In a very pleasant surprise today, I received Poagao's book 台湾馒头美国兵 [Counting Mantou: An American in Taiwan's Army], which I ordered a few weeks back from yesasia.com. Poagao (T. Christopher Locke/林道明) is an American by birth who became a citizen of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in 1994. I wonder if he has as bizarre a tale to tell about renouncing his US citizenship as this guy. I would have loved to have been in the AIT the day Poagao showed up. The book is his autobiography of his two years in the Taiwan army, fulfilling the mandatory military obligation of every Taiwanese male. Well, at least mandatory for every male who doesn't flee to the US or Canada to avoid service, that is, and I've met several. As someone who voluntarily served my country in the US Army for four years on active duty, this trend disturbs me to no end, in no small part because many Taiwanese seem to think it is a foregone conclusion, as well as their birthright, that the US will defend Taiwan at all costs. I admire Poagao for showing this kind of dedication to his adopted country, especially as he intimates in the book that as a laowai, he could have avoided service had he really wanted to do so. What a massive loss of face for those native-born Taiwanese who choose to ignore their civic duty. Anyway, I've just started Chapter 1, and I think this is going to be a most fascinating read.

The amazing thing is that I actually know Poagao. We attended the UMass at Tunghai program together in 1989-1990. Neither of us went to UMass; he was a student at Washington and Lee and I was a junior at the University of Oregon. I got to know him early on in the program because it was immediately apparent that unlike the majority of our yahoo classmates, who were just there to piss off a year abroad, he was completely smitten with Taiwan and the Chinese culture/language. He was almost obsessed with perfecting Chinese, as was I, and in that way we were something of kindred spirits. Of course, he ended up taking it a lot further than I did! I was one of the few other foreigners he would talk to, because I would speak in Chinese with him, whereas most others in the program would always speak in English with the other participants. I remember that he was very much into photography, and he would show me his photos on occasion. He has a great gift for the medium, which you can see for yourself at his website (in my links).

I understand he is shopping around the English version of his book, but I don't know if he's found a publisher yet. If you read Chinese, however, you can order it here. I'm curious as to how his editors dealt with the manuscript. Did they alter it to try and exoticize Poagao so as to make it more attractive to a Taiwanese readership, or did they leave it basically untouched? In any event, it's had at least two printings, so apparently it has sold ok. I wonder who will play Poagao in the film adaptation...
- posted by Prince Roy @ 9:05 PM| |