Chen Shui-bian - Early Years

Early Years

Chen was born to an impoverished tenant farming family in Guantian Township of Tainan County (now part of Tainan City) on the second day of the ninth lunar month in 1950 but was not formally issued a birth certificate until February 18, 1951 because of doubts that he would survive.

Academically bright from a young age he graduated from the prestigious National Tainan First Senior High School with honors. In June 1969, he was admitted to National Taiwan University. Initially a Business Administration major, he switched to Law in his first year and became editor of the school's law review. He passed the bar exams before the completion of his junior year with the highest score becoming Taiwan's youngest lawyer. He graduated in 1974 with an LL.B. in Commercial Law.

In 1975, he married Wu Shu-chen, the daughter of a physician. The couple have a daughter, Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), who is a dentist; and a son, Chen Chih-Chung (陳致中), who, having received a law degree in Taiwan, gained a Master of Laws from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005.

From 1976 to 1989, Chen was a partner in Formosa International Marine and Commercial Law, specializing in maritime insurance. He held the firm's portfolio for Evergreen Marine Corporation.

Read more about this topic:  Chen Shui-bian

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:

    It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.
    Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    Theoretically, we know that the world turns, but in fact we do not notice it, the earth on which we walk does not seem to move and we live on in peace. This is how it is concerning Time in our lives. And to render its passing perceptible, novelists must... have their readers cross ten, twenty, thirty years in two minutes.
    Marcel Proust (1871–1922)