The following essay was originally written for my writing class this Thursday.  Some of the content might be offending my countrymen to some extent due to its political correctness or incorrectness. I have modified the concluding paragraph in view of Christ, the Son of God, reigning in all kingdoms.

“Wait a second! Do not take your seat! My high school Chinese teacher said continuously, “Your Chinese pronunciation is terribly bad; you are speaking Taiwanese Chinese.” utterly shocked, embarrassed and humiliated, I sat down motionlessly holding my tears back without talking back to my teacher. I guest I’ll never forget the Chinese teacher’s name and the scene when he commanded me to stand up among my classmates because of my poor Chinese pronunciation.  I was born to be a citizen of the Republic of China, R.O.C. for short, but I’ve never been to China; I was asked to speak Chinese but I was never taught how to speak Chinese until I went to grade school.

I know without fail that I have been trained and educated like the way a typical Chinese speaks and acts. As a grade student I was not allowed to speak Taiwanese my mother tongue at school. If overheard speaking Taiwanese, I would get punished by wearing a placard like a speaker crying out to the public, ” I must speak Chinese.” On campus there was an awe-inspiring sentence rolled down from one of my school building walls, “作個堂堂正在的中國人””Being a dignified and righteous Chinese”, which means, to live or to die is Chinese. But from deep inside I was perplexed, “Am I a Chinese or Taiwanese?” In 1992 when I stepped into the land of American, I was checked by a U.S. Immigration officer at the L.A International Airport to enter the country for advanced studies. As I turned in my application form, he crossed out the name R.O.C. in the section of nationality; instead left the name Taiwan.

In the early 1990s, Taiwan witnessed a great shift that had never been experienced than it had before economically and politically. “Taiwan’s miracle” upgraded the island to be one of the four dragons in Asia. The Taiwan stock market shot up to 10,000 points; the common greetings become something like “Do you buy stocks?” rather than “Have you eaten yet?” in the early days. One of the cover stories in the Time magazine called R.O.C. the Republic of “Casino”, a gambling island. One the other hand, the government was marching on to a democratic system. More political parties came into being. Public opinions could be published and heard in the newspapers or even on the street. Since then, the public have  seemingly controlled what they want; yet we are unknowingly losing traditional values, or even we don’t know exactly what is right or wrong. If we open the different newspapers or turn on TV stations sided with certain political parties, we may receive extremely differing information on the same issue or topic. We the public become confused with the accuracy of the information we receive from the media. Perhaps we don’t know who we are or what our country is. We have LOST OUR IDENTITY. This is the country of Republic of Confusion.

The Bible says, “If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mark 3:24). We have for several decades now been fighting against one another for our own agenda.  The only key to bringing to an end the separation and division in our country is to fight for His cause. I have realized that I’ve been transported to the kingdom of God since I came to Christ years ago. So I know my R.O.C. is no longer what I used to belong to, but the Republic of Christ, which is never shaken and exists for good.