News from Taiwan

Chapter 57 Searching for People in the Military Dependents' Village
Taipei was slightly chilly in the early morning after the rain.

Jiang Guier stood in front of the dressing mirror in her hotel room, straightening the collar of her light blue linen shirt. The shirt was a modern Chinese style with tiny black bamboo patterns embroidered on the collar. She rolled up the cuffs to mid-forearm and paired it with dark green high-waisted straight-leg trousers with a neat silhouette.

When going out, she made sure to keep her bag close to her body.

When she arrived at the hotel restaurant, Lu Qing's team was having porridge around the table. Seeing her come in, Lu Qing smiled and waved: "Miss Jiang, you look very energetic today. Are you going out?"

Jiang Guier pulled out a chair and sat down, filling only half a bowl with white porridge. Her fingertips lightly touched the rim of the bowl. "Yes, I have some errands to run. Thank you for your care yesterday. If I need anything else, I'll trouble you again, Mr. Lu."

She deliberately avoided specifying what she was going to do, and her tone was polite but somewhat distant.

Xiao Zhou, the algorithm engineer next to me, leaned over while munching on a steamed bun: "Are you going sightseeing? The National Palace Museum in Taipei has a special exhibition today. Brother Shen mentioned it to me before..."

"Xiao Zhou."

Lu Qing coughed lightly, interrupting him, and looked at Jiang Guier. "If you need any help, just give me a call. Our visit to the client's company this afternoon won't take too long, and we can stop by to pick you up if it's on our way."

Jiang Guier paused in scooping porridge, then looked up with a faint smile in her eyes: "No need to trouble yourself, I can handle it myself. Everyone, please continue with your business. I'll head over now." With that, she put down her spoon, picked up her bag, and stood up. As she turned, her skirt swayed gently, giving Lu Qing no chance to ask further questions.

"President Lu, you scared her away." Xiao Zhou, being the youngest, couldn't help but laugh when he saw Jiang Gui'er leave without even having a chance to drink her porridge.

"Eat your food. You were the one who talked too much just now." Lu Qing raised his hand and slapped him, then looked down and texted Shen Huaizhou. He had already tried his best, but unfortunately, the other party was hard to get close to.

After leaving the hotel, Jiang Guier hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of "Cross-Strait Exchange Service Center Taipei Service Point". The driver was taken aback for a moment, then smiled and said, "Young lady, you're from the mainland, right? You've found this place well. Many compatriots go there to handle their business."

Jiang Guier smiled but didn't reply.

The car drove through the streets in the early morning, and the aroma of oyster omelets wafted from the breakfast stalls along the roadside.

Jiang Guier quietly watched the changes on both sides of the street, hoping that everything would go smoothly today.

Upon arriving at the service point, she walked into the lobby and said to the staff member in the light blue uniform, "Hello, I would like to inquire about information related to military dependents' villages. My great-grandfather was a veteran who came to Taiwan from mainland China in his early years. He should have lived in a military dependents' village in Taipei before. I would like to find the place where he might have lived."

The staff member asked her to sit down, handed her a glass of warm water, and said gently, "Please don't worry. Could you provide your great-grandfather's name, approximate time of arrival in Taiwan, and the area where he lived? We have a military dependents' village archive here, which can help you search."

Jiang Guier handed over the pre-written message, her fingertips trembling slightly with nervousness.
The staff member searched on the computer for more than ten minutes. During this time, Jiang Guier kept her hands on the strap of her Hobo bag and kept her eyes on the staff member's movements until the staff member looked up. She then sat up abruptly.

"how?"

"Ms. Jiang." The staff member handed over the printed documents. "According to the archives, we couldn't find any matching personnel in the old military dependents' villages. Some of those villages were later demolished, but a few rows of old houses are still preserved. The address is Section 5, Roosevelt Road, Wenshan District."

"Really not? Could you check again?" Jiang Guier anxiously reiterated her request.

"I'm sorry, there really isn't one in the system." The staff member was very kind and understood the feelings of those who came looking for their relatives when they couldn't find them.

Jiang Guier looked at the address provided by the staff twice, a glint of light flashing in her eyes. She took a picture of the address with her phone and said, "Okay, thank you."

Seeing her actions, the staff guessed that she wanted to go and see for herself. Most people who come here would do the same, believing that only by seeing for themselves could they confirm it. "Ms. Jiang, this is the phone number of our service point. If you encounter any difficulties in going to the military dependents' village, please contact our staff at the station anytime."

"Thank you." Jiang Guier hung up the phone, walked out, hailed a taxi on the street, gave the address, and still felt hopeful.

When the taxi stopped at the entrance of a narrow alley, Jiang Guier first smelled the aroma of wheat wafting in the wind. It wasn't the sweet smell of milk tea commonly found on the streets of Taipei, but rather the aroma of freshly steamed buns, carrying a hint of smokiness. She took a couple of steps in before she truly stepped into this old neighborhood.

The houses are mostly low huts built with red brick walls, and the roofs are covered with dark green sheet metal, some of which are rusted with yellowish-brown spots. When the wind blows, the seams of the sheet metal will make a "clanging" sound.

The walls were covered with ivy, which covered most of the old slogans painted back then, leaving only the remnants of the four characters "Three Principles of the People" in the corner.

Clotheslines stretched from the eaves of one house to the windowsill of another, with blue cotton shirts and floral skirts hanging on them. When the wind blew, they swayed like little flags.

Jiang Guier tightened her YSL hobo bag around her arm. This place was a bit messy, even more so than the alleyways of Shanghai.

An old woman in a blue cloth shirt sat on a stone bench at the entrance of the alley, picking a bunch of bright green water spinach. Next to her bamboo basket was an enamel mug with "Qingdao Food Factory" printed on it, with a small chip on the rim.

"Hello, Grandma," Jiang Guier walked over gently and handed the photo of her great-grandfather to the old woman, her voice soft, "Do you know this person? His name is Chen Mingrui. He lived in this military dependents' village about several decades ago."

The old woman squinted, peering at the water spinach stems in the light for a long time without noticing them fall into the bamboo basket. "Chen Mingrui? I don't remember him. Our military dependents' village is full of soldiers who came from the mainland back then, from Shandong, Sichuan, Hunan, there are so many of them, I can't remember their names."

She looked up, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes crinkling into folds. Suddenly, she grabbed Jiang Guier's hand, her tone becoming urgent, "Girl, are you also here looking for someone? My hometown is Pingdu, Shandong. My husband went with the army back then, and I followed. Fifty years have passed in the blink of an eye, and I haven't even seen my family's wheat fields yet..."

Jiang Guier's hand felt warm from the old woman's grip, and her fingertips touched the calluses on the old woman's hand, which made her heart feel like it had been gently bumped.

"What would that old woman know? Let us see it." Several old men in t-shirts were playing chess around a stone table. One of them, wearing a gray t-shirt, was holding an enamel mug with the words "Serve the People" printed on it. The words were almost worn away. He was smiling at Jiang Guier.

They haven't had any strangers here for a long time; they're compatriots from the mainland.

Jiang Guier thanked the old woman and walked in that direction.

When the old men saw her coming, they all stopped what they were doing and their eyes fell on the photo in her hand.

The old man in the gray shirt took the photo, took out his reading glasses from his pocket, put them on, and looked at it for a while before shaking his head: "These eyebrows and eyes look a bit like Old Wang. He came from Zhengzhou with me back then. He left the year before last. But Old Wang is from Henan. Young lady, where is your great-grandfather from?"

"From Shanghai." Jiang Guier answered quickly, which startled her. Luckily, she heard that the person behind her was from Henan.

“Shanghai… None of us here are from Shanghai; those who were left at the beginning.”

The old man put down the photo, sighed, and tapped the enamel mug in his hand on the stone table. "I stayed in Shanghai for two days back then, and I still remember the taste of the xiaolongbao I ate there. Later, there was a war, and I followed the army all the way to Taiwan. I lost contact with my family until ten years ago when I finally found my son through relatives on the mainland. He was already a grandfather by then..."

The old men next to them chimed in, some saying they came from Sichuan and had been craving their hometown's pickled vegetables for decades; others said they came from Hunan and missed their mother's chopped chili fish head the most, but sadly, no one was left in their family anymore.

Jiang Guier stood to the side listening. She didn't find any news about her great-grandfather, but she heard a lot of stories about her hometown. The longing in those stories, like the scent of wheat in the alley, lingered around her nose and wouldn't dissipate.

The sun slowly sank behind the tin roofs of the military dependents' village, turning the walls a warm orange hue.

Jiang Guier walked through most of the military dependents' village, asked more than a dozen elderly people, and the photos in her hand were passed around until the edges were curled, but she still couldn't find a single clue about Chen Mingrui. She could only leave disappointed.

It was getting late, and she thought she could check out the night market, so she took a taxi to a nearby one. The night market was packed with people, and the sweet aroma of oyster omelets wafted into her nose on the humid air. She wanted to take out her phone to take a picture of the red lanterns on the stalls, but as soon as her fingers touched the side pocket of her hobo bag, she realized something was wrong.

The little wallet that I left here this morning has lost its feel!
(End of this chapter)