In the private-run bookshops in Foochow, essays and novels by Lin Yu-tang, Chi Chun, Chiung Yao and Hsi Mu-jung are prominently displayed on the shelves by the entrance. If you look more closely, you can also find Selected Stories by Young Writers on Taiwan, An Overview of Taiwan's New Literature, A Dictionary of Taiwan's New Literature and similar works.

At a literary awards ceremony in Foochow attended by guests from Taiwan, a young woman who had read fiction by Liao Hui-ying, Su Wei-chen. Chien Chen and other Taiwan authors said that what she wondered about most in their books was the characters. In her view, women in Taiwan seem to be "more dependent and mainland women more assertive."

Two hands clapping: Five years after residents of Taiwan were first allowed to visit their relatives on the mainland, cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait are growing ever closer, and a flood of literary, cultural and academic books is being published and distributed. Taiwan book dealers have been popular attractions at several large book fairs held on the mainland recently. The crush at their stands at the Peking book exhibition this September was so great that some of their displays were overturned. In addition, the distribution of mainland books in Taiwan, the Chinese-language copyrights recognized by both sides and other areas of cooperation in publishing have long been topics of great concern.

Generally speaking, Taiwan literature first began to appear on the mainland in 1979, when the Peking quarterly Tang-tai reprinted Pai Hsien-yung's story "The Eternal 'Snow Beauty.'" During the early 1980s, mainland academic organizations selectively introduced key aspects of Taiwan literature, and as relations across the Taiwan Strait improved, works by Lin Yu-tang, Lin Hai-yin, Pai Hsien-yung, Chen Jo-hsi, Po Yang, Lung Ying-tai and others became best-sellers in large bookstores across the country. A craze for the romances of Chiung Yao, the poetry of Hsi Mu-jung and the martial arts novels of Ku Lung and Chin Yung got started in 1987, when mainland visits were legalized, and is still going strong.

Some say that the popularity of Taiwan literature, especially popular literature, on the mainland is due to the "clapping hands" principle.

As Wang Chun-kui, the editor of a literary magazine in Hunan, explains, "clapping" requires two hands: one hand is the publishing house and the other is the reader. A publisher has no alter-native but to offer readers what they want. If it doesn't, readers won't buy it. "It takes two to tango," he says.

Hard to keep in stock: There are no private publishing firms on the mainland, he goes on. Publishing houses are controlled by the government or the party. During the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese classical literature was considered "feudalistic," Western literature "capitalistic," and Soviet and Eastern European literature "revisionist," putting negative labels on practically everything.

With the end of the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the Gang of Four, the cultural approach of the far left came under criticism and cultural policies were relaxed. The publishing industry experienced a quick thaw and began bringing out all kinds of classical and popular works. It was then that books from Taiwan and Hong Kong began appearing on the mainland.

Almost all the martial arts novels were snatched up as soon as they arrived. They were so popular in libraries that "once they were checked out, it was hard to get them back." Zheng Zhonggui, the owner of a bookstore in Foochow, says that books from Taiwan are the favorite light reading fare of young people and are hard to keep in stock.

A storm of interest: About ten years ago, before the trend took shape, many large academic and publishing organizations on the mainland began setting up institutes to study literature from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Institutes or departments have been set up at the Peking Institute of Sociology in the north and at the sociology institutes of Fukien and Kwangtung in the south, as well as at Amoy, Kwangtung, Chinan, Chungshan, Futan and Nankai universities and even as far away as Liaoning University in the northeast. In addition, the number of "Taiwan literature study associations" claiming to be non governmental in nature and made up of writers and academics from various provinces is constantly expanding.

Several large publishing houses, such as Hua- cheng, Luchiang and Wen-i and Yu-i, have treated books from Taiwan as major publishing coups. The magazine that has done the most to introduce works of Taiwan literature to the mainland, Literary Selections from Taiwan and Hong Kong, founded in 1982, is one of the most popular literary magazines on the mainland, with a circulation of 200,000 a month.

Courses in Taiwan literature are offered at more than 60 colleges and universities on the mainland, from renowned Peking University to Lanchou and Sinkiang universities in the far west.

An academic conference on the literature of Taiwan and Hong Kong has been held on the mainland five times, every other year since 1982. Statistics show that from 1979 to 1989 over 40 volumes of research papers were published in the mainland on literature by writers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and the overseas Chinese community, containing a total of more than 50 million characters.

Political motives: The scene is lively indeed. Liu Denghan, vice-president of the graduate school of literature at the Fukien Institute of Sociology, confidently asserts that research on Taiwan literature represents the vanguard of cultural exchange across the Taiwan Strait.

That kind of thinking is not just the belief of mainland scholars--sensitive observers from Taiwan can easily see that Taiwan literature is creating a storm of interest on the mainland. Still, the background of the phenomenon needs to be explored in greater depth.

As in many other areas related to Taiwan, the mainland's interest in Taiwan literature arose from political motives.

In "An Open Letter to Our Compatriots on Taiwan," delivered in 1979 before the National People's Congress by standing central committee member Ye Jianying, the Communists declared that they would cease shelling Kinmen, Matsu and other offshore islands and would set up navigation and postal links as soon as possible to facilitate direct contacts between the two sides and carry out acade mic and cultural exchange. In this way, "scholars intent on studying Taiwan literature were encouraged to set to work quickly," says Chen Xinyuan, the editor-in-chief of the Yehchiang Publishing House, who is deeply versed in the matter of cross- Strait cultural exchange, explaining why mainland scholars began studying Taiwan literature.

The first papers on Taiwan literature were often laced with raw political verbiage: "We need to increase exchange by advancing mutual under standing between the mainland and our flesh and blood on Taiwan . . . enthusiastically introducing fine works by Taiwan writers displaying the contradictions and struggles of life as it really is on Taiwan . . . "

Even today, a similar tone often pervades academic writing on the subject. Be the expression through a research paper or a popular introduction, the mainland has its own special view of Taiwan literature.

Overseas Chinese authors lead the way: "A Marxist-Leninist standpoint, perspective and methods must be used to synthesize, analyze and refine materials," said Zeng Minzhi, president of the Taiwan and Hong Kong Research Association of the China Contemporary Literary Association, at the first Taiwan and Hong Kong Academic Seminar, held in Canton in 1982.

In papers at the seminar, Taiwan literature was divided into two types: one patriotic, progressive and healthy; the other reactionary, backward and corrupt. "The former type must be introduced to the public and the latter type resisted," it was stated. Chou Yu-shan, an associate researcher at the institute of international Relations at Taiwan's National Chengchi University, says that this tactic of labeling writers according to Lenin's "theory of two cultures" was used by the Communists way back in the 1930s and 1940s.

Due to the political environment and the limited information of the time, the first Taiwan literature to be brought in, mostly fiction, was that of Li Hua, Nieh Hua-ling, Pai Hsien-yung and other so-called "overseas writers." They visited the mainland several times, introducing contemporary Taiwan writers and schools to readers there, and made a real contribution in helping them learn about writers in Taiwan.

In 1984, at the second seminar held at Amoy University, Wang Wen-hsing's novel A Change in the Family was introduced in depth, with an exploration of its social significance. Later, works were put forward by native-born Taiwan writers such as Sung Tse-lai and Tseng Hsin-i, going as far back as Yang Kui and Chung Li-ho. Research into poetry, essays and other genres picked up, and works of literary criticism such as Taiwan's Major Schools of Fiction: A Preliminary Study, mono graphs like "Liu Sha Ho--On Poetry Across the Taiwan Strait" and comprehensive overviews like A History of Taiwan Literature appeared.

Belittling praise: The continuous attempt by mainland researchers to view Taiwan literature as a regional branch is vehemently opposed by some Taiwan writers.

Taiwan critic Yeh Shih-tao believes that by repeatedly stressing that Taiwan literature is a branch of Chinese literature, mainland researchers belittle its achievements while seeming to praise it, adopting a patronizing attitude that reveals their unease and insecurity because it fails to live up to some of their key criteria.

In terms of geographical and blood ties, Taiwan's culture indeed stems from the mainland, he believes, but the cultural influences the island has received from the Spanish, the Dutch, the Japanese and other settlers have resulted in the formation a unique cultural system whose literature cannot be considered simply a branch of Chinese literature.

Rather than say that "new literature" writers such as Yang Kui and Chung Li-ho, who were active during the Japanese occupation, were part of a joint struggle against imperialism along with the motherland, for instance, it would be more accurate to say that their work expressed the voice of people rooted in this particular piece of earth.

What do mainland scholars think?

"It's hard to say clearly," offers Yang Jilan, vice chief editor of Literary Selections from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Growing up in Pingtan, a small island off the Fukien coast, he had a deep impression of Taiwan even as a child. On holidays, the people there would leave an empty bowl on the dinner table waiting for the return of relatives who had fled to Taiwan. Taiwan fishermen sometimes sheltered on the coast to avoid storms, which increased his interest in the island's culture and society. When he grew up, he joined the Chinese Writers Association, where he came into contact with many literary works from Taiwan and "became fascinated immediately," as he puts it.

Nativism over modernism: Ji Zhong, editor-in-chief of the magazine, says that he became interested in Taiwan literature out of curiosity at something new and fresh. He still remembers his surprise and wonder at Li Ang's The Butcher's Life, fighting to have it published and his worries that the issues might be pulled. Due to historical circumstances, mainland literature and Taiwan literature are indeed very different, he thinks, but it's hard for him to believe that Taiwan literature is not a part of Chinese literature.

Some writers from Taiwan repeatedly stress the unique viewpoint of Taiwan literature, and several seminars have been held at the graduate school of literature at the Fukien Institute of Sociology to refute that way of thinking. Liu Denghan, vice president of the graduate school, says, "We discussed it as an academic topic."

Similarly, mainland scholars hold strong views of the nativist (hsiang-tu) and modernist schools in Taiwan literature.

Chou Yu-shan of National Chengchi University points out that in the eyes of mainland researchers, nativist literature is seen as "neo-realism reflecting social contradictions and engagement in human suffering, with a nationalistic style and local color as artistic characteristics" that was produced against the background of the "strong New China" and the wave of overseas Chinese "returning to the motherland:" The modernist school "deviates from the finest literary traditions, is infatuated with egotistical performance, evades broad social phenomena and gives free rein to individualism, decadence and negativism; its artistic forms are strange, obscure and arcane. . . . "

The praise of mainland scholars for the nativist school and their belittlement of the modernists is rooted in factors of their environment.

Two extremes: "In some nativist works, comparing then and now, readers see the mainland of the present," Li Denghan says. Quite a few works of early nativist literature, such as Wang Chen-ho's An Oxcart for a Dowry and Huang Chun- ming's Sayonara, Tsai-chien!, describe the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society, loss of land, the struggles of the human heart--themes that touch close to home for both scholar and common reader alike. "What's more, the dialect in these books especially appeals to us," Liu says.

Professor Kung Peng-cheng of Taiwan's Tam- kang University says that mainland researchers favor the nativist school because of its realism, which is precisely what the authorities there advocate, while modernism is rejected as a form of capitalist imperialism. Ironically, the rise of se paratist thinking among certain nativist writers during the 1980s is something they vehemently oppose.

In Professor Kung's view, maintaining that Taiwan literature is completely independent of Chinese literature is as erroneous an extreme as classifying it as a branch of Chinese literature and neglecting its special historical position. Bringing the two extremes together may spur people to think about the real nature of Taiwan literature. That is the real significance of Taiwan research on the mainland, he believes.

Breaking through nonliterary factors: Furthermore, owing to their special viewpoint, mainland scholars often pay more attention to writers that are not highly regarded in literary circles on Taiwan, particularly popular writers like Kao Yang, Ku Lung, Chiung Yao and San Mao. Their studies supplement the lack of attention from scholars on Taiwan and reflect the social effect of Taiwan popular culture on the mainland.

Chen Hsin-yuan, who has visited the mainland dozens of times, believes that the singular views of mainland researchers toward Taiwan authors and their undue fear of certain viewpoints are due to the fact that they don't really understand the social situation here. Poor information, the lack of opportunities for writers on either side of the strait to communicate . . . these and other factors hinder a truly objective analysis of Taiwan's literature.

"We grab a couple of pieces of wood here, pick up some sand there, and slap on some concrete--the image we've built is a far cry from the real thing!" Liu Denghan says with feeling.

He believes that people must broaden their minds, that more critics and writers from Taiwan must be invited to attend the biennial literary seminars, for instance, and that private visits and exchanges must increase.

Both sides must strive to break through non literary factors that hinder understanding. Only in that way can the "vanguard for cultural exchange across the strait" be truly effective.

[Picture Caption]

These two impressive stacks of books on Taiwan literature were all written by mainland scholars in the past ten years, but how much objective academic value they possess requires careful examination.

How many young people in the crowds plying the streets of Foochow are interested in literature? Many scholars lament that the literary and cultural revival that took place after the Cultural Revolution has been lost in the wave of economic reform.

You've got to look hard to find good books in a privately owned bookstore like this. But the owner is eager to help: "Just tell me what you're interested in and I'll order it from somewhere else."

The staff of the magazine Literary Selections from Taiwan and Hong Kong are the envy of many because they often are the first to come into contact with works of Taiwan literature.

Vice chief editor Yang Jilan is from Pingtan and has had a deep impression of Taiwan ever since he was a child. This is the magazine's information room.

Chung Li-ho, an early nativist author famous for his work Yuan-hsiang jen, is considered a model patriotic author by mainland scholars. The picture is from a retrospective exhibition on him and Yang Kui held in Taipei this October.

The United Daily News sponsored a literary get-together in Canton last year. Holding more cultural exchanges like this is the best way to narrow the gap between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. (photo courtesy of Chen I-chih)

How many young people in the crowds plying the streets of Foochow are interested in literature? Many scholars lament that the literary and cultural revival that took place after the Cultural Revolution has been lost in the wave of economic reform.

You've got to look hard to find good books in a privately owned bookstore like this. But the owner is eager to help: "Just tell me what you're interested in and I'll order it from somewhere else.".

The staff of the magazine Literary Selections from Taiwan and Hong Kong are the envy of many because they often are the first to come into contact with works of Taiwan literature.

Vice chief editor Yang Jilan is from Pingtan and has had a deep impression of Taiwan ever since he was a child. This is the magazine's information room.

Chung Li-ho, an early nativist author famous for his work Yuan-hsiang jen, is considered a model patriotic author by mainland scholars. The picture is from a retrospective exhibition on him and Yang Kui held in Taipei this October.

The United Daily News sponsored a literary get-together in Canton last year. Holding more cultural exchanges like this is the best way to narrow the gap between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. （photo courtesy of Chen I-chih）