Chinese Stories from Taiwan, 1960-1970 by Joseph S.M. Lau

Chinese Stories from Taiwan, 1960-1970 Reviews

• 
  Bob Newman

  Melancholic voices
  
  The Americas and Europe are full of refugees—from oppression, disaster, war, and poverty. We are used to their literary voices and those of their children. Displacement is a common occurrence in our constantly shifting societies, and not only that of refugees. So many people voluntarily leave home for different shores, hoping for a better life. I don’t think, though, that we expect the same within China. Western people look at China as somehow more stable, a long-lasting civilization etc. But that’s not true at all. This will be all the more plain to readers who attempt this book of eleven short stories from Taiwan. That’s because while all the writers grew up in Taiwan, some were children of those who fled the Communists and came to the island that became known as “The Republic of China” for many years, while others were native Taiwanese.
  
  Taiwan was originally home to a number of Malayo-Polynesian speaking aborigines who still make up about 2% of the population. Chinese in any number only began to settle there in the 17th century with the encouragement of the Dutch colonists at the time. The population began to increase and by the time Japan annexed the island in 1895, Chinese numbered almost 3 million. Japanese rule ended in 1945 at the war’s termination, but soon 1.2 million Chinese Nationalist soldiers and civilians fled to Taiwan. At first feelings against the newcomers ran high, and there was a massacre of Taiwanese civilians in 1947 by Nationalist soldiers. Expectations that Chiang Kaishek could re-conquer the mainland dwindled and the refugees realized that their exile would be permanent. The Mainlanders (refugees) dominated the government, which ruled by martial law all during the time these stories were written till the late 1980s. There could be no criticism of the Kuomintang government and none appears in the stories, which leave politics strictly alone.
  
  The stories vary widely in quality and topic, so it is hard to assess the book. The translation of some is better than others. The longest story, “Cicada” stood out due to its obvious youthfulness; written by a 22 year old, it depicts an American-influenced, 1960s style-younger generation, aimless as characters in “The Sun Also Rises” or “On the Road”—proto-hippies in other words. Other stories feature a drug-addicted woman in Chinese opera who lets her only child be adopted rather than give up her habit; the disappointments in the lives of two professors, one of whom went abroad, the other of whom stayed home; or a brutal tale of the Japanese occupation and a dead baby abandoned in a latrine. Several feature the idea of rootlessness, the nostalgia for the now-unattainable Chinese homeland, and alienation from the life in Taiwan. The disillusionment of an 11 year old kid in love with a pretty 35 year old who turns out to be a scam artist is the topic of “Flaw”. Impotence of various kinds marks the pages with that same disillusionment, along with a rape and the sentiments of modern #MeToo. In short, these stories cover all kinds of human emotions and dilemmas common to this earth of mankind (to steal a phrase from Toer). Due to the restrictions of those years, you will not learn much of Taiwan’s political troubles. I wouldn’t put these occasionally amateurish stories up there with Chekhov, Hemingway or Maupassant, but they may hold your interest and give you an idea about the literature of a place not often heard from.