Those Were The Days

Those were the days



Once upon a time, there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours,
Think of all the great things we would do

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
…………………………………..

"Those Were the Days" was released on 30 August 1968.
It was Mary Hopkin's debut single. The song was originally
called “Endless Road”, or actually called Dorogoi dlinnoyu.
(Дорогой длинною). It deals with reminiscence upon youth and
romantic idealism. It is credited to Gene Raskin (1900-1948),
who put English lyrics to this Russian song with words by the poet
Konstantin Podrevskii.

1968 was the year when our class graduated from NTUMC.
It was the year when there were two major events occurred in
NTUMC, as indicated in the foot-note of our class yearbook by our
class leader and the chief editor, Su Wen-Po. NTUMC Hospital had
it’s first and successful kidney transplant in that year. At the same
time, NTUMC Hospital was facing the issue of “resident physician
shortage”.

It was also a special year for us. It was the last year of our seven
years’ medical school education, and it was the first time we were
called “doctor” or "大夫", as it was our internship ( 實習醫師) year.

Despite of being paid minimum wages, we did enjoy our work and
our life. In the hospital, we did all the basic stuff, including the so
called “BUS”, drawing Blood, testing Stool and Urine specimens, and
did "H&P" (History and Physical) for every patient admitted to the
hospital. We were the "frontier soldiers". We followed the instructions
given by the residents, chief residents, and the attending physicians
including the professors. We were on-call almost every three
nights and weekends.

As we were paid “minimum wages”, we were able to spend some
of the money to enjoy our personal life, such as having classmates
together to watch the “first-run” American movies, or inviting
the girls to have the field trips. But, for most of the time, we were
in the intern dorm and study. One of the major studies was to
prepare for the ECFMG (Educational Commission for Foreign
Medical Graduates) Certification Examination . A small group of
us even formed a club called “KOC”. One of its functions, among
many others, was to study together for this examination.

Now some 40 years later, noting that many of our classmates have
become president of National University, deans of medical schools,
members of Academia Sinica, professors of renowned universities
in both Taiwan and US, besides those hardworking practitioners,
I still vividly remember much of the school life and experiences with
our fellow classmates.

I recall LCL, who was one of the tallest men in our class and now
the chief executive of the Taiwan Buddhist Medical Centers,
was bursting into tears toward the end of the movie “Madame X”.
He had a soft heart. HJC had a nick-name “小肉麻” of an obvious
reason, MNH had a “怪手” because of his peculiar, but friendly
behavior, CHC was often bothered by his troublesome “香港腳”,
THM was a quiet girl yet was called “冰山”. CZW was a musician
and music composer. I loved to listen to his beautiful guitar’s playing
from across the room. We called CWL “阿公仔” because of his mature
and authoritative look, LYM "囝仔" for his extremely young and cute
appearance, and we called SWP “蘇牧師” for being such a devoted
Christian. HFY had been called “黃牛仔” because of his innocent
“cow temper”.
And ……………… .

Those were the days,
We thought they'd never end.

Yeh Tze