In the commercialization of this once sacred area, the native Formosans, once disdainful of modern ways, have sold out. Island-wide they are discriminated against economically and educationally. At Sun-Moon Lake they live in a small village on the route of boat tours. For $3.00 NT (7 1/2 cents) one of the girls, dressed in "native garb"-not unlike a Halloween costume from Woolworth's-will post with tourists for photos.

Each of the families run a tiny shop selling souvenirs. As all the shops sell the same items, competition is brutal. Nevertheless, the Formosans are surviving. Their first literate generation is attending a small Catholic school offering the hope that they may overcome the social mores that banished them to Sun Moon Lake.

All this progress is threatened by what the newspapers call "diplomatic setbacks." The Nixon visit to Peking was a tremendous blow to Taiwan. And if Tanaka cuts off Japanese trade Taiwan will plunge into an instant depression.

This threat and the world's new perspective on Peking is cutting down the rate of foreign investment in Taiwan. Nevertheless, Chiang Kai Shek refuses to seek practical relationship with the mainland.

When he dies, most of the world hopes that those in Taiwan will seek to establish their island as a separate country, and give up their contingency plans for reinvading the mainland. On Taiwan, this prospect is considered privately but never mentioned publicly. Instead, news articles prefer to stress the 10 per cent growth of the GNP on 1972.

SHIAO MEI is 19 years old, and one of 20 girls who sew light blue buttons to light blue-shirts in a factory in the Export Processing Zone at Kaohsiung. Thirteen out of every fourteen days, she rides her rusty bicycle from the dormitory, where she lives in a fourth floor room with seven other girls.

She wears what most of the other girls wear, a light blouse, a dark skirt in the knees, and the company-issue green rubber thougs. Some days she makes a meek gesture of individuality and wears her yellow T-shirt with a smile emblem across the chest, and the English words "Love and Peace" below it.

She walks up to the second floor, turns left, and passes 23 rows of machines to get to her JUKI sewing machine on the aisle. She sits down and picks up a light blue piece of polyester knit, that will eventually be part of a Van Heusen "Vanknit." With her right hand, she picks a button out of the box on a small side table, and lays it in a slot of her machine. With her left hand, she positions the cloth, using a mark on the machine. Her foot, and her green slipper, depress a pedal, and the machine places the button down and news eight quick stitches of light blue thread in half a second. As she slides the material into position for the next button, she picks another button out of the box.

She is very good at her job-in a typical eight hour day, she will handle 7500 buttons, more than 1500 shirts, barring machine failure. These skirts will be sold for more than $10-her wages for two weeks.

Shiao Mei is grateful for the job. While the demand for skilled workers still outstrips the supply in Taiwan, unskilled workers like herself must battle for a job in a factory.

At first she had to concentrate on every action, but soon the process was a series of reflexes. She could work and think, those days she just seems to work and wait for something happen as break the rhythm of button material, and short machine pulse. Maybe her machine will break today or she will run out of buttons quick.

Her manager comes down the aisle with two American. She looks up and then, quickly, back down at her work, unconsciously picking up her speed. One of the Americans stops and admires Shiao Mei's hands in action, but Shiao Mei does not look up. Soon the American moves on, pausing ten rows up in admire the hands of one of the girls that sew maroon buttons on maroon shirts.

Shiao Mei relaxes, and slips back to her old rhythm, a slips back to her old rhythm, a steady flow, waiting for something to happen.

THERE IS NO revolution brewing on this island they call the, Republic of China, Like every generation that calls itself Chinese, the generation coming of age in Taiwan that has hover known China has little time to look up from the struggle of day-to-day living. As a result, they talk more of percentages than politics.

There is concern for the uncertain period that will follow the death of Chiang Kai Shek, but this is an academic question to a non-academic people.

So the leaders continue to reduce businessmen, and the people as right on bargaining with the peddlers. Only the increment of prosperity is new the tradition of sacrifice for an envisioned better day and fear of a worse one is ancient. In the Republic of China, a generation grows old.