Post #2643909

2026-05-01 02:56 UTC

@mayintoronto@beige.party @cxiao@infosec.exchange @liztai@hachyderm.io The other thing I was led to believe was that mao bad, Chiang Kai Shek good. He was on team US. My family is from HK so we definitely had our biases. Two years ago when I visited Taiwan for the first time, I realized that not even people in TW believe he was the good guy in the story. He brutally murdered a lot of people in TW and installed himself basically as an emperor who killed so much he was super paranoid of getting assassinated at the end of his life. I am trying to relearn the stories I was told as a kid but from a different pov now. The only one I haven't taken up is the Japanese version of Nanking since I think they just pretend it never happened.

Replies (2)

@cxiao@infosec.exchange 2026-05-01 03:13

@chu@climatejustice.social @mayintoronto@beige.party Yes, sometimes I make the (morbid) joke that it's a miracle I am alive, because the Chinese 20th century is filled with everyone before me being killed by communists, nationalists, the Japanese, famine, disease, the communists again, then the nationalists again... The key is to focus on the people, not states; movements, not governments. And to recognize that the people in power at these times, who committed these massacres, have more in common with each other than they have with us.

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@liztai@hachyderm.io 2026-05-01 03:25

@chu@climatejustice.social admittedly I am very careful when talking to Taiwanese about this. I understand why they feel strongly about their sovereignt but us little people (and Malaysia is the littlest in a land of giants) have no luxury of being idealistic. We've been trained to choose paths that will result in less deaths. At least most of our leaders are. In the end we need to choose the path of less dying. It doesn't always align with our ideals, unfortunately. @mayintoronto@beige.party @cxiao@infosec.exchange

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