Huang Yi Jun was diagnosed with T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia at the beginning of September. She died in the middle of September. Her funeral was Saturday.
Yi Jun and I met at a medical facility in April 2020. We were both trying to gain weight. My weight loss was from a TBI a few years earlier. Hers was from leukemia, though no one knew it at the time. She was tested for a wide variety of ailments, but apparently not the type of leukemia she had. Neither of us gained any weight at the camp, but we became friends.
Yi Jun was born and raised in Chiayi Hsien, Taiwan. She was always a good student and got into the best schools. She studied chemical engineering at National Taiwan University, which is generally considered the best school in Taiwan, according to people at National Taiwan University. After graduating, she moved to Michigan, started her career, got married, and had a daughter.
English was never her best subject, but she had a high enough ranking job, and more importantly, made enough money that she faced less discrimination than the average expat in the United States. Her American husband, on the other hand, often complained about her poor English. Naturally, he never bothered to learn Chinese. They also had the usual cultural issues. Americans often have problems with people from other states. Taiwan might as well be on a different planet. I never met her ex-husband, but from what she told me, he sounded like a typical xenophobe. Why he ever married a Taiwanese is anyone's guess. My assumption is that he thought she would be a passive and obedient wife, which is a bizarre stereotype in the United States that is as far removed from reality as their views on international relations and the shape of the Earth.
Four years after getting married, they were divorced. When Yi Jun decided to move back to Taiwan, there was a custody battle for their daughter. Since she wanted to take her child, who was born in the United States and far too young to make any decisions for herself, to one of them foreigner countries that don't speak no English, the court gave the father full custody.
Before fully putting her life back together, Yi Jun met a man from France. I would have advised against jumping in the pool so soon after almost drowning, but I did not know her at the time, so she moved to France and married Didier. Ironically, this husband got a job in Ohio. Yi Jun knew she could easily find a job in the United States with her chemical engineering background, and Ohio was much closer to her daughter than Taiwan or France, so she moved again. Fortunately, this husband was French, so their cultural differences were never seen as a negative.
When she started to get sick and lose weight, they spent a small fortune on doctors and tests. One doctor told her it was stress. Several treated her as if she had a learning disability because she was a foreigner who spoke English poorly, never mind that she was fluent in twice as many languages as they were. Every doctor who failed to diagnose her leukemia sent a bill and demanded to be paid in full. Eventually, Yi Jun and Didier went to Taiwan, where no one has to go bankrupt to get healthcare. Her doctor sent her to the Taipei weight camp, where we met.
A few days after getting a diagnosis, she started chemotherapy for the sole purpose of wiping out her immune system. Chemotherapy does little to nothing for leukemia, but they used it to prepare her body for the stem cell transplant. I was surprised by how quickly they found a bone marrow donor. Since the doctors never had to wait around for any insurance company approval, they moved quickly at every stage of her treatment. It was as if treating her was more important than filling out the right paperwork. When she went home from the hospital, everyone was optimistic. T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia has a ridiculously low survival rate, but there were no complications from the stem cell transplant. Everything was looking good.
Despite feeling terrible, Yi Jun was worried about looking terrible. She was always a pretty girl who looked younger than she really was. When I met her, I thought she was in her mid twenties. After chemo, she looked middle aged. We talked a lot about losing our hair. Mine had grown back and was getting longer every day by the time she lost hers. It is amazing how important hair is to young women. You expect men to go bald, but a woman without hair is a shock. Yi Jun and I both went from having long hair most of our lives to suddenly having nothing. She wore a wig pretty much all the time. I used to wear a lot of hats.
We talked about recovery. Mine was slow and painful, and she took comfort in the long, detailed stories that make most people's eyes glaze over. A craniotomy is absolutely nothing like cancer, but she liked the parts about overcoming the odds and getting myself back to full speed, or at least 90%. She was competitive enough to think that if I could do it, she could, too.
Yi Jun's sister told me over the phone that Yi Jun died. I would have preferred to hear that in person, but at least it was not a text message. I only knew her for 17 months, so I was probably pretty far down the list of people to call. All things considered, it was nice of her sister to let me know.
Yi Jun's husband was in Taiwan during the last round of treatment and was with her in the hospital when she died, luckily. He speaks no Chinese and her family speaks no French. At least the doctors could speak to him in English. But it was the family that planned the funeral, and none of them knew more than a few words or phrases in English. I was drafted as their translator.
Yi Jun and Didier lived in France and the United States. Yi Jun mostly lived away from Taiwan the last ten years of her life. But there was never any question among her family that her funeral would be in Taiwan and everything would be done the Taiwan way. This was news to Didier, but he was in no position to argue. He later told me that he would have preferred taking her back to France and doing everything the French way, but by then it was too late.
I have only lived in Taiwan for 16 months; less time than I knew Yi Jun. I am not the first person you go to for information or explanations about Taiwan funeral practices. In fact, Yi Jun's was my first Taiwan funeral. Yet I was supposed to tell Didier what was going on before it even happened. The first of many awkward situations was when I read her obituary to him. It was written by her family and pretty standard as far as obituaries go. It mentioned when and where she was born and when and how she died. It mentioned her parents more than you usually see in Western obituaries. It mentioned that she was survived by her husband, two sons, and daughter. This part was a little confusing. Yi Jun had a daughter with her first husband and no children with Didier. They were married less than three years when she got sick. Didier assumed I was translating the obituary incorrectly, but it very clearly said two sons and one daughter, and gave their names.
A quick phone call to her sister cleared everything up. I did not know her sister particularly well, but she was my liaison for all things funeral. It turns out, according to her sister, that Yi Jun married a Taiwanese at 18, had two sons, and was divorced by 21. Her American husband, who I thought was her first, was her second. They got married when Yi Jun was 24 and divorced at 28. Didier was her third husband. I have no idea why Yi Jun never told me about her Taiwanese husband, or her two sons, but we only knew each other for 17 months. I never knew her when she was healthy. Then again, she told me plenty about her American husband and daughter.
I was stunned by this new information, but I could see where maybe she did not go around telling everyone that she got married too young and it ended poorly. And maybe it was easy to talk to me about the American husband because I have some experience with failed American relationships. But the real shock was how shocked Didier was to learn about the Taiwanese husband and two sons. She never mentioned them to him either. He knew all about the American husband and daughter, including plenty of detailed stories Yi Jun never told me, but she never told her French husband that he was number three. Didier had a lot of questions, but I had none of the answers. He would have to talk to Yi Jun's sister, and that would require me translating. Somehow, I landed in the middle of a Taiwanese telenovela. We tried to set up a lunch before the funeral, but everyone was too busy. To date, this conversation has not happened. I think her family is avoiding Didier as politely as possible. They knew a Yi Jun that he never met.
Fortunately, the funeral was straightforward and pretty intuitive. The funeral home put the body in a casket, everyone came and sat in the audience, a few people gave speeches, including her oldest son – who was not at all a shock to most of the people in attendance, a small choir sang “Amazing Grace” and a few Taiwan folk songs, they showed a low quality video that looked like a 1980s VHS tape of people who could not be there in person giving their condolences, the family put flowers on Yi Jun's body, everyone else lined up to cover her with flowers, the funeral people dramatically carried the coffin into a waiting hearse with everyone following in a processional, and most of the guests went home. It was only after they took the body away that Taiwan custom started to diverge from what Didier and I consider routine.
None of Yi Jun's ex-husbands were at the funeral. Both of her teenage sons were there, but her daughter was not. Yi Jun and her daughter never had the best relationship, and as an American, the daughter would have been subject to some strict entry requirements had she tried to come to Taiwan. A few of Yi Jun's Ohio and Michigan friends and colleagues recorded messages for the low quality video, but her daughter was not among them.
Only the family followed the hearse away from the funeral. Since I was Didier's translator, I came along for the ride. Very few bodies are buried whole in Taiwan, so we did not go to a cemetery to inter the coffin. We went to the local crematorium. I had warned Didier about this ahead of time, and cremation is not so unusual in his country, but I could not warn him about how they would prepare the body because no one ever told me. When they asked him to help take Yi Jun out of the coffin and wash her body, we were both surprised. I had no idea this was part of Taiwanese culture. Most people around here never talk about funeral rites, until it is time to get down to business. I like to think I am pretty open minded when it comes to cultures different from my own, but I was more than a little uncomfortable watching Didier and a few female relatives wash the lifeless corpse of my friend. Didier was pretty much horrified, but he went along with it because it was expected of him, and he mostly walked around in a daze that day.
Mercifully, we did not have to personally set the body on fire. They put her in a cheaper coffin, since the one at the funeral was a ceremonial rental, and machines did most of the work. We were not even in the same building when they fired up the oven.
I had a chance to warn Didier about the next part, because I knew it was going to happen. Once cremated, the remains were brought out to the family, where they literally picked her bones. In Taiwan, just like China, and probably more than a few East Asian countries, the bones are not pulverized to a fine dust and placed in an urn. They are scattered on a large tray where immediate family can pick out the bone fragments they want to keep. Most of her relatives will bury their portion of Yi Jun in their local cemetery and visit her every year during 清明節 (Tomb Sweeping Day). Didier's plan is to take his Yi Jun bones back to France and bury her after a more familiar memorial service.
The point of a funeral, as far as I know, is to say goodbye to someone. Yi Jun's funeral was not for or about me, and almost everyone knew her longer than I did, but I never really got a chance to say goodbye since I was busy explaining everything to Didier. It was an honor to be in that position, and a highly educational experience, but I would have liked the luxury of mourning my friend with everyone else.
Huang Yi Jun was 34 years old.
