Dear Editor:
I am an overseas Chinese housewife. After reading your series of articles on overseas Chinese from April to August this year, along with readers'letters, I felt a rush of "panic": is "returning home" really such an unattainable dream?
The reasons for "emigrating overseas" cannot be simplified to saying "conditions are better abroad." Taiwan's various social problems are a complex topic, and one can't look at them purely from a "historical" angle and blame them on an"emigrant mindset."
Due to their surroundings and competition with other ethnic groups, second-generation overseas Chinese may often be rather hazy about their own"cultural roots," but it would be wrong to infer from this that they wish only to assimilate and that they attach no importance to those roots.
Whether or not the reason overseas Chinese"return home" is that life has not gone smoothly overseas, and what their aims are when they return to Taiwan, differs from case to case. To an ordinary housewife, whether the people of Taiwan can identify with them and accept them doesn't seem so important. What really matters is how both sides can approach the differences between them with open hearts, then step back and look at themselves, and ask themselves how they can do something for Taiwan's and China's culture.
Wu Chin-chai, USA
Dear Editor,
Hello! Reading the report "A Child with Down's Syndrome in the Family" in your December 1992 Overseas Edition reminded me of a friend in Finland who also has a Downs child, so I sent her a photocopy. She found the articles very moving, and they really struck a chord with her, especially Yuan-lun, who she said is so much like her own son! They are the same age, 20 years old, but where her son is luckier than Yuan-lun is that growing up in a country with a welfare system, the government provides all-round support for Down's children, helping with everything from school to home tutoring. She says that if it weren't for Finland's welfare policy, as a single parent she doesn't know how she would cope. Seeing the lonely struggles of the parents in the article really made her heart bleed for them. As today our national income gradually catches up with developed nations, and with the introduction of health insurance for all, we earnestly look forward to the day when just as here in Finland, Down's children in Taiwan can all have the care they need.
Tsai Wen-chi, Finland