Stay or Go: Li Guoxiu’s Ambiguous Answer to the Taiwan Question

Abstract

Within a decade of the 1987 lifting of Martial Law, Taiwan has rapidly transformed into a multiparty democracy with freedoms forbidden on the other side of the Taiwan Straits. The presence of such a society causes the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to wrestle with the “Taiwan Question”, but the people of Taiwan must wrestle with their own Taiwan Question—“Stay or go?” In 1997, at the end of the first post-Martial Law decade, a poll by the TVBS cable station reported that 25 percent of Taiwan’s population wished to emigrate to foreign countries; a Democratic Progressive Party poll reported more than 30 percent.¹ The constant threat of the PRC is one reason for so many wanting to leave, but it is far from being the sole cause. Plenty of dangers abound on the island itself. Ironically, and perhaps irrationally, many of these very dangers make life in Taiwan so exciting. It is in this contradiction between danger and enjoyment that playwright/director Li Guoxiu (Lee Kuo-shiu²) finds humor.