海角大神

A family history in trees and flowers: A biologist鈥檚 memoir

Part memoir, part travel narrative, and part nature writing, a biologist visits Taiwan 鈥� her ancestral homeland 鈥� and unravels her family history.

Mingling memoir, travelogue, nature writing, and political narrative, 鈥淭wo Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan鈥檚 Mountains and Coasts in Search of My Family鈥檚 Past鈥� is a thoughtful exploration of lineage and place. Upon visiting her ancestral homeland of Taiwan, Jessica J. Lee pieces together fragments of her family鈥檚 past while delving into the island鈥檚 鈥渨ealth of habitats.鈥� The book鈥檚 title speaks to the natural landscape of the country, where the author finds cypress and cedar trees at a scale so impressive that 鈥渢wo trees would make a forest.鈥�

鈥淭wo Trees Make a Forest鈥� is the author鈥檚 second book and follows her 2017 memoir 鈥淭urning: A Year in the Water.鈥� A British-Canadian-Taiwanese environmental historian, Lee spent three months traveling throughout Taiwan. Described as 鈥渁 living world on a fault-ridden terrain,鈥� the geography of the 89-mile wide island is mountainous and biodiverse. 鈥淥f more than four thousand vascular plant species on Taiwan, more than a thousand are endemic,鈥� writes Lee. 鈥淢ore than 60 percent of mammals on the island occur nowhere else.鈥澛�

When not absorbed in the language of plants and landscape, the author casts a critical eye on the formation of geological sciences and the 鈥渋mpetus for exploration concomitant with colonialism.鈥� She points to Western sciences arriving in Taiwan by way of colonial expansion, tracing the first record of botanical study to a Scottish botanist famous for pilfering Chinese tea plants for production in India. Looking at contemporary Taiwan, Lee comments on the effects of climate change and the clearing of land for plantations and mineral excavation, creating environmental hazards she defines as 鈥渁nthropogenic.鈥�

At the center of 鈥淭wo Trees Make A Forest鈥� is the author鈥檚 exploration of family identity and the political dimensions of Taiwan鈥檚 past. Lee鈥檚 maternal grandparents were originally from China. At the end of the Chinese Civil War, they left for Taiwan, along with more than 1 million other mainland Chinese. Unable to return, her grandparents lived on the island for four decades. In 1974, they emigrated to Canada, resettling on a foreign continent far away from their home country.聽

While born and raised in Canada, Lee writes that 鈥淭aiwan and its past had inhabited my imagination for most of my life.鈥� Her extended stay in the country in 2017 came after her grandparents鈥� passing. A stray phone bill listing calls made to Taiwan and China led to the discovery of long lost family members; an autobiographical letter written by the author鈥檚 grandfather provided a family backstory shaped by political turmoil.聽

鈥淧olitical migrants. Exiles. Colonists. Diaspora. The past has many words for my grandparents' generation, all of them containing a grain of the truth,鈥� notes Lee. She writes of China鈥檚 May Fourth protests, an anti-imperialist movement sparked by student activists in Beijing in 1919. The Second Sino-Japanese War 鈥� precipitated by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937 鈥� led to Taiwan being ceded to China in 1945 after five decades of Japanese rule. In 1949, the Nationalist Chinese government declared martial law in Taiwan. It lasted for 38 years, one of the longest periods of martial law in history.聽

In modern-day Taipei, Lee juxtaposes the city with its surrounding environs. She describes wandering 鈥渁bove the city my family called home,鈥� watching 鈥渢he gray streets rolling out into the hills, the city expanding at a rate faster than the movement of mountains.鈥� When writing of nature, the author fluctuates between different interpretations of time 鈥� arboreal and lithic; dendrological and geological. While 鈥淭wo Trees Makes A Forest鈥� is full of graceful prose, general readers may have difficulty grasping some of the author鈥檚 more specialized descriptions of scenery. For nature enthusiasts, however, this book offers an abundance of landscapes to imagine.聽聽聽

Lee鈥檚 delicate integration of genres sets 鈥淭wo Trees Make A Forest鈥� apart from the conventional memoir. The author鈥檚 introspective storytelling avoids the standard pitfalls of travel writing, and she crafts a multifaceted narrative of dislocation and reconnection that escapes simple definition.