Zoher Abdoolcarim

Why the island’s citizens are worried about China’s growing influence over their home

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On a past visit to Taiwan’s rugged, windswept east coast, I stayed at a B&B in the seaside town of Hualien. It was run by a middle-aged Taiwanese descended from islanders predating the 1949 flight to Taiwan of the Kuomintang (KMT) army and elite after the communists won the civil war in China. The innkeeper was apoplectic about a new influx of mainlanders: Chinese tourists, whom he found arrogant and politically incorrect. He refused to host any, even though that cost him business. The Chinese, he said, were trouble.

It’s a sentiment shared by ever more of Taiwan’s 23 million people.

Ahead of elections, Indians are expressing anger and frustration over the direction of their country. Will the politicians listen?

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State of a Nation

by Zoher Abdoolcarim

In the fall of 1979, I traveled from the U.S., where I was a college senior, to India to attend my sister’s wedding in a small town in Gujarat state. On the way back, I got stranded in Mumbai because a fire had damaged the airport. I was with my brother and his wife, and we checked daily on when flights would resume, but found little progress. Exasperated and, as overseas Indians, accustomed to better efficiency, we rounded on an airport official. While he was annoyed at our impatience, he was also apologetic—and philosophical—about the lack of urgency to reopen the terminal.