Taiwanese-language literature
In addition to writing and teaching, Sung has helped lay the theoretical foundations and been a standard-bearer for the Taiwanese Consciousness and New Culture movements. He founded Taiwanese New Culture magazine in 1986, has advocated de-Sinification and encouraged the "theory of Taiwanese nationalism," has tirelessly promoted native culture and Taiwanese-language literature, and sparked the Taiwanese cultural reconstruction and literary revival movements. To prove that modern novels could indeed be written in Taiwanese, in 1987 he published Ruoxiao Minzu, a collection that includes the important short story "Tann-niau Fights Back" a nearly 30,000-character piece written entirely in Taiwanese.
Under martial law, the Taiwan Garrison Command frequently investigated Taiwanese New Culture, confiscating magazines and suspending its operations, finally closing it entirely after it had published just 20 issues or so. But this in no way slowed Sung's promotion of the mother-tongue literature movement. When the national curriculum incorporated Taiwanese language courses in 2001, he threw himself into the composition of Taiwanese-language poetry. "Only by writing in my mother tongue can I fully control the meter and capture the feelings of the people," says Sung, who published two collections of Taiwanese poetry-A Wooden Spoon and Universal Love Song-in that same year.
Buddha and Christ
Sung married and became a father after the publication of Ruoshi Minzu. Finding that the hard work and economic pressures associated with raising three children left him little time for even a momentary breather, his spiritual fatigue grew by the day. To weather the crisis, Sung began studying an early Buddhist text called Samyuktagama that focuses on how monks endured the deprivations of the simple life. He then published the two-volume Buddha Betrayed in 1989 to explore the question of whether one might unknowingly betray the Buddha. The books began a Taiwanese critique of Chinese Buddhism, but also brought a firestorm of criticism Sung's way.
He admits in the book that in spite of studying on his own and raising his consciousness to the level of an arhat, his everyday reality remained difficult. "The sutras never mention an arhat having three children and living with his wife," he says. Unable to completely overcome his workaday difficulties, he turned to Christianity in 1993. Stunned by the many strange events that followed, he began poring over the four Gospels, seeking the primitive Christianity taught by Jesus and his disciples.
Though Sung's tangled, heterodox religious experience has sparked disputes, he has remained sincerely and passionately committed to his quest throughout. In 1996, he published The City Where the Blood-Red Bat Descended, a novel built around the rise and fall of a young mobster. In it, he mixes the chivalric and the occult while also using the protagonist, Tang Tianyang, to expound on his own religious insights.
"I was telling the reader a story while also healing myself," explains Sung. "Immersed in a story with a pen in hand, I can escape the travails of this mortal world and brighten my spirits."
Yet another evolution
Though Sung is now more than 50 years old, his writing has lost none of its power or edge, and he continues to explore his own biography and social consciousness in his work. Always a close observer of politics, in 2002 he published Biancheng Yan Zhu de Zuojia, a thought-provoking political allegory that draws on the Bible story of Lot's wife. He followed it in 2004 with Shei Neng Dangxuan Zongtong?, a daily record of and commentary on his participation in that year's elections and related events.
Sung, who has won the Wu Cho-liu Literary Award, the China Times Literary Award, the United Daily News Literary Award, and the Wu San-lien Award for Literature, looks forward to the day when Taiwan actively fosters the development of professional writers, allowing talented authors to put aside workaday concerns and focus on their creative endeavors.
Since retiring from teaching two years ago, Sung has been pursuing a Master's degree in Taiwanese literature at National Chung Hsing University. Though busy working on his thesis, he already has plans to write a history of Taiwan in Taiwanese. We will no doubt be seeing more of Sung's exciting prose and startling perspective in the near future.