“What was it like for them to leave home and cross the Pacific, with only the haziest plans for return? In the absence of available connections, they held onto an imaginary Taiwan, more an abstraction—a beacon, a phantom limb—than an actual island. The available technology delivered them there only on special occasions. So, they searched for traces of home in the faces of their classmates; they heard it wafting above the din when they shopped for groceries.”