Taipei

Taiwan

1952-ish

5 of them with 1 on the way. 5 kids in 6 years, 1 set of twins. The math boggles. Solidly in Taiwan, their parents, without a moment to pause, getting ready to open a jewelry and antique dealership at the fabled Grand Hotel in Taipei.

On the heels of a stunning defeat, Chiang Kai-shek decided there weren’t enough extravagant hotels catering to foreign guests in his newly militarized Taiwan. It was his wife, Madame Chiang who suggested this as a priority. In the spare moments she got to spend with her parents, my mother (the child with the excellent bob), would overhear her parents whisper that “Fu ren jing tian lai!” (aka the grand madame, herself, has arrived). It would appear that the Grand Hotel indeed lured foreign guests, as soon, Maxine (provenance Mill Valley, CA) and Mr. Hughes (provenance Portland, Oregon, a man with a marked adulation for Chinese art) came into my grandparents’ lives. Little did they know, or maybe they did, that they would be boots down in Multnomah, Oregon 12 years later.

It is improbable to think of my mother, my kin, sitting for this photo. The picture crosses eras and lifetimes and yet still I sit now, in San Francisco, CA, able to touch and talk to the child with the excellent bob.