introduction to postwar taiwan fiction unit four the 1949 great retreat: torn between the two worlds...
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Introduction to Postwar Taiwan Fiction
Unit FourThe 1949 Great Retreat:
Torn between the Two Worlds
Lecturer:
Richard Rong-bin Chen,
PhD of Comparative Literature.
Unless noted, the course materials are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Taiwan (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) 1
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Patrick J. Hurley, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong(Picture taken around August or September, 1945)
Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek with United States ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, 1945. Second from left: Chiang Ching-kuo .
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The Chinese Civil WarThe First Phase: Manchuria
• The Russian invasion• The communist takeover of the military resources left by the Japanese• The clashes between the nationalist and CPC armies• By late 1948, CPC armies took important cities like Shen-yang [瀋陽 ] and Chang-chun [長春 ]
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The Second Phase• From late 1948 to early 1949, the CPC armies gained victories with high casualties in Northern China.• On January 22nd, the highest commander of the nationalist armies in Northern China defected to the CPC; on 31st, without confronting any resistance, PLA took Peiping, which was renamed Beijing.• On April 21st, 1949, they crossed Yangtze River, and took Nanking, the capital, in only two days.
The Founding Ceremony of PRC on Oct 1st, 1949
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On October 1, 1949 a grand ceremony was witnessed by 300,000 people in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, and Mao Zedong, chairman
of the Central People's Government, solemnly proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
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Gate of the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, Beijing.
Wikipedia Cory Doctorow
• The nationalist armies lost ground hopelessly, and the ROC government retreated to Taipei in December 1949.
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The Third Phase
Wikipedia Theodoranian
“Fight back and retrieve the Mainland.” [反攻大陸 ]“Unify China with the Three Principles of the People”
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October 2003 - A propaganda sign on Kinmen facing Mainland China
Wikipedia Minsc
• 1987: Lifting the ban on visiting the relatives in Mainland China (after the martial law had been lifted on July 15th)
• 1993: The people in Mainland China were allowed to enter Taiwan for a short-term or permanent residence with their relatives
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• A restaurant in Taichung selling the cuisine of Shan-hsi Province.
• Four stories about a general and some high-ranking officers, all from Taiyuan City.
• The 500 Martyrs of Taiyuan. [太原五百完人 ] (April, 1949.)
• The castrated General Guan.• Their fate in Taiwan: scraping a meager living.
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Mainlanders in Taiwan: Wang Wen-hsing“The Dragon Inn” [龍天樓 ] (1967)
Writings on Generals
• Generals are influential figures in the making of history, which justifies its being written in fiction.
• Generals can be victorious or defeated, and due to the Great Retreat, in Taiwan’s literary culture, writers tend to focus on tragic generals of the defeated nationalist army.
• The authors contribute to this genre of writing include Chu Hsi-ning, Pai Hsien-yung, Wang Wen-hsing, Guo Song-fen, Huang Fan, and Chang Ta-chun. 14
Two Cases in the New Continent
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-): The General in His Labyrinth (1989), a novel about the great liberator of Latin America, Simon Bolivar.
• E. L. Doctorow (1931-): The March (2005), a novel about General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army, recounting his military activities in the last phase of the American Civil War.
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The Cases in Taiwan
• Chu Hsi-ning: The Commanding Generals [將軍令 ] (1980), a novel based on the lives of 12 generals.
• Wang Wen-hsing and Pai Hsien-yung.• Guo Songfen: “Brightly Shine the Stars Tonight”
[今夜星光燦爛 ] (1997), a novel based on the last days of General Chen Yi.
• Going beyond the political struggle between KMT and CPC, Guo tries to give more attention to reflecting the history of the war-ridden China.
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• Chang Ta-chun: “The General’s Monument” [將軍碑 ] (1986), a novel based on the last years of a fictional General Wu.
• Magic Realism.• The Northern Expedition, the 412 Incident in
Shanghai, and the Second Sino-Japanese War.• The monument destroyed by the general
himself, and the questionability of history.• History as historical writing.• The political atmosphere of Taiwan around the
mid-1980s.17
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Wang Wen-hsing
• The English version translated by Susan Wan Dolling, published by U of Hawaii Press in 1995
• A story recounting the protagonist Fan Yeh’s childhood and how his relationship with his father kept worsening and the latter finally left the family without being found for two years.
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Family Catastrophe: A Modernist Novel [家變 ] (1972 in Chungwai Literary Monthly, 1973 in book
form)
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• A combination of the past and present.• The father was from a family of high ranking
officials in the Qing Dynasty, used to be a student in France.
• From Amoy to Taiwan. • Failures in his public servant career, the
money always tight.
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• The brother’s marriage with a Taiwanese girl, a former taxi dancer.
• Fan Yeh had always felt humiliated in his childhood for poverty.
• Becoming a teaching assistant in a university, took over the reign of the family.
• The father left, the family hardly changed.
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Pai Hsien-yung
• The 5th story in Taipei People, first published in Modern Literature.
• Wang Hsiung, the protagonist, was a discharged veteran from Hunan Province.
• He became a janitor for a well-off family in Taipei.
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“A Sea of Blood-red Azaleas” [那片血一般紅的杜鵑花 ]
(1969)
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• Wang was greatly nostalgic, missing his mother and his 10-year-old “fiancée.”
• He became pretty close and obsessed with the 10-year-old daughter of his employer, relying on the girl emotionally.
• With the girl growing up, she detested Wang’s accompany, making him desperate, and committed suicide in the end.
• The 9th story in Taipei People, first published in Modern Literature.
• Glory’s was a diner in Taipei, whose owner was a mainland woman from Guan-hsi Province, the author’s native soil; the story is about all her customers.
• The story depicts how mainlanders from Guan-hsi adapted to their lives as Taipei people.
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Mainlanders in Taiwan: Pai Hsien-yung
“Glory’s by Blossom Bridge” [花橋榮記 ] (1970)
• One of the richest timber merchant in Guan-hsi became an old man whose livelihood depended solely on his son; he celebrated his own 70th birthday, and then committed suicide.
• Fired by the City Hall, a former county governor became insane, and, after a flood, ended up being found dead in a ditch.
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• The protagonist of this story is an elementary school teacher from Guilin City who saved money for 15 years in order to smuggle his girl friend from the Mainland.
• His cousin cheated him of all his money; he became hopeless and corrupted, and finally died from a heart attack.
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Chen Ying-chen
• Published one year before he was imprisoned in The Literature Quarterly [文學季刊 ].
• Like “Mountain Path” [山路 ] (1983), this story focuses on the fate of the mainlanders in Taiwan.
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“My First Case” [第一件差事 ] (1967)
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• The main character Hu Hsin-pao committed suicide in a small town hotel, the story begins with a policeman being dispatched to investigate the case, and his various conversations with the people involved: the hotel owner’s son, a local elementary school teacher, Hu’s wife, and his mistress.
• “There must be a reason.”
Hu’s two statements.
• Hu was attacked by an extreme sense of hopelessness.
• “It’s as if you’ve been sailing for a long time, and suddenly the compass is broken, the charts defaced, the wireless damaged, and even the wind stops blowing.”
• The problem of “rootlessness.”• “We’re like branches cut off, lying on the ground.”
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“My Relatives in Hong Kong” [香港親戚 ] (1986)
• One year before mainlanders were allowed to visit Hong Kong and the Mainland
• 11 years before “the Handover”• “We were all Chinese, but still we were different.”• The gap between different generations of
mainlanders in Taiwan• (For example, the father said he had never
imagined his son would work for the Japanese.)
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• The son worked in a Japanese trading company.• Working overtime became an unwritten rule in
the office.• Taiwanese work hard, Japanese work harder.• Taiwan and International Companies.• Urban problems and the son’s plan to move to
Tianmu.
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The Transformation of Social Values
“For more than a decade, Father had lived in Taoyuan in that two-story house. Although it was rather old, it was well maintained, and the neighbors also kept their houses neat and clean. That was why he and Mother did not want to move. It was nothing like our apartment building, where half of the tenants just rented. Maintenance standards were low. Motorcycles filled all the available space in the stairwells and if a light bulb burned out, nobody bothered to change it. No wonder Huimei and I were so eager to move into our own house.” (155-156)
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Source: Hsiao Sa.(2003) .Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
The sister: the problem of filial duty.
• The fight between the siblings seems to be nonsense, but it reflects social reality and a changing value in Taiwan: the elder son is not necessarily the one who’s going to take care of the parents.
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“Real estate prices were falling like crazy then. And I thought, what the hell, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. 1997 is eleven years away. We can’t just stop living because of that!”
“That’s very philosophical.”
“No, it’s not at all. Everybody thinks the same way in Hong Kong. All the rich are ready to pack up and leave … for Canada, the United States, or Australia. And the poor, they just live one day at a time.” (171)
Cousin Dawu from Beijing
Source: Hsiao Sa.(2003) .Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
“But no matter what the circumstances were forty years ago, the bonds between husband and wife and father and daughter appeared hard to break, from what I could see. It didn’t matter whether they had ever been in love with each other. You couldn’t just dismiss such bonds on the basis of likes or dislikes.” (173)
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The scene at Tongqing Lou [同慶樓 ]
Source: Hsiao Sa.(2003) .Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
Comparison with Pai Hsien-yung’s two stories in Taipei People
• The father thought he hadn’t treated the Great Mother right, so he had to see her.
• The traditional way of Chinese marriage: match-making arranged by parents, couples barely knew each other before getting married, might spend limited time together.
• Problem of Obligation.
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What the younger Chinese in Hong Kong thought
• Juanjuan thought Taiwan is a good place, but didn’t want to go to Taiwan to study.
• The mindset of the young Hong Kong Chinese: not English, didn’t want to be communist, and didn’t consider Taiwan to be their home.
• The son’s conclusion after his talk with Juanjuan: “We were all Chinese, but still we were different.” (183)
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Source: Hsiao Sa.(2003) .Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
• 14 Chinese sat around the table at one of the banquets, with different fates in the future.
• The Problem of Marriage.• Marriage problems once disturbed Hsiao Sa
greatly during the mid-80s, and in Oct. 1986, she even published an open letter to her ex-husband, a famous film director in Taiwan.
• The mainland father and the Taiwanese mother.• The mainland father and the Great Mother• The son and his wife.• The younger sister.
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• Deputy Chief of Staff during the Northern Expedition (and during the Second Sino-Japanese War)• His part in the 412 Incident in Shanghai• The first Minister of National Defense of ROC (1946-1948)• During the Chinese Civil War, he became the commander of the nationalist armies in Central China.
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General Pai Ch’ung-hsi (1893-1966)
• In the last phase of the civil war, what’s left of Pai’s armies (180000 soldier) retreated to Hainan Island.
• On Dec. 30, 1949, Pai flew from Hainan to Taiwan.
• Losing his political power in Taiwan, Pai died in Taipei in 1966.
• A long list of generals honored by state funerals, though Pai was not on the list.
• Tragic last years.
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A Remark by Li Haoran
• “If we fought to the death, maybe we could still turn the tide. We never dreamed that the end would be such a debacle. . . . Tens of thousands of our Guangdong boys, all lost to the enemy; just to talk about it—ah—it breaks my heart.” (106)
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Source: Pai Hsien-yung .(2003).Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
• The entrance of the ceremony hall.• “Four-star General Li Haoran.”• The general had spent his last years climbing
mountains and hunting. • A reference to the famous general of the Han
Dynasty, Li Guan.• Led the revolutionary armies of Guan-hsi and
Guan-tung.
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Li Haoran
• “The Dirge of Liang-fu” (1967)• The Crystal Boys (1977)• The young master pretended to be ill and
dropped out of the military academy to go off to America.
• “A tigerish father has no doggish sons.” [虎父無犬子 ]
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The Young Master
The Memorial Scrolls
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“Pillar of the State! Your genius will be remberes a thousand autumns;
Upon your strategy victory followed ever;
Your one regret: the Yellow Turbans were yet to be conquered.
Champion of the Han! A Zhuge Liang reborn, you swore never to share the same ground with the enemy;
Lofty in justice, your loyalty never failed,
And shall we let your history be burned to ashes?
Zhang Jian, in reverent tribute” (103)
Source: Pai Hsien-yung .(2003).Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
The Memorial Scrolls “In passes and on rivers you fought a hundred battles;
Forever shall it live immortal! your honorable name;
Too suddenly it rose, the mortal Wu-Zhang autumn wind;
The world entire mourns a true hero.
Our country, our nation is split in two;
How can we bear to see the unending tragedy and woe?
When I hear how you went hunting by night, like Li Guang at Ba Ling,
I ask, was there anyone willing to call back the old general?
Ye Hui, in reverent tribute” (103)
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Source: Pai Hsien-yung .(2003).Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
The Three Warriors of Li Haoran
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• Two of them became old and weak, and the other became a monk.• The general’s talk with General Liu: • “The whole situation had gotten away from us; it was really no one’s fault.” (105) Source: Pai Hsien-yung .(2003).Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang
(Eds.), The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. New York : Columbia University Press.
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Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum on Purple Mountain
Wikipeida: Author Unknown
• It was the most glorious moment of the general’s as well as the aide-de-camp’s military careers.
• It was mentioned to show that General Li used to be a follower of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
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Why the Scene at the Mausoleum Was Mentioned?
The Symbolic Meanings of This Story:Not the story of an individual
• Besides the contrast between the glory of the past and the decay of the present, there are several aspects to be reflected upon in these stories. First of all, the decay of the generals’ bodies is not only a physical failure, and its symbolic meaning transcend beyond the individuals to signify the Republic’s fall after 1949.
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The Father-son Relationship
• Secondly, are the generals’ sons really unfilial? In traditional Chinese ethics, it is unfilial to be unlike one’s father, so, in a way, “不孝子” equals “不肖子 .”All the sons in the three stories might be judged by some as unfilial, for they are not able to be capable and brave soldiers like their father, and one of them (Wang Kui-long) was even considered as a disgrace to the family because his identity as a gay.
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Generals as a Part of ROC’s History• Third, the generals are all absent from the stories and
they exited only through the memories of their friends, family, and subordinates (such as fuguan). They are not able to present their own perspectives and ideas, because they are historical figures to be commented on and are a part of the historical events of R.O.C., such as Revolution of 1911 (Xinhai Revolution, or 辛亥革命 ), the Northern Expedition [北伐 ] (KMT’s military campaign to unite China), the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War from 1946 to 1949.
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• “New Year’s Eve” [歲除 ] and the 1938 Battle of Tai’erzhuang [台兒莊會戰 ]
• “The Last Night of Taipan Chin” [金大班的最後一夜 ] and Shanghai in the 30s
• “Shanghai is the Paris of the Orient.” [Shanghai, le Paris de l’Orient.]
• “The Dirge of Liang-fu” [梁父吟 ] and The 1911 Hsin-hai Revolution [辛亥革命 ]
• “Winter Night” and the May Fourth Movement [五四運動 ] (1919)
• “State Funeral” and the Northern Expedition [北伐 ] and the Chinese Civil War [國共內戰 ] ( and the the Great Retreat)
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Taipei People as a Collection of Historical Fiction
Copyright DeclarationPage Work Licensing Author/Source
2Wikipedia Ibekolu http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%E8%B5%AB%E5%B0%94%E5%88%A9.jpg2012/03/14visited
3Wikipedia Government of the Republic of Chinahttp://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_and_Chiang1945.jpg2012/03/14 visited
6Wikipedia Aukingluntomhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PLA_Enters_Peking.jpg?uselang=zh-tw2012/03/14 visited
7Wikipedia Hou Bohttp://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRCFounding.jpg2012/03/14 visited
8Wikipedia Cory Doctorowhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gate_of_the_Forbidden_City,_Tienanmen_Square,_Beijing,_China.jpg2012/03/14 visited
9
Wikipeida: Author Unknownhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soong_and_Li_in_the_Founding_Ceremony.jpg2012/03/14 visited
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Copyright DeclarationPage Work Licensing Author/Source
10Wikipedia Theodoranianhttp://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KMTretreat.PNG2012/03/14 visited
11Wikipedia Minschttp://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dscf0207.jpg2012/03/14 visited
12Wikipedia 陳黎陽http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%98%94%E6%97%A5%E5%AD%90%E5%BC%9F%E5%85%B5%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A5%E8%AB%8B%E9%A1%98%E4%BA%BA.jpg2012/03/14 visited
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For more than a decade, Father had … Huimei and I were so eager to move into our own house.
Hsiao Sa .(2003) .My Relatives in Hong KongPang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 155-156). New York : Columbia University Press
33“Real estate prices werefalling like crazy …just live one day at a time.”
Hsiao Sa .(2003) .My Relatives in Hong KongPang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 171). New York : Columbia University Press
34 But no matter what the circumstances were ….likes or dislikes.
Hsiao Sa .(2003) .My Relatives in Hong KongPang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 173). New York : Columbia University Press
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Copyright DeclarationPage Work Licensing Author/Source
36“We were all Chinese, but still we were different.”
Hsiao Sa .(2003) .My Relatives in Hong KongPang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 183). New York : Columbia University Press
38Wikipedia Peterpanhttp://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minister1.jpg2012/03/14 visited
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If we fought to the death, maybe we coul … the enemy; just to talk about it—ah—it breaks my heart..
Pai Hsien-yung .(2003) .State Funeral. Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora. (pp. 106). New York : Columbia University Press
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Pillar of the State! Your genius will be …be burned to ashes? Zhang Jian, in reverent tribute
Pai Hsien-yung .(2003) .State Funeral. Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 103). New York : Columbia University Press
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In passes and on rivers you fought a hundred battles; Forever …old general? Ye Hui, in reverent tribute
Pai Hsien-yung .(2003) .State FuneralPang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 103). New York : Columbia University Press
46The whole situation had gotten away from us; it was really no one’s fault.
Pai Hsien-yung .(2003) .State FuneralPang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.(pp. 105). New York : Columbia University Press
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Copyright DeclarationPage Work Licensing Author/Source
47Wikipeida: Author Unknownhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_yatse_mausoleum.jpg2012/03/14 visited
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