by Mimi Chong
She said to call her Shu-jen. So there I was, caught in a little dilemma of respect or friendliness: surely as a student one had to show respect for the resident office lady in the文學院 – the humanities building – who does such things as pick up after us when we leave trash around (litterers in the building must be more careful in the future, you’ve placed me in the embarrassing position of having to apologize for you) and it is rather hard to be friendly with someone you’re not really sure you know. I suppose you, too, aren’t really sure you know who I’m talking about. Ms. Chen – that is, Shu-jen – is a diminutive, comfortably middle-aged woman who works in the Foreign Languages’ department office, and she’s not a TA. It’s hard to categorize what her position is: she herself seems to think that she’s a custodian or janitor, since she takes care of the few rooms that belong to our department (such as the meeting room and the offices) and takes out the garbage. But she also serves as a kind of courier, picking up mail and whatnot from the main office building and sorting them into the professors’ mailboxes. (And, as everyone knows, mail-sorting is a hazardous undertaking nowadays…) She delivers forms and papers from our department to the main office too. Sounds…uneventful, I say. Shu-jen agrees: yes, it’s a nice job. According to her, it’s pleasantly regular work that doesn’t differ much day by day; during the beginning and end of term there are more papers to distribute and she has to run back and forth between the offices more, but that’s about it. Shu-jen’s been working here for all of nine years, and she says that things haven’t changed much. Professors, the TAs sharing the office and graduate students who have classes in the classrooms there are always unfailingly polite to her, she maintains, and she’s never been treated any differently because her job description isn’t the same. She does have a few suggestions for our students, though. For starters, all the office ladies would appreciate it if people would be quiet in the hall during noon hour. (They are very, very adamant about this, and we do not want our office ladies to be irate.) For her own part, Shu-jen wants to remind students that use the classroom and the meeting room during noon, especially, to remember to remove the remnants of their repasts. In fact, it would be nice if students could manage not to litter at all, and to place their garbage into the correct canisters – imagine sticking your hand into gunk in order to fish out someone else’s improperly sorted trash. (The trash cans in the building are now situated just beyond the photocopiers standing in full sight of the main entrance, by the way.) When I first approached her about an interview, Shu-jen was rather baffled as to why our newsletter would want to talk about her. I told her we’ve had too many professor stories and professors, and in terms of economics she’s the rarer commodity. But seriously, in order for a university to function more than just professors and students are required. There’s a version of Shu-jen in every department office, and sometimes, it would be nice to acknowledge and appreciate those people who usually dwell in the background. #Volume 7 Issue 2 a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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