I recently returned from a trip to Hong Kong for a Fulbright-related conference, which allowed me the opportunity to do some family history research. I knew that my father’s family had fled the KMT government in 1947 or 1948 to seek safe haven in Hong Kong, and they lived there together until 1951. My grandfather Thomas Liao (廖文毅) had been in Shanghai during the 228 Incident in 1947, and couldn’t return to Taiwan at risk of death. So the family reunited in Hong Kong, and my Aunt Jeanne remembers those years as some of the happiest the family ever spent together, before my grandparents were separated by the Taiwanese Independence movement, for which work Thomas moved to Tokyo.
Also, my father was born in Hong Kong in 1949. When I was a kid, and we would see “Made in China” or “Made in Hong Kong” stickers on the bottom of items, my dad would stick them on himself and say, “I was made in Hong Kong!” Continue reading
Girl Meets Formosa 