Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895

Lu Heruo ¹ (1914–1950) is one of the Taiwanese authors who best represents prewar Taiwanese literature. In January 1935 Lu made his debut in the Japanese proletarian magazine Bungaku hyōron with “Gyūsha ,” a tragedy set in colonial Taiwan and indicting modernization. Further, Lu enthusiastically helped lead the 1930s Taiwan New Literature movement as an influential writer and during the 1940s he was active as a singer in the Tōhō performance troop, which gained popular favor with their enterprising combination of Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere ideology and orientalism. When he returned to Taiwan, Lu played a leading role in local theatrical and musical movements and also stood as one of the emblematic authors of the magazine Taiwan bungaku —a publication that cannot be overlooked in any consideration of Taiwanese literature. Finally, shortly after the war, Lu lost his life in the Luku incident , when he and others led by the Chinese Communist Party attempted to liberate Taiwan. In opening, then, the rise and fall of the proletarian literature movement as well as the conversion-literature phenomenon, the influence of Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere ideology, and the effects of wartime cultural regulation, wartime cooperation, and postwar decolonization on the question of the essential colonial Taiwanese self all have a direct bearing on our attempt to understand the traces left behind by Lu Heruo.

Certainly any study of Lu Heruo must raise a number of questions, but I want to narrow the focus of this essay to the attack on Lu in May of 1943 by one of the Japanese authors who best represents colonial Taiwanese literature, Nishikawa Mitsuru . By first providing a comparative analysis of Nishikawa’s “Ryūmyakuki ” and Lu’s “Fūsui ,” which both take fengshui as a theme, and then continuing with a similar comparative analysis of the coterie magazines Bungei Taiwan and Taiwan bungaku in which each played a leading role, I consider the line stretching across both time and space that connects the 1940s Taiwanese bundan and the 1930s Japanese bundan. In conclusion I discuss the nature of the connection between colonial Taiwanese literature and the Japanese proletariat literature movement and the limits of the latter.

First, I wish to make explicit the form of Nishikawa’s attack on Lu. In the “Contemporary Criticism” section of the May 1943 issue of Bungei Taiwan, Nishikawa, as directing editor, wrote: “this ‘kuso realism’ that has become the mainstream in Taiwanese literature is entirely the style of writing which has been coming into Japan from America and Europe since the Meiji [era]. For we Japanese, … who love the cherry blossoms, this sort of thing elicits no resonance.” He adds, “Among the unchanging narration of the ever poorly treated stepchild, family struggles, and other such matters as well as important events and local customs, this island’s next generation is faithfully reporting and volunteering to duty. [You] authors of kuso realism, [are] turning [your] backs on and [are] unconscious of the times. What an irony it is!”

That unnamed Taiwan bungaku authors, especially Lu Heruo and Zhang Wenhuan , were the object of Nishikawa’s attack was readily self-evident. Further, Taiwan bungaku authors, including Yang Kui , published responses to the attack.² The discussion that developed from this exchange came to be known and simply referred to as the kuso realism debate.³

Together Bungei Taiwan and Taiwan bungaku were a driving force in the 1940s Taiwanese literary field. With its inaugural issue published in January 1940 and Nishikawa Mitsuru as a core member, Bungei Taiwan served as the bulletin for the Taiwan Literatus Association (Taiwan bungeika kyōkai ). This is the same group that was originally founded by Yano Hōjin , a Taihoku Imperial University professor, and was largely composed of Japanese people living in Taiwan. The magazine changed direction from its original strongly artistic focus and began actively participating in national policy vis-à-vis its editorial posture and viewpoint. It is well known that Zhou Jinbo ’s “Shiganhei ,” Chen Huoquan ’s “Michi ,” and other so-called kōminka literature appeared in its pages. In May 1941 Taiwan bungaku splintered off from Bungei Taiwan with its inaugural issue. Members of Taiwan bungaku made use of the slogans supporting promotion of local culture issued by the cultural department of the Taisei Yokusan Kai inasmuch as they claimed to have the Taiwanese people at heart and espoused literature of a realistic spirit with Taiwanese life as its root (gen/kon).⁴ Lu enthusiastically adopted Taiwanese folk customs and traditions as subject matter for his works and best embodied the direction of the magazine.

Still, what in general were the literary tendencies and inclinations in Lu’s works that Nishikawa critiqued in his disavowal of Lu’s texts as kuso realism? In fact, Lu and Nishikawa had both published works on the theme of fengshui (“Fūsui” and “Ryūmyakuki”) in the year, more or less, prior to the eruption of the debate; though the narratives both take the theme of fengshui, in the end the two works appeal to completely different tastes. Perhaps the differences are what the kuso realism debate itself represented, and this in turn is emblematic of the divergences between the two authors and the dissimilarities between Taiwan bungaku and Bungei Taiwan. As such, I begin this evaluation with a comparative reading of the two narratives.

LU HERUO, “FŪSUI”

Lu Heruo’s “Fūsui” was published in the October 1942 issue of Taiwan bungaku. The story follows the Zhou brothers and their families, and as the narrative begins the elder brother is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of his younger brother’s opposition to the performance of a bone-cleaning for their father, who died fifteen years earlier. The younger brother argues that that the family’s prosperity stems from the location, that is to say the fengshui, of their father’s grave; and, predicating his argument on the advice provided by a geomancer, the younger brother demonstrates that a bone-cleaning would unnecessarily disturb tomb fengshui.

Now, however, the younger brother’s family is running into misfortune, and he claims that the poor fengshui of their mother’s five-year-old grave is to blame; therefore, he asks his elder brother to surreptitiously perform the mother’s bone-cleaning ritual earlier than prescribed. When the coffin is exhumed the horrific stench of the still-putrefying corpse is overpowering and, in a manner suiting his character, the younger brother abandons his plan to clean their mother’s bones. In the past, the family had respected its ancestors and had placed a great deal of importance on rites and rituals and their accompanying decorum as had always been done, but now they were using the rites and fengshui for personal gain and profit, which in turn was leading to family discord. The elder Zhou brother weeps as he realizes what has happened to his family and their respect for fengshui as the story closes.

A close examination of the broad range of fengshui customs in Taiwan and East Asia is beyond the scope of this paper, but I would like to paraphrase Watanabe Yoshio , who explains that the fortunes and ills that humanity encounters can all be traced back to fengshui. Simply stated, there are two kinds of fengshui: yin fengshui, which attends to graves, and yang fengshui, which concerns cities, settlements, and homes.⁵ The fengshui addressed in “Fūsui” then is necessarily yin, or grave, fengshui. Moreover, Kataoka Iwao ’s Taiwan fūzokushi includes these explanatory notes on the customs and traditions surrounding fengshui in Taiwan:

After a prescribed period of time has passed the grave is excavated and the bones picked out, cleaned, and inserted into a pot, which is then placed in a structure as per fengshui. This (practice), which is nothing more or less than superstition, is supported by belief in the words of geomancers, Daoist priests, prophets, and others. A bad tomb placement will lead to misfortune for the family, or prevent success for future generations and for this reason there are numerous cases of bone-cleaning and re-burials for the purpose of tomb relocation.⁶

But why did Lu choose fengshui as the theme for a story? Perhaps one of the reasons for the choice was the fact that while he was writing “Fūsui” Lu himself faced the problem of an ancestral bone-cleaning and tomb relocation.⁷ His interest in fengshui did not arise from his personal experiences alone, however. Ever since the publication of “Zaishiju ” in March 1943, each of his Taiwan bungaku-era stories had been characterized by narrations of traditional Taiwanese lives and customs; in other words, Lu was profoundly concerned with ethnological story material.

For example, the appearance of a mansion named Fukujūdō in “Zaishiju” is described with precise attention to architectural detail; this description creates an immutable stage to the complex human relations which therein develop. Other examples of minute spatial descriptions affecting interlaced settings and human relationships from Lu’s fiction include “Gōka heian ” and “Rinkyō .” Furthermore, foregrounded in these architectural and spatial depictions are descriptions of religious customs. In “Fūsui” Lu writes very concrete descriptions, from the explanation of bone-cleaning and the time it takes for bones to ossify—which is in turn linked to the method of examining the color of paint on the coffin (as an indicator of decomposition)—to the manner in which the geomancer uses a luojia pan to determine proper tomb site location. Further, in “Gōka heian” and “Zakuro ” the various Taiwanese customs surrounding marriage and adoptive marriage, such as zhaofu and pinjin , are narrated in a manner deeply connected to the theme.

The rich descriptions of the situations and events that constitute the customs and traditions of Taiwanese life along with Lu’s narration of his ethnological concerns as he constructed universes within his works suggest we consider that he consciously adopted a methodology predicated on these same ethnological concerns. We postulate three reasons for Lu’s reaching such a methodology. The first is that he published in Taiwan bungaku. As noted above, Taiwan bungaku claimed to have the Taiwanese people at its heart and to espouse literature of a realistic nature with Taiwanese life as its root. The second factor we can point to is the November 1940 publication and ensuing stage performances of Shōzi Sōichi 一’s novel Chin fujin . The work, which includes a Tainan capitalist, Chen Qingwen , and his Japanese wife, Yasuko , as protagonists, stirred public response; and the following year Shōzi’s novel was dramatized by Bungakuza in May and by Shinsei shinpa in August.⁸ Moreover, because it “offered a pragmatic resolution to the unification of Taiwan and Japan proper in a literary work,” the novel was awarded the East Asian Literary Award; in a sense it was a work of national policy literature.⁹

After watching the Bungakuza performance of Chin fujin, Lu published a six-part critique, “The Performance of Chin fujin,” in Kōnan shinbun (May 20–25, 1941), and obtained a copy of the original text, which he spent a sleepless night reading. Lu revealed in the critique that he was moved by Shōzi’s “wonderful expression of [Taiwanese] anguish and character personality within the Chen family,” and further wrote about Yasuko that she was “a character with completely different customs who served as a benchmark against which [one could] clearly pick up numerous Taiwanese customs and institutions.” However, he added that “the narrative grasp of natives [Taiwanese] who have received a modern education” would be successful, but that “comparatively speaking more traditional natives, or those further distanced from modern education and current native trends, are probably in a difficult position to describe the so-called native.” In the end, envious of the successful performance of Chin fujin Lu wondered, “What would happen if this sort of drama was presented on the Taiwan stage?” and, burning with ambition, concluded, “it’s regrettable that Tokyo seized the initiative and brought it first to the stage.”

Not long after seeing the performance, in August of the same year Lu wrote “Zaishiju,” stirring from the literary stagnation he had been in since 1937 and initiating his most productive period with Taiwan bungaku.¹⁰ Characteristic of Lu’s texts from this era is the already noted meticulous narration of traditions and customs as well as descriptions of traditional Taiwan. In his critique of Chin fujin he argued that the successes and failures of the novel were layered in the narration of the traditional. In brief, Lu was conscious of the fact that the success of Chin fujin was due to the attraction and satisfaction of the Japanese gaze by, to, and with ethnic Taiwan. For Lu this realization stirred a new ambition—a desire to record and document more clearly than Shōzi the “Taiwan” that the Japanese colonizer couldn’t see. In a manner of speaking, rivalry with the colonizer Shōzi made Lu aware of “traditional” Taiwan. Still it must be further added that a passion for documenting and recording the Taiwan that the Japanese gaze couldn’t find was not limited only to Lu. The July 1941 publication of Minzoku Taiwan ’s inaugural issue remains the third issue key to understanding the origin of Lu’s methodology.

Minzoku Taiwan, a monthly magazine dedicated to the research and presentation of Taiwanese customs and traditions, was published by the Taipei branch (Taipeishiten ) of Tokyo Shoseki kabushikikaisha (). A total of forty-three issues were published during its run from July 1941 to January 1945.¹¹ Each issue carried records and collections of ethnological data, ethnological studies, essays connected to ethnology, and other such writing, focusing on the main island of Taiwan. Serving as the authorial and editorial core of the magazine were Ikeda Toshio and Kanaseki Takeo . Kanaseki, a professor of anatomy at Taihoku Imperial Medical College, also acted as editor. Lu published two articles in the magazine; “Laqing and baguashi—a history of marriage customs ” (2.1, January 1942) and “The circumstances surrounding adopted daughters-in-law ” (3.11, November 1943). Furthermore, Ikeda and Kanaseki’s names repeatedly appear in Lu’s journal, suggesting that he maintained a strong connection with Minzoku Taiwan.

Prior to publication the magazine would distribute a multifaceted prospectus entitled “Minzoku Taiwan—at the presses.” This was a kōminka employing charmlike (jūmon ) text used to avoid the authorities; but, if read as something other than a charm, the prospectus reveals traditional Taiwanese culture as on the brink of eradication by kōminka. It was a sad voice crying out that if things continued as they were traditional culture’s extinction was inevitable. This feeling of crisis was the true reason for the creation of Minzoku Taiwan. Even more clearly expressing the sense of crisis is Kanaseki Takeo’s editor’s note in the inaugural issue, wherein he transparently implied Taiwan as he wrote of the destruction of Carthage.

Lu Heruo felt this sense of crisis with Kanaseki. The fear of cultural extinction and his self-imposed mission to record Taiwanese culture for posterity led Lu to depict with cameralike realism in his literary works various human relationships, architectural structures, and clothing, as well as traditions and customs. This passion for recording did not lead to dull transformations of reality, but rather linked complex transformations of reality to textual creation. “Fūsui” thus stands prominently as an example of Lu’s concern with ethnic Taiwan, as driven by his participation in Taiwan bungaku, his response to Chin fujin, and his association with Minzoku Taiwan.

NISHIKAWA MITSURU, “RYŪMYAKUKI”

What were Nishikawa Mitsuru’s intentions when he wrote “Ryūmyakuki” and first published it in the September 1942 issue (4.6) of Bungei Taiwan?

Becker, the protagonist, is a German engineer who under the direction of Liu Mingchuan strives to establish a railway system. However, in order to build the railroad he must break a fengshui “dragon’s back” by boring a tunnel. However, building the tunnel in these negative conditions meets resistance from the Qing laborers, which eventually brings construction to a standstill. With Liu’s support Becker devotedly proceeds with the railway and in the end completes the tunnel. Regardless of fate and misfortune or cause and effect the tunnel is bored through the middle of the dragon’s head.

As Nakajima Toshio has correctly pointed out, beginning with the June publication of “Taiwan no kisha ” Liu Mingchuan and the German engineers Becker and Piteran appear as characters in the related works “Futari no doitsujin gishi ,” “Ryūmyakuki,” and “Tōen’no kyaku ” and are linked with Nishikawa’s most important work, Taiwan jyūkantetsudō .¹² That Nishikawa’s father, Jun , came along with his uncle Akiyama Giichi to help manage the Akiyama coal mines in Jilong and later became the president of Shōwa Coal is well known;¹³ and Nishikawa, because he came from a colonizing family, possessed intense self-confidence. Consequently, his motivation to choose Taiwan jyūkantetsudō for a string of linked stories is not difficult to imagine. In the afterword to the 1979 reprint of Taiwan jyūkantetsudō, Nishikawa writes that his interest in presenting the untold story of the Taiwan railroad from the time of Liu Mingchuan forward stemmed from a strong attachment to his father, and a desire to “describe the Taiwan of the pioneering days before any Japanese had set to work.”¹⁴ Becker’s attitude as he struggles with the superstitions of his Chinese laborers reveals colonizer Nishikawa’s position. Simply stated, Nishikawa constructed a narrative of nation-building around fengshui.¹⁵

Returning to Lu: Nishikawa’s ridicule of his Taiwan bungaku-era work as stories about the “ever poorly treated stepchild, and family struggle” is not excessive, because the works did continually depict the tragedy of traditional Taiwanese households. Through the contrasting attitudes between the two brothers in “Fūsui” Lu shows the collapse of the traditional family unit based on ancestor worship. The older Zhou brother’s ideal is “a family which like so many others followed the orders of a long-bearded, queue-wearing grandfather—a family valorizing the rights of and venerating ancestors.”¹⁶ For the elder Zhou fengshui is the symbol that binds such a family together, but as the story concludes he is forced to recognize that such prosperity has already been destroyed. Furthermore, as sugar factory smokestacks are reflected in the elder brother’s eyes while he is returning home from the graveyard, the younger brother, whose avarice led to the collapse of the traditional family, thinks, “There is no reason for [my] son and daughter to enter medical school.” The sugar factory and medical school, which are emblematic of the modernity that has come to Taiwan with the colonial government, are for the younger Zhou the reason for the collapse of tradition.

Here we see the contrasting attitudes of these authors toward modernization. “Ryūmyakuki” glorifies modernization as it chronicles a chapter in a nation-building saga; and “Fūsui,” by positing the brothers’ argument as a microcosm, depicts the collapse of tradition in the face of modernization. The difference between the two stories also reflects the manner of taking up fengshui. Lu treats yin fengshui (tombs) in “Fūsui” and Nishikawa treats yang fengshui (cities, settlements, and homes) in “Ryūmyakuki.” The Japanese colonizer Nishikawa depicts the modernization of living space. The colonized Taiwanese Lu looks to the domain of the dead. Lu attains what the colonizer cannot: he listens to the voices of the netherworld.

BACKGROUND TO THE KUSO REALISM CONTROVERSY

It seems that the contrast between “Fūsui” and “Ryūmyakuki” can be understood as a classic example of the dichotomy between colonizer and colonized. Although these authors were endowed with completely different gifts, the notion that their confrontation stemmed from the kuso realism debate is not inconceivable. But if this is the case, does comparing the authors and discussing the kuso realism debate then do nothing more than reinforce a confirmation of the diametricism of the colonizer and the colonized? I now wish to draw out the supplementary and connecting line between Japanese proletariat literature and colonized writers. The critical term “kuso realism” must first be attended to.

Actually, “kuso realism” was not coined by Nishikawa—in 1935 (Shōwa 10) it was well known and on the lips of all the members of the Japanese bundan in describing Jinminbunko . The term evolved from the search for literary direction following the collapse of the proletariat literature movement, and the ensuing Nihonrōmanha debate. In 1932, following the Manchurian incident, suppression of the Japanese proletariat literature movement markedly increased. In February 1933, Koabayashi Takiji , the defining author of the movement, died in prison as he was being interrogated. In June 1933 two of the central Japanese Communist Party leaders, Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadachika , issued a joint statement of conversion. Thereafter renouncements of communism followed one after another, and in March 1933 the Japanese Proletariat Writers’ League (NALP) was dissolved.

Against this background and arising from the January 1934 publication of the “Nihonrōmanha kōkoku ,” another literary debate developed and evolved into two camps, Nihonrōmanha and Jinminbunko; both groups were firmly entrenched by the March 1936 publication of Jinminbunko’s inaugural issue. At this time Hayashi Fusao used the term “kuso realism” in a criticism of the Jinminbunko.¹⁷

Originally Hayashi Fusao had been a member of the central committee of the Japanese Proletariat Writers’ League, but around 1935 he announced he was a romanticist, and as he drew closer to Japanism (nihonshugi ) he announced his withdrawal from proletariat literature in 1936. Thereafter, he joined the radical right and affirmed the war; moreover, even in the postwar GHQ purge he did not change his stance.¹⁸ In 1963, moved by Hayashi’s ideas, Mishima Yukio wrote Hayashi Fusao ron . The period in which Hayashi began his shift to the radical right overlaps with the start of his attack on the realism so important to Takeda Rintarō , the leading Jinminbunko author, and other members of the collective.¹⁹

Jinminbunko replies to Hayashi’s critique include those by Hirabayashi Hyogo , who wrote “Hayashi Fusao e’no Tegami ,” and Shibukawa Takashi ; both are authors of critical pieces defending realism. Moreover, there were also literary roundtables, such as “Nihon no romanha wo tadasu .”²⁰ These Jinminbunko activities had the tripartite goal of (1) challenging any government-establishment literary movement; (2) establishing an orthodox developmental trajectory for realism with a prose spirit; and (3) the creation of fiction for the masses.²¹ Years later the following summary remains accurate: “Despite accompanying various weak points, at what is clearly a turning point in modern literature Jinminbunko chose the path of resistance literature, and from that position accomplished various experiments with (their) works.”²² Former proletarian literature writers employed kuso realism as their last seawall before literary fascism.

This realism was quite removed from the social realism that had originally been employed toward political goals, because with the passage of time it had expanded to encompass depictions of the common and everyday. Consequently, the Jinminbunko authors, especially Takeda Rintarō, were charged with writing fūzoku fiction. Years later, in Shōwa 10, when fūzoku fiction was popular, the critique came that, “realism as a technique has ‘withered’ away to the level of professional technicians.”²³

JAPANESE BUNDAN AND TAIWANESE BUNDAN CONNECTIONS

The kuso realism debate in Taiwan was preceded in Japan by seven years by another kuso realism debate (the Rōmanha debate), but did Nishikawa and others related to him open their Taiwan debate by grounding their argument in this context? Based on the statements issued by the persons involved in these two arguments a direct connection cannot be proven; however, from connections among Bungei Taiwan’s Nishikawa and Hamada, and Hayashi Fusao, as well as Taiwan bungaku’s Zhang Wenhuan and the writers of the Jinminbunko, it is natural to consider that they were conscious of each other.

Hayashi Fusao published the poem “Renpai ni yosu ” in the November 1941 Bungei Taiwan. Not only did he write in the preface to the poem “a Paiwan renpai that [my] Taipei friend Hamada Hayao gave me,” but the tone of the preface also reveals and implies an intimate connection between Hamada and Hayashi.²⁴ When and where Hamada and Hayashi became friends is something that requires further investigation; for now, however, we can only follow the threads that these two have in common. Both writers changed their philosophical orientation by leaving the left-wing movement to participate in the creation of extremist national policy literature.²⁵

Similarly, there exists no direct proof that Nishikawa and Hayashi had any association prior to 1943.²⁶ Only the fact that Hayashi’s “Renpai niyoseru” and Nishikawa’s short fictional narrative titled “Rōman ” appeared in the same issue of Bungei Taiwan suggests a connection. “Rōman,” along with Nishikawa’s style, shows a close affinity with the Rōmanha and what they advocated. Taking into account the publication of “Renpai niyoseru” and Nishikawa’s implied approval of publishing the work as well as the expectation that Nishikawa looked over Hayashi’s other works, it emerges that the critical pen that wrote “this kuso realism that has become the mainstream in Taiwanese literature” and “deeply vulgar, indiscriminate depiction of life” in Bungei Taiwan was probably reflecting Hayashi’s ideas.

But what sort of connections might have existed among the targets of Nishikawa’s attacks: Zhang Wenhuan, Lu Heruo, and members of Jinminbunko?²⁷ The friendship between Japanese-era Zhang Wenhuan and the Jinminbunko members Hirabayashi Hyogo and Takeda Rintarō has only recently been elucidated, in Liu Shuqing’s A Thorny Road—the Literary Movements and Cultural Thinking of Youth in Japan: The Formosa Coterie.²⁸ Further, what cannot be overlooked with regard to Zhang and his possible connection to Jinminbunko was that he too was criticized as a fūzoku writer.²⁹ It has been elsewhere demonstrated that at the time the critical term fūzoku fiction was regularly used by all the Jinminbunko writers, especially Takeda Rintaro. By using the term “kuso realism” as he criticized Takeda’s style as fūzoku Hayashi stylistically links Takeda to Zhang; and certainly it is interesting that Zhang was criticized by Nishikawa as a kuso realist.

In addition to the connections among Zhang, Hirabayashi, and Takeda, the connection between Lu and Takami Jun cannot be overlooked. It is well known that Takami highly praised Lu’s “Gōka heian” in ““Shōsetsusōhyo—shōwa jyūhachinen jōhanki Taiwanbungakukai .”³⁰ This is the very Takami who along with Takeda Rintaro formed the core of Jinminbunko. Takami also published “Rōmantekiseishin to Rōmantekidōkō ” before the formation of Jinminbunko; in this piece he criticized Hayashi Fusao and other members of the Rōmanha.³¹ In the same critique Takami acknowledged the “flavor of kuso realism” in his own work for which Hayashi had criticized him. He pointed out that it was a “dark realism unable to narrate an ideal,” and added that because of such dark realism he could not “brightly sing a romantic song.” Takami clearly expressed his conviction: “[I] continue to hurl myself against reality and grapple [with it] … and so I can only fall and fail.” He concluded, “for the realist, there is misery and there is honesty in wrestling with reality.”

Nishikawa concludes that Lu and Zhang ignore the reality that “this island’s next generation is faithfully reporting and volunteering to duty” as they (i.e., the kuso -realists) depict family troubles and folk customs. But, as I believe the comparison of “Ryūmyakuki” and “Fūsui” has clearly revealed, Lu vis-à-vis the realistic portrayal of a family’s collapse manages to illuminate the destruction of Taiwanese culture.

When he was publicly confronted by Nishikawa, Lu penned no official response; however, the response that never appeared now remains in his personal journal, where he developed a discussion of himself: “I don’t simply write down one example after another of reality. My viewpoint is contained [in my work]. There are many who do not see this” (unpublished journal entry, May 20, 1943). And yet he wrote “Zakuro,” an even darker piece with an undercurrent of heavy gloom and melancholy. Of the strong death image that governs “Zakuro”—dispersal, mental disorder, and separation by death—he later wrote, “I wrote about the dark aspect, well, and from that wrote a beautiful thing” (unpublished journal entry, June 1, 1943).

Lu appears to embody Takami’s thinking when his remarks are put alongside Takami’s ideas of “facing dark reality,” “[the] inability to sing a romantic song,” and “[the] realists’ struggle with reality.” In short, in 1943 Lu had reached Takami’s ideal that “the flavor of kuso realism” was the same as “[a] realist grappling with reality.” Here then is the probable reason that Takami, who had “only read two of [Lu’s] works,” had such high praise for him.

A SETTLING

By employing the key term kuso realism here I have elucidated the connections between Hayashi Fusao and Bungei Taiwan as well as those among Lu Heruo, Zhang Wenhuan, and Jinminbunko. While the “dark reality” that Lu exposed in “Fūsui” was the destruction of Taiwanese culture in colonial Taiwan, Nishikawa’s “reality,” in which “this island’s next generation is faithfully reporting and volunteering to duty,” is bound up with his narration of nation-building and the settlement of Taiwan. Lu apprehends as “reality” the collapse of traditional structures and institutions as well as the destruction of Taiwanese culture. It is for this reason that he continued to turn his ear to the voices of the dead, or the sound of the netherworld. And as the tide of the proletariat literature movement swept through the two Asian entities of Taiwan and Japan, a “tradition” was reborn.

Finally, perhaps best exposing Lu’s talent was the July 1943 (in the heat of the kuso realism debate) appearance in Taiwan bungaku of “Zakuro.” Briefly, the story depicts three brothers who, because their mother and father died while they were still young children, are in due time adopted, separated, and raised by different families. With the passage of time the youngest brother is lost, is imprisoned, and finally weakens and dies due to mental infirmity. Still alone and living in an adopted home, the eldest brother, feeling pity for the younger brother from whom he was separated, sets out to place his brother’s mortuary tablet alongside those of their ancestors and make offerings. As he attends to these tasks he also searches for his second brother. In his journal, Lu writes of the story, which combines the themes of separation, madness, and death: “For my part I’m quite happy with the work” (July 2, 1943).

Is what makes “Zakuro” so appropriate the fact that this story in every sense breaks away from orthodoxy, and thus becomes increasingly cut off from a Taiwan identity?³² But in the conclusion to “Zakuro” the brother is adopted anew through the erection of the tablet. Can we say that this image is an example of Lu listening to the netherworld and at the same time returning from the netherworld with a seed to plant in the world of the living? Is it possible that Lu at this time was looking to Taiwan’s future and its struggle against colonialism?

In February 1944, having emerged from the Japanese proletariat literature movement, Kubokawa Tsurujirō wrote of Lu’s “Zakuro”:

From this work, though it is not easy to touch the spirit of the story for us, in the weird light it throws out, I think we can see an aspect of the true posture of the farmers from this island. … Because the work is harmoniously true, it all the better shows the deep roots of the island’s traditional world, but as for what sort of connection it makes with the island’s agrarian life-style development—I was not less than a little dumfounded. But, I was most impressed with the depth of the work.³³

That the Japanese writers who understood Lu’s work, Takami Jun and Kubokawa Tsurujirō, had both previously participated in the proletarian literature movement is not coincidence. Japanese kuso realism authors certainly reacted to the message from Taiwanese kuso realists. As Kubokawa wrote, “though it is not easy to touch the spirit of the story for us,” the former Japanese, forced to stand on the side of the colonizer, slowly and painfully reacted.³⁴

Jinminbunko, which had striven against the movements of the Rōmanha, stopped publishing in January 1938. But in 1943, during the Taiwanese kuso realism debate, “Zakuro,” a work which perhaps no Japanese writer at the time could have produced, was published. In discussing and understanding the connection between 1930s Japanese bundan and the 1940s Taiwanese bundan we must also put to question the reason that Japanese authors who had resisted imperialism before Taiwanese authors also first retreated from the resistance. I myself as a Japanese person must return to this stumbling block and consider the layers of ideas implicit and explicit.

Lu Heruo, gazing where the colonizer could not, went deeper and deeper into the spirit of the Taiwanese people, and listened to the sounds of the netherworld. The beauty of the black and dark world of Lu’s writing still continues to shine out over time and space and sheds light on the position of Taiwan in the colonial era. The beauty of his works also provide us hope and obligation as we again confront the difficult colonial era.

NOTES

*Translation by Bert Scruggs, University of Pennsylvania.

1. Translator’s note: As per the author’s wishes, Taiwanese names are rendered according to their standard putonghua/guoyu pronunciation and Japanese names are rendered according to their Japanese pronunciation.

2. Nishikawa Mitsuru, “Bungeijihyō ,” Bungei Taiwan 6.1 (May 1943), 38. The Taiwan bungaku response: Wu Xinrong , “Yoki bunshō, ashiki bunshō ,” Kyōnan shinbun (May 24, 1943), sec. 4, and Yun Ling , “Hihyōka ni yosete ,” Kyōnan shinbun (May 24, 1943), sec. 4; and Yitō Ryō (Yang Gui [Yang Kui ]), “Kuso riarizumu no yō ,” in Taiwan bungaku 3.3 (July 1943): 17–21, among others. However, this literary debate can be traced back to Kudo Yoshimi , “Taiwanbungakushō to taiwanbungaku—tokuni Hamada, Nishikawa, Chō Bunkan no sanshimei nitsuite ,” in Taiwan jihō 279 (March 1943): 98–110, and Hamada Hayao , “Hibungakuteki’na kansō ,” in Taiwan jihō 280 (April 1943): 74–79. For more details see Chuishui Qianhui (Tarumi Chie) , “Fen realism zhi beijing— Realism ,” in Zheng Jiongming , ed., Ye Shitao ji qi tongshidai zuojia wenxue guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji (Gaoxiong, Taiwan: Chunhui, 2002), 31–50.

3. All articles published in this debate are collected in: Zeng Jianmin , “Pingjie “Goushi xianshizhuyi” lunzheng—guanyu riju moqi de yichang wenxue douzheng ,” in Jinya de lunzheng (Taipei: Renjian chubanshe, 1999), 109–123. However, Ye Shitao has recently explained that the “Open Letter to Mr. Se, Seshi e no kōkaijyō ” originally published under his name in the Kyōnan shinbun (May 17, 1942) was in fact penned by Nishikawa Mitsuru. See also “‘Fen xieshizhuyi shijian’ jiemi: fang Ye Shitao xiansheng tan ‘gei Shi shi de gongkaixin’ ,” Wenxue Taiwan 42 (summer 2002), 22–36.

4. Kawahara Isao , “Chūgoku zasshi kaidai ‘Bungei Taiwan’ ,” in Ajia keizai shiryō geppō 186 (February 1975), 1–18. Liu Shuqin , Zhanzheng yu Wentan (M.A. thesis, Taipei: Taiwan University, 1994). For a consideration of Bungei Taiwan’s attack on its participation in national policy discussion from Taiwan bungaku’s side of the debate, see Tarumi Chie, Ro Kakujyaku kenkyū (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 2002), 193–206.

5. Watanabe Yoshio, Fōsui ki no keikanchirigaku (Tokyo: Jinbunshoin, 1994), 193.

6. Kataoka Iwao, Taiwan fūkuzokushi (Taipei: Taiwanhibishinbunsha, 1921), 41, 851.

7. Lü’s personal journal, entry dated October 5, 1942. Unpublished.

8. Bungakuza’s performance of Chin fujin was originally slated to run for a total of fourteen performances from April 23 to May 4, 1941; good reviews led to the addition of three performances, on May 5, 6, and 7. Members of the cast were paid thirty yen (Bungakuza gojyū’nenshi [Tokyo: Bungakuza, 1987], 187).

9. Togawa Sadao , “Jyushō no nisakuhin ,” Bungakuhōkoku 2 (September 1943), 3.

10. In 1937 the New Taiwanese Literature movement slipped into a period of stagnation. For more details see Tarumi, Ro Kakujyaku kenkyū, 127–132.

11. For information about Minzoku Taiwan see Minzoku Taiwan 5 (Taipei: Nan tian shuju, 1998). Included are: Ikeda Toshio’s “Shokuminchika Taiwan no Minzokuzasshi ,” Ikeda Mana’s “Shokuminchika Taiwan no Minzokuzasshi kaidai ” (originally published in Taiwan kingendaishi kenkyū 4 [October 1982]), and Ikeda Hōshi’s “‘Minzokutaiwan’ no jidai .”

12. Nakajima Toshio, “Nishikawa Mitsuru sakuhin kaisetsu ,” in Nippontōchiki Taiwanbungaku nihonsakka sakuhinshū niken Nishikawa Mitsuru II II (Tokyo: Ryokuin Shobō, 1999), 407–414.

13. See Chen Zaoxiang , Nihonlyōtaijidai ’no’nihonjinsakka—Nishikawa Mitsuru wo chūshintoshite (Ph.D. diss., Taipei: Soochow University, 1995).

14. Nishikawa Mitsuru, “Atogaki ,” in Taiwan jyūkantetsudō (Tokyo: Ningen’no-teisha, 1978), 401–416.

15. Moreover, that the tunnel is in the end bored through the head of the dragon forces us to consider Nishikawa as a mystic or occultist.

16. Lū Heruo, “Fūsui,” Taiwan b ungaku 24 (October 1942), 56.

17. See Hasegawa Izumi , Kindaibungaku ronsō jiten (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1962), 242–245; Hirano Ken , “Bungaku Shōwa jyunen zengo , wa jyunen zeng” in Hirano Ken zenshū 4 (Tokyo: Shinchō, 1975; 1st ed. 1972), 451–459; Takami Jun , “Shōwa bungaku seisuiki [esp. article 19: “Fuashizumu no nami ”),” in Takami Jun zenshū 15 (Tokyo: Keisōshobō, 1972; 1st ed. 1956), 249–267; and Moriyama Kei et al., “Bungakukai dōjin zadankai (dai san kai) ,” in Bungakukai 3.3 (August 1936): 152–169.

18. Hayashi Fusao, “Hayashi Fusao ryaku nenpu ,” in Daitōasen kōteiron (Tokyo: Natsume shobō, 2001), 480–487.

19. Hayashi Fusao, Rōmanshugi no tameni (Bungakukai shuppanbu, 1936), 41–51, 171–193.

20. Hirabayashi Hyogo, “Hayashi Fusao he’no Tegami [A Letter to Hayashi Fusao],” in Jinminbunko 1.4 (June 1936): 140–142; Shibukawa Takashi, “Genjitsusei he’no michi ,” in Jinminbunko 1.6 (August 1936): 125–127, “Shiseishin to sanbunseishin ,” in Jinminbunko 2.8 (July 1937): 89–94, and “Nihon’no romanha wo tadasu ,” in Jinminbunko 2.5 (April 1937): 124–143. Prior to the March 1936 establishment of Jinminbunko, Takami Jun responded to Hayashi’s “Riarizumudansō ” in the December 1934 Bunka shūdan with “Rōmantekiseishin to rōmantekidōkō ” (reprinted in Gendai nihon bungaku ronsōshi (chū), ed. Hirano Ken et al. [Tokyo: 1957], 306–312).

21. Tsujihashi Saburō , “Jinminbunko,” in Nihonkindai bungaku daijiten 5 5 (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1977), 211–212.

22. Odagiri Hideo , “Kaidai to kaisetsu ‘Jinminbunko’—Gendaibungakushi’no bunkitende ” in “Jinminbunko”—kaisetsu, sōmokuji, sōsakuin “ (Tokyo: Funishuppan, 1996), 5–17.

23. Sugiyama Heisuke , Bungei gojyūnenshi (Tokyo: Masu shobō, 1942), 416; Nakamura Mitsuo , Fūzoku shōsetsuron (Tokyo: Kawade shobō, 1950), 180–191.

24. Hayashi Fusao, “Renpai’niyoseru,” in Bungei Taiwan 3.2 (November 1941): 54–57.

25. On Hamada’s left-wing activities see Matsuo Naota , Bintian Zhunxiong yanjiu—Riben tongzhiqi Taiwan 1940 niandaide Bintian wenxue 1940 (M.A. thesis, Tainan: Chenggong Daxue, 2001).

26. During the Ye Shitao conference in Gaoxiong, Taiwan (December 8–9, 2001), Qiu Ruoshan pointed out that Satō Haruo was caught in between Nishikawa and Hayashi; and Chen Mingtai pointed out the postwar connection between Nishikawa and Hayashi.

27. Regarding the response to the Bungei Taiwan attack written by Yang Kui under the pen name of Itō Ryō and the connection to Jinminbunko, see the aforementioned Tarumi, “Fen Realism.”

28. Liu Shuqing , Jingji zhi dao—liuri qingnian de wenxue huodong yu wenhua gouxiang—yi “fuermosha” xitong zuojia wei zhongxin (Ph.D. diss., Xinzhu, Taiwan: National Tsinghua (Qinghua) University, 2001), 262–266.

29. Fujino Yusuji/, “Yosaru sonota zatsudan ,” in Taiwan bungaku 2.2 (March 1942): 98–101. Zhang Wenxun has been extremely helpful in elucidating this connection.

30. Takami Jun, “Shōsetsusōhyō—Shōwajyūhachinen kamihanki Taiwanbungakukai,” in Taiwankōron (August 1943), 86–92.

31. Hirano Ken et al., “Rōmantekiseisen to romantekidōkō.”

32. For an examination of Lü, adoption, and national identity see Tarumi Chie, “Hou Xiaoxian Gekiyumejinsei: Sairon ,” in Chūgoku 21 11 (March 2001): 81–92.

33. Kubokawa Tsurujirō, “Taiwanbungaku hankkenen (1)—Shōwa jyūhachinen shitahanki shōsetsu sōhyō ,” in Taiwan kōron (February 1942): 104–111.

34. “Conversion literature” and its relation to Taiwan literature is currently a point of discussion. For one view, see Tarumi Chie, “Lü Heruo ni okeru Fūtōsuibi no ichi ,” in Nihon Taiwangakkai daisankai gakujyutsudaikai hōkokusha ronbunshū , 2001.