Formosa Calling reading at Lakeridge School this morning

I had the opportunity to do a reading from the Preface of Formosa Calling, by Allan J Shackleton, this morning at Lakeridge school.  As part of Valuing Diversity for Education Week this year, Lakeridge School invited parents to share about what was unique about their culture or family.  The only thing unique I could think of was that I created the Taiwan Library Online 13 years ago by putting Formosa Betrayed on the internet (then on the WUFI website http://www.formosa.org/ - now defunct).

I started out by showing the grade 2's where Taiwan was on the map and explained that my grandmother was Japanese (Taiwan was ruled by Japan before World War II) and that Samuel's great great grandfather on his mother's side was from Canton province.  I said, "When I was your age, and people asked if I was Chinese, Japanese or Korean - I said NO.  I am Taiwanese".   I told them that I was born 20 years after the crimes of 228 and that the law that said you could be arrested for no reason wasn't lifted until 20 years after I was born.  Thirty years after I was born, I read Formosa Betrayed and cried.  I told them I decided then to contact Mr and Mrs Lin (in California) to ask permission to put the book online.  I mentioned Mr Lin was a mainlander, but he cared enough to republish Formosa Betrayed even though the criminals were mainlander soldiers.  I mentioned that I then published 4 other books about Taiwan on the internet.  I read from the preface and said "as you can see, even back then, you had to be careful about who you named for fear of the army".  Then their teacher asked if there were any questions.  One boy asked how do you get to the library.  I told him he had to search Taiwan Library Online and it will get him right there.  I told the class, people today still don't understand about Taiwan (as back in 1948 when Shackleton wrote his words). 

So, it was a 12 minute event and then the grade 2's got ready for lunch.

This was a small way to tell the story.