Negotiating Colonialism: Taiwanese Literature During the Japanese

> The Asia-Pacific War 60 Years On: history & memory Negotiating colonialism: Taiwanese literature during the Japanese occupation Research on the Japanese colonial period in Taiwan (1895-1945) has been booming in recent years, especially since the lifting of martial law in 1987. Scholarship on the period’s literary production, however, focuses on works containing explicit anti-colonial stances to such an extent that writings in other styles and those less critical of colonial rule have been disregarded. Lin Pei-Yin suicide, highlighting the predicament of ionable student life in 1930s Tokyo. effort, leading to the so-called imperial- new literature. Although these works are the proletariat in colonial Taiwan. Caught between his Japanese lover subject literature addressing Taiwanese mainly love stories, the themes encour- he first two decades of Taiwan’s Kimiko and his old Taiwanese love people’s spiritual distress throughout the aging freedom of love reflect the think- TJapanese period were marked by In 1931, the left-leaning Taiwan People’s Yuzhi, Lin ultimately realises that he is process of imperialisation and the pro- ing on male/female relationship of armed anti-colonial movements that Party was dismissed and its leader Jiang not in love with either and decides to motion of Japan-Taiwan amity. In the urbanites in the 1930s and 1940s. The ultimately failed. The Japanese colonis- Weishui passed away; many leftwing stay in Tokyo to pursue his dream of works of Chen Huoquan and Zhou quasi pro-Japan messages in some of ers’ brutal suppression made the Tai- Taiwanese intellectuals were appre- becoming an actor. Lin’s idle strolling Jinbo, prominent themes were the yearn- these works expanded the horizons of wanese intelligentsia turn to cultural hended. These factors led to the decline into Shinjuku coffee shops, and his ing for the modern, urban, progressive imperial-subject literature which was no movements to remodel the nation’s of socio-political movements in Taiwan; taste for western classical music and Japanese civilisation and the urgency to longer necessarily written in the colonis- thinking as an alternative way to flight writers turned to literary movements foreign plays conveys the modernist reform the vulgar Taiwanese culture er’s tongue. against colonialism. In 1921, the Taiwan and devoted themselves to writing. This temperament of the work. Lin’s ideas through imperialisation. Cultural Association (Taiwan bunka ironically heralded a period of matura- of love are likewise modern; he is a With Japan’s surrender and Taiwan’s kymkai) was established, launching an tion for Taiwan New Literature. In this flâneur constantly seeking his next The support of colonial policy and ‘return’ to China in 1945, the evolution island-wide cultural reform programme second stage, numerous literary soci- object of desire. Caught between two apparent pro-Japan stance in these of Taiwan New Literature was brought to to educate people. To accommodate this eties were established, and literary jour- competing love relationships (cultural works stirred controversies in post-1987 an end. Some writers halted their creative call for cultural enlightenment, a new nals launched. Writers began to explore identities), Lin refuses a fixed identity Taiwan. Scholars held different view- activities, while others took pains to learn strand of literature written in the style new artistic trends and tackle a wider and chooses an ever-changing aesthet- points towards the imperial-subject lit- Chinese and continued to write; the lega- of vernacular Chinese emerged in the range of themes. Yang Kui’s Newspaper ic, urban lifestyle. The emphasis on erature. Some were understanding: cy of literature under Japanese rule was early 1920s. Usually referred to as the Boy (1934), Weng Nao’s Remaining Snow individual perceptions opens new pos- Zhang Liangze called for reading impe- marginalised with only few works such Taiwan New Literature movement, it (1935) and Long Yingzong’s A Small sibilities for Taiwanese literature, free rial-subject literature with ‘a serious atti- as Wu Zhouliu’s The Orphan of Asia played a vital part in Taiwanese people’s Town with Papaya Trees (1937) are three of the tangled question of nationalism. tude of love and sympathy’ (Zhang, being published. Only in the nativist lit- anti-colonial resistance. distinctive pieces written in Japanese 1998), while Ye Shitao declared ‘there is erary debate of the l970s did attempts to from the second stage of Taiwan New Long’s A Small Town with Papaya Trees no imperial-subject literature. All are excavate works of the Japanese colonial Taiwan New Literature Literature. recounts the pessimism of Taiwanese protest literature’. (Ye, 1990: 112). Oth- period begin. Owing to the colonial context, the Taiwan intellectuals. Living in a suffocating ers moralised: Chen Yingzhen consid- new literature movement was from the Inspired by Lai He’s leftwing thinking, small town, the protagonist resents Tai- ered imperial-subject literature an With the lifting of martial law and the very beginning multi-lingual and socio- Yang Kui went further by bringing class wanese-Japanese inequality and the accomplice of Japanese colonialism prevalence of nativist movements over politically engaged. In addition to works analysis and internationalism to his writ- arranged marriage into which his lover (Chen, 1998:13) while Lin Ruiming, the past three decades, the importance of written in Chinese, there were works ing. His award-winning Newspaper Boy is is forced. Its gloomy closing, where the though not as radical as Chen, firmly literature from colonial Taiwan contin- written in Japanese and Taiwanese. The an account of a foreign student’s exploita- protagonist abandons himself to alco- stressed that (imperial-subject) writers ues to grow. Begun as part of the anti- key figures in the first stage of the move- tion by his boss, and his later support of hol, signifies the no-way-out plight of should not ‘shirk their responsibility’. Japanese resistance, it departed from ment, such as Lai He, hailed as the unions as a means of fighting back. Set the colonised. In contrast to Lai He and (Lin, 1996: 322). These debates showed classical Chinese tradition and under- ‘father of Taiwan New Literature’, Chen in a period of economic recession in Yang Kui’s spirited resistance, and nationalist and moralistic literary stan- went its own development and matura- Xugu, and Cai Qiutong, were all active Japan, the student leads a poverty-strick- unlike Weng Nao’s modernist disposi- dards still being applied to the reception tion. This opulent literary legacy illus- members of the Association. With left- en life. When he is about to give up, a tion, Long’s portrait of weak and hollow of imperial-subject works; the imperial- trates the painful process of these writers’ wing ideas ascendant in the 1920s, writ- Japanese worker, Tanaka, offers his help. Taiwanese bourgeois intellectuals is in subject writers were so pressured that constructions of selfhood and negotia- ers in this early stage of Taiwan New Lit- Contrasting the exploitative boss and the itself a sad caricature of Japanese colo- some of them felt the need to justify tion with the colonial condition, provid- erature produced works containing generous Tanaka, the story emphasises nialism. themselves. When invited to translate ing us with a complex picture of the strong nationalistic sentiments and opposition between capitalists and his The Way (1943) into Chinese, Chen workings of colonialism. < humanitarian concerns. Lai He’s short labourers rather than between Japanese Imperial subjects? Huoquan, for instance, not only made story A Scale (1926) for instance portrays and Taiwanese. In fact, Yang does not During the eight-year Sino-Japanese War amendments to the work but also added References colonial exploitation and the longing for divulge until the second half of the story (1937-45), the Japanese propagated the a passage stating that he was forced by - Chen Yingzhen . 1998. ‘Jingshen a fair society. Qin Decan, the protagonist that the student is from Taiwan. Newspa- Imperial-Subject Movement (kmminka the times and circumstances to write de huangfei – Zhang Liangze huangmin of A Scale, is a farmer who maintains per Boy ends with the Taiwanese student undm), a series of assimilation campaigns pro-Japan messages. Yet in recent years, wenxue lun de piping’ – himself by selling vegetables. To please identifying with Japanese labourers and to mold Taiwanese people’s unquestion- scholars have attempted to move away (Spiritu- his customer, a Japanese police officer, joining the union movement, embracing ing loyalty to Japan, which included the from the dichotomy of imperial-subject al desolation – Criticism of Zhang Qin deliberately underestimates their a universal and humanistic compassion establishment of the Imperial-subject and protest literature. Their call for a Liangze’s notion on imperial-subject weight. Unfortunately, the police officer for the proletariat instead of a provincial Public Service Association (kmmin contextual analysis indicates a more literature) in Zeng Jianmin , ed. does not feel grateful at all, and Qin is nationalism. hmkmkai) in 1941. Taiwanese writers were open attitude towards Taiwan’s colonial Taiwan xiangtu wenxue, huangmin wenxue charged for violating the rules of weights requested to eulogise the Japanese past. This can be seen from the growing de qingli yu pipan , and measures. Unable to pay bail, Qin Written in the third person, Remaining national spirit and produce a masculine, interests in Yang Chichang’s surrealist (Clarifica- kills the policeman and then commits Snow recounts Lin Chunsheng’s fash- optimistic literature to assist in the war poetics and popular literature, the two tions and criticisms of the nativist litera- scarcely studied dimensions in Tai- ture and imperial-subject literature of [advertisement] wanese literature under Japanese rule. Taiwan). Taipei: Renjian. - Lin Ruiming . 1996. Similar to Weng Nao’s cautionary atti- Taiwan wenxue de lishi kaocha tude towards embracing national/cul- (A historical tural identity, Yang Chichang declared investigation of Taiwan literature).

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