“We only knew, before, that Taiwan is the country who trained Roberto D’aubuisson, the dictator who murdered thousands of Salvadorians,” Gilberto said on the party before I left El Salvador, “To our surprise, after fighting together with Hsin-Hsing and his comrades, we found out that there are people like us in Taiwan, too.”
Honestly, this is one of the best compliments I have ever got in my life. I am proud of it.
The friendship I have with Gilberto, Joaquin, and other comrades-in-arm is wonderful. Even though we are divided by a big ocean and we speak different languages, there has been hardly any communication barrier when we discuss issues in our struggle. Labor movement served us well as our common language. There is indeed a kind of unshakable mutual trust among us. But we hardly ever express our feelings toward each other.
Firstly, we are a bunch of guys. Guys talk about serious stuff. Guys tell jokes. Guys don’t talk about touchy-feely things. And during my previous brief visits, sisters in the union all looked even stronger than the men. And then there is a certain reserve among Salvadorians which I can quickly relate to. They have been through a cruel civil war, we Taiwanese have been through decades of martial law. That might be why we understand each other very well.
Chao-ti’s plan for this documentary broke down that kind of reservation in our friendship. She wants to penetrate deep into our psyche with her camera. It took me three years, after our transnational struggle in 2002, to write up a long and somewhat readable academic article about all those complex issues involved. Still, all I could manage to convey and analyze in it are only actions, strategies, consequences, structural factors, and such. But what Chao-ti wants to capture are our feelings!
The evening before we visited Joaquin’s mother, we were hanging out in a bar. Joaquin seemed to have some second thoughts that were difficult for him to explain. Then Gilberto started to talk about his grandparents’ stories, how they eked out a living in the countryside, how they came to the city, etc. I suddenly realized that, this was the first time, after all those years and all those battles they fought side by side, that they told each other about their family history! Growing up under an authoritarian regime, I think I know why. And I felt privileged to be there at that moment, thanks to Chao-ti’s film!
