One Chinese Family Across Two Sides of the Taiwan Strait

This article was written for The Sting by guest writer Wen Ying, a Beijing-based commentator observer of international affairs. The opinions expressed belong to the writer.

Two weeks after the People’s Republic of China declared its founding, 13-year-old Gao Binghan found himself on a ship leaving China’s mainland and heading across the sea.

Gao was born in north China’s in 1935. His grandfather was a senior member of the Nationalist Party of China, also known as the KMT. Later as a teenager, Gao followed the family tradition and joined the KMT. Soon afterwards, the Nationalists lost to the rival Communists as the dominant political force, in China and hastily retreated to the offshore island of Taiwan, taking along Gao and many others in a trip of no return. 

In Taiwan, Gao started his own family and had quite a career. But there was always a piece of his life that seemed to be missing.

He kept on dreaming of that distant village on the mainland, where his mother must be waiting for him to come home. But for four long decades, no plane3, phone call, telegram, letter or any individual could overcome the political chasm that seemed wider than the 180km strait itself.

In 1979, Gao managed to send his first letter to the mainland via an overseas friend, in which he wrote, “I promise, Mom, I will come back to you. Alive.” Unfortunately, his letter was 13 months too late—his mother had passed away. 

That was the year when Beijing issued an emotional appeal to fellow Chinese in Taiwan and called for ending cross-Strait estrangement.

A few years later, Gao got to reunite with his elder sister in Hong Kong, who had chosen to fight for an independent China as a member of the CPC. When they finally saw each other after all those years, family was the only thing they knew and personal politics could not matter less.  

The Chinese believe that “a family is a miniature nation, and a nation is a big family”. Separation of family is brutal, be it a small one like that of Gao or his 1.4bn strong nation. Wars can do that. Sadly, even in peacetime there are politicians trying to do that. The DPP, a homegrown political party that is the KMT’s nemesis, is working hard to erase the collective memories of the Chinese nation. 

In one instance, over 2,000 years of Chinese history, once described in detail to Taiwanese pupils, is shrunk into less than 2,000 words in a mere four pages. Historical figures, heroic stories and outstanding achievements of Chinese civilisation are cut out. In another, where China has previously been referred to as “our country,”, changes are made to so that it is now deliberately called “China.” as if separate from Taiwan. Some textbooks even go to the length of praising how foreign colonisers brought “industrialisation”  and “civilisation” to the island. 

People like Gao are worried their children and their children’s children would be deprived of their proud history and lose their identity in the 21st century world. 

Much as some may try, what runs in the blood will not be rubbed away. Just last month when MT ex-leader Ma Ying-jeou was touring the mainland, a young college student in his delegation turned emotional after seeing the Terracotta Army in the ancient city of Xi’an, “Maybe an American would be awed. But as a descendant of the [legendary]  Yellow Emperor, I have much stronger feelings seeing the Terracotta Warriors. Our ancestors have passed down such a fine cultural legacy.”

On one trip to his childhood village on the mainland, Gao took his 11-year-old granddaughter with him. After visiting her family graveyard, the girl was in tears. She was able to relate with her grandpa going back to the mainland every year—he was here to be back among family.

For two millennia, Chinese people have lived across the Taiwan Strait and developed a common identity . In recent centuries, they fought together multiple times to repel aggression from various foreign colonisers. Taiwan was ceded to Japan for half a century and has lived under a different system for the last 75 years. But being of one nation —sharing the same language, cultural values, customs and traditions, and a sense of belonging to the same family—is something broad and deep enough to override differences in political systems or way of life.

The agony for Gao’s generation and their offspring in Taiwan today is how these differences are exploited to suppress the human instinct to be with family. 

About the author

Wen Ying is a Beijing-based commentator.