Nien-Tszr “Tom” Tsai published his two-volume, bilingual autobiography entitled Hiking on the Mountain and Start Your Engine! with Modern Memoirs in 2024, featuring the first-ever tête-bêche bindings that our company has produced. Tsai’s wife, Elizabeth Tan Tsai, who has published three books of her own with Modern Memoirs, spearheaded the project on behalf of her husband. This Assisted Memoir project, which included Modern Memoirs’ commissioned translation of the text from Chinese to English, took one year and four months from the day she first contacted us to the day books arrived on the Tsais’ doorstep. We asked the Tsais to reflect on the publication process and to comment on what it has meant to share his books with others.
1. Tom, in Hiking on the Mountain, you write that you were born in China in 1937, and that your mother died when you were seven years old, the same year civil war broke out between the Communist Party and the Nationalist (KMT) government. In those troubled times, you grew close to your father, who raised you as a single parent. When you moved to California in the 1970s, he joined you and helped you and your wife, Elizabeth, take care of your two children. In honor of Father’s Day this month, please share a memory or value you learned from your father that you will always carry with you.
Tom Tsai: I remember that my father was always kind to other people. He was very generous to his friends. He was quiet, a man of few words. He lived simply, avoiding luxury. He exercised daily indoors and outdoors, doing tai chi beautifully, which I learned from him.
2. When you were twelve, your father joined the KMT army and moved the two of you from Mainland China to Taiwan. Later, you went to the United States to study, and it became your permanent home. You write, “Over time, my homesickness diminished while my affinity for my thriving homeland grew.” How were you able to maintain a connection with your homeland while building a new life in the U.S.?
Tom Tsai: I maintained connection by corresponding with relatives, classmates, and friends in Taiwan and Mainland China; reading books and newspapers about changes occurring there; watching Chinese cinema and opera; attending lectures by Chinese writers; helping Taiwan’s shipbuilding industry and the Mainland’s railway development; visiting Taiwan and the Mainland many times; singing with various Chinese choral groups in Taiwan and at Lincoln Center; and teaching driving to (and chatting with) Chinese visiting scholars and new immigrants.
“Reading my writings transports me to yesteryears. This personal history shows how I have become what I am today.”
3. In Hiking on the Mountain, you write, “Ever since I attended a literary camp during my sophomore year in high school and began journaling, I have been fascinated with using writing to express my emotions and record my experiences.” What makes the writing process so rewarding for you?
Tom Tsai: The writing process clarifies my thoughts and distills my experiences in precise words. These words become fixed in my mind. I can retrieve these words and relive my experiences. Reading my writings transports me to yesteryears. This personal history shows how I have become what I am today.
4. Your career was in mechanical engineering, but you also spent years as a driving instructor in the Washington, D.C. area, teaching 1,000 people—mainly international students and their parents—who ranged from sixteen to seventy-five years of age. Start Your Engine! shares letters from former students who describe you as energetic and kind, offering patient guidance that put them at ease and made them feel more self-assured. Many remember you encouraging them, even quite early in their lessons, to step on the accelerator and “Keep going!” How did this become your signature expression?
Tom Tsai: “Keep going” simplifies in two words the lesson I impart: You’ve begun, don’t be scared, maintain your speed, keep driving. It relaxes the students. It affirms that they’re doing well and should keep doing what they’re doing. It boosts their confidence. While this lesson is one that applies to driving, it can metaphorically extend to any area of life in which one must persevere.
5. In Start Your Engine!, you describe how everyday driving can offer broader philosophical insights. What is an example?
Tom Tsai: In my years of teaching driving, I have often drawn parallels between the rules of the road and the larger lessons of life. For instance, by following traffic rules, such as “keep to the right,” we automatically drive on the right side of the road. No one needs to remind us. Safe driving habits become a part of our life. The larger lesson is: Follow the rules and live safely.
6. Elizabeth, what inspired you to return to Modern Memoirs to publish your husband’s writings in this two-volume collection? What are your observations on the publication process—especially choosing the specialized tête-bêche binding? How have others responded to the books?
Elizabeth Tsai: The friendship and trust that I have developed with Modern Memoirs during the publication of my three books inspired me to return when Tom decided to publish his Chinese books in English and Chinese. MM arranged for their translation with a university translation center. After editing the translation, I turned the project back to MM, who suggested tête-bêche binding, where one can read the Chinese text and, turning the book head over tail, read the English text. The bilingual books arrived just in time for a family gathering for Mother’s Day. Our children and grandchildren did not leave empty handed! We are very pleased and happy with the books, which the Library of Congress has added to its collection, and our family and friends love them.
Liz Sonnenberg is the staff Genealogist at Modern Memoirs, Inc.