Taiwanese History and Memory

Taiwanese History and Memory-A Trail of Formosan Nostalgia is a re-collection of the memory growing up in Taiwan, reflecting Taiwanese history and reminiscing his life in the United States of America. Kan Tiong Siong, a.k.a JS. Chien, a resident in Austin, Texas has told the stories of his home island of Formosa in a succinct and straight-forward way. Before 1600s Formosa was a haven for the Chinese and Japanese pirates as well as fugitives and outlaws from China;a place "sky is hign and emperor is far away." The Dutch colonized it from 1624 till 1662 when Koxinga drove them away. Then Koxinga's East kingdom was devoured by the Manchus Dynasty in 1683 Considered as a mud ball in the ocean," birds not sing, flowers not bloom, men not love, women not filial" the Manchus ceded Taiwan to Japan after Sino-Japan war in 1895. Then in 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States of America when it lost the Pacific war and Chiang Kai-Shek usurped the dominion of Taiwan. Under Chiang regime and his Nationalist party or KMT 30,000 Taiwanese were slaughtered in the aftermath of the 1947 general uprising. The subsequent martial law and white terror had deprived Taiwanese of their basic human rights until 1986 when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and the martial law, the longest in the world history was lifted .Nevertheless the Taiwanese struggle for genuine democracy and de jure independence has been vigorously, albeit slowly, inching along.Taiwanization has become the intermediary goal for the pro-independence movement. In 1989 Chiang Ching-Kuo, son of Chiang Kai-Shek and President of Republic of China on Taiwan died. Lee T eng-Hui succeeded the presidency and chairmanship of KMT. His succession to the power center of KMT was not without vigorous opposition from the hard-core KMT partisans because Lee is a native Taiwanese.Lee grew up in the Japanese colonial era with great depth of understanding of Japanese culture and political machination. He also holds PhD from Cornell University with genuine appreciation of democracy and populism, therefore he had become the beacon of Taiwanese democracy and independence despite his KMT affiliation. In 1996 Taiwanese had the first opportunity in the history of Taiwan to elect their own leader. It was between Lee of KMT and Peng MingM of DPP. Peng is a contemporary of Lee with education in the Japanese era and PhD from McGill University in Canada In 1964 Peng and his two students at the National Taiwan University distributed pamphlets advocating self-salvation for Taiwan. He was under house arrest and his students were jailed. Lee won overwhelmingly, nevertheless, it marked another mile stone of Taiwanization, democracy and independence. In 2000 Chen Shui-Bian won the presidency. Chen is a native son of Taiwan. Unfortunately during his 8 years of two terms, KMT had had an all-out war against hjm by curtailing his progressive projects.scandalizing him and mocking him through KMT controlled media on a 24-hour assault. In 2008 Ma Ying-Jeou, a Chinese and chairman of KMT took back the presidency of Republic of China. Chen Shui-Bian was thrown into jail by the KMT "owned" court. For the presidential election in 2016, Dr.Tsai Eng-Wen, a native daughter of Taiwan and chairwoman of DPP will be contending with the KMT for an historic showdown.