Reimagining the White Terror:

Transitional justice, which was once seen as a solemn or even taboo issue, has lent itself in recent years to a remarkable burst of creative energy among Taiwanese musicians. Years ago, Golden Bell Award-winning radio and television host Ma Shi-fang put out a call online for a playlist of songs about the White Terror era (1949–1992), and wrote about them. “Within just a few days, more than 30 songs were sent in. Stylistically diverse, they encompassed rock and roll, ballads, hip-hop, electronic music, and art songs. The lyrics ranged from Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka to the Indigenous languages and ­English.” Songs featuring White Terror victims or probing into authoritarianism continue to be produced, with their writers transforming historical trauma into powerful sounds that speak to the modern age.

Sorry Youth’s music video for “Pilgrimage” brings together fashion designers, choreographers, and other artists in a cross-disciplinary collaboration. Using music and visual storytelling, it shows the diverse ways young people today engage in transitional justice through creative work in the arts. (photo by Jian Zih-sin, courtesy of Piànn-Tiûnn Art Impact Program)

Lest we forget

Sandee Chan’s “Love Song” sounds soft and gentle, but in a live performance she combined it with visual images to reinterpret the stories of White Terror victims Ding Yaotiao and Shi Shuihuan, using heartfelt words and melodies to recall the atrocities to which these women were subjected. Rapper Yang Shuya’s “Who Is in My Body?” revisits Taiwan’s authoritarian past through the metaphor of a love story, anatomizing the visceral impact of authoritarianism with trenchant words.

Song after song, musicians from different generations take pains to ensure that Taiwan’s traumatic past is not forgotten. Hsieh Ming-yu’s “Dad’s Watch” and Enno Cheng’s “Remaining in Our Blood” give ­expression to the affective bonds of kinship and memory. In “Dad Didn’t Come Home Last Night,” Amazing Show adopts the perspective of a child to evoke the desolation of a family after the father was “disappeared” in that authoritarian era. The ethereal tune and evocative lyrics of Collage’s “Mercy Mercy, Green Tara of Thousand Flowers” turn the anguish of families left waiting for decades into a sublime elegy for the age.

Sorry Youth invited White Terror victim Tsai Kuan-yu to appear in the music video for their song “Pilgrimage.” Set in New Taipei’s Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, the pilgrimage of the video interweaves fiction and reality to demonstrate how young people in modern Taiwan seek to reopen a passage into the past through art.

On the album Iā-Kuan Sûn-Tiûnn (Taiwanese for “night official’s patrol”), the group Tsng-kha-lâng brings together supernatural folklore and the February 28 Incident of 1947 to reconstruct local memories through magical realism. Spanning different genres and generations, these voices enable listeners who may be too young to have experienced the White Terror to feel deeply what it was like to live in that era.

In July this year, Sandee Chan once again performed “Love Song,” weaving together gentle melodies and visual images to retell the story of White Terror victim Shi Shuihuan, who was executed in the same fabricated case as Ding Yaotiao. The performance invited the audience to recall the injustice to which these women were subjected. (courtesy of Sandee Chan)

Ding Yaotiao, a postal worker in Tainan, was only 28 when she was executed in 1956, having been falsely accused of promoting the Chinese Communist Party through organized action. Singer Sandee Chan paid tribute to Ding in a performance at the Vagabond Festival, reminding us never to forget the victims of the White Terror.  (courtesy of Sandee Chan)

White Terror victim Tsai Kuan-yu spent 13 years in prison and continued to take part in pro-democracy efforts after he was released. He served as a volunteer, introducing the younger generations to human rights issues. The music video for Sorry Youth’s “Pilgrimage” features Tsai guiding young people through a place where political prisoners used to be detained. (photo by Jian Zih-sin, courtesy of Piànn-Tiûnn Art Impact Program)

Voices of freedom

In addition to music, transitional justice is being explored in other art forms.

For example, Wu I-chen’s picture book Lala: The Singing Bear, illustrated by Liao Peici, is inspired by White Terror victim Tsai Kun-lin. Flip Flops Theatre has adapted it into a family-friendly play, reinterpreting Taiwan’s troubled history in a gentle way. German-born Taiwanese musician Rolf-Peter Wille has collaborated with Lina Yeh and Pan Chia-hsin on a picture book entitled Crab in the Dark, reimagining the February 28 Incident through austere art. By means of black-and-white images and a theatrical narrative, the book invites the reader to pursue the gleams and shadows of history.

The effort to recover the age of the White Terror is likewise gathering considerable momentum in the film industry. Golden Horse Award-winning director Chen Yu-hsun’s A Foggy Tale visualizes both the repression and the tenderness of the era, paying tribute to the bravery of ordinary people who strove to survive amid the relentless currents of history. Director Cheng Yu-chieh is working on a film that tells the story of pro-­democracy activist Cheng Nan-jung, who set himself on fire in 1989 to defend freedom of speech. In a comment online, the director says that while consulting Cheng’s letters from detention and surveillance files, he felt overwhelmed by grief.

These works remind us that the unrestrained vitality and diversity in today’s Taiwan, where people are free to create all kinds of songs and films, should never be taken for granted. For we owe our freedom to the countless courageous people of previous generations whose lives were damaged or lost in those dark years of Taiwanese history.

On the album Iā-Kuan Sûn-Tiûnn (“Night Official’s Patrol”), Tsng-kha-lâng interweaves supernatural folklore and the February 28 Incident of 1947, revisiting local memories through the lens of magical realism. Lead vocalist Tiunn Ka-siông has published an identically titled novel, which is authentically local but also profoundly literary. These photos are screenshots from the music video for “Lîm Siù-bī,” a song that tells the story of Lin Xiumei and her husband, Lu Bingqin, who was executed during the February 28 Incident. (courtesy of Tsng-kha-lâng)

Crab in the Dark is written by German-born Taiwanese musician Rolf-Peter Wille, translated by Lina Yeh, and illustrated by Pan Chia-hsin. It tells the story of a mother whose husband was executed during the February 28 Incident. She wants to throw herself into the sea with her children, but abandons the plan when her son tells her that he wants to keep a crab as a pet. The book features a theatrical narrative accompanied by black-and-white paper-cut illustrations, turning historical trauma into glimmers of hope. (book cover courtesy of Taiwan Interminds/Star Moon)

Based on the life of White Terror victim Tsai Kun-lin, Wu I-chen’s Lala: The Singing Bear, illustrated by Liao Peici, has been adapted into a play by Flip Flops Theatre. Combining clowning, light and shadows, vocal mimicry, puppetry, and balloon artistry, the production invites children to learn about Taiwan’s democratization through an emotionally rich theatrical experience.  (courtesy of Flip Flops Theatre)