Christina Hu (胡若涵) was in fifth grade when she and her mom immigrated to the US in 1991. More than two decades later, the amateur documentarian still gets choked up when she talks about the muse of her recent film projects — Taiwan.
“I don’t want to be contrived, like this is the meaning of my life,” Hu said.
But for the 37-year-old valuation specialist of a hedge fund administrator, the thought of her homeland strikes at something deep, Hu said.
Photo courtesy of Christina Hu
“It’s pretty much true for all immigrants, I think, that when you know your life can be so different, and especially for Taiwanese, knowing that you are who you are today because you left Taiwan, but then Taiwan never left you,” said Hu, who grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Hu’s experiences as a Congress-Bundestag scholar in Germany, a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine during the “Orange Revolution” and a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School all led up to her interest in making films about Taiwan, she said.
Hu’s most recent documentary, which she discussed in a March 24 interview on a Brooklyn community television network, centers on a Taiwanese Canadian named Columbus Leo (羅益世). In 1989, Leo was arrested when he returned to Taiwan and was charged with sedition, according to the film.
Photo courtesy of Christina Hu
A conference organizer for the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations (世台會), a group promoting Taiwanese independence, Leo was among those believed to be blacklisted by the Chinese National Party (KMT) government during martial law, which ended in 1987. Just how many overseas political dissidents made that list remains unclear.
“The freedom we enjoy today in Taiwan is a credit to them,” Hu said. “And it’s something that’s not being told enough around the world.”
A self-described history buff, Hu nurtured her interest in filmmaking by enrolling in classes at BRIC, a nonprofit arts and media organization in Brooklyn, New York, where she lives.
Photo courtesy of Christina Hu
Her first film, between 2014 and 2015, focused on Jewish women who fled Ukraine with their families during World War II, Hu said. Their evacuation came after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part.
But Hu also knew she wanted to make a documentary about Taiwanese history and identity. Taiwan’s blacklist provided that fodder.
Thanks to a Taiwanese music group Blacklist Studio (黑名單工作室), the word “blacklist” was already etched in Hu’s mind as a child living in Taiwan, she said. Hu, however, didn’t know anyone who was blacklisted.
Photo courtesy of Christina Hu
“My family’s very apolitical,” she said. “I think it’s because they learned that it was dangerous ... to talk about politics.”
Looking to help with her project, a Harvard friend introduced Hu to Taiwan activist Jenny Wang (汪采羿) in New York. Wang secured interviews for Hu with three Taiwanese Americans who had been blacklisted as graduate students in the US, Hu said.
In the first installment of Hu’s documentary, those men — Lai Hong-tien (賴弘典), Patrick Huang (黃再添) and Mark Kao (高龍榮) — discussed how they were allegedly spied on at school functions by KMT agents and how some had difficulty returning home.
Photo courtesy of Christina Hu
Hu said the 10-minute film sparked interest among members of the mostly African-American audience unfamiliar with the Taiwan’s history of political persecution during martial law.
“The universal feedback was, I learned so much,” she said. “To me, that was enough for the first film.”
Hu built on her success with a second installment of “Blacklist,” a six-minute film that looks at the arrest of Leo, the world Federation of Taiwanese Associations conference organizer.
In the late 1980s, the group held its conferences in Taiwan to protest the government’s keeping a blacklist of political dissidents even though martial law had already ended.
Leo successfully entered Taiwan twice, according to the documentary, but wasn’t so lucky the third time around. After being arrested, Leo was moved to solitary confinement while waiting for the high court to hear his case. He received support from around the world, his wife says in the film, and eventually the charges were dropped.
“He really believed that we all have to do something,” said Hu, who interviewed Leo in October.
Hu is now formulating ideas for a third film to focus on Taiwan’s exclusion from the UN. Once a year, Taiwanese Americans gather in Manhattan to rally for a spot in the UN, which gave Taiwan’s seat to China in 1971.
Armed with a camera, Hu attended last year’s protest and filmed the event.
“I feel like a good documentary film is one without a pure agenda,” she said. “I’m trying to be as neutral as possible. But I feel it’s also incumbent of me to relay the feeling of it.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
RSS