The year 1949 was a fateful one for more than a million Chinese who, fleeing the civil war with the Communists, followed the Nationalist government to Taiwan. As they mistakenly believed — it was just to «wait out the storm.» Sixty years later, Lung Ying-tai, the daughter of mainland migrants born on Formosa, attempts to reconstruct that tragic era through the story of her own family, as well as interviews and memoirs of those who lived through it. Choosing the method of oral history, the author bypasses the official narratives of the victors on the other side of the Taiwan Strait and seeks justice for an entire generation of exiles caught in the iron grip of history.

To reflect on the causes and consequences of the humanitarian disaster brought by the civil war, Lung Ying-tai speaks with veterans and former prisoners of war, intellectuals and politicians, businessmen and farmers on both sides of the strait. Piecing together fragments of individual lives, she dissects narratives that reveal existential and moral dilemmas still in need of painful and critical rethinking. In the broader context of Taiwan’s colonial past, the historical events experienced by various generations also raise pressing questions about Taiwanese identity and Chinese nationalism.

Due to its alternative perspective on the civil war, this book is banned in PRC.