Air Raid Drills in Taiwan and American Despair

Bessie Chu
2 min readJul 24, 2023

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I didn’t want to get stuck in subway or take cover somewhere unprotected from the blazing hot tropical weather so I went inside a fancy coffee shop during the air raid drill here today in Taipei.

A nice cold brew at 南美咖啡

It’s a practice run to scramble the Air Force and get people to shelter to reduce casualties in the event of a Chinese attack.

All traffic was stopped, and people had to stay indoors.

The coffee shop aunties were very concerned about tourists outside who are on the street who did not know what was happening.

A lot of Americans are pessimistic about the state of our nation these days. However, a lot of Americans have no idea how lucky we are to have an armed population surrounded by water and allies on four sides, protected by the world’s strongest military (which should be funded to stay that way), and endless food and natural gas supplies.

The days of us flagellating ourselves over the debacles of Afghanistan and Iraq need to be behind us. We need to learn and repent from those mistakes and move on to a world that still needs American power, and one where we exercise it more responsibly as allies vs treating the world as our own backyard.

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Bessie Chu

Taiwanese-American working as a Platform Product Director in Taipei, Taiwan. New Yorker. 626-raised. Optimist at heart in a realist’s clothing.