The latest addition to my website is Syaman Rapongan‘s 天空的眼睛 (Eyes Of The Ocean). This is not a novel but more a creative autobiography. It tells the story of.Syaman Rapongan, who is from Orchid Island a small island between Taiwan and Philippines which has been colonised bythe Japanese, the Chinese and the Taiwanese. It is now a part of Taiwan. One of the issues he deals with is colonialism as he and his fellow islanders do not see themselves as part of Taiwanese or Chinese culture or traditions. He and some of his friends go to the mainland to study but he has to work at the same time as studying to get into university and he very much struggles with this failing the exam more than once. We know that he will eventually get to university and study French. However, when he has finished, he is determined that he is not going to be a teacher and and returns home to reconnect with his island, its ocean-based traditions and its non- Chinese and non-Western culture. It is an excellent tale of a culture and traditions of which Westerners know very little about.