The Taipei 101 skyscraper commands the urban landscape in Taipei, Taiwan. [Photo/Xinhua]

　　As the Qingming Festival approaches, spring has fully claimed the streets of Shanghai. From my office at Sanda University, I watch the lotus pond ripple under a light breeze. My ginger cat, Mimi, makes her afternoon rounds for treats while a solitary black swan glides by with elegant loneliness.

　　This is my life: a Taiwan compatriot, a professor of English and a college dean. More importantly, I am a middle-aged wanderer who finally found a home here. My wife is a Shanghai local. Together, we are a living sample of a "cross-Strait marriage".

　　Over the past decade, trips back to Taiwan have become interrogations of curiosity and concern. "How is Shanghai developing?" "Does your wife like Taiwan food?" "Is mobile payment really that convenient?" Beneath these questions lies a cautious probing of a relationship that has grown heavy.

　　Since the Democratic Progressive Party took power, the atmosphere has chilled. Flights have dwindled, academic exchanges are stifled and family reunions are no longer a given. My friends in Taipei message me to "stay safe" as if Shanghai were a combat zone. They are not being dramatic; they are products of a local news cycle that feeds on the rhetoric of imminent war and economic decay.

　　The fallout is tangible. A friend who ran a Taipei travel agency specializing in mainland tourists saw his staff shrink from 30 to three before closing last year. "It is not that I did not work hard," he wrote. "The times simply did not give me a chance."