Chinese language civil warfare refugee makes love for Taiwan flag a eating expertise By Reuters

By Sarah Wu and Ann Wang

TAOYUAN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Days away from Taiwan’s Nationwide Day, a protracted line of individuals snakes out of Chang Lao-wang’s restaurant, the place the Chinese language civil warfare refugee shows his ardent love for Taiwan’s flag whereas serving up Yunnan rice noodles to the lunchtime crowd.

Chang has hung 30,000 flags round his “Nationwide Flag Home” restaurant and an adjoining park forward of the general public vacation that marks the founding of the Republic of China – Taiwan’s official identify.

“This nationwide flag, the entire nation should like it collectively. Provided that everybody collectively loves the flag, does the nation have a future,” Chang, 81, instructed Reuters on the park in Taiwan’s northern metropolis of Taoyuan.

“If everybody loves this flag, different nations will not dare to bully you.”

The purple flag, that includes a white solar towards a blue sky, holds completely different meanings for individuals in Taiwan, and is usually not flown outdoors of Taiwan as different nations search to keep away from upsetting China, which views Taiwan as its personal territory and never a rustic.

Many in Taiwan, particularly among the many youthful era, affiliate the flag with the martial regulation period of the Kuomintang occasion that fled to the island with the defeated Republic of China authorities in 1949 on the finish of a civil warfare with Mao Zedong’s communists.

Some Taiwanese assume a brand new flag is required to keep away from affiliation with China.

However Chang is happy with the flag, the sight of which he says helped him and his mom observe down his father after battles. His household wouldn’t have stayed collectively and located security in Taiwan if not for the flag, Chang mentioned.

Born in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, he and his household fled to Myanmar on the finish of the civil warfare together with the remnants of Kuomintang troops earlier than arriving in Taiwan in 1953.

Chang began hanging flags at age 37, placing out fewer than 100. Again then, Taiwan’s flags had been ubiquitous round Nationwide Day, however he says he sees few individuals hanging them in the present day.

Every year, he receives complaints, with some describing the flags as “rubbish” and asking him to take them down.

However his flag-raising ceremony attracts massive crowds every year, with an estimated 20,000 final 12 months, Chang mentioned.

“In these moments, I neglect myself,” he mentioned. “I believe ‘Oh, there are nonetheless so many individuals who love this flag and my coronary heart feels very comforted.”