Chin-Jie Melodie Liu, The Breakthrough (left)(2020) and The Retirement (right)(2020),
colour pencil on Strathmore Toned Tan paper (118 gsm), 27.9 x 35.56 cm each.
The only problem that continued to exist until recently was that non-waishengren did not have a chance to get promoted or become high ranking officials. We (benshenren) welcomed the KMT with open arms and were still treated as secondary citizens even after the Japanese left.
Among the two million
waishengren 外省人
waishengren refers to “people from outside of the Province”, specifically referring to the two million refugees who fled with the Kuomintang Party from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949.
who fled with the
Kuomintang Party (KMT) 國民黨
The Kuomintang Party, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party, was the dominant political party to rule China from 1928 to 1949 after the final imperial dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). The party retreated to Taiwan following their defeat in the Chinese Civil War and ruled the island from 1949 to 2000.
to Taiwan, an estimated 600,000 were military personnel.1 Despite only making up fourteen percent of the island’s population, waishengren
dominated Taiwan’s politics for fifty-one years.2 The 2000 Presidential election saw the first non-KMT president, Chen Shui-bian 陳水扁. My paternal grandparents both arrived in Taiwan separately with the KMT military and resided in the
military dependents’ villages (juancun)眷村
The military dependents’ villages were established by the KMT as residential quarters to house waishengren, made up of mostly military personnel and their families.
. The document is a record of my grandfather’s retirement from the military, which also acts as a veterans card. 1 See Elisa Tamburo, “Authoritarianism in the Living Room: Everyday Disciplines, Senses, and Morality in Taiwan’s Military Villages,” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 47, no. 2 (2018): 139, doi.org/10.1177/186810261804700206.
2 See “What’s behind the China-Taiwan divide?,” BBC News, September 28, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34729538.