A different perspective
Hsiao, Yang, Cai Sih-ting, and Hou Kuang-yuan, all of whom are in their thirties, tell us that they didn’t know Taiwan that well when they came to the US, and that it was the act of trying to tell others about their homeland that exposed just how little they knew.
Hsiao, whose parents sent him to study in the US while still a young child, says: “The US doesn’t recognize the ROC, so those of us over here really wanted to know, if they don’t acknowledge that the country I come from is called the Republic of China, then where the heck do I come from? So I started thinking about this question.”
Cai, a PhD candidate in public health at the University of Pittsburgh, recruits volunteers in the Pittsburgh area. She says she used to have trouble answering questions about her identity. “We call ourselves ‘Taiwanese,’ but I found I couldn’t answer questions about Taiwanese identity.” She says further, “We often just emphasize that we’re different [from mainland China], but then can’t explain how we’re different.”
That conundrum prompted Cai to volunteer with the foundation, and has led her to an understanding of how Taiwan is seen by other countries.
Seeing the catalogs of products sent to Taiwan from all over the US made her realize that everybody wanted to do business with Formosa. “I was surprised to discover that Taiwan was once like Hong Kong, London and other big cities, that so many companies were actively pursuing contacts with us. That’s very different from what we were taught—that Taiwan was a tiny country that no one had heard of—and it made us rethink things and see the potential Taiwan had back then.”
“I’m especially moved by finding things that I have a personal connection to,” says Hou, a graduate of National Cheng Kung University. When he found information in the archives relating to the university during the American aid period, and then came across the name of a former professor from his department, it was like stumbling upon the name of some great master of former times.
Taiwan has benefited in many ways from its relationship with the US. Hsiao says that numerous documents reveal that the US pushed Taiwan’s democratization from behind the scenes, pressing Taiwan’s Nationalist government to move from authoritarianism to democracy. Hou, who studied engineering, mentions that US engineering firms also assisted with the planning and design of Taiwan’s ten biggest infrastructure projects from the 1970s.
“US investment in Taiwan goes really deep,” says Hou. The friendship can be read in different ways depending on one’s point of view, but Cai nonetheless encourages everyone who has the opportunity to visit the US to participate in the document copying project at least once. “Coming to know this land anew through the copying process really gives you a different perspective.”