Memoir of a Drifting Life

Hsueh-Chiao Jian (1933 - ), came from the Sinology family as a native Taiwanese living in Tsaotun town of Nantou county, and has taught at several elementary schools, Junior high school, community college until his retirement. His pre-retirement work was focused in music and Chinese literature education, and his daily life activities encompass garden landscaping, bonsai trees plantation, poems and prose compositions. His versatile achievements in many fields synthesize into his unique intellectual personality of an artistic life. Having retired for more than twenty years, he is still diligently dedicated to promoting Japanese language education. His teaching method is easily approachable by way of "Learning through singing in a Japanese way," a combination of Japanese folk songs and ancient literature, his effort is popular and very well appreciated by the local town folks.

This book is the memoirs of his daily life, whereby the time frame spans from Japanese colonial period to the withdrawal of Japanese occupation, to the present. The text is sometimes brisk, sometimes sorrowful, sometimes amused, quite similar to the artistic living style of "Six Chapters of a Floating Life" written by Shen Fu (ca. 1808), but it discloses the Taiwanese-style of humor and the acceptance of their fates as time passed by.

Bearing over the misery of the colonial period, passing through the economical take off era, the author always maintains a simple approach to his dreams of life. Simple farm life, a humble school teaching experience as well as simple desires for the proper order and righteousness of humanly ethical relations, are integrated into his simplicity of life's journey. There is no fancy story, but some touching moments filled with vitality, woven into rustic native Taiwanese culture and ethical values of Confucianism.