Yet the greatest gift that Peng's parents gave him was making his educational advance as easy as possible. When he was small, Peng's mother took him and his older brother and sister north, renting a house in Taipei so they could attend better schools. Relying on his Japanese--everyone in the family could speak it fluently--he was able to enter an elementary school almost exclusively attended by Japanese.
為了讓孩子們到都會區的好學校就讀，年幼的彭明敏和哥哥姊姊隨母親北上，在台北租屋居住，還憑仗小小年紀就會講一口標準日語，考進了日本小孩才有資格讀的「小學校」，算是日據時代人人稱羨的「國語家庭」。