United Microelectronics Corp founder and former chairman Robert Tsao (曹興誠) on Thursday announced that he had given up his Singaporean citizenship and reclaimed his Republic of China citizenship, saying that he would live and die with Taiwan and Taiwan’s people.
Tsao was born in Beijing (then called Beiping) and brought to Taiwan by his parents as a baby. He spent the majority of his life studying and working in Taiwan, where he started his company and became a business magnate.
Tsao is a “mainlander,” but he settled in Taiwan, a choice that is a great inspiration for many Taiwanese.
It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. Some people who live near a temple see the carved wooden idols every day and do not see anything magical about them.
In contrast, some people come from afar to light incense at the temple and believe that the temple god has special powers that can help them avoid disasters and enjoy good fortune. Both of these kinds of people are deluded in their own way.
Likewise, those who have lived their whole lives in Taiwan take the convenient transportation, National Health Insurance and welfare benefits for granted, but when they notice the air pollution, issues of law and order, or corrupt officials, they blame the government for being lousy and incompetent.
Only once they move abroad do they realize how beautiful Taiwan is and how lucky people are to live here.
There are also those who yearn for China as their motherland and admire it for being a world power. They long for its beautiful scenery, but their hazy vision is far from realistic.
There is a famous location in Tainan called the Anping Tree House (安平樹屋). Seen from a distance, there are many sturdy trees, but a closer look reveals the roots of an old banyan tree stretching along the walls of a building and around its pillars.
When the roots reach down to the ground, they grow into thick, strong trunks. Each tree draws nutrients from its patch of earth as well as the sun and rain, independent of the original tree and the ground from which it grew.
All the trunks stem from one original root, but they have branched out and grown tall in their own right. Between them, they have grown into a small forest, and it would be hard to discover which part is the original tree.
It is normal for members of the older generation who came to Taiwan from China to feel homesick for the land of their birth.
However, when we stop dreaming and return to reality, it is more important to make sure that your own life and those of your children and grandchildren are well-rooted in this land, rather than hearkening back to historical sentiments.
After China’s Shang Dynasty was overthrown by its successor, the Zhou, two surviving princes, Boyi (伯夷) and Shuqi (叔齊), chose to starve to death rather than eat the grain of the usurping Zhou. We might admire them for their nobility, even if they took it to an extreme.
How different their choice was from what we see today, with China occupied by the Chinese Communist Party.
When the party took over, many people left China and took refuge in Taiwan or other countries because they were not willing to live under communist rule.
How ironic, then, that some of their descendants long to be subjects of communist China and look up to it as their motherland.
Chen Wen-ching works in environmental services.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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