Returning to China through Taiwan: from simplified to traditional characters

Someone thinks that Taiwan represents the destination we all want to reach: the island where the alternative refused in the past has nevertheless materialized. Communist China on one side of the Formosa Strait, democratic China on the other.

    I do not believe it. Once we have lost an alternative, we can no longer recover it, and Taiwan is of course a democratic country, but it's not the same we would have had if Mao Zedong had not declared the foundation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

    Without communism, Yin Xueyan, Jin Daban, Wang Xiong and all the other characters of the book "Taipei people" (by Bai Xianyong, publishing house The Chinese University Press), would never have decided to leave mainland China to live in Taipei, and without them Taiwanese history, economics and politics would certainly have taken "other paths".

    It is unavoidable that, as a result of these thoughts, my desire to acquire some sort of fluency in the use of the Chinese language starts to "inflame" again.

    The textbook I have on my desk, Taiwan today - An intermediate course, Cheng & Tsui Company, is perhaps below my level but, having already mastered most of the grammatical structures and words, I will have more time to systematically learn traditional characters, in use in Taiwan. Moreover, the book presents all the main readings in both the traditional and simplified writing systems (the latter used in mainland China), therefore it is perfect to easily switch from one to the other.

    For any doubts I will make refererence to the Far East 3000 Chinese Character Dictionary: in a single volume the 3000 most used characters in traditional/simplified script, with stroke order and examples of usage.

What remains to be done is trying to reconcile, who knows if easily or not, my goal with life out there.