came the rumble of engines drawing nearer, and the roar of a great fleet of planes, like the wailing of ghosts and gods, blanketed the earth and choked the innocent people fleeing. Everyone seemed to have been sentenced to death, waiting for the executioner. In the deathly stillness, his mother’s trembling voice reciting prayers broke the silence in the shelter, and old and young alike began, without meaning to, to pray along with her….
Bomb after bomb exploded, wave after wave of shocks shook the earth, and wind and flying sand poured in through the mouth of the shelter, blowing out the faint candlelight. The darkness doubled the terror, and the family held one another all the tighter. “God protect us,” “Holy Mary, have mercy on us” … old and young could only plead helplessly with Heaven….
At last the earth was quiet again. Holding his father’s hand, the child filed out of the shelter with the rest of the family. On the way, the child asked his aged father:
“Papa, why do the Americans keep coming to kill us?”
“They aren’t trying to kill us. They’re fighting the Japanese,” his father said.
“But this is Taiwan, not Japan.”
“Yes, but Taiwan is a Japanese colony.”
“What does colony mean?” The child did not understand.
“Silly boy, you’re still little; even if Papa explained, you wouldn’t understand. To put it simply, it means Taiwan and the Taiwanese all have to be ruled by the Japanese.”
“Why do we have to be ruled by the Japanese? Why can’t we Taiwanese rule our own Taiwan ourselves?” the child asked again. “If we Taiwanese ruled our own Taiwan, would the Americans stop coming to kill us?”
“Silly boy, we Taiwanese have been ruled by others for three hundred years already. The red-haired foreigners, Koxinga, the Manchu Qing, the Japanese — they’ve all ruled Taiwan. Silly boy, when you grow up, you’ll slowly come to understand how pitiful it is to be Taiwanese.” The old man seemed deeply moved.
The child paused. He was still too young to truly grasp the unfairness and injustice of human society.
“Papa, don’t you always say that God loves the world and we are all God’s children?” The child seemed to have run into another puzzle. “Then are the Japanese and the Americans God’s children too?”
“Yes, all human beings are God’s children. In the Lord’s eyes, the Japanese, the Americans, and the Taiwanese are all equal; they’re all one family.”
“If everyone is God’s child and we’re all one family, then why do the Japanese come to rule us? Why do the Americans come to kill us?” The child came back to the same old question. He longed for his father to resolve the puzzle in his young heart.
“Because our Taiwan is someone else’s colony. We have no country of our own.” The old man’s face grew darker still.
“Because we have no country of our own, the Japanese can bully us? The Americans can kill us?” the child asked. “Then why don’t we Taiwanese build a country of our own?”
“Silly boy, don’t talk nonsense! If the Japanese hear you, Papa will be taken away.” The old man tried to frighten the child.
“Papa, there aren’t any Japanese here to hear us.” The child said, “The Japanese bully us and the Americans kill us — can’t we kill them for revenge?”
“No!” The old man turned stern. “The Lord loves all people and does not allow people to kill one another. God loves peace, not war. God wants all people to love one another like brothers and sisters.”
— From the political will Shih Ming Te wrote in 1980 while facing the death penalty,
in which he recalled this conversation with his father during an air raid.
Papa — Shih Kuo-tsui (1884–1953), practitioner of Chinese medicine in the Japanese era and examiner for the Chinese-medicine licensing examinations.