Ahead of Taiwan's national day, a long line of people snakes out of Chang Lao-wang's restaurant, where the Chinese civil war refugee displays his ardent love for the island's flag while serving up Yunnan rice noodles to the lunchtime crowd.
Mr Chang has hung 30,000 flags around his "National Flag House" restaurant and an adjacent park, ahead of the public holiday that marks the founding of the Republic of China — Taiwan's official name.
"This national flag, the whole country must love it together. Only if everyone collectively loves the flag, does the country have a future," Mr Chang, 81, told Reuters at the park in Taiwan's northern city of Taoyuan.
"If everyone loves this flag, other countries won't dare to bully you."
National identity at centre of China-Taiwan conflict
The red flag — featuring a white sun against a blue sky — holds different meanings for people in Taiwan, and is generally not flown outside of Taiwan as other countries seek to avoid upsetting China, which views Taiwan as its own territory.
Many in Taiwan, especially among the younger generation, associate the flag with the martial law era of the Kuomintang party that fled to the island with the defeated Republic of China government in 1949 at the end of a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists.
Some Taiwanese think a new flag is needed to avoid association with China.
Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, which claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day: by force, if necessary.
There's been a long and complicated history of territorial claims on Taiwan, which was under Chinese rule from the early 1680s until 1895.
China has never recognised Taiwan's government, viewing it as a breakaway province.
Many Taiwanese people consider their self-ruled island to be a separate nation.
Taiwan has developed from a harsh autocracy into a democracy. China remains an authoritarian state run by the Communist party.
However, Mr Chang is proud of the flag, the sight of which, he says, helped him and his mother track down his father after the battles more than 70 years ago.
His family would not have stayed together and found safety in Taiwan if not for the flag, Mr Chang said.
Born in China's south-western province of Yunnan, he and his family fled to Myanmar at the end of the civil war, along with the remnants of Kuomintang troops, before arriving in Taiwan in 1953.
Mr Chang started hanging flags at age 37, putting out fewer than 100.
Back then, Taiwan's flags were ubiquitous around national day, however, he says, he sees few people hanging them today.
Each year, he receives complaints, with some describing the flags as "garbage" and asking him to take them down.
However, his flag-raising ceremony draws large crowds each year, with an estimated 20,000 people attending last year, Mr Chang explained.
"In those moments, I forget myself," he said.
"I think: 'Oh, there are still so many people who love this flag and my heart feels very comforted.'"
Tensions with China simmer in background
Beijing has previously used Taiwan's national day weekend and China's own national day to assert its claim to Taiwan and boost nationalism at home.
On October 1 last year, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) sent 38 fighter jets towards Taiwan on China's national day.
Just over a week later, on Taiwan's last national day weekend, China sent a record 56 military aircraft into Taiwan's air defence identification zone, which included fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers.
The island had to scramble fighter jets and deploy missile systems to monitor the Chinese planes, which regularly conduct sorties into the air defence identification zone.
Addressing a national day rally last year, Taiwan's president, Tsai Ing-wen, said she hoped for an easing of tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and reiterated that Taiwan would not "act rashly".
"But there should be absolutely no illusions that the Taiwanese people will bow to pressure," she said in the speech.
"We will continue to bolster our national defences and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us," Ms Tsai added.
Tensions boiled to the surface again in August this year, when US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi controversially visited Taiwan in August, enraging China and prompting it to stage military drills around the island.
The Chinese military lobbed missiles into the Taiwan Strait while ships and planes crossed the centre line separating mainland China and the self-governed island.
Its activities included the launching of ballistic missiles — some of which travelled over the island's capital, Taipei — and simulated sea and air attacks in surrounding skies and waters.
China's Defence Ministry and its Eastern Theatre Command both issued statements after the drills that said the exercises had achieved their targets of sending a warning to those favouring Taiwan's formal independence.
"All tasks have been accomplished and the troops' combat capabilities in integrated joint operations have been effectively verified," Eastern Theatre Command spokesperson Senior Colonel Shi Yi said.
"The troops of the Eastern Theatre will pay close attention to the evolution of situations across the Taiwan Strait, continue to carry out military training for war preparedness, organise normalised combat-readiness security patrols in the Taiwan Strait, resolutely safeguarding China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Colonel Shi said.
ABC/Reuters
