Olympics

Olympics has been nice.

Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt made this edition particularly memorable.

Look forward to Youth Olympics at Singapore in 2010!

History Lesson

"... ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States in his inagural address, 1961.

This is one of the most quoted quotes.

After reading about the KMT soldiers (and their family) who retreated from Yunnan to Myanmar and later Northern Thailand after the Chinese civil war, I start to wonder what has their country done for these people despite all they have done for their country.

My interest in them started when I chanced upon a Taiwanese talkshow which discussed about the plight of the descendants of these soldiers in Taiwan. The common story among them is that they are not able to get Taiwan ID card as most of them are stateless and have used forged documents to enter Taiwan. While they are allowed to study, they are not able to work in Taiwan after they graduate. Neither are they able to return home as neither Thailand nor Myanmar will allow them back with the forged documents.

From there, I started to find out more; how and why did they end up in such predicament? Chinese Wikipedia has an informative entry; I also watch a movie (made in 1990) which starred Andy Lau. The title is very apt: A Home Too Far.

I also read two books: 异域 (loosely translated as Foreign land; refer to Myanmar & Northern Thailand) and 重返异域 (Return to Foreign land). Both books are written in traditional Chinese in the right to left page-format and up to down paragraph-format. Not so simple for me who hardly read Chinese nowadays.

I will say that I am moved by their stories; despite the difficulties, this gourp of people remained committed to their ideology and maintained their Chinese identity. Chinese cultural heritage are passed down through education; regardless of how limited the resources are, every refugee village has a school to educate the younger generation.

It is saddening that Republic of China government does not seem to recognize the sacrifices that this group of people had made. The treatment of the stateless descendants of these soldiers in Taiwan was particularly shameful. It seemed that they are made to suffer as a consequence of their parents' loyalty to country. In retrospect, the Thai king granted citizenships to some of the soldiers and their dependants in 1981 in reward for their roles in combating the Communist rebels.

Time have passed but it's amazing that these people still have to deal with the after-effects brought by a war fought almost 60 years ago. I believe that it's time for the ROC government to correct the wrongs and do something for these 'citizens' as a real country should.

Last but not least, I guess that a trip to Mae Salong will be very interesting.

Bombs!

News from last Saturday 2/8/2008

Urgent: Five killed, 50 injured in Hat Yai bomb attacks

Hat Yai, Songkhla - Five people were killed and over 50 others were injured in four bomb attacks Saturday night.

The four bombs went off nearly at the same time at 9 pm.

The first blast occurred at the entrance to This' Wonder Pub located in the underground floor of Odion Shopping Mall Center on Thammanoon Withi Road.

Then, another bomb went off at the entrance of the car park of Odion Shopping Mall on the side of Sanehha Nusorn Road.

The third bomb exploded in front of a massage parlour about 70 metres away from the two first bombs.

The fourth bomb exploded in front of Big C superstore.

Police said the bomb at the massage parlour killed five men immediately because the blast occurred while they were walking into the parlour.

About 50 injured people had been rushed to the Hat Yai Hospital.

The sounds of the blasts prompted some 1,000 Thai and foreign tourists to flee from their hotels, causing turmoil on the roads.

The Nation

Scary ah... To think that we wanted to go there last month