Rejoinder to second look

I believe the concerned reader should understand the dialogue between the author and commentator not only in regard to how radically their viewpoints differ but also in regard to how these differences are a function of their respective subject-positions. Dr. Wu is a native Taiwanese whose scholarly writing has been situated for the most part in a U.S. context where he has worked for many years. On the other hand, the author is a U.S. trained (non-Taiwanese) overseas Chinese who has worked in Taiwan for the past ten years. Both persons in my opinion bring to the topic of culture and identity in contemporary Taiwan roughly the same degree of familiarity with "the native's point of view" yet differ in their essential interpretation of the facts. I think this difference of interpretation can be explained in the following terms.