Taiwan Today

Taiwan's writers give compelling literary form and texture to the island's history, culture, and society.

If literature indeed mirrors the soul of a people, then the many faces of contemporary Taiwan fiction must reflect the spirit of modern Taiwan society. It is a diversified spirit, at times experimental, nativistic, contemplative, faddish, and flagrantly commercial. But the variety in character and quality became evident only in the last three decades, as writers began to communi­cate their reactions to rapid transforma­tions in politics, the economy, and society.

Like it or not, writers are captive to the circumstances of history, culture, and society, and to their own experi­ences. This is especially true in Taiwan. The last three decades have wrought a drastic overhauling of systems, institu­tions, values, and sense of affiliation. The effects on society are therefore diffi­cult to ignore. Even the most introverted of Taiwan's writers would have to agree that literary writing is a social act. As short story writer and novelist Wang Chen-ho (王禎和) once said: "What at­tracts me to write is persons themselves; persons I have heard, persons I have seen. Their struggles, their sufferings, their words and actions, their grotesque manners, all leave a deep and unforgetta­ble impression. Even after ten, twenty, thirty years, I can't forget them. They have become a part of my life."

Wang Chen-ho lost his life to cancer at the age of fifty in late 1990. He left behind more than twenty volumes of short stories and novels, and an indelible mark on Taiwan literature. Wang's life continues to typify the new Taiwan writ­er. He was born in 1940 in a small town in Hualien county on the eastern coast of Taiwan. After graduating from high school, he moved to Taipei to enter the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan Universi­ty. Later, in the early 1970s, Wang Chen­ ho was a visiting artist at the Internation­al Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Wang began writing while still in col­lege. He wrote the acclaimed short sto­ry, his first, "Ghost, North Wind, and Man," during his freshman year. Wang was known for having a remarkable memory. He was well-versed in classical Chinese literature, but was very strongly influenced by Western literature. In in­terviews, he would often cite Western literary figures such as William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Katherine Ann Porter. He often began his stories with quotes from works of Western literary greats. For example, "Ghost, North Wind, Man," begins with a quote from Henrik Ibsen: "One must go on living, and it makes one selfish."

Wang's stories were filled with vivid portrayals of the hardships of village people in his hometown. His skillful and effortless use of Western literary tech­niques added a forcefulness and vitality to his stories. So did his comfortable use of Taiwanese colloquialisms and pro­fanities. These elements interplay in "Oxcart for Dowry," an ironic and humorous story about a love triangle. Duncelike Wan-fa (Prosperity), who is 85-percent deaf and can barely support his family, is forced to share his sons and then his hag of a wife, Ah-hao (Nice), with his clothes peddler neighbor, Chien (Screw), in exchange for an oxcart and a better livelihood.

"An Oxcart for Dowry" was written in 1967, and exemplifies the regional lit­erature that emerged in the late 1960s. It was a literature that was directed toward Taiwan rather than the Mainland, and therefore heightened local color and hinted at a distinct identity. It was defi­nitely a clear departure from the litera­ture of the 1950s, which was stridently anti-Communist and, in its most degen­erate form, propaganda. It was also branching off from the more experimen­tal and inward-looking literature of the early to mid-1960s.

The 1950s was an era of nostalgia, homesickness, and gloom dominated by the works of Mainland exiles. Outstand­ing among them were Hsieh Ping-ying (謝冰瑩) and Peng Ko (彭歌). The set­tings and characters in their stories were often drawn from the writers' experi­ences in the Mainland. In the meantime, native Taiwanese writers such as Yeh Shih-tao (葉石濤) and Chung Chao­ cheng (鍾肇政) were now writing in Mandarin, the language of instruction after the end of Japanese colonial rule and Taiwan's return to China in 1945. Under Japanese rule, native Taiwan writ­ers wrote in Japanese and in Taiwanese slang. Their works generally expressed a belligerence against imperialism and bureaucracy.

The 1960s, however, featured an energetic burst of literary activi­ty. For many new writers, the 1960s was an era of experimen­tation and growth. Young writers such as Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇), Ouyang Tzu (歐陽子), Wang Wen-hsing (王文興), and Chen Jo-hsi (陳若曦) had grown impatient with the literature of the 1950s. Most of them were English majors, and they were well acquainted with Western techniques. Having arrived in Taiwan as children, they had little personal familiarity or affinity with the literary movements in China, and so turned to the Western authors they were studying in class. Their styles and themes show the influence of Heming­ way, Faulkner, Camus, Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, and Joyce, among others. These were serious young men and women, and their works were philo­sophical and introspective in nature. Al­though most of the stories take place in Taiwan, it was not so much the setting but the attitudes and the skillfulness of the writers that defined their works.

Pai Hsien-yung was born in Kwangsi province in 1937. Recognized as one of the most outstanding writers in con­ temporary Taiwan literature, he also is an alumnus of the International Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. Pai began writing while he was still an under­ graduate in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University. In 1960, he and other young writers founded the still­ existing magazine, Modern Literature (Hsien-tai Wen-hsueh, 現代文學), which helped cultivate yet another generation of writers. Pai has written many stories about the Chinese aristocracy based on his own family background. His descrip­tions are powerfully evocative, and his poignant portrayal of characters contain both irony and sympathy. Pai now teaches Chinese literature at the Uni­versity of California at Santa Barbara.

Pai wrote "Jade Love" (1969) while he was still a student. The story is told from a child's point of view, and de­scribes the life of an aristocratic family in Kweilin before the Sino-Japanese War. The child, Yung-yung, is infatuated with his new wet nurse, Jade Love, once the daughter-in-law of a wealthy family. Her husband had died and since the family fortune had declined, her mother-in­ law could no longer keep her. Through Yung-yung's innocent eyes, the story unfolds from the story of a beautiful woman who comes to work in a bustling aristocratic household, into a gripping tale of obsessive, violent, and destruc­tive love.

Pai's collection of short stories pub­lished in 1969, Wandering in a Garden, Waking from a Dream, also known as Tales of Taipei Characters, is praised for its honest rendering of the lives of main­ land exiles in Taipei. The stories revolve around Mainland exiles struggling to adjust to their new home and changed status. The book has been likened to James Joyce's Dubliners, a collection of short stories set in Joyce's hometown.

Wang Wen-hsing was born in Fu­-kien in 1939. Like his classmates at Na­tional Taiwan University, he also be­ longed to the Modern Literature group. Wang now teaches a course on English novels at National Taiwan University. He joined the International Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, and also earned a master's degree in Fine Arts there. He is known as a major proponent of the Westernization of Chi­nese literature.

Wang is highly innovative in his ap­proach to storytelling, and his stories often elicit as much admiration as disgust from readers. Although his works were already being published in the 1960s, he did not receive much attention until his novel, Family Revolution, was serialized in 1972. The story is about a son's search for his missing father who has run away from home. He looks for his father at his mother's request, but in his heart he does not want his father back. The story focuses on the destruction of the tradi­tional father-son relationship, and caused a great deal of controversy not only for its subject matter but also for its fragmented style, the flow interrupted by flashbacks to the son's childhood.

In his second novel, The Man in Back of the Sea, Wang dwells on the generation gap and the loss of communica­tion between the younger and older gen­erations through the protagonist's interi­or monologue. The protagonist is a man who is in heavy debt and goes to hide out in a small port town in northeastern Taiwan. The story is highly symbolic and disjointed, with no sense of time or order.

Perhaps one of the more remarkable literary developments of this decade was the rise of Mainland-born soldier writers like Ssu-ma Chung-yuan (司馬中原) and Chu Hsi-ning (朱西甯), who began writ­ing while they were serving in the military. Most of them enlisted while they were still in senior high school or college during or after the Sino-Japanese War. This was the first time in the history of Chinese literature that soldiers became part of the literati, and they wrote with a fierce dedication to the traditional values of China. Their retelling or their con­struction from imagination of adventures and legends set in old China captivated a large audience. And their stories about the resilient people of rural China breathed color, vibrant energy, and an admiration for the earthiness, honesty, and strength of country folk.

This affinity with the grass roots, not seen before in Chinese literature, in some way inspired what was later to be identified as hsiang-tu wen-hsueh (鄉土文學) or native soil literature. But the hsiang-tu literature of the 1970s was to spring not from the writer's empathy with the country folk of the Mainland, but from the native-born Taiwanese writer's affinity with the country folk of Taiwan. Out of this trend would later emerge a more radical movement that stressed Taiwanese writers' oneness with the farmer and the laborer, and a separate and distinct identity for Taiwan.

Wang Chen-ho, author of An Oxcart for Dowry, and Huang Chun-ming (黃春明) are recognized as the forerunners of hsiang tu literature. Huang was born in 1939 in Han, on the northeastern coast of Taiwan. He is very much an adventurer and restless spirit, having taken jobs that range from lowly laborer to well­ paid professional. Huang's hometown and his childhood are the sources of his colorful, witty, and articulate stories about village people. His portrayals of village life and folk are at once satirical and compassionate as he dwells on the resistance or the awkwardness with which simple country folk meet modern civilization.

"Drowning an Old Cat" is consid­ered one of Huang's finest stories. It is about an old farmer, Uncle Ah-Sheng, who stubbornly opposes the construction of a public swimming pool because he believes that it will bring bad luck to the village. The people do not support him, and in a final act of defiance, he jumps into the pool. (Huang leaves it to the reader to conclude Uncle Ah-Sheng's fate.) The swimming pool brings delight and joy to the children of the village, and amid the celebration Uncle Ah-Sheng's sacrifice has no meaning.

The 1970s was a period of busy lit­erary activity. Poems, essays, short sto­ries, and novels were being produced in abundance. The creative prolificness was perhaps a reflection of the many transfor­mations that vigorous social and economic development brought to Taiwan, as well as the effects of di­plomatic setbacks resulting from the Mainland's growing international promi­nence. Politics and the writer's mission were the issues that dominated the litera­ture of this decade.

Intellectuals were clamoring for re­ form in all sectors of society. And the writers of the 1970s, whatever their ideology, were not as much drawn to the development of their craft in style and technique as they were to portraying in a vividly realistic and unsentimental fash­ion the day-to-day lives of people. They accused the writers of the previous decade of having overemphasized per­sonal vision at the expense of truth. As such, the writers who were to dominate the 1970s championed the poor and the oppressed, and their heroes and heroines included farmers, fishermen, students, aborigines, refugees, and workers.

Many writers began to see literature as witness to history, and they began to turn from inward journeys to social con­cern, exposing society's troubles and contradictions. Hsiang-tu literature pros­pered and became mainstream. It was against this background that other hsang-tu writers took a more radical and political stance toward writing about the people of Taiwan. Theirs was a literature that propagated a separate identity for Taiwan and those who were born in Taiwan. Thus, hsiang-tu evolved into a controversial term that divided the ranks of literary writers, separating the Mainlanders from the native-born Taiwanese.

The decade was to close fittingly with a trilogy by Li Chiao (李喬). The three novels, Cold Night, The Deserted Village, and Lone Light 0979-1980), trace the three-hundred-year history of the Taiwanese pioneer immigrants up to World War II. Li's eloquent retelling of the struggles of the early Taiwanese and his tender descriptions of the island's beauty reveal a deep love of life, nation, and people that the writers of the time shared despite their political differences. Unfortunately, the trilogy has only become well-known in recent years, and is now recognized as a powerful and mag­nificent example of true hsiang-tu literature.

Perhaps it was in disdain of the rift that politics caused among writers in the 1970s, or perhaps it was the advent of greater crea­tive freedom that caused the writers of the 1980s to change their views on litera­ture and their mission as writers. By the mid-1980s, many social and political reforms were already under way, and the confidence that grew out of economic af­fluence helped lead the way to a more open artistic environment. Writer and critic Chang Ta-chun (張大春), in a recent review explaining the distancing of writers from the battle in the 1970s be­tween literature as art and literature as ideology, says that "literature became the victim."

Transcending politics and propagan­da became a serious concern for the writers of the 1970s. Greater creative leeway, a new openness in society, and increased exposure to international trends allowed writers to pursue their own paths. Hsiang-tu writer and critic Yeh Shih-tao describes the new writers: "They are sneering at the sense of mis­sion of their predecessors who often claim that they are writing for the coun­try, society, and people."

Huang Fan (黃凡) is one writer who has explored different directions. Born in Taipei in 1950, he writes novels and short stories that are generally about Taipei city life. In "The Oppositionist," he describes the plight of a teacher wrongfully accused by his department chairman of sexually harassing a female student. The teacher is fired with the approval of the college dean and university president, despite protests from the teacher and the press.

Huang Fan is also the author of "How to Measure the Length of a Ditch," which aroused considerable criti­cal attention. The story begins with a series of word plays, and revolves around testing the reader's patience as it delays giving the answer to the story's title. In the end, how a ditch is measured is less important than the process of find­ing out.

Just as confusing to readers was Chi Teng-sheng's (七等生) "I Love Black Eyes," a story about a man caught in a flood, who chooses to save a prostitute he does not even know rather than his wife. The author makes no explanations, offers no analysis of the man's moral standards, and therefore leaves the reader balled.

Indeed, even into the 1990s, the mission to write for social change is no longer as overwhelming for the writers as before, and they no longer expect the readers to accept their works uncritically. They seek a diversity of truth, and draw their stories from the experience of life in the big cities of Taiwan. They have abandoned traditional structures of grammar and language, and pepper their works with colloquialisms, slang, and verbal expressions unique to urban dwellers. Their writing is the literature of an urbanized, industrialized culture.

Thirty-four-year-old Chang Ta­ chun's works are representative of this literature. Born in Taipei in 1957, Chang began writing while a student of Chinese Literature at Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taipei. Since the publication of his first book, Raising Chickens, in 1977, Chang has won many awards for his novels, short stories, and science fiction. He is also a critic and literary page editor of the China Times Express. An innova­tive writer, Chang draws his inspiration as well from Chinese historical stories, legends, and Taiwanese opera. "I am looking for a new language that will ex­press a new world view," he says.

Looking at the literature of the 1980s and the 1990s, Chang says that the line between popular and serious litera­ture has become blurred. He says: "The writer in our time stresses that he writes for pleasure. He writes not only to please himself but more important, to please his readers." Thus, it is with spirited freedom in the choice of subject matter, theme, language, and style that the writer of the 1990s writes.

Chang's "A Guided Tour of an Apartment Complex" is a humorous and uniquely structured story about urban living. A guide leads the tour of a twelve-story building, and reveals the secret thoughts and idiosyncratic actions of the people who live in the building. In the story, the elevator is the thread that connects the lives of the residents.

When Ouyang Tzu and Chen Jo-hsi began writing in the 1960s, and Yuan Chiung­ chiung (袁瓊瓊) in the 1970s, there was yet to evolve a sense of women writing as women. Both Ouyang Tzu and Chen wrote on human nature and the living condition. Chen, who was born in Taipei in 1938 and now lives in California, is best known for her collec­tion of short stories, The Execution of Mayor Yin, set during the Cultural Revo­lution. She now writes about the lives of overseas Chinese students in the United States.

Ouyang Tzu was born in 1939 in Japan. Her parents were from Taiwan. She majored in English literature at Na­tional Taiwan University and was a class­mate of Pai Hsien-yung. Ouyang Tzu wrote short stories that explored mother­ son relationships, and her Freudian explorations into the abnormal nature of these relationships received both praise and condemnation. Greatly influenced by Western literature, she demonstrated in her stories a remarkable ability to abide by the tenets of classical Western literary forms and a clever use of lan­guage. Her sources of influence range from Greek tragedy to D.H. Lawrence.

In the 1980s, women writers rose to extraordinary prominence. In fact, most of the best sellers of that decade were written by women. According to Chi Pang-yuan (齊邦媛), a retired professor of English literature from National Taiwan University, this was largely due to the changing nature of the readership and the emergence of the women's movement in Taiwan. As she explains it, fewer men find the time to read. And women, aware that their lives and roles are being transformed, read about women like themselves and how they are contending with the tensions of change.

In truth, a great number of the works by women writers are potboilers and pandering romances. But there are many novels and short stories written by women writers that will remain valuable to many generations of women and men because their works deal with the turmoil that the breakdown of traditions and mores bring. Among these writers are Yuan Chiung-chiung, Li Ang (李昂), and Su Wei-chen (蘇偉貞). As Li Ang wrote in the preface to her collection of short stories, their Tears: "'The Mun­dane World' should be the general title of these stories. They all focus on women characters, but it is only through them that I attempt to explore growth, love, sex, society, and responsibility. They are stories of despair, chaos, and struggle, and for women they are the starting point from which they can dis­card entanglements and show concern for society and mankind's problems."

The stirring portraits of women created by Taiwan's contemporary wom­en writers have drawn a large readership and have elicited strong reactions. At their finest and most eloquent, these short stories and novels communicate earnestly and in all honesty the wrench­ing spirit of an emerging and tentatively optimistic Taiwan.

Index Of Selected Writers And Works

Chang Hsi-kuo (張系國) "Flute" (笛)
Chang Man-chuan (張曼娟)
     Azure Waters of the Sea (海水正藍)
Chang Ta-chun (張大千)
    "Birds of a Feather" (雞翎圖)
    "A Guided Tour of an Apartment Complex" (公寓導遊)
     Memorial to the General (將軍碑)
     Raising Chickens (雞翎圖)
     The Big Liar (大說謊家)
Chen Jo-hsi (陳若曦)
     Execution 0/ Mayor Yin ( 尹縣長)
Chen Ying-chen (陳映真)
    "My First Case" (第一件差事)
Cheng Ching-wen (鄭清文)
     "Betel Palm Village" (檳榔城)
Chi Teng Sheng (七等生)
     "I Love Black Eyes" (我愛黑眼珠)
      Psychopath (精神病患)
Chiang Hsiao-yun (蔣曉雲)
      Road to Marriage (姻緣路)
Chiung Yao (瓊瑤)
      Outside the Window (窗外)
Chu Hsiu-chuan (朱秀娟)
      Strong Woman (女強人)
Chu Hsi-ning (朱西甯)
      "The General" (將軍與我)
Hsiao Li-hung (蕭麗紅)
      Osmanthus Alley (桂花巷) 
      The Moon and Water in a Thousand Rivers (千江有水千江月)
Hsiao Sa (蕭颯)
      "Engaged to be Married" (婚約)
      "Leaves Falling" (葉落)
      "My Son, Han-sheng" (我兒漢生)  
      "Teacher, Have Some Cake" (老師！吃餅) 
       Day for Night (日光夜景)
       Hsiafei House (霞飛之家)
       Young Man Ah Hsin (少年阿辛)
Huang Chun-ming (黃春明)
       "Drowning an Old Cat" (溺死一隻貓)
       "The Fish" (魚)
       "His Son's Big Doll" (兒子的大玩偶)
Huang (Hwang) Fan (黃凡)
       "How to Measure the Length of a Ditch" (如何測量水溝的長度)
       The Oppositionist (反對者)
Li Ang (李昂)
      "Mo Chun" (莫春)
      Dark Night (暗夜)
      Flower Season (花季)
      Mixed Chorus (混聲合唱)
      The Butcher's Wife (殺夫)
      The Mundane World (人間世) 
      Their Tears (他們的眼淚)
Li Chiao (李喬)
      "The Spheric Man" (人球) 
       Cold Nights (寒夜) 
       Lone Light (孤燈)
       The Deserted Village (荒村)
Li Yung-ping (李永平)
      "A La-tzu Woman" (拉子婦)
Liao Hui-ying (廖輝英)
       It Drizzles Tonight (今夜微雨)
       Path 0f No Return (Road 0f No Return) (不歸路)
       Rapeseed (油蔴菜籽)
       Urban Migratory Birds (都市候鳥) 
Lin Hai-yin (林海音)
      "Gold Carp's Pleated Skirt" (金鯉魚的百襉裙)
Lin Huai-min (林懷民)
      "Homecoming" (辭鄉)
Lu Hsiu-lian (呂秀蓮)
     These Three Women (這三個女人)
Ou-yang Tzu (歐陽子)
     "Perfect Mother" (魔女)
Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇)
      "Jade Love"(玉卿嫂)
      "Winter Nights" (冬夜)
        Tales of Taipei Characters (台北人) 
        The Last Night 0f Taipan Chin (金大班的最後一夜)
        Wandering in the Garden, Walking from a Dream (遊園驚夢)
Pan Lei (潘壘)
       "Old Ginger" (老薑)
San Mao (三毛)
       The Story of Sahara (撒哈拉的故事)
Shi Song (奚淞)
       "No Cha in the Investiture of the Gods" (封神榜裡的哪吒)
Shih Shu-ching (施寄青)
      "The Upside-down Ladder to Heaven" (倒放的天梯)
Su Wei-chen (蘇偉真)
     "The Faded Beauty" (紅顏已老)
       Dream in Life (人間有夢)
       Echoes 0f Time (歲月的聲音)
       Ephemeral Beauty (紅顏已老)
       Stay with Him A while (陪她一段)
       Women of the World (世間女子)
Tsai Hsiu-nu (蔡秀女)
       The Sound 0f the Flute in the Dark Night (暗夜笛聲)
Tseng Hsin-i (曾心儀)
       I Love a Ph.D. (我愛博士) Tzu Yu (子于)
      "Bewildered" (迷惑)
Wang Chen (Tsen)-ho (王禎和)
      "An Oxcart for Dowry" (嫁妝一牛車)
      "Ghost, North Wind, Man" (鬼、北風、人)
Wang Wen-hsing (王文興)
      "Flaw" (欠缺)
       Family Revolution (家變)
       The Man in Back of the Sea (背海的人)
Wu Cho-liu (吳濁流)
       "The Doctor's Mother" (先生媽)
Yuan Chiung-chiung (袁瓊瓊)
      "At Ease" (隨意)
      "My Own Horizon" (自己的天空)
      "The Present Me" (現在的我)
      "The Sky's Escape" (逃亡的天空)
      "Worries in the Mundane World"(紅塵心事)
        Things Between Two Persons (兩個人的事)