Alumni Feature Stories

THE PAGODA RETURNS TO TAS

By Connie Ma, Alumni and Communications Officer In January 2020, a new yet old landmark appeared quietly on TAS campus. Now, a colorfully painted pagoda of about ten feet in height stands at the southern end of the Lower Athletic Field outside the Dr. Sharon DiBartolomeo Hennessy Upper School Building. Finally, the last of Taipei American School’s iconic items has come home. Mr. Richard Arnold, who is marking his 50th year teaching at TAS this year, probably knows the most that anyone does about the origins of the Pagoda. According to him, custodians built the Pagoda at the campus on Chang’an East Road, where TAS was located from 1953 to 1968. It was most likely brought to the then-new campus in Shilin in 1967, where it quickly found a home on Senior Island.

Mr. John Dankowski, former faculty, remembers seeing the Pagoda there on Senior Island when he arrived at TAS that year. When asked to reminisce about TAS, the topic of Senior Island inevitably surfaces among alumni of a certain generation. For those who attended TAS anytime between the late 1960s and 1989, it was the focus of much longing and envy. Students had dug a moat around a Taiwan-shaped island in the middle of the horseshoeshape made by the classroom buildings. Any students found on the island who were not seniors were summarily ejected from the island, sometimes into the moat. “I left Taiwan in 1973, at the end of my freshman year,” remembers Stacey Wire Ward '76. “I can tell you we were all green with envy about how totally cool Senior Island was and of the Pagoda, etc. It was something the lowly underclassmen eyed with awe.” Frank Miller '76 recalls, “When I attended TAS at the Shilin campus, the Pagoda was at one end of Senior Island, protected by a moat. I was not a senior so did not have access to the Pagoda, but no one could move between classes in high school without seeing it. On nice weather days, seniors could be found lying in the short grass all around it.” Like Frank and Stacey, many students counted down the years when they’d

be allowed to claim Senior Island for themselves, lounging on the island between classes and after school. “When I pull out my yearbook from my senior year of 1971 and look back, the Pagoda is on nearly every page of the section on the senior class,” reminisces Janel Wire Pratt '71. “It was on Senior Island, never painted, but much coveted as a seating spot.” Not all underclassmen on Senior Island were treated with scorn, notes Janel. “As a part of our Senior English class, many of us were paired with an elementary student as tutors to help them with their reading. We often took our ’kids’ to Senior Island and sat under the Students from the Class of 2020 sign the newly painted pagoda. (Courtesy of TAS) Pagoda. Somewhere there is a photo of me and my charge, whose name was Bobbi.” Traditions surrounding the Pagoda seemed to change with the decades of students who came and left at TAS. According to Romanus Wolter '82, “It was already a tradition during his time for juniors to cover Senior Island in toilet paper during ‘Senior Skip Day.’” In 1980, the juniors failed to carry through with this tradition, so Romanus along with fellow sophomores Julie Thweatt '82, Becky Bishop '82, and Craig Dinsmore '82 took it upon themselves to keep the tradition alive. “The seniors came back the next day, found the island full of TP, and took us to Student Court for the next day. We were found not

Mark Taylor ’71 on the Pagoda from the 1971 Upper School Yearbook (Courtesy of TAS) John Steere ’81 at the Pagoda c. 1979-81 (Courtesy of TAS) The Pagoda at TES in the early 1990s (Courtesy of Alan Tucker ’85)

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“...IT WAS ALREADY A TRADITION DURING HIS TIME FOR JUNIORS TO COVER SENIOR ISLAND IN TOILET PAPER DURING “SENIOR SKIP DAY”.

guilty of ruining Senior Island but guilty of keeping a tradition alive. Also, the next year, I was voted Student Body President even though I was only a junior; so keeping traditions alive no matter the consequences was worth it,” quips Romanus. By the time Eric Kaplan '87 became class president, he recalled that the seniors would often decorate the Pagoda for whatever holidays were coming up, like Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Chinese New Year, and St. Patrick’s Day. When the senior class was on their senior trip, the juniors were allowed to paint the Pagoda however they wanted to for the next year, which was the only time they could “legally” touch it. Former assistant superintendent and business manager Mr. Ira Weislow was instrumental in negotiating TAS’s move to our present Tianmu campus in 1989. While the TAS Bell and the statue of The Thinker were both allotted places of importance in the new campus, Mr. Weislow elected not to move the Pagoda right away. “I did not have any knowledge of the construction design and was afraid it would fall apart. Taipei European School (TES) was quite gracious in agreeing to preserve the structure and allowing TAS alumni from the old campus to visit,” he remarks. In fact, for alumni who attended school at the Shilin campus, the current TES campus became a staple of their return tours to Taipei, even though by then Senior Island no longer existed, and the Pagoda had been relegated to a corner of the TES campus. Alumni in 2015 found it unpainted and dilapidated, and succeeded in persuading TES to help spruce it up. In 2016 and 2018, alumni visited the Pagoda at TES campus during the Worldwide Reunions and delighted in taking pictures of this memory from their youth. Though there were numerous attempts to move the Pagoda back, it only happened this year, during the 2019-20 school year, thanks to the efforts of Chief Operations Officer Mr. Larry Kraut. Today, the Pagoda once again sits on the TAS campus, situated at the entrance to the Joie Upper School Gymnasium. Not all current students know the history of this piece yet, but some with alumni family members have learned more. Nicole C. '21 who is writing a piece on the history of the TAS Pagoda for the student newspaper, The Blue & Gold, heard stories and traditions surrounding the Pagoda from her father and aunts, who are all alumni. “After hearing their stories about the Pagoda, I was very excited to have such an important cultural piece back on TAS campus. I hope that my generation and future generations can continue the traditions that were created while also making new ones.” Going forward, there are future plans to commemorate the Pagoda with a plaque that honors its history, and perhaps to inaugurate some new traditions with current students and seniors. What’s certain is that the Pagoda will continue to have a place in TAS history and become a part of the memories of students once again. Expressing the sentiment echoed by so many alumni, Debby Bever '90 commented, “It looks great, and I’m so glad it’s back home where it belongs!”

The Pagoda at TES in the early 1990s (Courtesy of Alan Tucker ’85)

The Pagoda in 2016 (Courtesy of Jim Smith ’78) The Pagoda in 2020 (Courtesy of TAS)

MISS WORLD OKLAHOMA, PRISCILLA WANG ’12, CHAMPIONS DIVERSITY IN TECH

By Connie Ma, Alumni and Community Outreach Officer What does it take to be a pageant winner? Sometimes, it takes an engineer. In October 2019, Priscilla Wang ’12 competed in the Miss World America pageant as Miss Oklahoma and placed in the Top 25. In her day job, Priscilla is a software engineer at J.P. Morgan and aims to use her platform in pageantry to further her efforts to provide technical education and career opportunities for both boys and girls from underrepresented minority groups. Priscilla attended TAS for upper school and credits her experience here with helping her understand that there was more to learning than grades. “I took a few AP and IB courses at TAS, and I especially enjoyed how my education encouraged me to fully understand a subject, rather than simply prepare for an exam.” After TAS, Priscilla enrolled at Scripps, an all-women’s liberal arts college in the Claremont Colleges Consortium, where she became intrigued by engineering. “The feeling of being able to create things is really empowering,” says Priscilla. “I never really thought of it as, ’I’m going to be an engineer,’ but rather, ’I am accumulating a skill set that will help me innovate and make cool things in the future.’” Ultimately, she enrolled in the 3+2 program, which allowed her to graduate from Scripps with a Bachelor of Arts and also from Columbia Engineering with a degree in computer engineering. Today, Priscilla works in software engineering on client-side applications at J.P. Morgan. At Columbia, Priscilla noticed the lack of gender diversity, as she was often one of the only women in a 40-person lab section. Once in the workforce, the lack of racial and ethic diversity was even more evident to her. “There are very few women in engineering, and even less so in technology management. Even further, the industry also mainly consists of Whites and East Asians,” confides Priscilla. Priscilla is passionate about initiatives that reimagine engineering, not only as a creative activity but also as a democratizing one: an occupation that is open to all people. “There are very few women in engineering, and even less so in technology management. Girls are often taught to be creative, being encouraged to pursue things like art and music. Boys, on the other hand, are often socialized to play video games and join robotics, both of which lead to an increased interest in engineering. Moreover, both boys and girls from minority backgrounds often do not have similar access to the resources or exposure to develop an interest in STEM fields. “I volunteer for Girls Who Code, which sponsors engineers around the nation to come talk to girls about what it’s like to be an engineer. Girls Who Code doesn’t just teach young women how to code—it also creates a supportive environment. In addition, All-Star Code is another organization I volunteer for which focuses on underrepresented minority boys, who are also missing from the engineering field.” For Priscilla, the value of a supportive community was key to her success, and she now wants to bring that to help encourage more students from underrepresented populations to get into engineering and STEM. “So

Priscilla speaks at Girls Who Code graduation. (Courtesy of Priscilla Wang ’12) many of these great organizations and events are free, but many kids don’t know that there are people and resources to help them succeed. In high school, I used to look at engineering and think I’d never be able to do that. I felt really intimidated then, but once I stepped into the real world, I learned that other women—and people more broadly—have the same insecurities as me! Scripps as a women’s college made me realize how important it is to have a supportive community; it allowed me to realize that I am not the only one on this journey and that I have an army of people who see my full potential, even when I can’t.” Astonishingly, Priscilla’s entrance into the beauty pageant world only happened this May. “I’ve been following pageants for quite a while. I have always admired how pageant girls are able to balance their day job, volunteer work, and training for competitions,” Priscilla explains. Why had she never decided to enter before? “I never felt very confident about the way I look, but this year is the next to last year I’m eligible because of my age, so I decided to compete in one of the preliminary rounds to challenge myself.” She joined the Miss World pageant system because of their focus. “Their slogan is ’Beauty With a Purpose,’” explains Priscilla. “Some of the pageant girls work at improving financial literacy among immigrant populations, assisting at-risk youth in the college application process, and advocating for American Sign Language

Priscilla (second from right) backstage with other contestants at the Miss World America 2019 Pageant (Courtesy of Priscilla Wang ’12)

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education in public schools.” Though she did not place in the first preliminary round, Priscilla was invited back to compete at another preliminary a month later, and was crowned Miss Oklahoma. However, the weeks leading up to the national pageant for Miss World America were still quite intense for Priscilla. “I had to find dresses, get them tailored, work on my walk… at the same time, I was trying to work my 40-hour work week!” laughs Priscilla. “The preliminary challenges include social media, talent, and top model walk. Then there’s the final. I think the hardest thing is getting the look down for your evening gown, because stage make-up is so different from make-up in photos.” Ultimately, Priscilla finished in the Top 25. “I really liked this pageant experience, because sometimes, there are 200 girls going on stage, but with 50 girls, each representing a state, I felt that I got to know them really well,” smiled Priscilla. “I’m excited to collaborate with a few girls on STEM-related causes. Miss Massachusetts is a civil engineer and Miss California is a physicist who used to work with NASA. The three of us are planning a ’Girls’ STEM Day’ in the Spring of 2020.” Now that the competition is over, Priscilla looks forward to using her platform to promote her causes. “The glitz and glamour is definitely really fun, but for me, I entered the competition because I thought it was a great opportunity to promote Priscilla visits Tulsa STEM Expo. the causes that I care about.” (Courtesy of Priscilla Wang ’12) After winning the Miss World Oklahoma crown, Priscilla made an appearance at the Tulsa STEM Expo. “They invited me to speak to the kids and engage with them to inspire them to go into STEM. Tulsa is very diverse, but the school districts are very divided. There’s still a lot of work to be done in order for every child to have equal access to education, and I hope to be a part of that process,” Priscilla concludes. In 2020, Priscilla hopes to host her own workshops in Oklahoma and all around the world to get young people interested in STEM. To sponsor or collaborate on making workplaces in tech more diverse, Priscilla invites fellow alumni to get in touch with her through her website: thepriscillawang.com “My goal—my heart—is set on helping kids. I want to show them how exciting life as an engineer can be. I want to create a great experience for them. And after I got back from Nationals on Monday, I immediately thought, ’OK, I’m ready to get to work.’ I understand that there will be a lot of challenges. But anything worth having in the world is worth the effort.”

CAROLINE CHOU ’02 FINDS SUCCESS BLENDING DESIGN WITH FOOD

By Connie Ma, Alumni and Community Outreach Officer For most people, running a restaurant and a design studio would mean taking on two separate full-time jobs. For Caroline Chou ’02 and her husband Kevin Lim, it is a serendipitous combination that enables them to fully flex their creative muscles as co-owners of OPENUU Design Studio and Mean Noodles. “My first encounter with architecture and design was in our 8th grade woodshop class at TAS. I found it wonderful to work with my hands and to design and produce something,” Caroline recalls. At Wellesley, Caroline studied computer science, but kept a focus on design, and after graduating, she earned a Master’s degree in Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). In Boston, Caroline met her future husband, Kevin, a native of Hong Kong with roots in Malaysia, who had degrees in culinary arts and architecture. In 2012, the couple moved back to Hong Kong. “We came back to start a design business here, because it’s easier than setting up shop in the U.S., and there are more opportunities in Asia,” says Caroline, echoing a common sentiment among TAS alumni and Asian entrepreneurs. At first, OPENUU, the husband-and-wife collaboration took on every available project, including warehouse conversions, restaurants, and offices. Soon, they came up with the idea of an operating restaurant which would double as a showroom for their design studio. Together, Caroline and Kevin created a Malaysian noodle shop called Mean Noodles (麵佬到), a play on the Chinese character mian, or noodles. While Kevin and his kitchen team primarily run restaurant operations, Caroline works on social media and marketing. Caroline and Kevin’s hard work has landed them the 2019 Will Ching Award from IIDA, which “celebrates originality and excellence in commercial design from firms with (5) five or fewer employees,” and received coverage from Interior Design magazine in June 2019. Designing and running the restaurant has been a useful combination for Caroline and Kevin. “Many restaurant owners encounter problems because the designers don’t understand restaurant operations. For kitchens, the workflow is really important, so how they do service, where to locate the cashier, it’s all key to the operation of the restaurant,” Caroline explains. Mean Noodles also reflects OPENUU’s work with current trends in design. “In this style called modern industrial chic, we use a combination of different materials. The floors are concrete and industrial, but the tiles are modern and updated, giving it a more stylish look,” explains Caroline. “We even found this tile pattern that was inspired by batik, which is a traditional floral fabric motif in Malaysian culture.” With its laksa noodle soup and stir-fry noodles, Mean Noodles belongs to the trend of fast casual cuisine, which is often accompanied by Instagrammable, stylish settings. “People want to try a new place, and then turn around and post it online for other people to see,” Caroline explains. “So it’s great to have a setting which creates those sorts of Instagram or 打卡 moments.” Caroline and Kevin have big dreams for OPENUU, including three new restaurants in Zhuhai and a new hotel project in Hong Kong. They are also working on gaining visibility and are always eager to grow and learn. “You can only achieve so much, and then you need to talk to people who have more experience,” reflects Caroline.

Caroline Chou ’02 and husband Kevin Lim (Courtesy of Caroline Chou ’02)

DR. PAUL COURTRIGHT ’72 REFLECTS ON A CAREER ABROAD

By Connie Ma, Alumni and Community Outreach Officer For Dr. Paul Courtright ’72, a few years in Taiwan was the inspiration for a lifetime abroad. As a teenager, Paul felt empowered both by his TAS education and also by his experiences in exploring the island of Taiwan. Following a stint in the Peace Corps, Paul pursued an international career in the epidemiology of eye diseases, eventually founding the Kilimanjaro Center for Community Ophthalmology (KCCO) in Tanzania with his wife Dr. Susan Lewallen. Today, Paul is internationally recognized for his work, and credits his international upbringing for his later career which has changed the lives of so many. Paul arrived in Taiwan with his family in 1968. His father, who worked for USAID, was based in Vietnam, and Paul, his brother John ’71, and his mother lived in Wellington Heights for three years. Though he wasn’t physically in Taipei for his last year, Paul graduated from TAS as a part of the Class of 1972. “The main thing I enjoyed about TAS was the real mix of people from all over the world: mostly Americans but so many people with a variety of backgrounds and cultures that I found fascinating,” reminisced Paul. Paul had lived in Iran for two years during middle school, so living overseas was not new to him, but he found living in Taiwan as a teenager a novel experience. “I found Taiwan an incredible place to explore. I have memories of walking along railroad tracks, going through markets, and exploring the south of the island by train.” At TAS, Paul studied under Mr. William Rada, who taught geography and current affairs and inspired him to study international relations and China in college. “One experience I’ll never forget is that our class invited the ambassador for South Africa to come speak at TAS. In 1970-71, South Africa still had apartheid, and we wanted to hear from him and have our classmates have the opportunity to fire questions at him about the government and those racist policies,” remembered Paul. “He agreed to come, and for an hour, he talked and faced a whole bunch of questions from everyone. There was a huge turnout for that talk, and I came away from that feeling that we as teenagers can actually do something meaningful and get people engaged.” Because of his experiences at TAS, Paul and his wife Susan resolved to raise their children overseas to give them that valuable experience of being outside their comfort zones and being exposed to other cultures. “As a young person where you really have to seek permission from parents to do things, having the flexibility to do things at TAS and explore in ways we hadn’t thought about before was really exciting.

Paul examining a leprosy patient in South Korea in 1981 (Courtesy of Dr. Paul Courtright ’72)

Paul meets Queen Elizabeth in October 2019. (Courtesy of Dr. Paul Courtright ’72)

I’m really grateful for the kind of education that TAS provided during my time there,” Paul explained. The Courtright family left Taipei in 1971 for Australia, where Paul applied to college to study international relations and Chinese language. After Paul decided that following the typical career path to work in a U.S. embassy was not for him, he switched to another school to earn a degree in education and then entered the Peace Corps. “I spent my Peace Corps time in Korea as a leprosy worker, and when I went, I knew absolutely zippo about leprosy, but I received really good training in Korea,” recalled Paul. “I went out to live in the village of leprosy patients, and what struck me was that there was a lot of eye pathology in those patients. That’s how I went down the direction of ophthalmology, because I got interested in what was going on with the eyes of my leprosy patients.” After nearly four years in Korea, Paul went to Johns Hopkins University and earned a master’s degree in public health with a focus in epidemiology to learn about how diseases affect populations. “I was lucky that they were doing a fellowship in preventive ophthalmology, which is all about how to prevent eye diseases on a population scale. That put me on the pathway to doing epidemiology of eye diseases, which I also focused on for my doctorate at UC Berkeley.” Paul and his wife Dr. Susan Lewallen met at UC Berkeley and spent their next two decades overseas. They lived in Malawi for four years, where their sons were born, and where Susan acted as the only ophthalmologist for a population of five million people. “We both recognized here that eye care was not provided as efficiently as it could be because there weren’t any systems in place. To meet the needs of the population, we realized that a more public health-oriented approach and a less clinically-oriented approach was needed.” After Malawi, Paul and Susan transitioned to Vancouver for seven years, where Paul founded an institute on international ophthalmology with a focus on epidemiological research at the University of British Columbia. In 2001, Paul and Susan channeled their combined experiences in Africa, epidemiology, and ophthalmology into founding the Kilimanjaro Center for Community Ophthalmology in Tanzania. “We had to write all of our own grants and hire staff, but though it was difficult, it turned out to be extremely successful because we were fulfilling a need that wasn’t being met anywhere else in Africa.” The need that Paul and Susan saw was for capacity building for hospitals and ministries of public health; with their assistance, African doctors and clinics could better plan their service delivery, improve management, lead programs to bring more patients to hospitals, and maintain programs once they were launched. Paul is especially proud of some of the strides that KCCO made while he and Susan were co-directors. “We were the first group globally to realize and document through research the finding that women accounted for 2 out of every 3 blind people in the world, and that they did not have equal access to eye care services. The World Health Organization funded us to find different ways to improve their use of those services, and so we were really trailblazers in understanding that problem, finding solutions, and implementing them.” Another area of work that Paul is proud of is identifying and helping children with cataracts. “It’s rare for children to be born with cataracts or develop them, but they only came to the hospital two or three years after their parents detected the problem. We led the work to identify these children earlier and help hospitals develop pediatric eye care units, connect them with ophthalmologists to do the surgery, and ensure follow-up.” In doing this crucial work, KCCO faced some incredible hurdles. “Health systems are incredibly weak in Africa,” lamented Paul. “When you develop programs, you need to start from scratch and train people on understanding and using a bank account, managing money, using Excel, and planning service delivery. People come into the field with very limited skills, so it’s very challenging.” Turnover also contributes to their challenges. “You can train up people so that two years later, they’re doing a great job, but if the ministry moves them somewhere else, you have no control over that, and you need to start all over again.” Over the years, KCCO has grown under Paul and Susan’s stewardship. Thanks to their deliberate approach, KCCO spread organically across Africa. “Early on, we started running two-week and six-week courses, and through those classes, we identified really sharp people who were motivated and had leadership skills. So we asked them, how can we help you when

Paul teaching at a KCCO retreat in Tanzania in 2007 (Courtesy of Dr. Paul Courtright ’72) Paul (left) and Janvier at the Nyundo pharmacy in Rwanda in 2006 (Courtesy of Dr. Paul Courtright ’72)

you go back to Burundi or Zambia? What can we do to help you transform your eye units and hospitals into more effective facilities?” Those people became their first partners in those countries, and today, KCCO is active in nearly 10 countries in Africa. Four years ago, KCCO expanded in a new direction to work on trachoma, a condition where a bacterial infection can cause eyelids and eyelashes to grow inward. The British government and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust have funded KCCO to work with a population of about 3 million people to organize surgery and treatment for this condition and focus on eliminating this public health issue. In 2012, Paul and Susan moved to South Africa to work at the University of Cape Town for four years, running the operation at a distance so their staff in Tanzania could handle more work. In 2016, they handed over the reins for KCCO and moved to San Diego into semi-retirement. In October 2019, Paul met with Queen Elizabeth II in recognition for his work at KCCO and also for his current role as the Trachoma Technical Lead for all trachoma work supported by the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. While consulting in this role, Paul has also been busy writing his first book, which will be published in 2020, about his experiences in South Korea during his Peace Corps years. Reflecting on his experiences, Paul kept coming back to the foundation he received at TAS. “My education here gave me a real sense that the world was open to me, and it was up to me to do something with it. I still feel very privileged to have had this education. I hope other TAS alumni will treasure the experiences they’ve had here, and look at it as the foundation or springboard for doing something meaningful in life.” To younger alumni and students, Paul has these parting words of advice. “There’s a lot to do that’s meaningful in life, and you may not figure it out to begin with. I was in my thirties before I got into the field that really resonated with me, so don’t feel like you have to rush it, and take the time to figure out how you’re going to use that education and experience.”

From right to left: Paul and Susan with their sons Jim and Tom (Courtesy of Dr. Paul Courtright '72)

FROM GRADE 7 TO SEVENTHGRADE

By Shereen Lee ’19 Geo Lee ’03 and Chuck Ma ’03 became fast friends when Lee moved to Taipei American School in Grade 7. But unlike many of the middle school relationships that drift apart over time, Lee and Ma’s lives only became more tightly intertwined after their graduation from TAS. The duo attended colleges only half an hour apart—the University of California, Irvine, and Chapman University, respectively—and spent hours driving to stay connected over the course of college. In 2016, more than 20 years after their first meeting, they started a comedy duo called SeventhGrade. A series of humorous videos primarily centered around Asian identity, the group’s most popular videos have garnered up to 350,000 views on Facebook. In an age where meme groups like Subtle Asian Traits dominate the internet, Lee and Ma are part of a recent trend in exploring pan-Asian cultural expression. From videos on white people who get Chinese-character tattoos to tackling stereotypes about the “dateability” of Asian men, their videos are a refreshing take on what it’s like to be an Asian-American in the 21st century. “We hope to continue to make the best videos that we can make, hopefully, so that it can become a positive representation of Asians and Asian Americans in the entertainment industry,” said Lee. “Especially this year with ’Crazy Rich Asians’ and a bunch of other milestones, we [AsianAmericans] have been finally breaking into the Western entertainment industry." SeventhGrade is not their first venture together: In 2013, nine TAS alumni started a breakdancing crew called Instant Noodles, which was founded in 2003, and the group danced together for over ten years in shows like MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew.

As the dance group fizzled out, the duo eventually grew interested in a new iteration of the dance group. “As we grow older, dancing becomes tougher on your body,” he said. “Making videos seemed like a natural extension of our art.”

Derek Chen ‘99 and Chantal Chen with their three sons in front of their home in Papua New Guinea (Courtesy of Derek Chen ’99)

DEREK CHEN ’99 AND CHANTAL CHEN’S JOURNEY INTO CROSS-CULTURAL MINISTRY

By Connie Ma, Alumni and Community Outreach Officer Derek Chen ’99 and Chantal Chen never pictured living in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea, but in 2018, their calling in Christian ministry brought them to the island country where they built a home among a local tribe and began to learn their local language. Though they came back to stay in Taiwan in winter 2019, Derek and Chantal hope to return to their work in Papua New Guinea soon. In this interview, the couple reflect on their journey so far and what brought them to Papua New Guinea.

WHAT WAS YOUR TAS EXPERIENCE AND YOUR COLLEGE EXPERIENCE LIKE? DID YOU KNOW YOU WOULD BECOME A MISSIONARY EVEN THEN?

Derek: “Not at all. In high school, I was in the music circle, studying under Stephen Abernethy and Kristin Love, and I represented TAS at IASAS. People even used to call me Yo-Yo Chen, because I played the cello. Back then, becoming a missionary in the middle of nowhere didn’t even occur to me. Growing up in Taiwan, I attended church, but I didn’t really consider myself a Christian. I loved my time at TAS, because those were my building blocks. I think one of the biggest things I learned here was being a third culture kid. This experience allowed me to see and appreciate cultures, and as a missionary, I have to constantly work across cultures. “It was at Northwestern where I met my wife Chantal in a Bible study when I started reexamining what the core message of Christianity was. Truly becoming a Christian is the touchstone that has reshaped my identity in many ways. The message of the Bible was life-changing for me, and even though I had been going to church most of my life, I had missed that message early on. I felt like there was a responsibility for me to share that understanding.”

Derek (center) and villagers build the Chens’ house in 2018. (Courtesy of Derek Chen ’99)

WHAT PLANTED THE SEED FOR YOU TO DO MINISTRY WORK AS MISSIONARIES IN VERY REMOTE PARTS OF THE WORLD?

Chantal: “Our Bible study was led by a student who was a missionary kid, and he told us a lot of real-life missionary stories. After Derek and I graduated from college, we lived in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for three years, and worked with a parachurch organization. I met and wrote a book about a missionary couple who had lived and worked in a tribe in Paraguay for 17 years. Even when I was interviewing them, we were inspired by how special their lives were, but at that time we thought to ourselves that we could never do anything like that.”

DID YOU START OFF IN YOUR MINISTRY AS OVERSEAS MISSIONARIES? WHAT EXPERIENCES OR FORMAL TRAINING DID YOU BRING TO MISSIONARY WORK?

Derek: “Before we started doing missionary work, we both attended Dallas Theological Seminary for four years. Afterwards, I served as the Assistant Mandarin Pastor at Westside Calgary Chinese Alliance Church in Calgary, Canada. We learned a lot there through shepherding a church, doing marriage counseling, officiating weddings and conducting funerals. The Mandarin congregation was 99% mainland Chinese, and that was where we learned to do crosscultural ministry. We learned not to assume too much or impose our culture on them. Many of them are first-generation Christians, who didn’t grow up in Christian households, so they needed a lot of teaching on how to parent as Christians or live out their marriages biblically.”

WHAT KIND OF MISSIONARY WORK ARE YOU DOING?

Derek: “We serve with Ethnos Canada (known as Ethnos360 in the U.S.), which focuses on unreached people groups. That means these groups don’t have Christian presence or Scripture in their own language, because nobody has gone there to learn their language and translate Scripture into their mother tongue. Our goal is to do that and train the people there in what we call discipleship, so they can become church elders and learn to teach the next generation. It’s the same way that many missionaries worked in Taiwan, and now these Taiwanese churches are standing on their own. We chose Papua New Guinea because its official language is an English-based creole, which we could learn fairly quickly and then be able to move into an unreached people group. Ethnos also has good infrastructure in this country, and many experienced missionaries.”

HOW HAS THE EXPERIENCE BEEN SO FAR? WHAT ARE SOME UNIQUE EXPERIENCES YOU’VE HAD?

Derek: “We arrived in early 2017 in Papua New Guinea for our training in-country. In 2018, we visited the Tanguat people in the Ramu Valley, asking for permission to work with their community. This is an area of the country that doesn’t get much attention from the government, so there aren’t any roads, and the closest medical facility is at least a few hours’ hike away. When we asked if we could come, they considered it an honor of sorts. Some groups in the country can be hostile, but most— like ours—are fairly receptive, and they know that outsiders come with their benefits, so we have to be careful about what we’re promising.” Chantal: “Before we moved in, we told them: ’We commit to learning your language, teaching you how to read and write in your own language, translating the Bible into your language, teaching you the Bible’s message, and then teaching you how to teach others.’ Everything else is bonus. The temptation is always to give them more material goods, but that doesn’t help them become self-sufficient, and sometimes even harms them. In Papua New Guinea, 97% of people are subsistence farmers, so while malnutrition may be common, there are rarely any famines or problems of hunger. They’re very community oriented, and there are hardly any orphans because children are immediately taken in by relatives.” Derek: “After we got the permission to move in, the first thing we did was to build our new house in the village from scratch. We worked alongside the villagers and community to cut and fell trees with chainsaws, and shaped and milled the lumber together. Even the children made makeshift ’wheelbarrows’ and carried the dirt away from the holes we dug to accommodate the posts of the house. Ethnos brought in eight helicopter loads of building materials. The house is simple, but we do have a few modern amenities—running water, a flushing toilet, solar panels with a water heater, a stove and oven, and even a semi-automatic laundry washer and spinner.” Chantal: “One of the more unique experiences we’ve had so far was harvesting a sago palm tree with the village. Sago starch is a basic food product for many Papua New Guineans, and the whole process is quite involved. We had to cut down the tree, scrape away the inside, rinse the starch out of the

pulp, and then cook it. Our three boys really got into the entire experience.”

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES THAT YOU FACE IN YOUR MINISTRY HERE?

Derek: “We trained for one of the biggest challenges: how to learn an unwritten language and put it into writing. We can only learn the language from a native speaker, so we would go out every day, find families to talk to, and just start naming things, moving from objects and nouns to verbs and connectors. We took pictures of different kinds of trees. Even though at first glance, it’s not important to learn the names of twenty different types of trees to translate the Bible, it’s important to understanding their culture. Chantal actually has documented twenty different kinds of bananas, because they eat all twenty kinds and can tell you all about them!” Chantal: “I think the most challenging thing about ministry here is really understanding their culture. You can learn someone’s language but culture takes years and years and years of spending time with people to understand what they think.” Derek: “But we also see learning another culture as being one of the biggest benefits of being a missionary. You’re leaving your comfort zone and trying to become comfortable in another context. Someone once said, one of the biggest gifts you can give people is to learn their language and culture. You understand what makes them tick, what motivates them, and what makes them happy.”

WHAT BROUGHT YOU BACK TO TAIPEI? HOW ARE YOU DEALING WITH THIS UNEXPECTED SETBACK?

Chantal: “In March 2019, we came back to Taiwan for a short checkup on an existing medical condition that I had. During the same routine check-up, they diagnosed me with a fast-growing lymphoma cancer. So we unexpectedly had to stay here while I received chemo treatment, and we even put our two older sons in a local elementary school. We’re now waiting for the green light to return to Papua New Guinea at the end of 2019.” Derek: “Cancer can be a scary word, but we’re keeping the bigger picture in mind. Missionary work has been a very personal call for us. It’s not something abstract, or even something we’re particularly good at. But for us, it’s very clear. We have a relationship with Jesus, and we want to share his life-changing message. As long as God allows us to be there and keeps opening doors for us to do that work, that’s what we want too. To us, we won’t be devastated if a door closes. Ultimately, we know that God is loving, God is powerful, and whatever he gives us, it’s ultimately for our own good. That’s how we’ve been facing this cancer thing. It sucks, but God knows what’s best.” Chantal: “Yes, the most fulfilling thing is that we’re finally doing what we’re called to do. Even when I was working in a law firm in Chicago, I enjoyed a good living, but the entire time, I didn’t feel like I was serving my purpose in life. Just being here is a great gift. We’re thankful for God’s plan and that we have resources. We have to think about how we can bless others with that privilege.”

Derek and his family visit Inapang in 2018. (Courtesy of Derek Chen ’99)