Lung Ying-tai, Thy Name is Woman?

Title: Child, Take Your time

Author: Lung Ying-tai

Publisher: Crown

Price: NT$ 130

Title: Beautiful Rights

Publisher: Yuan Shen

Price: NT$ 150

Title: The End of the Century Coming At You

Publisher: China Times

Price: NT$ 220

I heard of Lung Ying-tai's three new books one after another, and feel that each has its own merits. I read them all in a row, and discovered their circular relationship.

Ten years ago, after Wild Fire Collection began, the words Lung Ying-tai were no longer merely a person's name, but reflected a "state of mind" which said: the higher your expectations of this land, the greater your anger, agitation, and calls to action will be.

Today, two of Lung Ying-tai's three new books, Children, Take Your Time and Beautiful Rights, show a different state of mind which says: since you were born, you have been placed in a certain situation-- as a woman.

Different kitchens, similar marriages. Different cradles, similar upbringings. Different women, similar "Lung Ying-tai states of mind": "So I say to men, hey, the reason I normally take 90% of the responsibility for raising and educating my child is because I want to, not because that's what I'm supposed to do. Can you understand that? Now, I want to change my share to 70%, and raise yours to 30%, and you still want to complain? You're really too much!"

What a familiar ring that has. After ten years, the Lung Ying-tai state of mind still includes anger, agitation, and calls to action. But this time her target is not the street vendors who take away our sidewalks or the chemicals being poured into the ocean. No longer is it the rigid educational system. No longer is it: "even though she has syphilis she is still my mother. Taiwan is the mother that bore and raised me; filthy, ugly, immoral Taiwan is the syphilitic mother that gave me birth."

This time, her target is men, and all types of men. One kind is the successful, self-confident German businessman with the kind smile. He makes Lung Ying-tai so angry that she wants to cuff his ear. Because when he discovered that the woman before him is an author, his only reaction was, "That's nice. Then you can make some extra money to help pay for kindergarten tuition."

She didn't actually whack him, because Lung Ying-tai was so startled she just stared openmouthed. Yet she could at the same time understand: "This isn't just his personal problem. There are tens of millions of men standing behind him--Germans, Chinese, everywhere in the world--using the same approach to dealing with women: kind, friendly, and absolutely condescending. I think that the man who raped his tipsy secretary in the piano bar must have the same attitude," she concludes, referring to a famous recent case in Taiwan.

Another man is the kind who comes home after work, exhaustion in his bloodshot eyes, with a splitting headache. Lung Ying-tai wants to turn the child she has been caring for all day over to him so that she can do her writing, but at this time: "When I look in the face of this man, exhausted by the stress of the workplace, I don't have the heart to put any more stress on his shoulders, even if this is his to take in the first place."

Keeping the child in her embrace, Lung Ying-tai will "pour a glass of wine for him, fill the bathtub with hot water, not forgetting to add a touch of lotion, prepare his pajamas, and finally call him."

As the man goes to bathe, Lung Ying-tai starts to feel upset, and asks herself, "Should I or shouldn't I allow myself to be locked in the house by the kids without giving it a second thought?" "How can a man and a woman who have a child find a balance between raising the child and pursuing their careers?" "When both the man and the woman place the greatest importance on life 'outside,' who will take care of life 'inside' the home?" These kinds of questions are probably mulled over repeatedly by a woman each time a man has his bath.

Lung's agitation represents that agitation of countless women: contradictory feelings and a sense of frustration, while it seems to be impossible to come up with a way to resolve them in a short time. A woman cannot take the Wild Fire Collection approach and fiercely criticize the Taipei City government for its inability to resolve the street vendor problem, or raise calls for petrochemical companies to practice environmental protection. For a woman facing an exhausted husband or a self-satisfied German businessman, the most they can do, like Lung Ying-tai, is to say: "You don't have to ask about the rest. There are too many problems in this world that only you can know the answer to. Perhaps there is none."

Therefore, when I say, "Lung Ying-tai, thy name is woman," this is completely unnecessary. The condition of a woman cannot be improved merely by the understanding that she is a woman. It's just like sticking the character for "female" in front of the word "writer," or "student," or "bookstore"--it doesn't necessarily imply any special significance.

But when I say, "Woman, thy name is Lung Ying-tai," I can hear, near and far, voices saying, "Yes, I am."

Therefore, I see you, I see you and Lung Ying-tai as being the same. Hurrying from different kitchens and different cradles to your individual careers, relationships, interests, and egos. I see you, with your hands that have just prepared a meal carrying a slight fragrance of sliced beef and holding a business program that will have all the people in the conference room nodding their heads in agreement. I see you, having just breast-fed your baby, with a slight scent of milk on your shirt, raise your head, throw back your shoulders, and march into politics, the economy, society, art, culture . . . .

I also see Lung Ying-tai, and see her surprised soul as it becomes a mother: "All of time that has flowed past seems to coexist at the same moment, and is gone in an instant. A child brings me back to the most primitive starting point of all human beings. "I also see her as a mother day after day, as she wrote after having her first son: "I get up with my child at 7:00 am, make his breakfast, wash him down, change his diaper, dress him, and help him to learn to wash his face and brush his teeth. Afterwards I take care of myself. Before 9:00 I take him to the nursery school. At 4:00 I hurry to the school to meet my baby, and the time after 4:00 belongs to him. From then until 9:00, when he goes to sleep, it's almost as if I were half tied down with a rope."

But Lung Ying-tai, having put her children--now she has two--to bed and finished the last bedtime story, has already picked up her career, and she puts her pen to everything from Taiwanese history to German reunification, from her impressions of Peking to war in Israel. From "Discovering Taiwan, Discovering Myself" to "The Wall Has By No Means Come Down," from "Homeland, Strange Land" to "Weary Palestine," she has written, article by article, yet another book: The End of the Century Coming At You.

Therefore, when I say, "Woman, thy name is Lung Ying-tai," I feel as if I have already found that answer, that answer that not only women, but men also, must know as soon as possible--

And that is, Lung Ying-tai is at one and the same time the gentle and soaring mother of Children, Take Your Time, the writer of protest against social injustice, whom we haven't seen in so long, of Beautiful Rights, and the reporter and commentator who places herself at the center of great events, who witnessed the reunification of Germany, and who personally visited Europe, Israel, and mainland China.

Therefore, when I say, "Lung Ying-tai, thy name is woman," we obviously already know the answer."

[Picture Caption]

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Away for ten years, Lung Ying-tai returned with three markedly different volumes of essays. The dramatic change in style had many people surprised. (photo by Diago Chiu)

Away for ten years, Lung Ying-tai returned with three markedly different volumes of essays. The dramatic change in style had many people surprised. （photo by Diago Chiu）