No distance between students across the Strait

Editor's Note: During his visit to the Chinese mainland between March 27 and April 7, many students accompanied former Kuomintang chairman Ma Ying-jeou. Let's hear what they have to say about what they experienced during the trip.

Chou Yung-chin: No distance between students across the Strait

The Ma Ying-jeou Foundation had previously held three sessions of Da Jeou Academy, all of which took participating students to visit historical sites in Taiwan. This time, the session offered me a rare opportunity to visit the mainland and explore the history of the War of the Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945).

This was my second visit to the mainland. My first time was in late autumn of 2018 on a secondary school exchange program. This visit was a completely different and novel experience. What most surprised me was the high-speed train, which was very comfortable, fast and smooth. While riding the high-speed train from Nanjing to Wuhan, I fell into the deepest slumber I've ever had on any moving vehicle.

I've had the experience of interacting with secondary school students in Shandong during my 2018 visit. I fully felt that no distance existed between students across the Taiwan Strait at that time.

In the exchange activities with three mainland universities during this visit, the passion, closeness, and naturalness of interaction between students across the Strait showed no difference from 2018, despite the rising cross-Strait tensions and confrontation in recent years. This was the most moving and memorable.

I now still stay in touch with some of the mainland students who I met during this visit, including a postgraduate student from Hunan University. He will go to Taiwan for an exchange program in September, and I've arranged to take him on a tour of Taiwan and to visit Hsinchu-based Tsing Hua University, where I am studying. I am really looking forward to his visit.

Memorial sites about the War of the Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression were a highlight of the visit. I'm interested in the war and have studied it. However, my understanding is limited to a military perspective and I know very little about ordinary people's stories. On the second day of this trip, we visited the House of John Rabe, a German businessman who was dubbed the Oskar Schindler of China for saving hundreds of thousands of civilians during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. It provided me with new information and I was impressed. I haven't read any history books used on the mainland, but as far as the historical sites and monuments we visited, they are well preserved and have ample historical materials. Such abundant resources will certainly be a great help to students who wish to learn history.

Though the war of resistance is taught in Taiwan secondary schools, and the senior secondary school curriculum includes some deep content, it hasn't taken up many pages. More focus is placed on the outbreak, the end of the war and post-war international environment changes.

Under the influence of the "de-sinicization" policy promoted by the Democratic Progressive Party authorities in Taiwan, the entire Chinese history section has been reduced, while content about the history of Southeast Asia, South Korea and Japan have been increased. It's not a bad thing to have an extensive understanding of the history of different nations and peoples, but it's a pity to remove part of Chinese history.

For future exchanges with the mainland, I've always wanted to visit Beijing. At the beginning of the year I applied for a cross-Strait summer exchange program through my university and the list of successful applicants was published the other day. I have been assigned to conduct short-term research at Peking University. I may visit the capital city during the summer vacation at the earliest. I am very excited and look forward to seeing this magnificent and splendid city with a history of several thousand of years.

The author is a junior at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of Hsinchu-based Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Translated by Liu Ming