Taipei, 18 Oct (Xinhua) -- Taipei's Shilin District, near Waisang Creek, is a quiet street far from the downtown area of Yusheng Street.
Gao Binghan, 86, introduced the reporter to his home and went straight to the small study on the basement floor. All kinds of "collections" make the space seem cramped, which is the "treasure" of the elderly.
"This scarf, when I left, my mother took it off her body and put it on me." In the autumn of 1948, the sky was getting colder, and 13-year-old Gao Binghan left his hometown in Heze, Shandong Province, alone to avoid war. He traveled all the way south and crossed the sea to Taiwan. Who would have thought that returning to their hometown would be 40 years later.
Xinhua News Agency's "National Album" recently launched a micro-documentary "Return Yo, Return", and Gao Binghan is one of the protagonists. In order to complete the interview, the reporter went to the old man's home in Taipei and listened to him talk about the old days. "That day, my mother sent me to the east gate of the city and said with tears: 'Son, live, mother is waiting for you to come back!'" Gao Binghan gently stroked the scarf, his eyes sad, "This is the only object that has accompanied my mother in decades, and when she goes back, she has been gone for 10 years." ”
"How many Gao Tang Mingjing sad white hair, how many wives have been guarding the air for many years, how many children do not know the life and death of their fathers, how many strangers dream of god at night." After 1949, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait fell into a long-term isolation and confrontation, and the distance between them became the sea and the sky, the lives of relatives were separated from death, and the endless pain of missing became a nostalgia that could not be dissolved.
The day before visiting Gao Binghan's home, it was raining heavily in Taipei. When the reporter left, he saw the wet leaves on the ground, looked back at the old man standing in front of the door, and couldn't help but think of the tears of half a life from the rain all night.
Tears are lonely thoughts, but also the expectation of reunion. In 1979, the mainland first advocated the opening of cross-strait exchanges. When the news came, Gao Binghan and many people with the same fate saw the hope of returning home. He quickly sent the letter to Shandong through a friend overseas, and the next year his sister's reply came back.
Elder Gao took out a thick pile of family letters sent from the mainland, and carefully flipped through the yellowed letter paper, like a number of family treasures. The reporter also saw a small sculpture made by Gao Binghan in the corner of the study, which was the scene where his mother taught him to read and write in his memory. On one side was an altar of ashes. "This is a veteran who came to mainland Taiwan, and I asked him to send him home before he died." Elder Gao said.
In 1987, many homesick mainland veterans took to the streets of Taiwan to set off a campaign to return to their hometowns to visit their relatives. In October, the Taiwan authorities announced that some Taiwan compatriots would be allowed to return to the mainland to visit their relatives, and the barrier between the two sides of the strait was finally broken. The following year, Gao Binghan returned to his hometown, but some of the old people who knew him could not embark on the road back to their hometown due to their old age or illness, and before dying, they entrusted their last wishes of "living to be a wanderer and refusing to be a wandering soul". "I was taken care of by veterans since I was a child, and I had to take them home." Since 1991, he has continuously crossed the strait and sent the ashes of nearly 200 veterans to the roots, and although he is now old, the pace of fulfilling his promises has not stopped.
Another protagonist in the micro-documentary is Liu Dewen, the mayor of XiangheLi in Zuoying District, Kaohsiung City. When the reporter went to the interview a few years ago, he was just in time to deliver lunch to his family village. When the old people in the village saw Liu Lichang, they all greeted him cordially. The old man spoke with a strong local dialect from all over the mainland, and the reporter sometimes had to be carefully identified, but he communicated without hindrance, and proudly introduced which battle each old man had participated in.
Because of the words of an old man before his death many years ago, "Captain Li, can you help me send the ashes home", Liu Dewen has since carried a heavy altar of ashes on his back again and again, and has traveled to various parts of the mainland at his own expense to send the wandering souls back to the origin of life.
Gao Binghan and Liu Dewen, one is a "provincial person" who came to Taiwan in the late 1940s, and the other is a "provincial person" whose family has moved to Taiwan for several generations. At first, they were entrusted by acquaintances, and then strangers came to visit, and they all took on the mission without hesitation. Seeing "Return Yo, Return", their reply to the reporter's words actually had the same meaning: I hope that the epidemic will pass as soon as possible, and there are ashes waiting to be sent back to the mainland.
The tide of the strait is gushing, the great current of history is rushing, and the flesh and blood family ties the compatriots on both sides of the strait, and they are constantly cut and dismantled. Gao Binghan and Liu Dewen also have a common wish, that is, they hope that the tragedy of the separation of relatives will not be repeated, and future generations will no longer suffer from the turmoil and drifting of life.
Separated by a river and within easy reach of the end of the world, the fact that the two sides of the strait have not yet been completely reunified is a wound left to the Chinese nation by history. The story of Gao Binghan and Liu Dewen highlights the natural emotions and national identity of the two sides of the strait, whose blood is thicker than water and watches over each other, and embodies great love, great righteousness and general trend. However, at present, some forces and some people on the island of Taiwan have abandoned the idea of blood and family affection, forgotten their ancestors, cut off the two sides of the strait, restricted exchanges, and created antagonism. The reporter recently hitchhiked around Taipei, and the taxi driver denounced the DPP authorities all the way: "Our family has been coming to Taiwan from Quanzhou for several generations, and my father said that the two sides of the strait are one family, and we should have good exchanges. ”
The flesh-and-blood affection and the love of compatriots Chinese on both sides of the strait cannot be changed; it can not only soothe the pain of history, but also become a force and condense the common will to grasp the present and create the future. The Taiwan issue arose out of national weakness and chaos and will certainly be resolved along with national rejuvenation. This is the general trend of history, and it is also the hope of the same heart.
Taiwan Island, like a ship, carries the common destiny and pursuit of hundreds of millions of compatriots on both sides of the strait. The years have written full of sorrow and joy, Taiwan will eventually return to the sea, and the nation will eventually be reunited. (End)