Years after that, Dorothy will get a phone call. Her brother-in-law. Your sister needs help. She will return to Alabama, and find Angela sitting in the dark, in front of a television turned to what appears to be a ten-hour commercial. Angela is wearing a diaper that has not been changed for a day and a half. She has no food in her refrigerator and no way to go purchase any.
Dorothy will clean her sister up, carry her to bed. Make arrangements for her long-term care, Angela’s husband paying for it with their savings. When the money runs out, and her husband proves that he’s not up to the task, Dorothy will end up bringing Angela back home with her. She will wipe and feed her older sister for a year, two days shy of a year, until Angela expires on a cool autumn morning.
INT. GOLDEN PALACE CHINESE RESTAURANT
Ming-Chen Wu sits, listening.
DOROTHY
So that’s how I ended up here.
She realizes Wu is staring at her. Or gazing, more like gazing.
DOROTHY
What about you?
Wu snaps out of it, embarrassed, tries to recover.
MING-CHEN WU
What? Oh, sorry, I just—I like listening to you talk.
Dorothy suppresses a smile.
DOROTHY
What’s your story?
MING-CHEN WU
My story? No, you don’t want to hear it. Do you?
DOROTHY
Yes I do. I really do.
EXT. MING-CHEN WU’S BACKSTORY
He’s a few years older but his path is starkly different from hers. He was born into Historical Period Piece, the role given to him was Child Victim of Oppression.
BEGIN HISTORICAL NEWSREEL MONTAGE:
NEWS READER (V.O.)
On February 28, 1947, the ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, begins what comes to be known as the 2/28 Incident, a period of violent suppression of antigovernment protests. Over the next several weeks, tens of thousands of Taiwanese civilians are killed. The New York Times reports accounts of:
“indiscriminate killing and looting. For a time everyone seen on the streets was shot at, homes were broken into and occupants killed. In the poorer sections the streets were said to have been littered with dead. There were instances of beheadings and mutilation of bodies, and women were raped.”
By the evening of March 4, Taiwan has been placed under martial law. An uprising of the people continues for a number of weeks after, with Taiwanese civilians controlling much of the island. Nevertheless, by the end of the month, the governor general of Taiwan, Chen Yi, bolstered by the arrival of troops from the mainland on March 8, has regained control. Chen Yi orders the imprisonment or execution of the leading organizers he could identify. His men execute more than three thousand people.
In 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists are finally and decisively driven from the mainland by Mao, Chiang and his loyalists flee to Taiwan, where they impose martial law again. This period begins on May 19, 1949. At the time it is lifted in the summer of 1987, thirty-eight years and fifty-seven days later, it is the longest period of martial law in the world. During this time, known as the “White Terror,” thousands of Taiwanese are beaten, killed, or disappeared by the regime.
At the time of the 2/28 Incident, Young Wu is seven years old. He sees family members shot in front of him. He see his home and his town destroyed, looted, and set on fire. He sees men, and boys, not much older than he is, at first attempting to fight, and then attempting to live. He sees his father running back into his family home, which is on fire. Count to one hundred, his father says. And I’ll be back here, safe and sound.
INT. GOLDEN PALACE CHINESE RESTAURANT
DOROTHY
(interrupting)
Why? Why would he do that?
INT. MING-CHEN WU’S BACKSTORY
He waits with his mother and younger siblings, just babies then, for his father to come out. He counts to one hundred. He pauses, unsure if he should keep counting.
When he reaches ninety-nine, he starts to worry. At one hundred twenty-one, he starts to cry. At one hundred eighty-nine, when he is sure his father is dead, his father emerges from the now completely blackened front of their small house, carrying a box.
Young Wu does not know what is in the box, nor does he ask his father. He guesses his mother knows, because she looks at the box, and looks at Young Wu’s father, and shakes her head, as if to say, I can’t believe you did that, but also to say, I understand why you did that.
Later, Wu will learn what was inside the box: a piece of paper. The deed to the family plot of land. This land will be very valuable in the future. His father risked burning to death for his children’s well-being, the chance at a better life.
But Wu doesn’t know this at this moment. What he knows is that the box is valuable, because he just watched his father run into a house on fire for it. Also watching were two Nationalist soldiers, a private and a corporal, who wait until Wu’s father emerges, then calmly shoot him through the back, the bullet exiting from his throat. The box, along with the deed, is casually scooped up by the corporal, and the two walk off, leaving Wu’s family there, without a father, or a house, or a future.
INT. GOLDEN PALACE CHINESE RESTAURANT
Dorothy places a hand on Wu’s shoulder. Lets it rest there.
DOROTHY
You never knew him.
MING-CHEN WU
Not really, no. There are memories, just a couple. Key scenes that replay over and over. I was so young.
(then)
But I was the oldest son. I had to do something.
DOROTHY
You came here.
Wu takes Dorothy’s hand, holds it lightly.
INT. MING-CHEN WU’S BACKSTORY—JOURNEY TO AMERICA
We see Young Wu, moving, in progress, making his way to the new world. Bright-eyed, full of hope.
As a young student in Central Taiwan, gazing at a map of the world in his classroom.