As Taiwanese at home and abroad recently commemorated the 60th anniversary of the 228 Incident with public lectures, film screenings and memorial gatherings in Taipei and Washington, the lessons and memories of 228 will continue to reverberate for future generations of Taiwanese.
As reported in this paper, a public memorial service was held in the lobby of the Rayburn House Office Building on March 28 "that brought together some 200 Taiwanese-Americans to remember 228 and the martial law that followed, and to express their hopes for the new Taiwanese democracy" ("Recognize Taiwan: Tancredo," Mar. 2, page 2.)
At the gathering, Lin Yung-mei (
Lin said that her father disappeared and was never seen again, adding: "Injustice and senseless silence ... Now their stories can be told."
There is another story of the White Terror period that has so far been told only in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) and never in an English-language newspaper. Until now.
It is a story that needs to be told to the world in English, because it tells of a chapter in Taiwan's history that many Westerners can understand at a basic human level, since it is what a professor at Soochow University has called "the Anne Frank story of Taiwan."
The story, which has been documented in detail in English and Chinese on a Web site (shihruchen.blogspot.com) is about a Hsinchu man named Shih Ru-chen (
During the early 1950s, Shih, fearing arrest and possible jail time and even execution from the military police, chose to go into hiding at his elder brother's house, using a tiny crawl space his brother created in his home, to elude the authorities.
He was 37 years old when he went into hiding in a small space between two walls in his brother's home, and he was 55 years old when he died there, of natural causes, having remained "in hiding" for 18 long, unfathomable years.
Please read that number again: not 18 weeks, not 18 months, but 18 years.
Yes, this story happened in Taiwan during the White Terror period, and it has been documented in Chinese in a book published a few years ago by the Hsinchi Culture Center.
The book includes interviews with Shih's surviving relatives and a copy of the blueprint of the crawl space he "lived" in for 18 years, coming out only for short periods of time at night to eat, wash, go to the toilet and chat with his wife and two children.
Like Lin's story of her father's disappearance in 1947, Shih's story would surely resonate with people around the world, in whatever language they read it in.
Just as Anne Frank's "diary" -- written while the Nazis occupied Holland and her family went into hiding -- found a worldwide audience after World War II, so too can Shih's story find an audience in Taiwan and overseas.
Not many people go into hiding for political reasons for 18 years, and the story of Shih's ordeal has until now been mostly hidden from public view -- even in Taiwan -- and almost no one overseas has ever heard of this incident.
Surely there's a place in Taiwan's history books, novels, plays and TV dramas for Shih and his family.
Anne Frank taught the world an important lesson, and so too can Shih. There has been a "senseless silence" about his life, but now his story should be told.
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Taiwan.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to