Footsteps in Time: In Search of Southern Masters

The eternal sun of literature

Yeh Shih-tao (1925―2008), a seminal figure in Taiwan literature, had two homes of his own in his lifetime. He was born in Tainan under Japanese rule in the Shirokane-chō, the “silver district,” on what had been called Silversmiths’ Street during the Qing era. Yeh was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His family was a rich clan, but they were reduced to poverty in the late 1940s and early 1950s when the land-to-the-tiller program took land from the landowners to give to the common man. At the age of 27, Yeh was arrested and finally sentenced to three years in prison for joining a Marxist reading group, forcing him to stop writing stories, for a time. At the age of 41 he moved with his family to the Zuoying District in Kaohsiung to take up a new post as an elementary school teacher.

From then on, he spent his days in Kaohsiung, but most of his literary works depicted his life in Tainan before he was 40. Yeh spent his later years at home on Shengli Road, Zuoying. His old house, the central iron shutter of which was always too stuck to pull down, has become a pilgrimage site for lovers of literature from all walks of life. In particular, he has a group of followers in Kaohsiung (the members of the Literary Taiwan Foundation) who have established a shrine to him, honoring him as a Taiwanese literary lion.

By the time Yeh passed away, his old house in Tainan was no more. His house in Zuoying was still home to his family and thus could not be used for a memorial. Eventually, the Tainan City Government found an old building at No. 8-3, You’ai Street. It once housed the Tainan Forestry Office, the Japanese colonial agency in charge of the cultivation and management of forest products. Built in 1925, the year Yeh was born, the building is his contemporary, a testament to the era in which he grew up. It is the perfect place for a memorial to a major figure in the history of Taiwanese literature.

On August 11, 2012, nearly four years after Yeh’s death, the Tainan City Government renovated the Forestry Office building and renamed it the Yeh Shyr-tau Literary Memorial Museum, a place to exhibit Yeh’s life, works and related literary relics.

On the second floor of the hall are Yeh’s bed and desk, transported from Zuoying to decorate two rooms, a literary study room and a reception room. In these rooms, it is as if we can see the writer, who lived through the White Terror (1947―1987), pondering the past and the future of Taiwanese literature.

The first floor exhibits Yeh’s manuscripts and major works. The most important part of the exhibit is “Tainan’s Landscapes”—scenes mentioned in Yeh’s literary works. The curators invited scholars to compare the places as they are described (and named) in Yeh’s fiction with the places as they appear today. This juxta­position of past and present defines reading routes that have in recent years become popular literary trails in and around Tainan, Taiwan’s earliest capital.

Yeh Shyr-tau Literary Memorial Museum

The writer in a pool of blood

Standing at the foot of Li­shan, the hill behind the ­Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall in Mei­nong, Kao­hsiung City, ­Chung Li-ho’s granddaughter ­Chung Shun­wen gazes at the verdant slopes of her homeland, feeling tranquil.

This is the “native land” of her grandfather, ­Chung Li-ho (1915―1960). Her grandfather moved here at the age of 18 from Da­lu­guan (now Gao­shu Township) in Ping­tung with his family. It was here that he began his literary career. On August 4, 1960, he had a relapse of pulmonary tuberculosis due to overwork. He died after coughing blood at his desk, staining his clothes red, which earned him the distinctive epithet of “the writer lying in a pool of blood.”

The desk is now on the first floor of the memorial hall. ­Chung’s manuscripts and implements have been preserved with great care to reproduce a scene from his writing life half a century ago. ­Chung Shun­wen’s grandfather kept writing his whole life long, but lacked many opportunities to publish under Martial Law. It was not until he submitted his works to the literary supplement of the United Daily News that they were recognized and appreciated by Lin Hai­yin, the supplement’s chief editor. Only then did he get the chance to realize his literary ambitions.

However, ­Chung’s friends in literary circles still had a rough time founding a memorial to Shun­wen’s grandfather: as Taiwan was still under Martial Law, and ­Chung was the first local writer to have a memorial dedicated to his memory, the project naturally attracted attention. In 1976, Vista Publishing published The Complete Writings of Chung Li-ho, the first such collection of a writer in Taiwan, causing a great sensation.

Chung Shun­wen recalls that director Li ­Hsing later filmed a biopic entitled My Native Land (1980) about her grandfather. Simple and touching, this film raised a wave of interest in ­Chung’s writings, which contributed to the idea for a memorial where people could go to know more about his legendary life.

In June, 1979, six major literary figures, namely ­Chung Chao-­cheng, Yeh Shih-tao, Lin Hai­yin, ­Cheng Ching-wen, Lee Chiao, and Chang Liang-tse, formulated a plan to build a ­Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall based on ­Chung’s novel Li­shan Farm. Many Mei­nong intellectuals joined the project later on. Officially completed in 1986, ­the Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall became the first literary memorial in Taiwan funded by the private sector.

Wang Ya-shan, secretary of the ­Chung Li-ho Literary Foundation, says that the exhibition space was rearranged in 2013. Since then, ­Chung’s manuscripts, works, and items relating to Hakka culture (for ­Chung was Hakka, and Mei­nong is a place where many Hakka people live) have been on display, with a wide array of manuscripts and works by other writers in the collection. The foundation also holds a Li­shan Literary Camp every year to promote the creation and reading of literature. In 2016, the camp celebrated its twentieth anniversary.

Chung Shunwen looks back upon Li­shan as she thinks of her grandparents as well as her father, Chung Tieh-min, who passed away five years ago. Her closest family all lived for literature. In a way, they still do, immortalized in the land they loved.                      

Afternoon breezes that blow around old writers’ memorial halls accompany their undying literary spirits as they murmur of the ceaseless passage of time.

The Tainan City Government renovated the old Tainan Forestry Office to house the Yeh shyr-tau Literary Memorial Museum.

eh’s room is recreated on the second floor, with his bed and desk from his home in Zuoying.

Yeh’s room is recreated on the second floor, with his desk from his home in Zuoying , a testament to his long writing career. (photo by Kuo Han-chen)

Yeh Shyr-tau Literary Memorial Museum

The lotus pond close to Yeh’s home in Zuoying features a plaque with one of his literary epigrams.

The lotus pond close to Yeh’s home in Zuoying features a plaque with one of his literary epigrams.

Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall

Near the Taiwan Literature Boulevard, where the statue of Chung Li-ho and quotations from his writings evince his long literary afterlife. (courtesy of Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall)

Chung Shunwen often tells visitors about her grandfather’s life and the story behind the construction of the memorial hall. (courtesy of Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall)

An illustration depicting the asteroid named after Chung Li-ho. (courtesy of Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall)

Chung Tieh-min (1941–2011), himself a famous author, is pictured in the recreation of his father’s study that is displayed on the first floor. (courtesy of Chung Li-ho Memorial Hall)