Taiwanese and Japanese Literature Comparison - Essay Example

1Your Instructor’s Name Course Date Wu Zhouliu’s Orphan of Asia And Taiwanese Students Studying in Japan Literature is a medium that provides useful insight into the past, present, and even future of our world. Through its various medium, humankind has been kept informed of our history and about human evils as well as their struggle. Literature shall continue to do so. Here through our discussion of Wu Zhouliu’s Orphan of Asia and Faye Yuan Kleeman’s Under an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of Taiwan and the South we embark on a journey to understand how important literature is for a better understanding of history. We inter cross the boundaries of history and literature and through a discussion of comparison between Taiwanese and Japanese literature try to understand the effect that history has on literature. Orphan of Asia was written by a writer facing the crisis of identity that was just as common to any other Taiwanese. The book was written during 1943, two years before Taiwan attained independence. The book belongs to the period when Taiwan was a colonized country, and it generates just as much empathy for Taiwan as a literary work describing Hiroshima and Nagasaki event would generate. Belonging to a period when Taiwan, Japan, and China indicate much more openness in their relationships, the literary work forces its readers to think about human nature and their unending quest to gain power. The literary works also lay before us the option of choosing a peaceful and non-discriminatory path in contrast to the one that leads to capturing power (or rather power capturing us). The work also indicates how different people can be within their own country. Some people prefer to remain loyal to the serving master and thus gain their master’s ‘blessings’ while other prefer to do what’s right which often goes against the way of the master. However, the only thing binding the people is their nationality in the same way that the thread binding Westerners and Easterners is ‘being human’. Wu Zhouliu was born in 1900 and after completing his education in a kōgakkō (public school), he went to Taipei Teachers College. Later he joined a kōgakkō as a teacher but left the job because of discrimination against Taiwanese. He went to China and became a reporter for a newspaper, he was afraid to come back to Taiwan as the Japanese officials suspected him. However, during the Pacific wars he had to return to Taiwan, as he feared Chinese wrath. He was not able to live peacefully as long as Japan continued its colonization. He died in 1976, because of a serious cold condition, at the age of seventy-seven. A writer writes what he sees and Wu Zhouliu is no different. His life history spectacularly reminds one about the protagonist of Orphan of Asia- Hu Tai-Ming. It is no surprise that Wu Zhouliu was able to put forward an empathic picture of colonized Taiwanese because he himself had gone through all those situations. If he symbolizes colonized Taiwanese as being orphan then puts forward his own pain of having felt the pang of being an orphan. Nationality is a big subject for individuals like you and me; it is a part of us-a defining factor. When somebody does not enjoy the basic need of being able to be recognized through this identity, the person feels like an orphan. The worst part with the colonized Taiwanese was that in spite of having two parents-China and Japan-neither was willing to accept its role. Many people today prefer calling the ‘experiences’ of Taiwan helping it in being multi-cultured, it is only when one reeds the book that one realizes that the so-called multi-cultural exposure was an unending trauma for Taiwanese. Were Taiwanese even actually Chinese, since Chinese were also its colonizers in fact? Maybe this justifies China’s indifferent attitude for a Taiwanese’s pain. It should have been an open space for Taiwanese refugees but it only sought to seek Taiwan for its benefits, an attitude not too different from its Japanese colonizers. The book has been called a masterpiece of Wu Zhouliu because it provides an excellent source to discover conditions of colonized Taiwan. The best aspect of the literature work is its perfection in bringing out the symbolism between an orphan and a Taiwanese through Hu Tai Ming’s experience as a teacher in a kōgakkō, his failure as a lover who was no more than a colonized subject for his love interest, his disappointment as an elite Taiwanese student in Japan, discrimination in his motherland China and his ultimate drive to insanity. It is clear that he was driven to insanity because of a constant feeling of being homeless in his own country, of being suspected as a spy in his own home and by the feeling of being orphaned. It becomes important for us to discuss the origins of the Taiwan New Literature while studying this book as the origins and the motive are in fact an answer to the juxtaposed identity of colonized Taiwanese. In an attempt to suppress the anti-colonial movements, Japan decided to force its culture on Taiwanese (Kōminka activity) and education became an important medium for that. Through its establishment of kōgakkō, compulsory primary education, and Kokugo kyôiku-Japanese language education, Taiwanese got their education through a Japanese education system. The writers who are said to have given birth to the Taiwan New Literature were a part of this education system. Wu Zhouliu is also among the writers who got their basic education from a Japanese education system but wrote against the Japanese colonization. The fact that most of these writers were much better in Japanese than Chinese or Taiwanese and that most of their contained elements of Japanese establishes the fact the colonized Taiwanese had a diluted identity. Orphan of Asia indicates the same diluteness in the identity as Tai Ming being from elite Taiwanese family was made to feel like a servant in his own country, never enjoying the rights that being a native he should have enjoyed. His identity as a Taiwanese student in Japan was again disturbed, as Japanese were not willing to accept his position as being equivalent to them, and Chinese students were more interested in humiliating them than protecting them from humiliation. His condition as Japanese in China and Chinese in colonized Japan explain that Taiwanese were not just suffering from an identity crisis but were also bearing a wound that grew with each passing day. It is important to note that most of the writers in that period were anti-colonial in their writings. Reading Orphan of Asia, we realize that the author was also anti-colonial in his thoughts, as he never mentions about how Japan could have had a positive effect on Taiwan. It is important to note that many Indians feel grateful to their colonizers for driving away the Japanese from colonizing them, this indicates that when compared Japanese were brutal rulers. Their policy of banning any writing in Taiwanese or Chinese not just wiped away a nation of its language but also a generation of its identity. Orphan of Asia was written with the motive of bringing out the cruelty of Japanese colonizers. The writer has been successful in his job. Not just we learn about the history of Taiwan through the book but we also realize that history as it is now to us, shapes a writer. What I mean is that a writer is as much affected by his history as by his present. Orphan of Asia in fact represents this as it beautifully amalgamates the past and present (here present is also past for us). The next work that I am going to discuss helps us to understand the condition of colonial Taiwan better and thus help in a better understanding of the previous work. Faye Yuan Kleeman’s Under an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of Taiwan and the South is not a story about the struggles of a Taiwanese shown through a well-knit storyline. Instead, the writer seeks to understand Taiwan through the various Japanese writers during that time. The work is also important as it provides an understanding of origin of Taiwan literature and, its colonizers affect on it. The book includes work by Zhou Jimpo’s Volunteer Soldier, Taku Oshika’s The Barbarians among others. The earlier work includes a Taiwanese protagonist whose angst can be felt through his words, “I can speak for my own case; I am certain that I have completely turned into a Japanese. Is it that difficult to be a Japanese? I do not think so.... Is one not a Japanese when one cannot help but be moved when one kowtows before the Yasukuni Shrine?"(Kleeman). Like the protagonist of Orphan of Asia, here too the protagonist is unaware of his identity. This identity crisis has created a void in his space that resonates in the reader’s heart as he goes through the book. The other author, Taku Oshika, had lived briefly in Taiwan and his book is an account of the major tribal uprising that had gripped Taiwan during 1920. His book is mainly an account of how ‘barbaric’ the Taiwanese were. The main object of the book seems to be a justification for the activities of Japan who came with the main motive to civilize the ‘barbarians’ and transform them into ‘good Japanese’. Faye Yuan Kleeman, associate professor of East Asian languages and culture at the University of Colorado, discusses through the book about Japan’s self-imposed drive to remove barbarism from the southern countries and to bring them to the level of Japan, which they considered the ‘Sun of East Asia’. Undoubtedly, Japan was like a typical Western colonizer with a conscience to obtain maximum benefits from its colonies and no emotional or human connection with the colonies. Another main point brought out in the book is about the effect of Japan’s colonial activities on literature. Japan’s colonial activity not just influenced the rising of a new literature in Taiwan but also influenced the writings in Japan itself. It is important for one to realize that in spite of the gory image that revolves in our mind of colonial Japan, there were people in Japan who were laborers and were in conditions similar to the Taiwanese if not worse. Writers are creative person who do not see the world as a common person does, there are no boundaries for him, the pain of people whether Taiwanese or Japanese affect the same. This fact becomes clear reading the book and those who preferred to justify wrong doings of Japan were more of subjects of Japan rather than writers. Hence, through the book we come across writings by Japanese and their point of view. The book serves the purpose of bringing out the literary works, which directly or indirectly concerned Taiwan, written during the period of Taiwanese colonization. As said earlier, it helps in enhancing one’s knowledge of colonized Taiwan and thus helps in understanding the symbolism that Wu Zhouliu used in his work and its reason. The fact that ‘becoming Japanese’ was not an easy process has been amplified by this book. It is interesting to note that most of the protagonists go through the same pain and dilemma that Tai-Ming goes through. The stories are different, the protagonists are different, their conditions are different, and yet they share the same pain-the pain of having lost their identity. They share this pain with the thousands of colonized Taiwanese whether belonging to elite family or to laborer class, the agony remains the same. The book’s importance lies in that it brings out to its readers how Japanese felt about their deeds. It is commendable that these Japanese writers put a brave front in bringing out the situation as it was and in criticizing the working of Japanese government. Obviously, there were some writers who were loyal to their sovereign and thought that the assimilation process by Japanese was not just fair but also highly useful for the colonized countries. Japanese had believed that were the sole guardians for all the East Asian countries. In their drive to establish their ‘guardianship’, they ripped the colonized nations of their rights, forcing their culture on them. The worst part of the colonization process was that the nations lost their own culture and hence their identity. Taiwanese became orphans without a culture, without their ancestors to look after them. The identity crisis is beautifully brought out by Yuan Kleeman: Sentiments toward Japan, the Japanese people, and the Japanese language have recently been captured in a trio of related terms: ‘meirizu’ (fawner on Japan), those (mostly Taiwanese) who feel nostalgia for the good old colonial times; ‘henrizu’ (Japan haters), those (mostly mainlanders) who despise Japan; and ‘harizu’ (Japan fans), members of the young generation (mostly teenagers) who grew up with no burden of colonial memory and regard all things Japanese…as superior to both their Western and native counterparts.(Kleeman 247) The two books mentioned provide an exemplary source to providing a peek into the history of colonized Taiwan. As said earlier, we were to discuss how history affects literature and how literature affects history. Through our earlier discussion, we have already discussed the former part; let us now move on to the latter part. It is interesting to note how literature serves to affect history and in fact how it shapes it. Our discussion until now has concerned Taiwanese’s condition in colonial Japan. There is no doubt to it that colonized subjects always suffered but how can we say for sure that the condition of Taiwanese was in fact as bad as mentioned. It is not that I am trying to justify Japan’s acts by saying that Taiwanese writers were just being too harsh. If Japanese writers criticized then they praised the same methods too. The question is that how are we supposed to believe the authors? The question in fact is answer to our discussion of literature shaping history. We do not doubt the work of an author, we do not think about the pros and cons. It is human nature to consider things black and white, even though we ourselves live a grey life. Here too we wear our lenses of black and white where Taiwan, the sufferer, is white and Japan, the tormentor, is black. The fact that the kōgakkō system brought the education system that laid the foundation for the good education system that still prevails in Taiwan besides indirectly affecting the thought process. Reading even the previous part of this essay would have added onto the fact of Japan being a tormentor. This is how literature affects history, one can never revisit the past and the only sources remain either literary or hearsay. Most would prefer the previous and thus reading about the ‘history’ through someone else’s mind one is prone to have the same feelings. What is the guarantee that had my discussion centered about literatures praising Japan’s efforts in bringing prosperity to East Asian nations would have not affected our feelings towards Japan as a colonizer? The two writings help us in forming an opinion and perhaps that is the worst part of human nature, forming opinions and then sticking to it. In spite of this, it is commendable on the authors’ part to bring out a fine work of literature. We learn about literature as much as about history. The second book specially exemplifies in its attempt to bring to its readers a complete picture of Taiwan. It is important to note that these works do not mean an end to our research; in fact, they form a part of the research to find the situation of Taiwan. In order to continue with our search we need to find more works that have been forgotten and translate the ones that have not been translated yet. There are many literary works waiting to be discovered again, maybe there were worse things done by Japan, may be we missed out on the many good Japanese who would have helped Taiwanese. There are many things to be known before coming to a conclusion and I hope that the search continues before forming any opinions. Works Cited Kleeman, Faye Y. Under an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of Taiwan and the South. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003. Wu, Zhouliu. Orphan of Asia. New York: Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2006. Yin, Lin P. “Negotiating colonialism: Taiwanese literature during the Japanese occupation.” IIAS Newsletter Sept. 2005: 20. Electronic Read More