Win Win has been glued to social media for the past day, trying to work out whether her family in Myanmar’s Mandalay survived Friday’s powerful earthquake, distracting herself at the Taiwan restaurant where she works by serving samosas and other snacks.
“We spoke last night but then nothing today. I can’t get through. I’m so scared for them,” Win Win, one of Taiwan’s estimated 50,000 Sino-Burmese, said yesterday at the eatery in Little Myanmar in New Taipei City.
Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, which lies close to the epicenter of the magnitude 7.7 quake, has a large ethnic Chinese population, many of whom have ties to Taiwan, whose government has offered to send rescue teams.
Photo: REUTERS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has yet to receive a response to that offer.
Yee Yu Nai, sitting at a snack store in Little Myanmar, scrolled through her phone looking for the latest news from Mandalay, where her sister lives.
“I know their house is OK as it was newly built, but the street is very badly damaged,” she said.
Taiwan’s Burmese community traces its history back to the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when many of the defeated Republic of China soldiers fled into what was then called Burma before eventually being evacuated to Taiwan.
Others have come more recently, fleeing repression and anti-Chinese sentiment.
Ethnic Chinese in Myanmar have historically faced discrimination, especially under the rule of General Ne Win, who seized power in 1962.
He barred ethnic Chinese and other foreigners from owning land, banned Chinese-language education and stoked anti-Chinese violence. Bloody anti-Chinese riots erupted in 1967.
Another resident of Taiwan’s Little Myanmar, who asked to be identified by her family name of Huang to avoid repercussions for her relatives still in the country, said the precarious state of civil strife-hit Myanmar was her biggest concern.
“I just don’t think anyone is coming to save them,” she said of her relatives still in Mandalay.
Separately yesterday, the Ministry of Education said school counselors would begin reaching out to Burmese students in Taiwan to offer support, while academic advisors have been instructed to assess their living conditions on campus.
The ministry said it was concerned that the students might experience anxiety and distress over the well-being of family members in Myanmar.
There are 2,973 Burmese studying in Taiwan, it said, adding that universities have been asked to offer flexible course arrangements or alternative teaching methods for those who might need to temporarily return home.
Any leave or class absences taken by students to return home and manage family matters due to the earthquake would not be recorded in their attendance records, the Ministry of Education said, adding that it would continue to monitor the situation closely and work with schools to ensure that Burmese students receive comprehensive support.
Burmese students in need can also call the Network for International Student Advisors hotline at 0800-787-007, which operates from 9am to 5pm on weekdays, it said.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
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