Chapter 24 1999

In 1999, during the summer vacation of my third year at university, I set foot on the mainland for the first time. The reason was that I met Professor Zheng from a certain university in the United States. He happened to bring a group of American students to Peking University for a visit and asked me if I wanted to go with him.I thought to myself, since I am idle anyway, I decided to follow along. That day, after connecting planes from Macau, I went all the way north. I saw the mainland land that I could only see in textbooks and TV in the past. I flew over the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. I was so excited that I couldn't express it.

The plane landed smoothly at Beijing Airport, which was the old airport built in the 1980s.After stopping, the air bridge is connected and the door is opened.Because I was sitting at the front, the moment the door opened, the thick Beijing-style dialogue of the ground staff outside was heard in my ears. Although I could understand what they said, it was different from what we said. What I saw and heard on TV, I suddenly saw and heard with my own eyes.I have forgotten the few words they said at that time, but I will never forget the shock and impact. There is an impressive tile wall sticker on the passage from the terminal to the customs in the old Beijing airport.When we arrived at the customs gate: "Huh? Why is there no one there?" An old man next to him said that the guard was changing and he had to wait a while.After about 5 minutes, the staff went to work with steel cups.Finally started to enter the customs.

I walked over with a little uneasiness and a little fear of being made things difficult.After all, the past has been heard too much and yet is almost a stranger. "Compatriots in Taiwan! Ha ha ha..." The customs uncle looked at the Taiwan compatriots card, and then returned it to me, and I felt relieved.Now it seems that such an ordinary thing was so tense at that time. The drive to Peking University was quite shocking along the way.God!The roads in Beijing are so wide and straight, and there are so many high-rise buildings (I took the Airport Expressway to the North Third Ring Road, and the Fourth Ring Road was not fully built at that time), which is completely different from my previous impression.Oh my God!There are so many bicycles!All kinds of surprises are simply culture shocks, like old-fashioned people who have never seen the world.The car finally entered from the old east gate of Peking University, walked through the campus, and finally arrived at the guest house to stay.

Let me first talk about my impression of Peking University at that time.The first impression is that it is big, which is completely in line with my impression of the university: there are lakes, forest trails, and because it is big, you can ride girls on bicycles!This is how I envy the university life!It’s not like the school I went to. I rode my bicycle through the front door, and accidentally found the back door. Moreover, there are barbecue stalls and restaurants everywhere in the school. It’s a mess, but life is very convenient.The south wall of Peking University was still full of shops at that time. The famous Feiyu Internet Cafe in the early days was just a small dark storefront at that time. Unexpectedly, the business became bigger and bigger later.Outside the east gate is the old alley area.

During those few days, I spent most of my time in class, but I bought a bicycle to roam around, familiarized myself with the avenues and trails of the campus, and then rode to Tsinghua University next door.At that time, I deeply felt that the styles of the two schools were very different.For example, Peking University always has some winding paths, while Tsinghua University may have an empirical spirit of science and engineering, so the roads on the campus are also square.A little further away is Wudaokou. At that time, there was a saying of "hot Wudaokou". At night, there were food stalls, a mess, but very lively.Anyway, I played in this area for a week.

At the beginning, when I wanted to buy books, my friends said that I could go to the "Feng Ru Song" bookstore on the store wall of the south gate and the "Wansheng" bookstore outside the east gate.I have been to both, especially the Wansheng Bookstore, which is hidden in the dilapidated Chengfu Road after the east gate. Once I walked in, the walls of the small store were covered with books, and there were tables and chairs in the middle. For people to sit down, it is really a good place to slowly pick up humanities books. Leaving the Wansheng Bookstore and going back to the east gate, I saw a beautiful woman sitting by the window in the nearby cafe with sharp eyes, and walked in with great enthusiasm, just about to strike up a conversation, but unexpectedly she left, leaving me with tears of regret.This coffee shop is the earliest carving time coffee shop, and I also met the owner Zhuang Zai.Over the next few years, more and more strange shops opened in this alley, which also attracted many strange people from nearby schools, but the whole alley was full of a strong humanistic atmosphere.

During the summer vacation from 1999 to 2001, I went to Beijing almost every year, but I will never forget the experience of going to the mainland for the first time.The casual promise at the beginning actually changed my later life. Over the past few decades, the Taiwan authorities have only had the Holy See as their "state of diplomatic ties" in Europe, so the "establishment of diplomatic relations" with Macedonia is quite symbolic.As a result, Lee Teng-hui was very pleased, and immediately said that he would donate 300 million US dollars for the post-war reconstruction of Kosovo. This statement really shocked the world, and it was on the headlines of major newspapers in the world the next day.

300 million US dollars is definitely not a small amount, but given the situation in the Balkan Peninsula at that time and the intertwined forces of all parties, is it possible to donate as much as you say?Therefore, this incident made NATO and European countries very unhappy at the beginning, because this move undoubtedly added more uncertain factors to the Balkan Peninsula.On the other hand, within Taiwan, there are voices of protest everywhere, and it is felt that such a large amount of money is actually distributed in this way when there are still many people in Taiwan who need it.In addition, the authorities have always given the impression of "money diplomacy" in the past, so when they heard that they wanted to donate money again, they had a preconceived bad impression, and there were constant voices of opposition.

After the "establishment of diplomatic relations" with Macedonia, Taiwan sent various delegations and medical teams to participate in the assistance, and there were even rumors that Taiwan should take the new weapons developed there for actual combat testing.Macedonia had just separated from Yugoslavia at that time, and there were many internal and external problems, not only the problem of refugees from Kosovo in the north, but Bulgaria in the northeast was also eyeing Macedonia.And it quarreled with Greece in the south on ethnic and historical issues. The only friendlier was Albania in the west.Therefore, the authorities originally intended to use Macedonia as a beachhead and continued to seek to establish "diplomatic relations" with Albania.

However, this "establishment of diplomatic relations" seems to be doomed from the very beginning to a bad end.First of all, this is "secret diplomacy", which is decided by the prime minister without the president's knowledge. Although the diplomatic power is in the hands of the prime minister, this move also caused a political storm for them.Furthermore, after the general election in Macedonia, Taiwan’s political party lost again, and a party with a different diplomatic orientation was replaced.So, naturally, "diplomatic relations" with Macedonia ended after two years.

Later, when "diplomatic relations" were broken, it was already Chen Shui-bian's authorities.The "Minister of Foreign Affairs" at the time said a famous saying: "We still won this time, because we took the initiative to 'sever diplomatic relations' with them, not we were 'severed diplomatic relations' by them." It is said that everyone laughed together after he said this sentence However, it also revealed Taiwan's "diplomatic" dilemma and embarrassment. The weather in September is still very hot, especially for some reason. The day of the 20th seems to be particularly hot, and my family has always been used to going to bed late, so I went online until one o'clock in the morning before going offline to sleep, and my mother was still in the living room read a book. In the half-dream and half-awake period, I felt a vibration rising from the depths of the ground on my back, and then I shook for a while, feeling like an earthquake, and it stopped after a while.Unexpectedly, after shaking for two or three seconds, it suddenly became violent, the earth shook, and I was immediately woken up: a big earthquake!I turned over from the bed without any extra movement, and rolled under the desk next to me to hide and scream, only then did I realize how agile I am.And Mom was screaming and yelling for God in the living room.The taxi downstairs was also screaming, and the car's siren was also sounded. Only my father was still sleeping, so he didn't know there was a big earthquake in the morning. As a result, there was an earthquake in the middle of the night, and all the power went out. I quickly called my relatives and friends, but the line was always busy.And aftershocks continued throughout the night, many families, old and young, fled to the road or in the car.Because of a complete power outage, I didn't know what was going on, so I had to dig out the radio that hadn't been used for a long time to find out the situation. There was news that the Dongxing Building in Taipei City had collapsed and a fire broke out, but I didn't know what happened to other places.But this is already known that the whole earthquake is not trivial, so I spent a frightening night like this. Earthquakes are common in Taiwan, and everyone is used to it.I have never seemed to be afraid of anything, but what I am most afraid of is an earthquake. Even a small earthquake will make me very nervous.I think the most terrifying thing about an earthquake is not its size, but the never knowing whether it will suddenly become bigger in the next second.And the earthquake in the early morning of September 21 was exactly like this. Taiwan has not had such a strong earthquake for decades, and it scared the people into panic.For a while, as long as I lay down, I felt like I was shaking all the time. There was still no electricity in the morning, and I continued to listen to the radio. It turned out that the epicenter was in Nantou, and it was a magnitude 7.3 earthquake.Not only Nantou, but even Taipei counties and cities were severely affected. The news announced that work and school in Taiwan have been suspended.It was supposed to be a busy working time in the morning, but it was unusually quiet outside, with rare traffic sounds.It seemed that there was only the sound of the radio in the air, and every once in a while there was news of disappearances and rising death tolls, which made me anxious and want to cry. Occasionally, when there was a call, I hurried to turn on the TV to watch the news, and found that all the roads to the outside world in the Nantou area had been cut off, only military helicopters had flown in, and other journalists or transport personnel had to wait outside.But soon, the electricity stopped again. I was a volunteer in the hospital at that time and had served in the ward team for more than a year. When I arrived at the hospital as usual that afternoon, I found that all the electricity in the hospital was cut off except for the necessary facilities.Many patients were terrified, and I was in the hospital that day to comfort them constantly.In particular, there was a patient who came to Taipei from Nantou for medical treatment. He couldn't get through on the phone and cursed anxiously. I could only call him continuously and endure his scolding silently. In the evening, since there is no TV to watch and no work to do, everyone hangs out on the road and talks about it everywhere.When I went to watch a movie, the power went out halfway through the movie.On that day, everyone was at a loss and at a loss. Knowing the situation soon, rescue teams from various countries also arrived in Taiwan as soon as possible, and rushed to the disaster-stricken areas to start rescue.Seeing the tragic situation in various places on TV, I couldn't help but shed tears. When I arrived at the school the next day, the atmosphere was also dignified.Several students did not come. It turned out that their family was in the disaster area and rushed home.There are also a few classmates who live in the disaster-stricken area. They didn't want to come to school for the first week of school. They didn't expect a big earthquake and couldn't get out.Later, I heard from those students that they went home at that time, changed many trains, and struggled to get to the town where the traffic was originally convenient.Some students said that the entire mountain in their area disappeared out of thin air like this, the entire landscape was completely changed, and the entire village was instantly buried and invisible.In the past few years, there has been news that some bones are often dug up in the mountains near the epicenter, probably the people who disappeared during the earthquake. After the "9.21" earthquake, the official reconstruction and follow-up measures were not as effective and active as those of the non-governmental organizations. It may be said that without the efficient organization and cooperation of these non-governmental organizations, the disaster relief and reconstruction work would have been more difficult.The trauma after the earthquake is even more difficult to heal. In the years after the earthquake, there have been news of victims committing suicide.Such tragedies are everywhere. When people hear such news, they seem to feel that they cannot escape the shadow of the earthquake at that time. The earthquake also had a severe impact on global stock markets.Because Taiwan is an important semiconductor manufacturing base in the world, no one knew whether the earthquake would affect production capacity in those few days. Turned up. In fact, as early as the end of July of that year, a power tower in the southern mountainous area of ​​Taiwan fell down, causing a major power outage in about four-fifths of Taiwan, and it took two days for it to return to normal.On the night of the power outage, we didn't know what happened. Everyone was a little nervous, and even relatives and friends abroad called back to care.It was later discovered that the transmission tower had collapsed, and everyone discovered that Taiwan's power system was so fragile.At that time, on the BBS, some people used the collapse of the electric tower and many other evidences to deduce that the ground may have changed, otherwise the electric tower with a deep foundation could not easily collapse.The author predicts in the article that a major earthquake is very likely to occur in the near future.When this article came out, netizens scoffed.Unexpectedly, two months later, a major earthquake really happened.Of course, it is worth discussing whether the two are related, but this article was immediately republished and worshiped by everyone. It is really an Internet villager. After the "9.21" earthquake, there were many aftershocks, large and small.There was an aftershock, and I was sitting on the toilet, thinking about the future of the country and the nation like a Rodin meditator.Suddenly, my spine went numb, and I, who is particularly sensitive to earthquakes, realized that there was another aftershock.I was still small at first, so I thought it was nothing, so I didn’t react much. Unexpectedly, after shaking for a few seconds, it suddenly became violent. I could only scream loudly in the closed toilet, and the echo of despair echoed in the room full. The stench echoed.I was faced with a dilemma: should I rush out, or should I continue to sit here?I want to rush out, but I haven't wiped it yet!Hiding here is actually the safest place to hide in the toilet during an earthquake, but seeing the water in the toilet boiling like boiling water over there, wow!What if the shit splashes out?So dirty! In the end, when I was still thinking about what to do, the earthquake stopped...