Introduction to Postwar Taiwan Fiction
Unit Four
The 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
The KMT-CPC Negotiations
Chongqing negotiations
2
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 .
3
The Chinese Civil War
The 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]
4
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.
5
6
The Founding Ceremony of PRC on Oct 1st, 1949
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). 7
Gate of the Forbidden City,
Tienanmen Square, Beijing.
Wikipedia Cory Doctorow
8
Soong Ching-ling Attending the Ceremony
.
9
The Third Phase
• The nationalist armies lost ground hopelessly, and the
ROC government retreated to Taipei in December 1949.
Wikipedia Theodoranian
10
“Fight back and retrieve the Mainland.” [反攻大陸]
“Unify China with the Three Principles of the People”
Wikipedia Minsc
October 2003 - A propaganda sign on
Kinmen facing Mainland China
11
• 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 shortterm or permanent
residence with their
relatives
12
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Wang Wen-hsing
“The Dragon Inn” [龍天樓] (1967)
• A restaurant in Taichung selling the cuisine of
Shan-hsi Province.
• Four stories about a general and some highranking 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.
13
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.
15
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.
16
• 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
Family Catastrophe: A Modernist Novel [家變] (1972
in Chungwai Literary Monthly, 1973 in book form)
• 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.
18
• 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.
19
• 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.
20
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Pai Hsien-yung
“A Sea of Blood-red Azaleas”
[那片血一般紅的杜鵑花] (1969)
• 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.
21
• 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.
22
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Pai Hsien-yung
“Glory’s by Blossom Bridge” [花橋榮記] (1970)
• 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 Guanhsi adapted to their lives as Taipei people.
23
• 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.
24
• 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.
25
Mainlanders in Taiwan: Chen Ying-chen
“My First Case” [第一件差事] (1967)
• 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.
26
• 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.”
27
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.”
28
“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.)
29
The Transformation of Social Values
• 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.
30
“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)
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. 31
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.
32
Cousin Dawu from Beijing
“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)
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.
33
The scene at Tongqing Lou [同慶樓]
“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)
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.
34
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: matchmaking arranged by parents, couples barely knew
each other before getting married, might spend
limited time together.
• Problem of Obligation.
35
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)
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.
36
• 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.
37
“State Funeral” [國葬] (1971)
General Pai Ch’ung-hsi
38
General Pai Ch’ung-hsi (1893-1966)
• 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.
39
• 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.
40
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)
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.
41
Li Haoran
• 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.
42
The Young Master
• “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]
43
The Memorial Scrolls
“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.
44
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)
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.
45
The Three Warriors of Li Haoran
• 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.
46
Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum on Purple Mountain
Wikipeida: Author Unknown
47
Why the Scene at the
Mausoleum Was Mentioned?
• 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.
48
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.
49
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.
50
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.
51
Taipei People as a Collection of Historical Fiction
•
•
•
•
•
•
“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)
52
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zh-tw
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Wikipedia Hou Bo
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Wikipedia Cory Doctorow
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nanmen_Square,_Beijing,_China.jpg
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Wikipeida: Author Unknown
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Wikipedia Theodoranian
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KMTretreat.PNG
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Wikipedia Minsc
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dscf0207.jpg
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Wikipedia 陳黎陽
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31
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 Kong
Pang-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 were
falling like crazy …just
live one day at a time.”
Hsiao Sa .(2003) .My Relatives in Hong Kong
Pang-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 Kong
Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Eds.) The Last of the Whampoa
breed [electronic resource] : stories of Chinese diaspora.
54
(pp. 173). New York : Columbia University Press
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“We were all Chinese, but
still we were different.”
Licensing
Author/Source
Hsiao Sa .(2003) .My Relatives in Hong Kong
Pang-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
Wikipedia Peterpan
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minister1.jpg
2012/03/14 visited
38
41
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
44
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
45
In passes and on rivers you
fought a hundred battles;
Forever …old general? Ye
Hui, 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
46
The whole situation had
gotten away from us; it was
really no one’s fault.
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.
55
(pp. 105). New York : Columbia University Press
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Wikipeida: Author Unknown
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2012/03/14 visited
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