Dear Editor:
Before reading Sinorama, I always had the impression that your magazine was just a stuffy mouthpiece for the government, so I was delightfully surprised when I finally read through a copy and found that I had been completely mistaken. I am so happy to learn that Taiwan has such a wonderful magazine that gives voice to diverse viewpoints. I want to congratulate your staff on the great work that you have been doing.
The second volume of On Taiwan was recently published. It apparently is not causing anywhere near as much controversy as the first volume did, but having read earlier reporting by Sinorama on the issue, I've got something I've just got to get off my chest concerning the tosan generation (i.e. the generation of Taiwanese who grew up under Japanese rule, including people like Alice King and Shi Wen-lung).
My grandfather was from Taiwan, and he went to mainland China a century ago to do business. My father was born on the mainland and studied in Japan, and thus was exposed to the cultures of both China and Japan during the years when Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule. As such, I think it would be accurate to put him in the tosan generation along with King and Shi, but he totally disagrees with their view of the 50-year Japanese rule over Taiwan, and the impact thereof.
As for myself, I was part of the post-war baby boom in Taiwan, because both of my parents returned to there from the mainland. Having listened to my father's views, and on the basis of my own reading, my (perhaps uninformed) personal view is that huge numbers of our people met their deaths at the end of a Japanese bayonet. In addition to those killed under the oppressive colonial regime on Taiwan and the many who were massacred in Nanjing in 1937 (an event which extreme right-wing Japanese continue to deny, and even blot out of history textbooks), countless aborigines in Taiwan were also killed attempting to stand up against Japanese oppression. Although competing interests have prompted our leaders to gloss over these tragedies with high-sounding talk about "answering outrage with forbearance," that doesn't mean we have to throw our self-respect completely to the wind and kiss up to Japan. Right-wing extremists do not represent Japan. They are just a few nuts who are totally out of touch with the times. The people of Taiwan attach great importance to dignity. Well, if we want dignity, we should not be kissing up to foreigners without giving a thought to principles of right and wrong!
Madang and Port Moresby
point.Yang Chuan-tao, Papua New Guinea
(tr. by David Mayer)
Dear Editor:
I am a Taiwanese person living in Papua New Guinea. I recently read "Son of the Sea-Liu Ning-sheng" in the June 2001 issue of the overseas edition of Sinorama. The article mentions how Mr. Liu was accosted by pirates in Papua New Guinea. I was very sorry to learn of his bad experience, and on behalf of all Chinese people living in Papua New Guinea, I would like to express my deepest sympathy.
On page 96, the Chinese article states that the pirates boarded Mr. Liu's sailboat at a port called "man dan" in Chinese. This has been translated into English as "Port Moresby," but in fact it refers to Madang. Port Moresby is the country's capital and the largest port, located on the southern coast. I just wanted to clear up this
