A man living Taoyuan’s Pingjhen District (平鎮) decided to continue an annual flag-raising ritual that he has maintained for two decades, despite damage caused by two typhoons in the past two months.
Typhoon Soudelor, which hit Taiwan in early August, and Typhoon Dujuan, which struck late last month, blew down scaffolding 75-year-old Chang Lao-wang (張老旺) had installed near his house to hold his national flag.
The damage frustrated him and he considered giving up his tradition of holding a flag-raising ceremony on Double Ten National Day, Chang said.
Photo: CNA
However, Chang said that he received phone calls from Pingjhen residents pleading with him to continue the annual ceremony, which he started 21 years ago, adding that the enthusiasm shown by other residents made him determined to continue his annual ritual.
There are still more than 10,000 national flags hanging over Chang’s humble diner, called “National Flag House,” and places surrounding the local landmark.
Chang is the son of a retired military officer who led Nationalist troops into exile on the border between China’s Yunnan Province and Burma during the Chinese Civil War between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led government and the Chinese communists.
He came to Taiwan with his parents after the Nationalists lost the war in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan.
Recalling his childhood spent on the southern Chinese border, Chang said that his father’s unit often faced attacks because no matter where it went, it was regarded as an enemy force, first by the Communist forces and then by the Thai army near the Thailand-Burma border.
Despite once boasting 400 to 500 soldiers, the unit was down to 30 survivors before it came to Taiwan, led by his father, he said.
While the unit was in exile on the China-Burma border, his mother made a national flag for the troops to hang in a fixed location so that the soldiers, often scattered during battles, would know where to find their comrades, Chang said.
“I spent my childhood trying to stay safe from the fighting,” he said. “Every time I saw the national flag, I knew it was made by my mother.”
The blood-tainted flag “represents my rebirth,” Chang said.
Although the original flag was buried with his father’s remains in China’s Yunnan Province, whenever he sees the national flag, he always thinks of “my parents, my uncles and those turbulent years.”
Chang began to buy national flags with his limited savings every year 21 years ago and used them to decorate his store and organize a Double Ten National Day flag-raising ceremony every year.
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