Jeju Weekly Report

Last week, DongWon went back to Korea first, and Emily decided to stay in Taiwan a bit more to participate the activity on Feb 28th in Taitung. 

228 is a date that almost everybody feels complicated in mind and for a long time it has created a deep wound in our society. It divided Taiwan Society into tow: the earlier immigrants and the new immigrants among Han people. The new immigrant came to Taiwan after world war two when KMT government lost the civil war in China against the Communist China. Living in this wounded society, it is sometimes complicated when your family are mixed with two groups of people like my family. My Mom's father came to Taiwan in 1949 as a cook of a general who firstly ran away from a train to bring youth to fight in the war in China but later became a cook of general so he could come to Taiwan later and marry with my grandmom whose family is the so called earlier immigrants. My mom is a "mix". And my father came from Matsu island. It's a island very near fujian province in China, and this island only became part of Taiwan after cold war. Instead of Taiwan main island, this island used to be the front line of the "hot war" during the cold war. My father said, he used to run away to the cave to hind from the bombing, and they cannot have any activities in the night time as it was strictly controlled by military. It was difficult to live there, so many of them move to Taiwan, and that was my Dad's family. 

My family had lots of stories but still it lost the stories of Indigenous people in Taiwan. It was so unfamiliar to me in the past. This time, Leo and I went to join the meeting on 228 in Taitun, and later visit the Tribe called Taromak who is seeking self-governance. Accidentally, we also met Connie there. What a small world.  And after that, I went to meet a group of students in Taitung to talk about screening the Jeju documentary with them as they are interested in. 

During staying in Taiwan, we also heard the bad news from Yonagunijima. They just had a vote for the base and unfortunately, the result was almost 50 % to 50% but the support-base group still won a little bit. We felt so sorry to them. Please pray for their struggle. 

Pray requests:

1. Pray for the siprit of  Yonagunijima people

2. Pray for Emily's staying in Taiwan that she can meet more and more good friends here