In 1976, Hsiang Yang (向陽) was still a relatively unknown poet from Nantou in central Taiwan. But that year, the twenty-one-year-old student at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei suddenly found himself in the limelight and at the center of controversy. He published a series of poems about his parents and grandparents, which later won the prestigious Wu Cho-liu award for poetry. The poems are lyrical memories of his childhood in the countryside and are steeped in a hsiang-tu or "native soil" ethos:
Every morning, Dad got up before the sun
He took his lunchbox and
Rode his old bike to the stream bed
To haul gravel
Every night I wondered
What was in Dad's lunchbox
Every morning my brother and I ate our fill
of stuffed buns and soy milk
Dad surely had an egg in his lunchbox
Otherwise, how could he haul gravel
One morning when it was still dark
I got up and tiptoed to the kitchen
There was no egg in Dad's lunchbox
Just sweet-potato rice, and pickled radish
Hsiang Yang's poem titled "Dad's Lunchbox" is told through the eyes of an adult recalling his childhood. In three stanzas, the author paints a vivid portrait of traditional family relationships and the hardships faced by rural laborers, which are among the central themes in native soil literature. Hardly controversial. But it was not the subject of the poems that made readers sit up and take notice; more important, the poems were written in Hsiang Yang's native southern Fukien dialect, sometimes referred to as Taiwanese.
Hsiang Yang was not alone in his efforts to write in his native dialect. At about the same time, in the southern city of Tainan, Lin Tsung-yuan (林宗源) was also attracting a great deal of attention with his poems in the local dialect. Their independent efforts at what was then disparagingly called "dialect poetry" were the first in nearly half a century. Both poets felt strongly that the time had come to write in the language they had learned as children. But they faced immense historical, political, and linguistic constraints.
Although the southern Fukien dialect is spoken by approximately 70 percent of the island's population, the written language has never been standardized. The absence of both a written tradition and formal education in Southern Fukienese have prevented the use of the dialect as a literary medium. Most attempts to write in the dialect also have been frustrated by political considerations. The Taiwanese dialect was banned in official circles, in schools, and on television and radio by the ROC government because it was felt that a single official dialect would streamline the administration of the island and provide greater social cohesion. As late as the mid-seventies, the use of Taiwanese was still considered a sensitive issue. In fact, both Hsiang Yang and Lin Tsung-yuan were criticized for advocating separatism because they chose to write in their native dialect. But they persisted in spite of the difficulties. Today, dialect poetry, once considered a marginal literary activity, has evolved into one of the significant literary trends of the eighties and nineties.
Dialect poetry is now part of a larger Taiwanese literature movement. Proponents of the movement initially advocated the use of the southern Fukien dialect as a literary medium instead of Mandarin, the official spoken and written language of the ROC. But in the last few years, the movement has grown to include literature written in Hakka and the many tribal languages, although Southern Fukienese has the strongest following. Because of its focus on Taiwan, Taiwanese literature is often compared to native-soil literature. The main difference between them, Lin Tsung-yuan points out, is that native-soil literature also includes works written in Mandarin.
The historical roots of the movement actually date back to the Japanese occupation (1895-1945). In 1919, the May Fourth Movement had profoundly altered the political and cultural foundations of China. Though ruled by Japan, Taiwan felt the shock waves. The most important cultural development was the replacement of classical Chinese with the modern vernacular as the official language and the language taught in schools. The Peking dialect, or Mandarin, was adopted as the standard for the modern vernacular. Since Mandarin was not widely spoken in Taiwan, many writers were averse to adopting it.
In the early 1930s, writers and critics such as Huang Shih-hui (黃石輝) and Kuo Chiu-sheng (郭秋生) proposed that Taiwanese be adopted as a literary medium. Other writers such as the poet Chang Wo-chun (張我軍) complained that the local dialect was too earthy and lacked the cultured elegance of the Peking dialect. The debate went on until 1937, the year the Japanese launched their military expansion in Asia. To shore up support in Taiwan, the colonial authorities initiated the "Japanese Language Movement" which prohibited printing and publishing in Chinese. The issue of which dialect to use was temporarily put on hold.
After the war, local writers were ready to take up the issue again, but it was short-lived. In 1945, the central government established the National Language Commission, under the Ministry of Education, for the nationwide promotion of Mandarin. The first Taiwan office was set up in 1946, and two years later there were branch offices in every county on the island. Bilingual Taiwanese-Mandarin educational materials were developed by the commission and used for a number of years to help the local population make the transition to Mandarin. Japanese was prohibited in 1946, and Taiwanese was also prohibited in official circles and in the schools. A whole generation of Japanese-educated writers was silenced, and a great deal of misunderstanding and rancor grew as a result of the government's language policy.
Lin Tsung-yuan, who was born in 1935, received three year, of Japanese education before having to make the transition to Mandarin. He has written a poem in Taiwanese titled "A Fine For Each Sentence" about his experiences during that time:
A fine for each sentence you speak
Taiwanese is cheap
Each day my folks give me some money
Wear a "dog tag" for each sentence
Taiwanese can't bite
My teacher orders me to bite, passing
the "dog tag " on to someone else
Stand in front of the blackboard
for each sentence
Taiwanese won't kill anyone
In front of the blackboard,
I don't know my crime
Slap a hand for each sentence
Taiwanese is poisonous
The poison comes from the heart of China
Teacher, he speaks Cantonese
why aren't his hands slapped?
Teacher, she speaks Shanghainese
why doesn't she have to stand
in front of the blackboard?
Teacher, he speaks the Szechwan dialect
why doesn't he have to wear
a "dog tag"?
Teacher, you speak English,
why aren't you fined ?
Teacher breaks my heart with a rod
One way to enforce the language policy in schools was to play "games." If a student were heard speaking Taiwanese, he would be given a "dog tag" or ribbon. It was then his duty to pass on the marker to someone else who spoke the dialect. Naturally such games created an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust among students, but the games were effective at getting children to speak Mandarin. Some people who played these games as children laugh about them today.
Lin Tsung-yuan actually began thinking about writing Taiwanese as early as 1953, but for political reasons he thought it best to wait. By the seventies, he began experimenting with written Taiwanese. Friends and other poets were supportive and enthusiastic. But it wasn't until after martial law was lifted in 1987, and political liberalization began, that people softened their views. Writing in Taiwanese is now politically acceptable.
Yet even without the historical and political constraints, there are a number of linguistic factors, which make writing Taiwanese difficult. Linguists estimate that approximately 10-15 percent of the dialect has no Chinese character equivalent. Unfortunately, this includes many of the most commonly used words. Writers have adopted a number of solutions. Some use Chinese characters they think seem appropriate, but their choices are often based on personal preference rather than on scientific linguistics. Others use a mixture of Chinese characters and Latin romanization. Lin Tsung-yuan claims another reason he waited until the seventies before he began writing Taiwanese poetry was simply that before then there was no widely available Taiwanese dictionary. Although such dictionaries are becoming more common, there is still no definitive one.
When Hsiang Yang first began writing poems in Taiwanese, he found it a slow, painful process. "I kept the rhythms from opera and the puppet theater in my head when I started writing—I grew up in the countryside—and I thought of words to fit the rhythms," he says. "Then I wrote what I had in my mind, character by character, line by line. It was very slow going at first," Hsiang Yang's earliest poems contain a number of "Mandarinisms," or choices of characters that are closer to standard Mandarin usage.
Taiwanese and Mandarin are mutually unintelligible dialects. Southern Fukienese has seven tones, and Mandarin four. In Taiwanese these tones assume a different tone contour when the word is not the final in a phrase or sentence. The tonal changes within a given sentence are often radical. Nasalized vowel endings are another notable feature of the language as are a number of other sounds not found in Mandarin. There are also significant differences in grammar and vocabulary. The native speaker of Southern Fukienese would have no trouble understanding a recited poem. But if the same poem were read aloud in Mandarin, the response from a native Mandarin speaker would likely be a great deal of confusion.
Though the dialect is spoken by a majority of the population, there is no formal education in its oral or written forms. By writing poetry in Taiwanese, a poet would therefore seem to be intentionally seeking to marginalize himself as a writer. Native Mandarin speakers would not be able to read the poems, and a good number of native Taiwanese speakers would be in no better shape. Since most people have little experience reading Taiwanese, it can be quite time-consuming at first, and most readers simply are not willing to make the extra effort. For this reason, most poets include a Taiwanese glossary at the end of their books. But the problem is also reflected in the publishing industry, where the average print-run for a book of Taiwanese poems is two thousand copies, as opposed to five thousand for a collection of Mandarin poems.
But are Taiwanese poets worried about reaching only a small audience? Hsiang Yang says, "Taiwanese poetry is still fairly new. Public readings of Taiwanese poetry are quite popular, and quite moving. I've actually seen people cry. The greatest hindrance to the appreciation of written Taiwanese poetry is the lack of education in written Taiwanese. Audiences are limited now, but this will change in the future. We are laying the groundwork now. Perhaps one day we will see bilingual education in our schools."
Lin Tsung-yuan, for his part, is also unconcerned. His first Taiwanese collection, which was published in 1988, has nearly sold out. He claims reader enthusiasm is high. He also says, "Since I began writing poetry in Taiwanese, I've been more concerned with writing good poems than with the number of readers I have. If I write good poems, then perhaps Taiwanese can share a place in world literature. I just want to prove that the language can be used for this purpose."
But given the historical, political, and linguistic problems as well as the potentially small audience, what prompted the two poets to begin writing poetry in Taiwanese? According to Lin Tsung-yuan, the only language capable of expressing the reality of Taiwan as it is experienced today is the southern Fukien dialect. "I believe that Taiwan literature can only be written in Taiwanese," he says. "A writer cannot fully express his innermost feelings unless he uses his mother tongue. If language lacks feeling, poetry will lack feeling. And poetry without feeling just isn't poetry."
Hsiang Yang believes that Taiwanese literature deserves a place among the literatures of China. "Taiwan is a multilingual society, which has a rich linguistic heritage from the Dutch, the Japanese, and even from America," Hsiang Yang says. As far as he is concerned, the more languages, the better it is for the local literary scene. Through his poems, he says he hopes to give the people of Taiwan a new sense of self-respect.
There are two overriding concerns in all Taiwanese poetry: rural life and politics. It has been suggested that the reason for the lack of variety is a result of many writers trying to establish a Taiwan identity and settle old political scores in their writing. Whatever the reasons, all readers will encounter a plethora of native-soil and political writing in any collection of Taiwanese poetry. Hsiang Yang's political satire, "His Honor, Mr. Assemblyman, Is Not at Home," is a witty example which combines both themes in a single poem:
His honor, Mr. Assemblyman, is not at home
He went to the county seat a month ago
On behalf of the people
After the road is widened, traffic will improve
Factories will spring up and everyone will get rich
His honor, Mr. Assemblyman, really knows a thing or two
It's said when he wielded power at the Assembly
First he called the county boss a useless piece of...
Then laughing, he swore at a government official
His honor, Mr. Assemblyman, is top dog in a dog-eat-dog world
He was the right choice
We got cigarettes, money, and good food
Nobody can take better care of us than
his honor, Mr. Assemblyman
Here a word, there a handshake with a pal
And everything is taken care of
Too bad his honor, Mr. Assemblyman is not at home
One of the new factories dumps waste water
Which kills the rice in the fields
Too bad his honor, Mr. Assemblyman left a month ago
To fight to have the road widened
After more factories are built
We'll all get rich
Another common theme of much native-soil and Taiwanese writing is work. Native-soil writers have always had a great deal of sympathy for laborers and rural workers. Their lives and sufferings are popular subjects and are depicted with great pathos. Scenes of rural life and work are often treated in Taiwanese poetry in spite of the fact that most of the island's population now lives and works in urban areas. Hsiang Yang employed a folk-song rhythm when he wrote his poem "Nine to Five" about a boring job:
This job has got me down
Up early to stand in the cold
Waiting for the bus, shake your head
Stamp your feet, look at your watch
Wait, wait, wait
The bus so crowded, nearly makes you faint
This job is a pain
Working hard every day
Gotta watch the boss's moods
Don't dare cross him
Just work, work, work
Killing yourself for
a few bucks each month
This job has got me down
Sometimes you've gotta work
till late at night
Listening to the clock, counting
the minutes
Time just drags on
When the sun comes up
you're ready for bed
Village character and life are standard themes in Taiwanese poetry. Although rural life and traditional rural values began disappearing with industrialization and migration to urban areas, they are still popular subjects. Many writers seem to feel a nostalgic attachment to the past and believe that the essence of the Taiwanese character is linked with agriculture society. Conflicts between tradition and the modern are common. For example, "Farm Woman," by Lin Tsung-yuan:
When the sun comes up, I can't stay in bed
Up early, I go to the kitchen
Cook breakfast, feed the chickens, ducks
pigs, and goats
In the sunlight, I set off for the fields
Pulling weeds and cutting grass
I wear a bamboo hat and long gloves
When the sun rises overhead
I have to go home and cook lunch
I understand why a young girl wants to marry
a man from the city
Since marrying in the village I understand
her feelings
Every day I look at the grassy spring ground
The love of my youth only exists in my dreams
One very significant event for Taiwanese poetry was the publication of Six Taiwanese Poets: An Anthology, by Chienwei Publishing Company in 1990. Two years later, the book has gone into a second printing. Hsiang Yang sees the collection as the culmination of the movement as it developed in the eighties. The collection, which includes works by Hsiang Yang and Lin Tsung-yuan, is the first real indication that the Taiwanese literature movement is growing and making progress.
In 1991, Lin Tsung-yuan founded the Potato Poetry Society, which also publishes a poetry journal in Taiwanese, the first of its kind in the history of the island. Two issues have already been published to wide acclaim. Support is strong. From the isolated efforts of two poets in the mid-seventies, the movement has grown to include around fifty poets. Among them are the famous novelist Sung Tse-lai (宋澤萊), poet and essayist Huang Chin-lien (黃勁連), and the largely political writer Lin Yang-min (林央敏).
Though the number of writers has increased, the thematic range of the poetry has not. Hsiang Yang points out that native-soil themes and politics still hold sway. "There are no poets writing about life in big cities such as Taipei. Nor, strangely, has any love poetry been written. I've been married many years now, otherwise I'd take a crack at it myself," jokes the poet. "One other problem is that Taiwanese poetry lacks a world view. Why can't we write poems in Taiwanese about life in a Peking hutung, or life in Paris? We are far too limited in our perspective on the world," he adds.
Writers such as Sung Tse-lai and Huang Chin-lien are quite adept at handling folk-song and ballad rhythms. In 1983, Sung Tse-lai, who was born in 1952, published his only collection of poetry to date, Ode to Formosa. The first section is a thin sheath of Taiwanese poems, many of which were written in 1981 when he was in the United States. Some are light pieces, written in a folk-song style. His poem "If You Go to Hengchun," is a good example:
If you go to Hengchun
Pick a time when it rains
The mist-shrouded mountains
Are like sweet girls
If you go to Hengchun
Pick a time around dusk
By the shore you'll see
Half the sky powdered red
By the evening clouds
If you go to Hengchun
Pick a time when the weather's fine
The boats set sail
Some near, some far
If you go to Hengchun
Any time will do
The songs sung there
Will lighten the heart
Huang Chin-lien, born in 1947, is another poet writing in Taiwanese. He is also considered a master of the ballad style. He is from the town of Chiali in Tainan county, which has produced a number of fine writers over the years including the important group of poets from the thirties known as the Salt Field Poets. Huang's poems often contrast the memories of childhood in the countryside with adulthood in the big city. Naturally, these sadly nostalgic poems bemoan the loss of childhood and the innocence of rural life. His poem "If the Pheasant Calls" is one of his best known pieces:
If the pheasant calls
It must be spring
It must be time to plow
It must be good weather
One egret, two egrets
Walked at the edge of the field
The sun shone on the water in the paddies
Where Dad and Uncle planted rice sprouts
They looked like they are playing chess there
Drops of sweat rolled down
Drops of sweat rolled down
Their foreheads to their mouths
In that kind of weather
Dad and Uncle had to rest
Occasionally Under the wax-apple tree
They lit "New Paradise" cigarettes
And puffed leisurely
In that kind of weather
At lunchtime
Me and my little brother felt good
We dived into the irrigation ditch
Swimming, we sang: "The egret
Carries a pannier along the stream"
If the pheasant calls
It must be spring
It must be good weather
The pheasant's call, so familiar to me
Told me to hurry and feed the buffalo
Beside the stream At that time
The breeze blew softly
and the swallows flit back and forth
I rode on the buffalo's back
Reciting the Tang poems Grandpa taught me
This happened twenty years ago
It lives in my heart
I cannot forget
Today I wander far from home
In a big city
When I hear a bird call in this
strange land
At sunset
I think of the pheasant
I think of twenty years ago
And my beautiful home
Twenty years have turned
My hair while
Time flows on without mercy
When it will stop...
O, my home
Where the pheasant no longer calls
Folk songs are popular models for poets because they are the one viable Taiwanese tradition they have to draw upon. With a lack of an extensive written literature, Taiwanese writers have been forced to look for models wherever they can find them. According to Lin Tsung-yuan, Taiwanese songs, movies, and karaoke clubs have a lot to do with the popularity of the folk-song style. These can help popularize Taiwanese poetry.
Politics also continues to be a popular theme with the new poets. Naturally, because politics was a theme long neglected in the past, the subject has received more attention recently, both in Mandarin and Taiwanese writing. Lin Tsung-yuan feels this is unavoidable and intimately linked with current problems on the island.
Lin Yang-min, who was born in 1955, is an award-winning songwriter known for his Taiwanese translations of Shakespeare and William Butler Yeats. But he is also famous for his controversial, sharp-edged political poems. His work displays a high level of social awareness and a strong sense of history. In his poems, Lin often tries to redress what he sees as past wrongs. However, some readers find the scathing, denunciatory tone of his writings strident, if not inflammatory.
His recent bilingual Taiwanese-Mandarin book of poems, Setting Sail for Taiwan, contains a large number of political poems, some of which are written in the folk-song style. "Song of Unending Struggle" is one of his more innocuous political poems:
Before the sun comes up
We are already in the fields
Gritting our teeth, we are
unafraid of the north wind
And though the sun may scorch
We must struggle on
Our sufferings unknown
When the sun sets behind the
mountains
We cannot find our way
We must struggle for a better future
Meeting violent storms
We must join hands
And like a wave rush to kiss the shore
A new age is dawning
We cannot slow our pace
Filled with hope, we must
create a happy tomorrow
Like planting flower seedlings
Then waiting for the spring day when
The mountains are red with blossoms
Some people believe that writing a good political poem that will also stand as a work of art is much more difficult than writing a good love poem. Though Lin has a good command of written Taiwanese, his art, like that of many other writers who focus on political topics, is often undercut by a didactic tone.
But what does the future of Taiwanese poetry look like? Hsiang Yang believes it will continue to grow. "I know the road ahead is long and will require unrelenting effort," he says. He feels that if bilingual education ever becomes a reality, poetry will grow even stronger. In his own writing, he has moved away from strictly monolingual Taiwanese or Mandarin poems. His most recent poems are often a mixture of Taiwanese and Mandarin. He claims this merely reflects the linguistic reality—and richness—of the island.
According to Lin Tsung-yuan, the future of Taiwanese literature is closely bound up with political democratization. "I believe that if we ever get bilingual education, Taiwanese will become mainstream. If you look at the number of people speaking the southern Fukien dialect in Taiwan, mainland China, and Southeast Asia, it's quite significant. I think the future looks quite good. But right now we are still establishing the written language."