ASIA PACIFIC

They inhabited separate worlds in Taiwan. Decades later, they collided in a California church.

Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California, on May 15, where members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church were meeting when a shooting occurred. David Chou and Pastor Billy Chang spent their whole lives forging parallel paths — but over several decades, they carried with them vastly different memories and views of the island of their birth. | MARK ABRAMSON / THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Jill Cowan, Amy Chang Chien, Amy Qin and Shawn Hubler
The New York Times

Jun 13, 2022

David Chou and Pastor Billy Chang spent their whole lives forging parallel paths. They were born in early 1950s Taiwan, grew up just miles apart during martial law and later rebuilt their lives in the United States.

But over several decades, they carried with them vastly different memories — and views — of the island of their birth.

Chou was the son of parents who fled mainland China after the 1949 communist revolution, part of a mass exodus of Chinese who established an authoritarian government-in-exile in Taiwan. Although he was born on the island, he and his parents were "mainlanders” devoted to the Chinese motherland and saw Taiwan as forever part of China.

They inhabited separate worlds in Taiwan. Decades later, they collided in a California church.

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