Give me back my wife
From the time of the retreat in 1950 to the permitting of visits from Taiwan to mainland China in 1987, these old soldiers were separated from their wives and children for nearly 40 years. Faced with the reality of waiting without knowing when their waiting would end, most women in Zhoushan remarried. Similarly, many of the Zhoushan men then in Taiwan erased the "married" indication from their identity cards and found new partners, raising families and setting down roots.
But some old soldiers waited in the hope the mainland would be retaken by Nationalist forces, after which they could reunite with their wives. Most of the men who have returned and taken up residence in Zhoushan are single old men in this category. However, after a separation of 40 years, though their children may still call them "Father," their wives are not necessarily able or willing to return to their sides and live out their lives with these old soldiers. The 40-year-old distance between them by no means can end just because the husband has returned to his hometown.
"When these old veterans return home, they tell us they want their wives back," says Yu Changfeng, director of Taiwan Affairs for the Zhoushan City Government. Currently the mainland approach to the problem is to acknowledge that if the woman has remarried, even if she has no legal marriage certificate with her second husband, they have the fact of 40 years of life together as husband and wife. However, if the husband on the mainland has already passed away, or the wife has divorced the mainland husband, then the woman can return to the Taiwan husband. However, the couple must again go through a marriage procedure. Otherwise, the Taiwan husband has no legal right to demand that his wife return to him.
Thus in some cases the return of the former husband is a happy event, in others traumatic. Some men have gone back and held boisterous nuptials with the same woman they wed 40 years before. Some leave quietly disillusioned, unwilling to disturb their former wives' current families. Some file lawsuits and insist on getting their wives back. Some are angry and seek to disgrace their former wives by legally disavowing the original marriage. Others come back and only mention that they have bought a house in Taiwan, leaving out the fact that they have remarried.
Some mainland women stay with their current husbands, but agree to be buried next to their original husbands. Some, hoping to get their hands on some of the relative wealth of those from Taiwan, drop good-for-nothing second husbands and go back to the first. Some women can't bring themselves to choose and take care of both husbands.
Some older veterans whose wives have remarried find a new partner in their hometowns. Approximately 65% of those who have returned from Taiwan to settle in Zhoushan live with a wife. Of these cases, 13% found new wives after returning to the old hometown.
Like a dream
One mainland wife whose husband remarried in Taiwan says, "When there was no word at all, life was peaceful. It was only after seeing so many husbands coming back one after the other that I felt that life was really difficult. But when you think about it, he couldn't have taken care of himself in Taiwan, so I really should thank his Taiwan wife for taking care of him for so long. I can understand his situation."
These couples are like mating birds in the forest forced apart by some natural disaster. The old soldiers from Zhoushan didn't leave of their own accord. That era imposed misfortune on so many people, so who has the heart today to go around finding fault and deciding who is right and who is wrong? The only way for the pain of that generation to be put behind them is for everyone to be like that mainland wife, and say "I can understand. . ."
[Picture Caption]
p.84
There are nearly 1000 "old fogeys from taiwan" scattered around in the new apartment blocks in Zhoushan.
p.86
A long separation, a lifetime of waiting. To meet again, but to remain apart in their old age. The era tragically destroyed many marriages, but who is there to complain to today?
p.87
Leaving home so young and returning so aged Though they have the same local accent The young ones do not recognize them And ask with a smile where they come from