I have lived in Kaohsiung for about five years now and I’ve learned many things during my time here. One thing I’ve learned is that being a foreign resident and an observer of cross-strait relations can be both an exhilarating and disillusioning experience. I have the luxury of having a front row seat to history being made, but I am unable to play a more active role because I can’t vote.
Perhaps that’s a good thing. As an observer, one should try to remain as objective as possible. I suppose the Chinese saying that “the observers see the game more clearly than the players” fits my situation quite well.
At a personal level, it’s probably always better to witness a crime than be involved. To what crime do I allude? The abusive China-Taiwan relationship.
Let’s first introduce the belligerent. The People’s Republic of China (PRC), for at least as long as I’ve been alive, has been like an overbearing, abusive, controlling husband. The victim: The nation of Taiwan, who is often relegated to playing the role of the controlled and abused wife.
Here is what we know: The wife once owned the house in which the husband currently lives — or at least her family did. The actual information here is quite sketchy. What is clear is that the husband took over the house and relegated the wife to the garage. Being in the garage, the wife decided to make the best of the situation and decorate and furnish the garage to the point that the neighbors began having difficulty telling which was the house and which was the garage. eventually, the husband claimed the garage was his as well. Again, the actual information available is quite sketchy.
Then one day the husband, who occasionally came over to the garage to scare away some of the wife’s friends and abuse the wife physically, emotionally and verbally, decided he wanted to build a corridor between the house and the garage. The wife believed that there were some positive aspects to building the corridor, but she also knew that it mean her husband could come over any time he pleased, scare away her friends and make the beatings ever easier for him to perpetrate.
However, she decided the rewards outnumbered the risks. So she allowed him to build the corridor. In fact, she even helped him with the construction. She believed that this act of kindness and cooperation would soften him. She asked him to allow her friends to come over sometimes and occasionally allow her to go out with them as well.
The husband didn’t say “yes” necessarily, but he didn’t say no, at least not to her face. She took this as being a sign that perhaps he was softening. It had been her hope that he’d eventually come around to her way of thinking, see where she was coming from and understand her.
He assured her that there were no problems — or he at least never said he had any problems. But then one day, just as the corridor was nearing completion, she overheard him tell some of her friends that he would not let them come over and would not let her see them. He was going to keep her in the kitchen, doing all of the housework and he would keep the door locked. He told them she was his and no one else’s. He was going to decide her fate.
She still built the corridor, however, believing that her hopes, dreams, aspirations, desires and will mattered to him. Despite all the evidence to the contrary she still continued to believe she could soften him. They just needed time. The corridor, once finished, would serve as a bridge between their two worlds, and it would also serve as an outlet for her. He had never said he wouldn’t let her have her own life, at least some of the time.
He told her that if she felt like demolishing the corridor, she could do so at any time. But that was strange, she thought, because he’d said several times before to others that if she didn’t build the corridor, he’d kill her. But no matter; he was a changed man, now.
Then one night after the corridor was built, he came to visit her. He wanted what every husband wants — a relationship with his wife. She was his, he reasoned. Why couldn’t he take what was his? She was not ready, was her response. They had lived apart for so long, and all of those bad memories still seemed so near — she just couldn’t be with him now. Give her some time! He persisted. Wait! He fought on. No! Her screams meant nothing to him.
The police arrived at their house early the next morning. It was too late. The husband had not only taken her life, but it seemed he’d also stripped her of her dignity and humanity. In effect, he’d done what he’d always said he would do. She just chose not to listen.
I suppose at a personal level it’s always better to be a witness to a crime than be involved. Then again, I, too, live in the garage.
Nathan Novak is a writer living in Kaohsiung.
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