Su Beng's 2011 US visit: July 22 in New York City

A recent photo of Su Beng in San Diego, CA.

All the details have been confirmed for the event I'm planning for Su Beng in Manhattan!

Revolutionary in NY: a reading, talk, Q&A with Su Beng

Friday, July 22, 2011
6:30 pm-9:30 pm
214 Sullivan St. #6B
New York, NY 10012

*RSVPs required on eventbrite, click here.

The $5 door fee includes a signed poster that is a replica of the cover of the English-language version of Taiwan’s 400 Year History by Su Beng. In addition, a limited number of books will be available for purchase and signing. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Su Beng Education Foundation, which supports Su’s independence activities in Taiwan. The event is sponsored by Formosan Association for Public Affairs Young Professional Group (FAPA-YPG) of New York and New Jersey.

Catch this rare opportunity to hear Su Beng, a 92 year old revolutionary Marxist from Taiwan talk about his life with his biographer, yours truly, Felicia Lin. Formerly an undercover Chinese Communist agent, and would be assassin of Chiang Kai-shek, Su Beng is here from Taiwan on his first visit to the U.S. in nearly 20 years. He is best known for his lifelong work for Taiwan independence and as the author of Taiwan's 400 Year of History. Hear the true tales of his time in China, his thoughts on the Kuomintang authorities in Taiwan, his years of exile in Japan (1952-1993), his continued activism in Taiwan and his previous U.S. cross country adventures.

Schedule:

6:30pm Registration and check-in
7:00pm Opening remarks
7:30pm Reading of an excerpt from The Conscience of Taiwan: The Memoirs of Su Beng- a work still in progress
8:00pm Discussion/talk between Su Beng and his biographer, Felicia Lin
8:30pm Audience Q&A with Su Beng (translation will be provided)
9:00pm Screening of the trailer of documentary film, Almost Home: Taiwan

I will be reading an excerpt from The Conscience of Taiwan: The Memoirs of Su Beng (a work still in progress) and talking with Su Beng about some of his unconventional life decisions. Q&A will follow. Translation will be provided.

The event will conclude with the screening of the trailer for Almost Home: Taiwan, a road-trip documentary on Taiwanese independence and identity. In the film, filmmaker Victoria Linchong unearths her roots and shines a light on the history and culture of an island long at the center of political debate.

JOIN our facebook event: Su Beng's 2011 US Tour: Reconnecting with Taiwanese America to find out if Su Beng will be at another city near you!

Su Beng interviewed on LATWTV

Watch Su Beng's interview with Samuel Lee, which was conducted mostly in Mandarin Chinese.

To learn more about LATWTV, visit their website http://www.latwtv.com/.

Su Beng's 2011 US Visit: early July dates

This weekend, Su Beng will be in San Diego, CA for the Taiwanese American Conference- West Coast from July 1-4.

Appearances are in the works for him in Boston, Washington D.C., New Jersey, New York City's Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

I recently confirmed that on July 20th, 7pm-9pm he will be appearing at the New York Taiwan Center, which is located in Flushing, NY at: 137-44 Northern Blvd Flushing, New York 11354.

About Su Beng's 2011 US Visit

Su Beng's U.S. Cross Country Trips

In the 1980s and 90s Su Beng began making annual trips to North America, Europe and Brazil in an effort to reach out to the overseas Taiwanese community worldwide.

During his trips to the U.S., he initially traveled across country by air, and then by bus. Later he decided that driving across country would be more convenient, and at around the age of seventy-something, he got himself a driver's license, bought a used car and drove himself across the country!

Just as he had done when he fled from China back to Taiwan in 1949, Su Beng prepared a large bag of manto (a type of Chinese bread), for his cross country trip. When he escaped from the Chinese Communists and out of China at the end of World War II, he subsisted on a big bag of dehydrated manto which he had prepared for his journey.

One time the used car that Su Beng was driving across country broke down and he ended up living out of it as he waited for an auto repair shop to order the broken engine part.

Stories like this inspired a young Taiwanese American girl to write an amateur screenplay in high school about this legendary man that her father had told her about.

And there are more stories out there from the Taiwanese individuals families that befriended Su Beng and opened up their homes to him. I do hope that Su Beng has a chance to reconnect with many of these old friends during his current visit.

Su Beng plans to visit the United States in late June!

I just learned that Su Beng will be making a trip to the United States from Taiwan in late June. He will be in the United States for about a month and as far as I know he is planning to visit Los Angeles, San Diego, Michigan, Buffalo, Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. This is certainly not a comprehensive list of all the places that he will visit on his month long visit. This is all very exciting! The last time he visited the United States was nearly 20 years ago.

Runaway

I recently completed the first draft of a book proposal for Su Beng's memoir. For those of you who don't know, a book proposal is basically an author's business plan for his/her book. Who knew that you could do this? I certainly didn't. I thought that I'd have to write the entire book before finding a publisher. That's what has to be done for works of fiction, but nonfiction is different. I had no idea how these things worked when I started this project. I simply did not know how the publishing industry works. But I've learned, and I'm still learning.

Writing this book proposal has of course required me to work on the basic nuts and bolts of the book, such as its table of contents and chapter titles. But it's more than just that. How do I tell the story of this man's life in an engaging way?

Rather than writing a straight chronology of Su Beng's life, I've decided to start off with something compelling in the first chapter which leads back to the beginning.

On Sunday I spoke to Su Beng via Skype about the first chapter. There were some details that I needed for the chapter. I also asked for his feedback, and thoughts on it.

I'm still uncovering things about his man's life. Su Beng has been writing his autobiography in Chinese. He's shared these writings with me but since I can't really read Chinese characters, I've been working with someone to read and translate them for me. In the process, I've discovered a few surprising things.

For instance, Su Beng has told me that he left for Japan during what would have been his fifth year in middle school, the year he was to graduate. Also, his choice to study politics and economics at Waseda University in Tokyo, was against the expectations of his family, who had expected him to study something more practical.

But there's more to the story. Su Beng had actually planned to secretly run away from home to Japan. He was all packed and prepared; he had bought a large luggage trunk for the trip, and as he waited at the boat terminal in Keelung, he was spotted by a relative who also happened to be there. Seeing Su Beng there alone with this huge piece of luggage, it was obvious that he was running off without the consent of his family, so the relative intervened and called Su Beng's family. Su Beng's mother insisted that he come home, but it was his grandmother who said that they should let him go; she realized that Su Beng had made up his mind to go and that there was nothing that she or anyone else could do to stop him. And so she gave him her blessing to go and it was her, Su Beng's grandmother, that paid for his tuition and monthly allowance while he was at Waseda.