Fragments from a Country Under Threat

It’s October in Taipei, and we’re having friends over for tea. Z. and his girlfriend are a Taiwanese couple in their mid-twenties; Z has started graduate study in the U.S. He plans to finish, he says. But when Albert offers some career advice the deferential Z. becomes firm, insistent. He shakes his head. He can’t spend more years in the States right now. He needs to be back in Taiwan. He needs to be here for the war.

He says it so casually I forget to swallow. “You think there will be a war?” is all I can say, finally.

“Yes,” he says. His girlfriend nods, agreeing.

That terrifying youthful desire to throw yourself into the fire.

*

Heroism is on everybody’s mind these days. A Taiwanese person went to fight for Ukraine and recently died. Many of Z.’s generation think he’s a hero—but their parents think he’s a fool. A friend tells me he won’t try to leave if China invades; he plans to die defending his native land. “I couldn’t live in exile,” he says. “I couldn’t live knowing that my native…