Taiwan Today

The literary pages in Taiwan's mass circulation newspapers carry the latest and best in Chinese contemporary literature.

Chinese-language newspapers have a long tradition of adding a literary section to their daily coverage of local and interna­tional news, social and political analyses, editorials, and rich fare of advertising. Born in a time when only the intelligent­sia read newspapers, the tradition has survived and flourished in Taiwan.

Today's mass-circulation dailies remain in the mainstream of this tradi­tion, but the readership profile has ex­panded to include everyone from junior high school students to retirees. Each day, most papers have at least one full page of contemporary literary selections. The most common genres are essays, short stories, serialized novellas, and poetry. The literary page is no less essen­tial to a Chinese newspaper than the comics or sports page is to an American daily, and it is far more comprehensive than an Op-Ed page.

As in the past, readers of the literary page can indulge themselves in the beautiful, soaring intricacies of the Chinese language. Drama, poetry, enlightening thinking in the arts, literary criticism-all this and more is a common ingredient in the daily paper. The literary pages (often called supplementary pages) have much more in common with Op-Ed pages in the Asian Wall Street Journal or the New York Times than they do with any section of USA Today.

Nevertheless, changing times have had an impact on the content of today's literary pages. In the past decade, different reader expectations and shifting management concepts have recast the contents, sometimes drastically. Chang I-hsin (章毅新), in charge of the literary page at the Central Daily News (中央日報), laments the change: "The era of pure literature in a newspaper's supple­ mentary page is gone."

The history of the literary page in Chinese newspapers goes back to the beginning of the Republic, in 1910, when the concept of a daily newspaper was first introduced to China. "During that time, the people who ran newspapers were literati," says Wang Ching-lin (王慶麟), the supplementary page editor of the United Daily News (聯合報). "They had little training in journalism, but liked writing very much. They cov­ered current affairs, and at the same time found newspapers a place to put their sentiments and imagination into words. Thus, the literary supplementary page was born."

Later, the 1919 May 4th Movement gave further impetus to newspaper liter­ary pages. The intellectual movement had complex social, political, and cultural dimensions, but one of the most impor­tant lasting results was its promotion of writing in vernacular Chinese. Up to this time, the form and content of spoken Chinese was considerably different from written Chinese. The latter utilized a sophisticated vocabulary that drew heavily from traditional history and literature, and its grammar was substantially dif­ferent from the structure of everyday conversation. As a result, learning to read and write so-called literary Chinese took years of concentrated study.

Intellectuals in the May 4th Move­ment called for making Chinese writings more available to everyone by using the common vernacular vocabulary and grammar. The idea caught on and galva­nized the literary scene. The newspapers also changed their style, making them in­ formation centers of the new thinking in literature. The papers also took on con­ temporary political relevance, spurred by the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. "What means could be a more efficient way to encourage patriot­ ism?" Wang asks. "Literary writings praising the virtues of national solidarity against the Japanese invasion filled the newspapers. The supplementary pages in those days were filled with literary works like that."

The basic characteristics of the "lit­erati's supplementary page," as Wang describes it, remained unchanged after the central government moved to Taiwan in 1949. The readership profile continued to evolve, expanding to in­clude even more of the general public. "With the expansion of public educa­tion," Chang says, "newspapers became accessible to just about everyone, regardless of social status, sex, or occupation."

One especially encouraging sign of the times, according to Yang Tse (楊澤), editor of the literary page at the China Times (中國時報), is that high school and college students make up a large part of the page's readership. The habit is instilled early. The Mandarin Daily News (中國時報) is a popular daily news­ paper especially for children and youth. The sixteen-page paper has special sections for students from preschool to high school. The front page carries national and international news, while the inside news pages are matched with essays, sto­ries, poetry, and artwork by students. Besides encouraging the habit of newspa­per reading, the paper instills the urge to publish at an early age.

As in decades past, the edi­tors of literary supplementary pages are often creative writ­ers themselves. Chang I-hsin, Wang Ching-lin, and Yang Tse are all well-recognized poets in Taiwan. But the job of an editor has undergone change. There are no more self-employed "lit­erati editors" who run their own newspa­pers. Instead, the position has become a profession, with newspaper owners often drawing on people from other fields than literature, such as business, politics, or the military.

The bottom line has also become more important to the newspaper busi­ness, especially as Taiwan's economic wealth leaped dramatically in the past decade. Newspapers have moved away from earlier orientations toward edito­rials, features, and literary content to being a major source of mass informa­tion. They have also become commodi­ties, and this has put more pressure on literary page editors to appeal to a broad­er audience or look for a different job. As a result, in the minds of many educat­ed readers, the literary page is in continu­al danger of being watered down.

Nevertheless, poetry, essays, dra­ma, short stories, novellas, serialized novels, book reviews, literary columns and other traditional forms of literature still fill most supplementary pages. But space, content, and style vary from one newspaper to another. Take the supple­mentary page of the Independence Evening Post (自立晚報) for instance. Since an editorial shift seven years ago, the daily has been criticized for being too political and even biased against some political positions because of the writing it pub­lishes. Lin Wen-i (林文義), the paper's editor, explains the paper's criteria for selecting articles: "In the past, while our educational system taught us a lot about Mainland China, we actually learned very little about the place where we live ─ Taiwan. Now we are offering local writers a place to tell us about Taiwan from cultural and historical viewpoints. We are not 'against' anything."

Basically, the supplementary page in the Post is still literary. It just focuses on local literature, which is the reason Lin has named it the "Local Literature Supplementary Page." Lin says he empha­sizes the word "local" because "we use articles contributed by local writers and talk about local happenings, not about things taking place in Mainland China." Lin adds that essays on the origin of the Taiwanese dialects and traditional Tai­wanese customs are just two examples of the sort of stories the paper carries.

The Post has another untitled supple­mentary page dedicated to fine arts. "It is intensely cultural," Lin says. "The page is geared to cultivating our readers' knowledge of fine arts." The paper often invites artists to make contributions, including photos, paintings, and writings done by artists themselves concerning their own work. "It's all right with me if the artist can't do a piece of first-class writing," Lin says. "It's my job to edit it. After all, the person is an artist, not a professional writer."

The Central Daily News also has two supplementary pages. Besides the usual selections of poetry, short stories, serial­ized fiction, and the like, the pages often carry biographical or autobiographical se­ lections about historical and contemporary figures. Editor Chang I-hsin says, "Biographies are easier to read and morally inspiring. A story describing the success of President Lee Teng-hui has more commercial value than [contempo­rary novelist] Pai Hsien-yung's The Last Night of Taipan Chin, although the latter has higher literary value."

Knight errant serials - sort of a Have Sword, Will Travel form of literature­ used to be one of the key features of all supplementary pages in local Chinese­ language newspapers. But today, the Central Daily News is practically the only paper still carrying them. Some people even worry that knight errant stories might become extinct in the history of Chinese literature. "It's hard to say," Chang says. "They continue to be quite popular among certain groups of people. It's just that not many writers are inter­ested in writing them. It takes a lot of imagination and creativity. The stories are too challenging."

Despite contemporary readership trends, Chang has not given up hope on the survival of a genuine literary page. "We are simply trying to find a middle ground between high literature and pop­ular literature," he says, "because we also have to think about the market." This middle ground is best exemplified by the second supplementary page of his newspaper, which features commentary on social changes, humorous stories, and easy reading about all kinds of social phenomenon.

In fact, the daily newspapers offer readers a wide variety of topics and lit­erary genre. Some papers emphasize phi­losophical reflections on reality, such as the supplementary page of the China Times. Editor Yang Tse considers the page a "farsighted endeavor." "Our commentaries are not just on literature," he says. "We believe we have the re­sponsibility to analyze current affairs from both literary and cultural view­ points for our readers. But it is not a news page. We don't want news to lead us by the nose."

While most newspaper owners and editors are anxious to keep up with cur­rent trends, the editors of the supple­mentary page at the United Daily News remain unperturbed. The huge daily, with a circulation approaching 1.5 mil­lion, has for four decades built a reputa­tion for publishing pure literature. Says Wang Ching-lin: "We wish to carryon the tradition of having a place where people can read beautiful written expres­sions of deep human sentiments."

Wang points out that they may pub­lish a broad range of subjects, but they all are presented in pure literary styles. As he explains, "Literary Chinese is a traditional style of expressing one's sentiments; it is a sophisticated style of narrative, and one that I believe readers want to see in our page." He adds that any article that has too radical a style or is targeted to sensual satisfaction is "ab­solutely against our principle." Novels and other forms of fiction have long been at the heart of the United Daily News supplementary page. "We think fic­tion stories attract more readers. Our ex­perience tells us that fiction is a decisive factor in guaranteeing the success of a supplementary page. "

But even the United Daily has made some adjustments to the times. The long serialized novels that used to last for months or even years in newspaper lit­erary pages have all but disappeared. In­stead, serialized short novels and novella are more common. Chang I-hsin of the Central Daily explains the change: "To­day, newspaper readers tend to have a very short attention span. In order to keep their interest, you must give them something that they are able to handle before their attention slips."

The major dailies also have different approaches to editing literary manu­scripts submitted for publication. At the Independence Evening Post, Lin Wen-i says that he rarely, if ever, makes any changes to writers' works. "I like to keep the original flavor of an author's writing," he says. "What is important to me is if the article is true to reality, since our supplementary page deals with a lot of historical incidents in Taiwan."

At the United Daily News, Wang Ching-lin thinks it is the editor's mission to ensure the linguistic beauty of an arti­cle before it is published. "Yes, we do edit a writer's work if it is necessary," he says. "It doesn't matter if the person is a famous writer or a nobody. We do reject manuscripts, and some of them are even by noted writers."

There is no shortage of manuscripts to review. Approximately fifty manu­scripts are sent to each editor by writers every day. Surprisingly, poetry submis­sions account for the largest percentage. "It is a shorter form, but it's certainly not necessarily easier to write," says Chang I-hsin, a well-known poet himself.

Submissions come from two major sources: writers in Taiwan, and overseas Chinese. "Works by writers from main­ land China are now being seen more and more in Taiwan's supplementary pages," Chang says. "They come from as far away as Mongolia." He adds the lucrative payment for articles makes Mainland writers enthusiastic about sub­mitting their work to Taiwan newspa­pers. "Local writers may not consider it a lot (Jess than US$0.05 per Chinese character), but to Mainland writers, the payment for a serialized short novel might equal a year's salary."

Most editors also solicit manuscripts by asking for contributions from recog­nized writers. Yang Tsa of the China Times says: "Usually, we plan the page three or four weeks in advance, but plans can change a few days before a series of articles on the same subject are published because of a sudden, major change in social or world affairs."

The Gulf War provides a good exam­ple. Right after U.S. President George Bush announced the buildup for war, commentaries and reviews on the event and related issues suddenly became the hottest selections in almost all of the supplementary pages. The majority of these were produced by professional writers or public figures, including the anchorwom­an of a local television station.

Of all the contributions made by literary pages in Chinese news­ papers, one of the most impor­tant is that they facilitate the discovery and cultivation of talented writers. Almost all the recognized writers in Taiwan at one time went through the stage of waiting anxiously for their work to be accepted by a newspaper editor. For many writers, appearance in a sup­plementary page has been but a short step to a first book. In many ways, the lit­erary page is to Chinese writers what the New Yorker is to American writers.

Chang I-hsin of the Central Daily News is himself an excellent example of the process. He began to send his poetry to newspapers during his adolescent years. And Lin was first published in the United Daily News at age nineteen. When he turned twenty-one, two of his essay collections had already been published. "I was very lucky," he says. "My works were rarely rejected."

Editors usually give new writers es­pecially close attention. Wang, a poet with the pen name of Ya Hsuan, says: "As an editor, you have to be very care­ful in dealing with a writer's manuscript. You don't want to miss a talent. Who knows? One day you might find a work you have turned down appear in an­other paper, and then see it receive rave reviews. That would be very embarrassing. "

Like seeds which take time to grow into plants, gifted writers need more than just a keen literary mind to discover them. They also need time and space for their talent to mature. In this case, Chang says he tries to be as supportive as possible in selecting and returning manuscripts. "There are times you come across work which may be immature but full of potential," he says. "Take poetry for instance. A seemingly immature poem at first reading could in fact become a decent one with some minor editing. In this way, you not only help a new poet, but even save his creative life." Chang adds that there is a danger in supplementary page editing as well: "You can discover writers, but you can also destroy them. "

The literary awards frequently pre­sented by Taiwan's major newspapers have provided another way for potential writers to be recognized. The annual Novel Award, given by the United Daily News since 1976, is probably the best­ known. "Most of the highly respected writers in Taiwan today established their reputation after winning the award," Wang says. "Some people even say that if it were not for the award, our contemporary literature would not have existed."

Novelist Ping Lu (平路) is an example. Before 1983, she was still an un­known writer living in New York. Then she became famous almost overnight after winning the first prize in the 1983 Novel Award with her work, The Death of a Corn Field. It was the first time she had taken part in the competition. Since then she has entered many similar competitions, and she is still taking away big prizes. She is now a frequent con­tributor to major publications, including literary pages.

The China Times has been hosting creative writing competitions for a dozen years. Unlike the United Daily News contest, which focuses on various forms of fiction, the Times competition also welcomes contributions from poets, essayists, and non-fiction writers. The In­dependence Evening Post started its own writing award program four years ago. Until recently, no work was chosen to re­ceive its top annual award, worth NT$1 million (approximately US$37 ,000). "The goal of our One Million Dollar Novel Award is to find just one piece of work that our judges think truly deserves to be called a masterpiece," Lin says. "If we hadn't found one this year, we would have waited until next year, and even longer. There was no hurry."

But this year, the award was finally presented to Lin Yen (凌煙), a newcom­er to literary circles, for her book entitled The Muted Thrush. Her story tells about the life of Taiwanese opera singers dur­ing the 1960s. Lin Wen-i says, "The five judges agreed unanimously that Lin Yen should be awarded the prize not only be­cause of her beautiful language, fluent writing technique, and vivid description of the lives of those singers, but also be­ cause of all the work she put in on her novel." Lin Yen joined a local Taiwanese opera troupe in order to get a first-hand picture of the performers' lives. "She lived with them, and even learned the singing," Lin says.

Newspaper supplementary page edi­tors are in the process of setting up additional writing competitions, but only a few are dedicated to benefiting the growth of Taiwan's contemporary litera­ture. Chang I-hsin of the Central Daily News says one reason for this is commer­cialization. "But writers are also becoming commercially oriented," he adds. "A lot of them take shortcuts to win prizes. Instead of writing for the sake of art, too many of them write with the taste of editors or judges in mind. Some of them might even come up with a very good piece of work and win a prize. But, sadly, many stop right there. Fame is what counts, because then it's easier to sell their works."

Despite shifting expectations for supplementary pages among readers, writers, and editors, the volume of con­ temporary literature available each day to newspaper readers has not diminished significantly. No matter which direction the content of the supplementary pages takes, one thing can be expected to remain unchanged: The newspaper sup­plementary pages will always be, in the words of Wang Ching-lin, "a mental stopover" and "an intellectual oasis" for readers in search of a break from life on the fast track in hectic Taiwan.