I live in Silicon Valley, and one of the benefits is that I live about five miles from Stanford University, where are often quite a few events of interest to me that are open to the public. Recently, there was a screening of recently 2024 Oscar nominated short documentary ‘Island In Between’ by S. Leo Chang:
“I [S. Leo Chiang] was born in Taiwan, grew up in the United States, worked extensively in China and now live in Taipei. This mix of experiences has given me a front-row seat to the complex, decades-long dance between these nations. Lately, the world is paying considerably more attention to my homeland, especially after the former U.S. House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited in August 2022.
Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed by Taiwan that were the front lines of the first and second Taiwan Straits Crises decades ago. They lie just a few miles from mainland China, and these days, locals are unsure what escalating tensions mean for the future.
Taiwanese voices are often drowned out by Chinese and American narratives, overshadowed by the global power plays going on around us. Few people outside the region understand what life is actually like for the Taiwanese people caught in between two superpowers. I made this documentary to show life in Taiwan through the eyes of the people who live there, including me.
At this moment, as we struggle to make sense of the horrors of war, I hope this documentary can play a small part in advocating for peace.” – Film and Text by S. Leo Chiang
I had heard of Kinmen, but I didn’t realize that the Taiwanese island was so close to mainland China. It is so close that there is a swimming contest between Kinmen and the city of Xiamen – about 3.7 miles / 6 kilometers). One can see the cityscape of Xiamen’s skyscrapers from Kinmen. I learned about the history of Kinmen and the people on the island, which is about 130,000 residents. Supposedly, half of that number only reside part of the year there.
Even though Kinmen is so close, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was never able to take over the island. There were also diplomatic considerations, especially in the 1950s, with the United States having fought Chinese troops in the Korean War and the growing U.S. presence in Vietnam. This just demonstrates that any amphibious assault of Taiwan would be treacherous and even more dangerous and challenging than D-Day, as U.S. World War II planners had considered when the Japanese occupied Taiwan.
I have seen S. Leo Chiang’s previous documentaries, A Village Called Versailles, as well as Mr. Cao Goes to Washington (about the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress). I had met him a while ago so it was a real pleasure to see Leo again after so long. Leo spends most of his time in Taiwan.
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