If one were to draw up a family tree of naturalist literature based on the time when authors entered the field and the number of years that they have been writing, Suli Hung would be one of the progenitors. Her earliest work, Watchful Fish, (published by Chien Wei Publishing Company) came out about the same time as Liu Ko-hsiang's pioneering bird watching work Notes from Journeys. At that time there was absolutely no concept of naturalist literature in Taiwan, and even the idea of conservation was something only bandied about by a few academics in elite circles. Aside from the two works just mentioned and Hsu Jen-hsiu's descriptions of nature seen on his exploring trips, the field of "depicting nature through words" was barren.

Suli Hung's oil paintings often center around nature. This painting is titled "At the Edge of the Ocean." （photo courtesy of June Kelly Gallery） （June Kelly）

A pioneer in naturalist literature

When Suli Hung wrote Watchful Fish, literary circles in Taiwan were in the middle of a fad for "introspective" women writers. A group of women writers were using delicate tones to write about their personal emotions and experiences in daily life. Although Hung is also a woman, her tone was rather different from the "introspective" style.

The first special feature of her essays was that they were more intellectual. She constantly quoted information from outside the realm of personal daily experience. Moreover, her articles were rigorously structured, with clearly presented lines of thinking for readers to follow. A second special feature is that she did not avoid expressing her positions on important issues facing the country and society. Her works were filled with support for "nativism" and "Taiwan first." This set her apart from the introspective faction of writers who shied away from touching upon larger debates of collective interest.

In Search of the Name of a Bird shows that Hung has not lost her position as one of the leaders of naturalist literature. Her dexterity at using words to give shape to sensations and images continues to advance. In a brief essay of a few thousand words she is able to describe the appearance, behavior, and habits of ten or twenty species of birds, allowing people with no real understanding of ornithology to still be able to fully grasp the enjoyment of observing these creatures.

As always, she has been careful and serious about collecting information about the earth and the plants and animals she describes. Though it is rather disappointing that a number of essays, especially those on the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer crisis, originally written five or six years ago, have not been updated with important new data, dramatic qualitative changes and new discoveries, overall she has enough factual information to balance out the elements of mood and emotion. As a result her essays have a foundation and are not just free-floating. Most importantly, Suli Hung still has the old passion in her concern for Taiwan and her analysis of political and economic ills.

Two rhythms

Nevertheless, if we consider In Search of the Name of a Bird in the context of naturalist literature in Taiwan as a whole, then strictly speaking we should frankly say that Hung's achievement remains a level below that of "birdman" Liu Ko-hsiang. In fact, her works cannot even be ranked with those of later writers such as Chen Yu-feng, Nelson Yang, or Wang Chia-hsiang.

Of course volume is one important factor in such comparisons. Over the past several years, Hung's output in the area of naturalist literature has been perhaps only one-fifth or event one-tenth of Liu Ko-hsiang's. But naturally quantity is not the key consideration. However, I'm afraid to say, Suli Hung has made no significant advances in her fundamental position in dealing with nature and the ecology.

I can easily summarize the two rhythms that run through Hung's work. When she writes about her current home, New York (especially Central Park), or about places she has visited such as Alaska or Egypt, the mood is peaceful and unburdened. The world belongs to the creatures of the sky. The music for this world is written as a series of steady half-notes, occasionally augmented by a graceful glissando of eighth notes. But when she writes about Taiwan, the mood becomes anxious and defeatist. The world is filled with iniquity and ugliness, and the music that accompanies it is harsh and cacophonous.

This strong contrast has run through all of Suli Hung's work for the last ten years. The problem is not in the writing itself, but in the fact that it has never changed and constantly repeats itself. This is particularly the case with regard to Taiwan. The subject matter has become increasingly narrow, the descriptions cruder, and her writing more and more resembles the stringing together of newspaper headlines. It lacks detail and patient construction. This is hard to accept.

Inspiring new ways of thinking

In In Search of the Name of a Bird, we can discover a difficulty caused by the fact that Suli Hung has been away from Taiwan for so long. Although she is concerned about and loves this island, she has long been divorced from the day-to-day pulse of its life, and she is unable to discover a single reason to truly cherish Taiwan. In her earlier works one could still get a real sense of loss and of being unable to give up Taiwan completely. Though she lived abroad, she could relate her experiences there as she watched birds or came in contact with nature to her thoughts about Taiwan. Naturalist writing thus became for her a form for going home, a way to ameliorate her homesickness. Nevertheless, this sentiment has diminished in her later writings. Now all we seem to be able to pick up is a heart filled with frustration and rejection.

Her frustration deprives of the patience needed to look closely at her subject, so all she can see of Taiwan is its ugly side. Her essays are thick with anxiety and recriminations. Her style of writing about Taiwan is limited only to this.

Her revulsion is especially clear when compared to the works of Liu Ko-hsiang, Chen Yu-feng, Want Chia-hsiang, or Nelson Yang. To be sure, there is not a single naturalist writer who has not expressed great anguish at the rapid destruction of Taiwan’s environment, In fact, the entire field of naturalist literature has carried the responsibilty of raising the environmental consciousness of Taiwan’s residents, and has therefore never been pure literary description. But these other writers have made great efforts regarding Taiwan’s environment. They have not been limited to a blanket condemnation of the entire island. They have been actively trying to find a space that they can rescue and manage in this deteriorating environment. Because Taiwan has no truly intact national park where people can observe nature at their leisure, naturalist writers need even more wisdom to understand the relationship among life forms and nature.

Chen Yu-feng began writing with a detailed recording of the changes in plant life. Nelson Yang walked all of Taiwan's old trails to explore the interface of history and nature. Liu Ko-hsiang made an exhaustive, detailed record of the flora and fauna on Hsiaolu Mountain, where he lives. Wang Chia-hsiang has advocated a "civilized wilderness"; he wants to find a small piece of wilderness amidst civilization to reconstruct the interaction between humankind and pristine nature. All of these writers have stimulated new ways of thinking. They rely on a profound understanding and exploration of our unattractive home. What they provide to readers is a new attitude toward life and a new world view based on a detailed understanding of what is around us.

Suli Hung lacks the experience of having made such efforts, and lacks a similar developmental and farsighted structure of thinking. As a result, her criticism of Taiwan's current situation is often one-sided, and therefore is unable to penetrate to the heart of matters. Take for example her essay on the dispute which arose when the city government attempted to remove a long-established statue of the Buddhist goddess Guanyin from the site on which construction of the Number 7 Park (now the Ta An Forest Park) had begun. She sees it purely as "a conflict between natural and religious forms." She completely fails to understand the underlying social factors, such as the coalescence of reactions against the old authoritarian system, and how the efforts of some Christians to get the government to remove the statue stirred up the latent anger many people feel toward the former dictators. By ignoring the texture of practical daily life, she can only see the surface. This definitely keeps her work from being "responsible criticism."

Suli Hung's one-sidedly negative attitude toward Taiwan's environment has its counterpart in her depiction of other places--like Alaska--as unattainable utopias. These essays are very beautiful and successful travelogues, but what can possibly be their relationship to ugly, irredeemable Taiwan? Obviously Hung has not given us much food for thought in this respect.

In the end, her attitude of standing aside and watching as the sky blackens is at once overly fatalistic and overly gloomy.

[Picture Caption]

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The naturalist writer enters nature for inspiration and in turn becomesa guardian of nature. (courtesy of Suli Hung)

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Suli Hung's oil paintings often center around nature. This painting is titled "At the Edge of the Ocean." (photo courtesy of June Kelly Gallery)