Play about former soldier set to return to Beijing

The theater production Jie Song Qing, starring Ku Pao-ming (left) and Lang Tsu-yun, revolves around connections across the Taiwan Straits. Photos provided to China Daily

Ku Pao-ming recalls how his family celebrated Spring Festival when he was a child.

His father would cook many delicious dishes and they would sit around the dining table remembering their ancestors. During mealtime on the eve of Chinese New Year, he would listen to his father's stories about their family, who lived in Shanghai before moving to Taiwan.

Ku's father was a Kuomintang soldier, who－along with thousands from the Nationalist force－retreated to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the civil war.

As he grew up, Ku, now 66, realized that the stories his father told him were a result of being away from home for long.

So when the actor was asked by the Taiwan Godot Theater Company in 2015 if he could play the role of Zhao Guozhong, a war veteran who left Shandong province for Taiwan, in the company's stage drama Jie Song Qing, Ku readily agreed.

After its successful debut in April in Beijing, the drama, which is called Driving Miss Xu in English, is set to return to the city on Nov 11.

As an actor, Ku likes to play different roles because they enable him to "experience different lives", Ku says. "I'm familiar with the role in Driving Miss Xu and it feels personal and connected."

He was born in Taipei and grew up among military dependents, a community in Taiwan that was built after 1949 to house the former Kuomintang soldiers.