The Strait Story

The year is 1943 and Taiwan is under Japanese colonization. After finishing his studies in Japan, famous Taiwanese sculptor and painter Ching-Cheng Huang receives an offer to teach in Beiping Art School. He decides to visit friends and family back home before leaving for China. He boards the passenger liner "Takachiho Maru" in Kobe, Japan, with his girlfriend, a pianist. Tragically, the luxurious liner is torpedoed by an American submarine and sinks off the coast of Keelung, Taiwan. Decades later, Shou-shou, a fine art restorer with a crippl...

The Twin Bracelets

Two teenage girls make a pledge to each other to be as "man and wife" in a small Chinese fishing town. The notions of women's rights or sexual freedom are absent in their oppressive minority culture, and when one becomes happily married to a stranger, the other is cruelly betrothed to the abusive son of a wealthy family. Seeking to free herself from a lifetime of abuse, Hui-hua desperately looks for a way out. ----by J L (New York City)