Sun Kuo-hsi vividly remembers the chaos of the final years of the Chinese civil war and the government forces he fought for, collapsing in front of Mao Zedong¡¯s Communists, forcing him to flee by boat to Taiwan in 1949 in a perilous eight-day crossing.

¡°There was no dock; everyone was splashing around in the water,¡± Sun, 110, said in his government-run veterans care home in the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan.

¡°Talking about it with young people now, they¡¯ve not been through that time, they don¡¯t care, say it¡¯s in the past. Nobody listens,¡± said Sun, one of the last generation in Taiwan to have fought against China and experience war.