Word: bian
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...presidential Sikorsky lifts off from Nantou air force base, he considers the evolution he must make from brilliant lawyer and astute politician to wise leader and great man. It is a question raised by the very aspirations of his people and the potential of his state: Is Chen Shui-bian good enough, wise enough, man enough, to take Taiwan where it deserves to go? The helicopter takes flight, pushing the President back into his silver seat. He looks even smaller than his 1.65 m. His wire-frame glasses and white windbreaker and silver-gray slacks make him appear delicate...
...cultural identity was a distant luxury. While the newly arrived leaders of the Kuomintang, freshly landed from the mainland, were building their capital in Taipei, for the native Taiwanese, descendants mostly of Fujian and Guangdong natives who settled during the 17th century, life was hardscrabble. What kids like A-Bian dreamed about was a full stomach. He ate only rice most meals. Beef, chicken and fish were for special occasions. His family's typical stone, red-roofed house consisted of four simple rooms built around a courtyard and an open hearth. They used to write on the charcoal-stained walls...
...They call him A-Bian, a diminutive that traces to his boyhood in Hsi-chuang, a village 40 minutes from Tainan, Taiwan's fourth-largest city. Renowned for its water chestnuts and mangoes, Hsi-chuang is still a rural community, despite being part of a township with a main road bristling with Toyota dealerships and Nikkomarts. The citizens make their living from the soil, and everyone knows the business of Mrs. Chang down the street, for example, and her son Li who just bought a new Nissan Cefiro. They speak Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent so thick that mainlanders...
...Taiwan's rigorous academic meritocracy, good students are praised and respected; great students become the object of local pride. A-Bian was the greatest student Tainan county had ever seen, his intelligence and perspicacity as obvious and tangible as an Olympic sprinter's speed. "He was always the brightest in his classes," says Chen Chia-cheng, his sixth-grade teacher. "He used to finish his homework for the night before lunchtime." His classmates recall a studious, diminutive boy, annoyingly prim, his hand shooting up to provide correct answers to teachers' queries. "He never picked a fight," says Chen Wen-chuan...
Taiwan is Chinese politics packed into an explosive package. For 50 years, Beijing has been married to the return of Taiwan. Negotiation seemed the best solution until last year when pro-independence candidate Chen Shui-bian won election in Taipei. The win shocked Beijing. The professional Taiwan watchers there, who failed to call the outcome, were suddenly looking for new jobs. Enter Zhou. When he arrived in the U.S. for quiet talks with the new Administration, Zhou carried Beijing's latest ideas on Taiwan, polished by his modern sensibilities, though still hewn from the rough stone of Chinese insistence...