In 1949, at the age of three, holding tight onto my mother's skirt, I ran with my parents and two younger brothers across a Shanghai airport runway. Amid the sound of bombs blasting, we boarded the last commercial flight out of China. From a life of affluence and privilege, my family was reduced to the condition of faceless immigrants among millions in Taiwan who had fled the conquering communists. All the possessions we were able to salvage from the devastation of our lives fit into the suitcases my parents carried
