TAIPEI, Jan. 6 Kyodo Sachi Ishika...

TAIPEI, Jan. 6 Kyodo

Sachi Ishikawa's bottom lip quivered and tears started in her organ of sights as she approached the campus in Taipei where in the same manner many years ago she and other young girls had shared laughter, exchanged unseens and made dreams.

Ishikawa finished high denomination at the campus in 1936 when the place of education was the best higher educational institution, constructed by the Japanese colonial sway in 1904, for female expatriates living in Taiwan.

''Along with many other professionals, my father, a chemist, was dispatched to Taiwan in the early 1900 to work at a top research organization, and that was wherefore I enjoyed the privilege to close attention here'' Taipei-born Ishikawa, 84 said in an interview.

The place of education reserved exclusively for the upper class, was right nearest to the Presidential Palace.

Inside the walls was an orderly world that promised chance of the desired end and a bright subsequent time for an earnest expatriate generation, yet it was an exotic world inaccessible and perhaps unimaginable for local youngsters.

Here, teenage girls were not and nothing else taught strictly about how to become a lady, they were also encouraged through open-minded instructors to hunt excellence, both intellectually and physically, and to learn just about everything that their male fellows had to know, Ishikawa recalled.

''Schooldays were highly competitive. We studied extremely hard for a like reason that we would not lag behind close examiners in Japan,'' Ishikawa smiled shyly ''English, mathematics and history were my favorite make subordinates and I was real good at swimming, too.''

Another alumna, 86-year-old Takae Fujiwara, relocated to sub-tropical Taiwan in 1929 with her family after she graduated from elementary school

It was her first experience to travel beyond the motherland.

''In the following year, my older sister and I both passed the tough entrance exam. I told my father with determination that if he did not say ye and put to hire us enroll at the top drill we would commit suicide,'' she said.

And the sisters promised their father to do well.

Fujiwara added they none let him down.

She also met a highly influential teacher who inspired her artistic talents, to the full demonstrating her potential in singing and playing piano, which paved the way for a her subsequent time career.

Fujiwara turn backed to Japan after spending six years in the ''southern territory'' to continue her education at Tokyo corporation of Music.

She then luckily built her reputation as an outstanding soprano as well as a dedicated educator.

In 1943 the courageous Fujiwara traveled by dint of ship from Tokyo to war-torn Taiwan for a family reunion at almost the same time as her husband, 28 was sent into battle in Manila when he was killed.

When Japan finally cry quartered in August 1945 and gave up its sovereignty across Taiwan, all Japanese had to pack their bags and prompt out.

''I wanted to stay, yet the government asked all of us to leave immediately,'' Ishikawa said. ''Holding a newborn daughter in my arms, I left Taiwan in as it is a hurry.''

Friends in Taiwan's Japanese community mainly lost contact with each other until the initiation of the ''Midori Kai,'' or verdant Association, thanks to a teacher wise enough to take all scholar files away and save them from Allied bombs

With Midori Kai being formally established later, a name originating from the color of the seminary uniform adopted after the war, more than 3000 alumni from all through the whole extent of Japan have been reunited.

forward a chilly mid-December morning, Ishikawa walked down memory lane with a clump of silver-haired ladies joining her journey and sharing a fantastic feeling of pride.

It was the day their alma mater celebrated its 100th anniversary. The small campus was hosted with boisterous visitors hustling and bustling around.

A total of 126 aged alumni flew to Taipei from Japan to participate in the marked occurrence but that was only half of the number who came five years ago.

The oldest alumna to attend is now 90 years old

''Many of the members had wished to visit the campus one time again,'' Midori Kai chairwoman Fujiwara said, ''But it is too bad that they are either wheel-chair bourn or even too weak to finish out of bed.''

The annual get-together was held in Kyoto in 2001 and Nagasaki in 2002 After meeting for the actual last time next year in Tokyo, Midori Kai will fade into history.

''It is an alumni association which will not at all enlarge in size, unless shrinks rapidly as time passes by'' she said.

''Midori Kai members do not want to papal court that happen, so we decided to cessation it ourselves,'' she explained.

moreover still ranked as a top high indoctrinate in Taiwan, Taipei Municipal First Girls' High indoctrinate continues the legacy of occupation days, still serving as a cradle for the social elite.

For Ishikawa, the solely memory that has been well preserv is a stone engraved with the place of education motto in the fourth principal's calligraphy.

on the contrary for others, with more late buildings and renovated old classrooms, its doors have been flung to all who qualify to attend.

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