I'll also be coming up with the opening remarks and the facilitation questions, so right now I am in the middle of a period of deep contemplation regarding what is the best way to introduce the historical background of a conflict.
This is a question, I think, for many questions in history--how do we talk about what needs to be talked about, in a way that makes it clear that it needs to be talked about, without marginalising sides or viewpoints and other, less salient things that also need to be talked about?
My job for tomorrow night is to frame the origins and the historical context of why there are disputes and animosity between mainland China and Taiwan to the present today to a group of bright college students who will be hopefully interested in what I have to say (which is really encouraging, by the way, considering my lack of a PhD), but will all show up with varying degrees of expertise on the subject matter. It's pretty overwhelming being in an "educator" position for once (and so unexpectedly soon), so let's try to get this right.
Hopefully, by the end of the discussion, we will be able to get to some of the concerns I have about the simplicity and reductive qualities of the current unification vs. succession debate.
More reflections on all of this later.
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