For the past three years Camphor Press has been steadily releasing books about Taiwan, with more in the pipeline. Recently we’ve republished three non-fiction books concerned with 228 and the White Terror, along with the earlier novel A Pail of Oysters on the same subject. If you want to learn more about Taiwan’s dark history, here’s the place to start.
Other books worth reading include Shawna Yang Ryan’s compelling Green Island, Milo Thornberry’s A Fireproof Moth, and Linda Gail Arrigo and Lynn Miles’ A Borrowed Voice. Anyone have any other (English language) suggestions on the period?
Hi, I know this is an old topic, but I have been referencing your list of books about the white terror and other books about Taiwan as reading materials. Many of them have Mandarin or Taiwanese versions, but I am having trouble finding them. Do you sell those versions of the books or know where to access them? At the moment I am particularly interested in the Taiwanese version of 一桶蚵仔 / A Pail of Oysters.
As an aside, for anyone reading, I highly recommend Formosa Betrayed and A Pail of Oysters.
Taiwan’s National Human Rights Museum has published an English-language memoir by White Terror survivor Fred Chin (陳欽生) entitled Facing the Calamity: A Step Through Hurts & Hardships and Looking Beyond for Generations to Come (2020). The editing is less than impressive, but Chin is an interesting and thoughtful man sharing his experience of being a so-called “Overseas Chinese” student (he’s from Malaysia) getting caught in the web of Taiwan’s notorious security apparatus in the late White Terror period. He ended up spending twelve years of his life in jail for his troubles.
A nice write-up about the book appears here:
I have noticed there are some forumosans who seem, even today, to romanticize the wonders of the ROC on Taiwan. They would do well to read stories like Chin’s to learn more about what this regime did to people (including foreign nationals like Chin) whom it deemed as its subjects.
Coincidentally today is release day for another White Terror-related title: Elegy of Sweet Potatoes, by Tehpen Tsai. First published in English translation in 2002, that original edition is now in short supply, so we are reissuing it.
In 1954 Tehpen Tsai was arrested by the Kuomintang regime on suspicion of being a Chinese communist agent. After initial weeks-long interrogation near his home he was transferred to a detention facility in Taipei specifically for seditionists and enemy operatives. The evidence against him: two books, one on his shelves at home, and one that another arrestee told police he had seen at Tsai’s house.
Tsai was not a communist. But in the febrile atmosphere of the early White Terror era in Taiwan that scarcely mattered; the secret police were commonly thought to operate by a rule to “never miss one true criminal, even if a hundred are killed mistakenly.” He had just one thing counting in his favour: he had recently returned from a scholarship in the USA, and the Chiang Kai-shek government at the time was sensitive to American attitudes and pressure.
In prison he met genuine communists, anti-government activists, intellectuals, and others like him, unlucky people swept up by a tenuous accusation or a chance encounter. One by one his cellmates disappeared, some to the execution grounds, others to Green Island, the notorious political prison off Taiwan’s east coast. Tsai was more fortunate. Sentenced to a term of “re-education”, he was released in November 1955.
Elegy of Sweet Potatoes is a thinly-fictionalized version of Tsai Tehpen’s experiences as a political prisoner. Names are changed, dates are fudged, but the narrative here is true to life. A compelling story full of rich description, pathos, and odd moments of humor, it is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the realities of martial law in “Free China”.
This is interesting, and I personally should do more research about Taiwan’s White Terror. I’m involved in nasty litigation with my mother-in-law whose father was a corrupt KMT official/police captain who was part of the White Terror. This is all coming up as she is abusing my disabled father-in-law, and I had to get my PR people involved to dig up stuff for a US news station. The story should be out in a month or so.
As you can imagine, the corrupt police captain’s family are bad people, and they continued their corrupt ways. It’s time to set the historical record straight for all these criminals who terrorized Taiwan.
Alice Su at the Economist has just published a stunning detailed article—not a book, alas, as per this thread’s topic—about the (non)declassification of Taiwan’s White Terror files, in which collaborators appear but the names of security agents responsible for enacting state violence are redacted. Following the promise of Taiwan’s Transitional Justice Commission (set up during the Tsai government, and now disbanded), what sorts of truths or reconciliations are possible under these circumstances?
I don’t know who Alice Su is but I wish to recommend this remarkable piece of journalism to anyone interested in the unresolved aspects of Taiwan’s White Terror.
The surveillance files of the KMT’s secret police sit in temperature-controlled vaults in an earthquake-proof building in the outskirts of Taipei. Government researchers use the space to store all the records they’ve managed to prise from intelligence agencies relating to human-rights abuses during the period of one-party rule. They’re known collectively as the “political files”.
If stacked together, the political files assembled so far would create a tower nearly six times higher than the tallest building in Taipei. In almost every page of the court records and security agencies’ internal communications there is something that would be meaningful to at least one family. Some files contain haunting photos of political prisoners smiling shortly before they were executed.
The surveillance files, which are a subset of the political files, are currently in the process of being digitised. Inside the archive building I watched technicians in protective masks and gloves stand over the fragile pages, using tiny brushes and tweezers to remove rusted staples and glue ripped-up pieces back together. The work was painstakingly slow.
Only a tiny fraction of the information contained in the surveillance files has been released to the public. Partly this is because the process takes such a long time. There was no central department holding them – researchers had to approach each of the different government agencies that carried out surveillance and ask to go through their catalogues. The agencies’ records often consisted of disorganised stacks of paper kept in dusty, cockroach-infested storehouses. Many refused to turn over their files in spite of the law obliging them to do so, citing national security. So far researchers have retrieved 30,000 surveillance files, but have no idea how many more exist.
When the TJC [i.e. the now disbanded Transitional Justice Commission] finally got their hands on the files, they quickly realised that their job was not a matter of straightforwardly releasing them. For one thing, they wouldn’t mean much to the general public, because so much of the information was redacted. As well as encoding the names of informants, intelligence agencies had blocked out their agents’ names.
Alice Su’s article intersperses these weighty materials with additional shots of everyday life in Taiwan, encouraging further thought about how each person we meet or see may have some connections—spoken or unspoken, unknown or known—to some of these redacted stories.
Not a book, but there’s a documentary called 派娜娜 (Panana), which is about Paicu Yata’uyungana’s experience through White Terror.
Paicu Yata’uyungana (高菊花) had a Japanese name, 矢多喜久子 (Yata Kikuko), and was the daughter of Tsou leaders Uyongʉ’e Yata’uyungana (高一生), who was a musician, poet, teacher, and a police officer during the Japanese era. After the 228 incident, citizens of Jiayi asked Tsou leaders for help to end the outbreak of violence. Uyongʉ’e was convinced by fellow Tsou leader Yapasuyongʉ Yulunana (湯守仁), who had Japanese military experience, to help Jiayi citizens to an end to random killings, and confine KMT forces in Shuishang airport, and then withdrew their men back into the mountain.
Yata’uyungana and Yulunana were arrested in 1947, but Atayal leader Losing Watan urged for their release. During the height of the White Terror period, they were again forced to write confessions in 1950 and guaranteed they would work with the KMT government. However, they were still arrested in 1952. This time Losing Watan was arrested as well. Their confessions were rescinded and all 3 were executed on April 17, 1954 for being communists.
When Uyongʉ’e was executed, Paicu was already working as a teacher. She planned to attend Columbia University, but after the death of her father, she had to provide for the family. It was also extremely difficult for the relatives of a victim of White Terror to find jobs, so Paicu ended up becoming a singer.
Despite making a name for herself singing Latino music, the Taiwan Garrison Command kept up continued surveillance on Paicu and frequently brought her in for questioning, which scared away record companies. She was also accused of being a communist, and under the threat execution, she was forced by the KMT to sleep with foreign dignitaries. The threats only stopped in 1971.
The nephew of Yapasuyongʉ Yulunana was treated as slave labor by his employer in 1986 and eventually killed his employer after a serious argument. He was sentenced for death penalty despite the unreasonable treatment he had to endure.
@anon24369109 seems to be relatives of both families through marriage.
The promise and Tsais legal architecture, when convenient. Not so interested in the media and opinions of whether flood or bad. Moreso what the government did or tried to do. I’m very unfamiliar with this one or just rhe mandarin word for those parts if you happen to have them
