Letter 19: Taiwan Strait issue, 2/28 incident, PTW: Rosukatsu

Hello, Tim!

Another ordinary week passed, since there’s nothing special to tell about this week, I’ll talk about my opinion of the news in newsletter.

Taiwan Strait has been being not only a sensitive water way but also a tricky problem of surrounding countries. For example, we learned in our history class before that since 1943, the United Stated formed the United States Seventh Fleet to patrol Western Pacific, including Taiwan Strait. The Seventh Fleet and the Third Fleet which USS Carl Vinson in in are called U.S. Pacific Fleet. Actually, the Taiwan Strait Issue has been puzzle people on the two sides of this strait. Many artillery battles and air battles happened in 1950s, and then the Missile Crisis took place during 1995-1999. Psychological war also took place. I think China often makes trouble out of nothing when it comes to diplomacy. They only want bigger territory and more economic benefit from it. Take Senkaku Islands Dispute for example. Senkaku Islands’ sovereignty is claimed by PRC, ROC and Japan. These three countries’ target is not islands themselves but the benefit from the economic zone. We often heard that Senkaku Islands are just located between China, Taiwan and Japan but after I saw a map of it I found China is making nonsense.

Senkaku Island is 170km away from both Keelung and Ishigaki, and this makes sense. But it’s 330km from Mainland China, and it’s almost two times farther than Taiwan and Japan. By the way, speaking of aircraft carrier, I’ve visited retired one at San Diego, CA in 2008, when I was 7. The ship is called USS Midway CV-41, and is open to public since 2004. This ship was launched in 1945 and was struck in 1997. Its most important service is in Vietnam War and also served in missions in 1980s and several operations in the Gulf War. Below are some photos.

This is the grocery store on the ship.

This is dormitory.

An engine displayed in lower deck.

 An A-4 Skyhawk (I guess) parked the upper deck.

On the left is an F-8 Crusader, which are currently retired.

Second, I want to thank you again for doing researches of 2/28 incident and telling this story to everyone. This event is very important to everybody in Taiwan, and nobody should ever forget this. The game I like called "Detention" is also talking about this event and Taiwan under martial law, people can't criticize the government, can't read certain books, some people that had been to China, support Communism or even were just missing their hometown in China could get arrested or executed. Though I don't know much about this event because it happened 70 years ago but I'll try to understand in a most objective way.

You often share delicious food's photos to us, so I think I should do this too. But not Taiwanese food, Japanese instead.

This is one of the most delicious fried pork cutlet (Tonkatsu, 豚カツ in Japanese) that I've ever eaten. This kind of fried pork, which uses loin and has more fat, is called "Rosukatsu or ロースカツ", and this was the first time I tried this. The fried port cutlet in Taiwan consists of less fat, it's more likely to be another kind, Hirekatsu, which uses fillet. So this was a new experience to me. Have you ever been to Japan? If the answer is yes, then what food do you like the most or what you want to try the most?

(Picture was taken on 04/02/2017, at Butagumi Shokudo, Roppongi, Tokyo.)

Sincerely,

Melvyn Chou, 08/03/2017.