China's Forgotten Army: Speaking to Zhan Dening in Mae Salong, Thailand

[@charlesburge5803]

Very impressed by the interviewer's ability to communicate in Chinese. As a near fluent speaker, I know how difficult it can be to get the tones and meaning right, especially when talking to someone older/wish a thicker accent.

[@iceomistar4302]

Alright so this man is likely from Lincang or Zhenkang in Yunnan his accent is from those counties of Yunnan, a lot of the KMT 93rd army was from western and southern Yunnan. I myself hail from Kunming and I recognise his Zhenkang/Lincang accent almost immediately

[@ryanjgillies]

To correct further OgreBattleFight's comment, it was indeed the 3rd and 5th Regiments of the 93rd Division, led by Generals Lee Wen-huan and Tuan Shi-wen respectively.

[@Ashtonlee1]

Good interview. There are factual errors in this interviewee's answers though. e.g. Taiwan did not want the soldiers that were too young or too old to fight. This guy was one of the too young. Taiwan did take many people back, just not everyone that wanted to go.

[@ray597]

Very interesting Chinese history sandwiched between Nationalist and Communist governments ... This taped interview was done in Mandarin Chinese.

[@max7820]

i thought these veterans goin to talk with very serious southern(west) accent,but their mandarin are nice in interview.i could still hear some specific words pronounced in very typical south-west accent style tho.

[@iceomistar4302]

He is speaking the Lincang or Kokang dialect with a mixture of Mandarin which is slightly different from the rest of Southwestern Mandarin, during the latter days of the Ming Dynasty a good deal of loyalists from Nanking settled in Western China creating this variation of the Yunnan Dialect.

[@liam7903]

forgotten heroes

[@OgreBattleFight]

Great interview. I'd like to make a correction though. The 93rd fought the Thais allied with Japan, and were disbanded after the war. The forces you are discussing are not the 93rd, but the 8th Army Group

[@yemyatthu2866]

MY Grand Father was a senior officer that time all i know is Cheif of Staff name Li Bao Chang, my family never mention anything about my Grand Father I dont know why and all i know is he got killed by the own troop who jail him in misunderstanding reason and fear that my grand father will take revenge so he execute my grand father and his top officers, all i know is he got a brother name General Li MI and i really wanted to know my ancestors history

[@iceomistar4302]

Wow, if that is true then you can trace your history back to Tengchong in Yunnan.

[@Paul-hj1vt]

Too bad the KMT didn't win..

[@iceomistar4302]

If they had it would have still been a dictatorship but less extreme than the communists, there would have been no cultural revolution and mass starvations but crime and drug smuggling would be far more prevalent than today, also the KMT were completely corrupt, look at Taiwan today the KMT is still corrupt as hell.

[@LazyAndFabulous]

@@iceomistar4302 Comparing today's Kuomintang to old Kuomintang seems like a joke, the Kuomintang are way worst in the 1930s to the 1960s, they have way more corruption than the entire Nationalist congress. Plus if they won the civil war, China would never be united, but united in name, it would be a Loose Confederation due to warlords being able to control each regions.

[@BZY-bu9wr]

If the KMT actually addressed the caste oppression under the landlord class, they would've had a chance of winning.