Taiwanese Literature During the Japanese Colonial Period

In the spring of 1895, the literary fate of Taiwan began an entirely new chapter as the ink dried on the Treaty of Shimonoseki. If the literature of the Qing-era Taiwan was slowly incubating within the matrix of traditional Chinese culture, then the fifty years of Japanese rule — under the fierce impact of Western modernity — saw Taiwanese literature born as an independent literary life, in pain and in splendor.

This was the most complex, most contradictory, and most dramatic era in the history of Taiwanese literature. The colonizer's language became the tool through which the colonized expressed their resistance; the new literary ideas brought by oppressors inspired the ethnic awakening of the oppressed; the most profound cultural identities often emerged from the most intense cultural conflicts. Over these fifty years, Taiwanese literature passed through multiple transitions — from classical to modern, from literary Chinese to vernacular, from Mandarin to Japanese — ultimately finding, amid multiple cultural tensions, its own distinctive voice.

1895: Literary Rupture at History's Hinge

In 1895, the cannon-smoke of the First Sino-Japanese War had barely cleared when the Treaty of Shimonoseki placed Taiwan on a different historical track. For Taiwan's scholar-literati class, this was not merely a political upheaval — it was a fundamental turning point in their literary destiny.

The Anguished Cry of Resistance Literature

"Spring grief is hard to dispel; I force myself to look at the mountains. Past events pierce my heart; tears nearly flow. Four hundred million people wept as one; it was on this day last year that Taiwan was ceded." This was the lament of poet Qiu Feng-jia (丘逢甲) in his poem Spring Grief — capturing the sorrow and helplessness of Taiwan's intellectuals in the face of the island's cession.

In the year of the Yiwei cession (1895), Taiwan produced a large body of resistance literature. These works were mostly poetry, expressing resistance to Japanese rule and longing for the motherland. Lien Ya-tang's (連雅堂) Preface to the General History of Taiwan was composed somewhat later, but its spiritual roots can be traced to this period. The lament "Taiwan has no history at all" embodies the cultural self-consciousness of intellectuals who felt compelled to write the island's history and give it a voice.

However, more of the literati chose "inner passage" — returning to the mainland. This large-scale exodus of cultural talent caused a temporary rupture in Taiwanese literary development. Those who remained in Taiwan either fell gradually silent under Japanese cultural policy, or struggled painfully in the conflicts between tradition and modernity, local and foreign.

The New vs. Old Literary Debate: The Baptism of Modernity

Chang Wo-chün: Pioneer of the New Literature Movement

In 1924, an article titled "A Letter to the Youth of Taiwan" appeared in Taiwan Minpao (台灣民報), written by Chang Wo-chün (張我軍), who had just returned from Beijing. The article fiercely criticized Taiwan's traditional poetry and prose as "stale and rotten," advocating that writers learn from the new literature promoted by Hu Shih and others, and create in vernacular Chinese.

Chang Wo-chün's views ignited fierce debate. Traditional literati represented by Lien Ya-tang firmly opposed the change, arguing that vernacular Chinese was "shallow and tasteless" and harmful to the depth of Chinese culture. The New Literature faction led by Chang, however, held that only through vernacular Chinese could modern people's thoughts and feelings be expressed, and could literature truly penetrate the lives of the common people.

This debate's significance went far beyond literature itself. It was fundamentally a discussion about the direction of Taiwan's cultural development: should Taiwan hold fast to tradition, or embrace modernity? Should it maintain elite culture, or move toward popular culture? Should it insist on the "national language" (Mandarin Chinese), or accept the "national language" (Japanese)?

_Taiwan Minpao_: Cradle of New Literature

Taiwan Minpao, founded in 1925, became an important base for the New Literature movement. This newspaper not only reported political current affairs but, more importantly, provided a publishing venue for Taiwan's new literature. The debut works of many important authors appeared in its pages.

Taiwan Minpao's literary section displayed the distinct character of the times: on one hand printing new poetry, fiction, and essays in vernacular Chinese; on the other, retaining space for traditional poetry — embodying the transitional characteristic of the old coexisting with the new. More importantly, this newspaper began attending to Taiwanese local social realities, laying the foundation for the rise of realist literature.

Lai Ho: Father of Taiwan's New Literature

If one figure must be named as the most important Taiwanese author of the Japanese colonial period, Lai Ho (賴和, 1894–1943) is beyond question. This country doctor from Changhua used his literary works to lay the foundation of Taiwan's new literature, honored as the "Father of Taiwan's New Literature."

Literary Enlightenment and Ethnic Awakening

Lai Ho's literary creation is inseparable from his political awakening. In 1921, he participated in the activities of the Taiwan Cultural Association and began attending to Taiwan's social problems. In 1925, he published the prose essay "Untitled" and the new poem "Sacrifice Under Awakening — Dedicated to the Comrades of the Erlin Incident," formally entering the field of new literary creation.

Lai Ho's representative work A Busy Fair (鬥鬧熱, 1926) is considered Taiwan's first true vernacular-Chinese fiction. Set against a temple festival, the story depicts the texture of Taiwanese people's lives while cleverly weaving in criticism of Japanese rule. The language is lively and fresh, drawing heavily on Taiwanese Hokkien vocabulary — pioneering the localization of Taiwanese literary language.

Founding Realism

Lai Ho's literary creation consistently engaged with social reality, particularly the difficulties of people at the bottom of society. His story "A Scale" (一桿「稱仔」) depicts the unfair treatment suffered by a small vendor named Chin Te-tsan because of the standardization of weights and measures — a piercing exposure of the absurdity and cruelty of colonial rule.

This realist writing tendency established an important tradition for Taiwanese literature. Literature was not art for art's sake — it was the practice of literature intervening in reality, reflecting the people's sufferings, and enlightening the public. This tradition later influenced Yang K'uei (楊逵), Lü Ho-jo (呂赫若), and a large group of writers, becoming a distinctive feature of Taiwanese literature.

Linguistic Experimentation

Lai Ho's experiments in language use have pioneering significance. His works draw heavily on Hokkien vocabulary and modes of expression, sometimes transcribing Hokkien sounds directly using Chinese characters. These experiments generated considerable controversy at the time, but established the direction of localization for Taiwanese literary language.

More importantly, through linguistic experimentation, Lai Ho found an appropriate mode for expressing Taiwanese experience. His literary language preserves the literariness of Chinese while incorporating the vitality of Taiwanese Hokkien — creating a modern written Chinese with a distinctly local character.

The Rise of Left-Wing Literature

Yang K'uei: Standard-Bearer of Proletarian Literature

Yang K'uei (楊逵, 1906–1985) is an important representative of Taiwan's left-wing literature. In his youth he studied in Japan, where he encountered Marxist thought and proletarian literary theory; returning to Taiwan, he devoted himself to creating and promoting socialist literature.

Yang K'uei's representative work The Newspaper Boy (送報伸) is the first story in Taiwanese literary history to feature a worker as its protagonist. Depicting the miserable fate of a paperboy, it powerfully exposes the injustice of capitalist society. The language is plain and forceful, the characters vivid — embodying the aesthetic character of proletarian literature.

In 1935, Yang K'uei founded the magazine New Taiwanese Literature (台灣新文學), the first purely literary magazine in Taiwan. The magazine not only published the works of local authors but translated large quantities of foreign left-wing literary work, providing Taiwanese literature with an international perspective.

Chang Shen-chieh and _Taiwanese Literature_ (台灣文藝)

In 1934, the magazine Taiwanese Literature was founded; its initiator Chang Shen-chieh (張深切) proposed an editorial policy of "no distinctions by ideology, no distinctions by school," broadly uniting Taiwan's literary forces. This magazine became one of the most influential literary publications in Taiwanese literary history.

The hallmarks of Taiwanese Literature were inclusivity and pluralism. It published both left-wing authors' works and modernist-style creation; it contained both Chinese-language writing and Japanese-language work; it focused on Taiwan locally while looking outward to world literature. This open attitude laid the foundation for the diverse development of Taiwanese literature.

Literary Struggle During the Kominka (Imperialization) Period

The Rise of Japanese-Language Literature

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan implemented the "Kominka movement" (皇民化運動) in Taiwan — banning the public use of Chinese script and mandating Japanese-language education. Against this backdrop, a group of local writers emerged who created in Japanese.

These writers faced an extremely complex cultural predicament. On one hand, they were compelled to write in the colonizer's language; on the other, they hoped to maintain concern for Taiwan's local culture in their works. This contradiction produced distinctive literary tensions and gave rise to some outstanding work.

Lü Ho-jo: The Artist Who Crossed Languages

Lü Ho-jo (呂赫若, 1914–1951) was the most important author of this period. His story The Ox Cart (牛車) depicts the decline of Taiwan's countryside with delicate brushwork, presenting the helplessness and struggle of peasants under the impact of modernization. Though written in Japanese, the spiritual core of the work remains deeply planted in Taiwan's soil.

Lü Ho-jo's creation embodies the cultural strategy of colonial-era writers: on the surface cooperating with colonial policy; in practice, using literary metaphor and symbol to express protection of local culture. This mode of "oblique writing" became an important tradition in Taiwanese literature.

Chang Wen-huan: Literature's Perseverer

Chang Wen-huan (張文環, 1909–1978) was another important Japanese-language literary author. His story The Castrated Cock (閹雞) uses the story of a rooster's castration as a metaphor for the fate of Taiwanese people under colonial rule. This deployment of symbolism both sidestepped political censorship and expressed profound political allegory.

In 1941, Chang Wen-huan founded the magazine Taiwan Literature (台灣文學), the most important literary publication of the Kominka period. Although using Japanese, the magazine maintained Taiwan's local literary stance, providing Taiwanese authors with a precious publication venue.

The Aesthetic Qualities of Colonial Literature

Dual-Consciousness in Literary Expression

Japanese colonial-period Taiwanese literature has a pronounced "dual consciousness" character. Authors had to face the reality of colonial rule while maintaining identification with local culture; had to learn modern literary techniques while upholding the stance of ethnic literature. This complex cultural predicament produced distinctive literary aesthetics.

This dual consciousness manifested on many levels: the choice of language (Chinese or Japanese), the selection of subject matter (contemporary reality or tradition), the calibration of stance (resistance or accommodation), the determination of style (local or international). It was precisely through these complex choices that Taiwanese literature gradually formed its own characteristics.

The Deepening of Realism

The dominant tendency in Japanese colonial-period Taiwanese literature was realism. This realism was not simple life-depiction but carried strong social-critical coloring and ethnic consciousness. Writers used literary works to expose the injustice of colonial rule, reflect the sufferings of the people, and express their pursuit of social justice.

The distinctive character of this realist literature was the tight integration of individual fate and ethnic fate. A peasant's bankruptcy often implied the collapse of an entire agricultural society; an intellectual's struggle often reflected the predicament of an entire people. This combination of grand narrative and personal narrative provided Taiwanese literature with rich expressive space.

The Localization of Literary Language

Despite passing through multiple linguistic transformations, Japanese colonial-period Taiwanese literature was always searching for a literary language suited to expressing the Taiwanese experience. Whether Lai Ho's Hokkien-inflected Chinese, Yang K'uei's populist Mandarin, or Lü Ho-jo's "Taiwanese Japanese" — all embody the authors' relentless search for the localization of literary language.

The significance of this search lay not only in finding the tool of expression, but in establishing the linguistic character of Taiwanese literature. What should the language of Taiwanese literature look like? How can it embody local character while maintaining literariness? The exploration of these questions provided precious experience for the development of postwar Taiwanese literature.

A Historical Turning Point

On August 15, 1945, as the Japanese Emperor announced Japan's surrender, the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan formally ended. For Taiwanese literature, this was simultaneously the end of one era and the beginning of another.

The fifty years of Japanese rule left Taiwanese literature a rich inheritance: the establishment of modern literary concepts, the awakening of local consciousness, the inclusivity of multicultural expression, and the grounding of the realist tradition. All of these became important foundations for postwar Taiwanese literary development.

At the same time, this period also exposed certain problems in Taiwanese literary development: confusion about linguistic identity, ambiguity of cultural identity, and complexity of political stance. These problems persisted in the postwar period, appearing in new forms under different historical conditions.

Conclusion: Flowers Blooming in the Cracks

Japanese colonial-period Taiwanese literature is a flower that bloomed in the cracks — caught between tradition and modernity, between local and foreign, between resistance and accommodation. It was precisely within these complex tensions that Taiwanese literature found its own voice and established its own character.

Lai Ho's physician's pen, Yang K'uei's combative voice, Lü Ho-jo's artistic beauty, Chang Wen-huan's steadfast determination — these different literary faces together compose the rich landscape of Japanese colonial-period Taiwanese literature. They used their creative work to prove that even under the most difficult historical conditions, literature can still uphold its ideals and express the voice of a people.

This period of Taiwanese literature laid a solid foundation for what followed. Its realist tradition, local consciousness, spirit of resistance, and cultural inclusivity all became important characteristics of Taiwanese literature — continuing to influence it to this day. As Lai Ho wrote in his poem: "Brave people should fight for righteousness" — this literary courage and idealism is still the most precious wealth of Taiwanese literature.

Further Reading

• Postwar Taiwanese Literature — How the Japanese colonial thread of Lai Ho, Lü Ho-jo, and Chang Wen-huan continued after the 1945 linguistic rupture: Yeh Shih-t'ao's blank page, modernism, the Nativist Literature debate, women's awakening
• Post-Martial Law Taiwanese Literature — The diverse explosion after the lifting of martial law in 1987
• Contemporary Taiwanese Literature — Internationalization in the 21st century, Wu Ming-yi, digital literature
• History of Taiwanese Literature — The complete context from Dutch rule and the Ming-Qing period through Japanese colonization to the contemporary
• Lin Liang (林良) — A postwar children's literature founding figure who crossed from Xiamen to Taiwan; provides a comparison of prewar/postwar positioning in relation to language policy in Japanese colonial-period literature

References:

• Yeh Shih-t'ao, _An Outline History of Taiwanese Literature_
• Ch'en Fang-ming, _Colonial Taiwan: Essays on the History of Left-Wing Political Movements_
• Kawahara Isao, _The Unfolding of the Taiwan New Literature Movement_
• Edited by Nakajima Toshiro, Collected Essays on the Literary History of Japanese Colonial Taiwan