Today was a pretty amazing day. As it was 2/28 (a day you should know a lot about if you have been keeping up with my blog) there was a special screening of the movie "Hand in Hand" at the 228 Memorial Museum (another place you should recognize from past posts).
Hand in Hand is a documentary about the people in Taiwan who fought so long for decades, to achieve true democratic and personal freedom for Taiwan. The story mainly focuses on "Mama" Tien and her life with her husband "Papa" Tien and their sacrifices and along the way we learn about all those other people who were jailed, tortured, and killed by the oppressive government.
I don't want to go into too much detail about that bad stuff, i've touched a lot on that before. I can say that the situation here was not unlike similar situations in China and USSR. However i'd like to concentrate on the bravery that many people showed. Those who organized sit ins, non violent protests, marches, newspapers for the people, sending secret messages, fighting to get political prisoners out of jail, and everything else they did. There were a lot of amazing people who risked their lives everyday and continued to fight on even after so many things happened to them and the people they loved. I really hesitate to compare these people to well known figures in the west, as I think it lessons both struggles of the people there and here. I can just say that I hope that I can carry my life with even 10% of the courage, bravery, and determination that these crucial figures showed.
As a I said before it's a shame that not many people know this history. Even worse is that because of political allegiances, many people refused to accept some facts. However I now appreciate that there is a movie, especially since i'm always trying to tell people the "real" history of taiwan but as a foreigner they tend to not take me seriously. Now there is a documentary, which granted can still be disputed, but it's very hard to watch this movie and ignore these people's first hand experiences. Especially when seeing the videos of many of the atrocities.
After the movie in a much bigger room they had some speeches. I didn't stay for the speeches as I can not understand what they are saying. so i went to go eat some dinner. I went back after dinner to take a picture of the movie poster for this blog. However when I turned around, Mama Tien, whom the film focuses on, was sitting in a small room and her daughter invited me to come speak with her. we had a nice chat and i told her how much i admire her and her compatriots for how much they gave for their country and people.
As you can see I even got some photos with her. She was a really sweet lady, and joked around a lot. She even insisted that we hold hands for the photos, with this photo being the only one in which we are not, but it is one of the clearest.
It truly was an amazing day. It was a great experience to meet a personal hero of mine, and while it's not much, I'm glad i can honor her in the very small way by putting up what will probably be the one and only picture of myself.
But perhaps the best part of the day came when I got home and my friend sent the pictures she took to me. As soon as I got home I was so excited and telling a lot of friends about how I got to meet Mama Tien, and of all the people I told, not one person knew who she was or her story or even the story of other historical events that took place for Taiwan to gain it's freedom. This made me a little bit frustrated, until my friend finally got back to her house and got online to give me the pictures. When I told her how sad I was that nobody I spoke with knew what I was talking about she said this....
"cause today is only a holiday for most people. It was for me too, but now I realize it's not only a holiday."
Even though it's just one person, her saying that to me made me that much more optimistic about Taiwan's future.
