Long Yingtai | Big River, Big Sea — 1949

“Big River, Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949” is a book by Taiwanese writer Lung Ying-tai, published by CommonWealth Magazine in 2009. It recounts the related history before and after the Chinese Civil War in 1949 from a literary perspective. Lung Ying-tai spent ten years preparing and 400 days visiting Changchun, Nanjing, Shenyang, Matsu, Taitung, Pingtung, and other places, interviewing many survivors of the Chinese Civil War. On September 18, 2009, Lung Ying-tai held a book launch at the University of Hong Kong. She stated that the purpose of publishing this book was not to accuse or condemn, but to “pay tribute to all those who were trampled, insulted, and hurt by the times.” She said she hoped this book could achieve three goals: first, to commemorate the thousands upon thousands of “ten thousand bones withered” who died for the sake of “one general’s success”; second, she wanted to say “thank you” through this book to the generation of survivors who, like her mother, had gone through hardships; finally, she hoped that young people who were not interested in this history would understand it and avoid history repeating itself[1]. She said that she especially hoped that readers in mainland China would see this book. However, according to Hong Kong media reports, the book was banned from publication in mainland China because it involved sensitive topics (for example, it mentioned that the Communist army used civilian workers as vanguards until the Nationalist army was exhausted), and it coincided with the eve of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.