Lai Ho: The 'Changhua Mazu' in a Native Shirt, and His Unyielding Steelyard

30-second overview: Lai Ho (1894–1943) was the most influential physician-writer of the Japanese colonial period. With one hand he wielded a scalpel to treat the poor, earning the veneration of "Changhua Mazu" and "Ah-he the Sage"; with the other he took up the pen to inaugurate Taiwanese vernacular literature and criticize the injustice of colonial rule. His life is a microcosm of Taiwanese people's struggle and dignity under Japanese governance — especially his annual Lunar New Year's Eve custom of burning patients' debt slips, and the words he wrote in prison — which to this day remain a paradigm of medical virtue and humanist spirit in Taiwan.

"Power has no right to exist in this world; brave men must fight for justice."¹

On December 8, 1941, the day the Pearl Harbor attack began, a Changhua City physician with a mustache and dressed in a native shirt (the lightweight Taiwanese traditional garment) was taken away by Japanese gendarmerie for no stated reason. It was his second imprisonment. In prison, he wrote the Prison Diary on coarse paper — charged with suppression and reflection.

This physician was Lai Ho. But he is better known as the "Father of Taiwanese New Literature."

"Changhua Mazu" in the Clinic: Medical Awakening from Chiayi to Xiamen

In 1914, after graduating from the Taiwan Governor-General's Office Medical School, Lai Ho first interned in Taipei, then served at the Taiwan Governor-General's Office Chiayi Hospital (predecessor of today's Ministry of Health and Welfare Chiayi Hospital) from 1914 to 1915.² In 1918, he traveled to Gulangyu, Xiamen, to serve as a physician at Bo'ai Hospital, where he was exposed to the intellectual currents of the May Fourth Movement and Chinese social realities. Returning to Taiwan in 1919, he opened the "Lai Ho Medical Clinic" in Changhua.³

In the class-stratified colonial era, Lai Ho chose to shed his Western suit and consistently wear the native shirt — a choice that was not mere fashion but a political stance: a refusal of the colonial bureaucratic system and a positioning alongside common people at the social margins.⁴

Local residents venerated him as "Changhua Mazu," "Ah-he the Sage," and "the reincarnation of Hua Tuo." Most moving was his annual Lunar New Year's Eve custom: burning the medical bills of indigent patients, letting them "enter the new year debt-free." When a patient came rushing on New Year's Eve to repay a debt, he laughed it off: "The IOU has already been burned — don't worry about paying it back."⁵ Next to the clinic was a "Linbao House" (a shelter for the destitute), where he often invited old itinerant poets to play the moon lute, transcribing folk songs such as "Xinyou Yige Shi" (on the Dai Wansheng uprising), tightly interweaving medical practice with cultural preservation.⁶

The Broken Steelyard: Literary Fury After the Erlin Incident

Lai Ho's literature was always tightly bound to specific historical events. The 1925 "Erlin Sugarcane Farmers' Incident" — in which farmers resisting the exploitation of a sugar company were suppressed by police — inspired him to write his first new poem, "A Sacrifice Made in Awakening."⁷ The story "A Steelyard," published in February 1926, is the representative work of this spirit of resistance.

The steelyard broken by a police officer in the story symbolizes the violence of colonial rulers manipulating law and power at will.⁸ In his afterword, Lai Ho mentioned that the work was deeply influenced by French writer Anatole France's story "Crainquebille," but he transformed it into a Taiwanese local experience, expressing "the resistance of the weak."⁹

Additionally, the long poem "Lament of the Southern Nation," published in the April 1931 issue of Taiwan Minbao under the pen name "An Dusheng," is an important work mourning the Wushe Incident and condemning colonial violence.¹⁰

"Forward": Clarity in Darkness and Anxiety Over Left-Right Fissures

In 1927, the Taiwan Cultural Association faced a severe left-right split. As an association trustee, Lai Ho was deeply concerned about the internal drain on the movement's energies. In his essay "Forward," he wrote in allegorical prose:

"In this darkness, somehow it is not impossible to move forward. We do not know where we find the courage to advance fearlessly along this unknown road."¹¹

The story ends with two people parting ways, symbolizing the divergence of intellectuals over the path of resistance. He called urgently for unity to avoid wasting limited strength on internal conflict.¹² This concern was also reflected in his mentoring of younger writers — Yang Kui, Wang Shih-lang, Lu He-jo, Wu Cho-liu, and Yeh Shih-tao all received his guidance and care.¹³

Language and Identity: Mending Taiwanese Across the Fault Line

Lai Ho, educated in the classical Chinese tradition and trained in modern Western medicine under colonial linguistic conditions, was always exploring the space between "Taiwanese vernacular writing" and Chinese vernacular literature. When composing, he often first thought in classical Chinese and wrote in Mandarin, then deliberately incorporated Hokkien (Taiwanese) vocabulary — such as "steelyard" (chinn-á), "lease" (phoh), and "shortchange" (khek-khui) — striving to approach the everyday language and lived experience of Taiwanese people.¹⁴

The Echo of a Brave Man: A Literary Icon Enshrined in the Martyrs' Shrine

On January 31, 1943, Lai Ho died of heart disease at the age of 49 (50 by traditional East Asian reckoning). He was born in 1894, the year Taiwan was ceded to Japan, and died two years before Japan's defeat, living through a full half-century of colonial suffering. In his will, he humbly described his writings as "not worth much — it's fine to burn them."¹⁵

After the war, Lai Ho was enshrined in the Martyrs' Shrine in 1951, removed in 1958 for political reasons, rehabilitated, and re-enshrined in 1984.¹⁶ Today the "Lai Ho Poetry Wall" (composed of 100 steel panels) at the foot of Changhua's Bagua Mountain is engraved with his works, and an annual "Lai Ho Day" continues his spirit.¹⁷

Curator's note: Lai Ho's story tells us that the most powerful resistance is not weapons, but compassion for human beings and an unquenchable desire for justice. His writings and the image of the native shirt have become part of Taiwanese literature's DNA, allowing those who come after to maintain the courage to keep moving forward in the dark.

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