When I got off the plane in Taipei on my way to Hong Kong, I did not expect to see anyone I knew. I had asked the Chus not to meet me, knowing they were busy just then. But it ossible that they would get somebody else to e in their stead, so I was not surprised when an effit-looking man i western clothes approached me. "You are Mrs. Richard Nixon?" He said in English.
I had seen many photographs of the blonde Mrs. Nixon and never imagined I resembled her. Besides, he should be able to tell a fellow ese even behind her dark glasses. But with a womans inability to disbelieve a pliment altogether, no matter how flagrantly untrue, I remembered that she was thin, which I undoubtedly was. Then there was those glasses. "No, I am sorry," I said, and he walked away to search among the other passengers.
It struck me as a little odd that Mrs. Nixon should e to Formosa, even if everybody is visiting the Orient just now. Anyhow there must have been some mix-up, as there was only this one embassy employee to greet her.
"Did you know Mrs. Nixon is ing today?" I asked my friends Mr. And Mrs. Chu, who had turned up after all.
"No, we havent heard," Mr. Chu said. I told them about the man who mistook me for her and what a joke that was. "Um," he said unsmiling. Then he said somewhat embarrassedly, "Theres a man who is always hanging around the airport to meet Ameri dignitaries. Hes not quite sane."
I laughed, the under Formosas huge wave of wistful yearning for the outside world, particularly America, its only friend and therefore in some ways a foe.
"How does it feel to be back?" Mr. Chu asked. Although I had never been there before, they were going along with the official assumption that Formosa is a, the mother try of all ese. I looked around the crowded airport and it really was a, not the strange o