TAIPEI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Hu Zongyi was nostalgic for his home village after leaving central China's Hunan Province for Taiwan in 1949.
Hu was only 11 years old when he and his mother boarded a ship bound for Taiwan's Keelung from east China's Fujian Province that year. He was too young to understand his mother's hopelessness, neither could he understand the situation that caused the separation between the mainland and Taiwan.
Although Hu grew to miss his sister and former home after growing up, he couldn't even think about going back until 1987, when the high tensions between Taiwan and the mainland were broken.
In November 1987, Taiwanese authorities gave approval for their citizens to return to the mainland, most of them military veterans or refugees who came to Taiwan with the Kuomintang (KMT) in 1949. The move broke the 38-year-long absolute separation between the two sides and triggered a rush of Taiwanese people visiting the mainland.
The year 1949 witnessed great vicissitudes in China, as the Communist Party of China (CPC) won a civil war against the KMT after the two sides failed to reach an agreement concerning the arrangement of state power following the War Against Japanese Invasion (1937-1945).
No one could escape the suffering caused by the civil war. Many ordinary farmers joined the war, most of them involuntarily, or left home to flee the violence. They died on bloody battlefields or retreated to Taiwan with the KMT.
It was estimated that almost 2 million servicemen and civilians went to Taiwan in 1949. Only those who left when they were young were old enough to witness 1987.
Hu joined Taiwan's army and was stationed in Kinmen, only miles away from the mainland city of Xiamen, in the 1960s. Tensions were high between both sides at the time.
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