The Good Women of Taiwan

We must never forget our history.

In 1998, the Taipei Archives Commission published White Terror in the 1950s: Legal Cases and Investigations. This report documented and demonstrated that beginning in the second half of 1949, during five years of political terror, the Nationalist government executed 4000-5000 "enemy spies." Thousands of intellectuals, people involved in culture and the arts, industrial workers, and peasants, irrespective of provincial origin or sex, were accused of "aiding and abetting the enemy," belonging to "seditious organizations," "spreading enemy propaganda," or "plotting to overthrow the government." According to conservative estimates, tens of thousands of Taiwanese accused of these crimes were investigated and secretly arrested.

Born in 1960, Lan Po-chou grew up in Miaoli County in central Taiwan and graduated with a degree in French literature from Fu Jen Catholic University. Motivated by a deep interest in Taiwanese history, during the late 1980s Lan began to work for Ren Jian Magazine, whose main mission was to bring to light hidden aspects of society. As a writer for this magazine he laid the foundations for his latter fieldwork and investigative reports.

In June of 1991, Lan Po-chou published The Chariot's Song, an account that turned him into a professional writer and an authority on the victims of the White Terror. In the years that followed Lan taught himself the historian's craft and collected a rich store of materials which, as he explains, were the origin of his latest book: "I had collected a wealth of materials waiting to be classified and arranged, but the stories of these five women provided me with the most complete source for shedding light on the true face of the female victims of the White Terror."

How many women fell victim to the White Terror of the 1950s? Having compared archival materials opened up by the government with the results of 13 years of fieldwork and interviews, Lan Po-chou estimates that at least 200 women of all backgrounds and origins were arrested and 13 were executed. Behind those cold figures are the individual stories, written in blood and tears, of individual Taiwanese women.

Portraits of five women

The five protagonists of Lan's book are women of great idealism and fearlessness. Turning their backs on the choices available to them within traditional society, they courageously followed their own conscience.

Two young women, Fu Ju-chih, a Hakka student from Hsinchu, and Kao Tsao, from Chintung in Yunlin county, were executed for having participated in a "seditious organization" and for having "plotted rebellion." In fact, their only crime was to have joined a reading group. Little Fu, as Fu Ju-chih was known to her friends and family, was a sophomore in Hsinchu's Senior High School for Girls when she was arrested. She was only 23 when her life was cut short at the Machangting execution ground early one spring morning. Kao Tsao was only 25 when she was executed.

Hsu Yueh-li, known to everyone by her nickname Old Auntie, was born in 1912. As a young girl with an extroverted and lively personality Yueh-li began to attend a series of seminars given by the Taiwan Culture Association. Moved by a strong sense of patriotism, she joined the resistance movement against the Japanese occupation. As a young woman she also did voluntary work for the Ai Ai Hospital, founded by Shih Chien. During the 1950s she was sentenced to ten years in prison for "aiding and abetting the communist enemy." Aged 90 and still strong and healthy, Hsu Yueh-li now lives alone and independently in an old house in Peitou, northwest of Taipei.

Hsu Chin-yu was among the first workers to participate in demonstrations in the early post-war era. When Lan Po-chou met Mrs. Hsu in her old age, her plain clothes, ear-length hair and, above all, tremendous fortitude made a deep impression on him. Born in 1921 in Taipei's Wanhua district, Hsu Chin-yu was brought up by foster parents. After finishing school she got a job as a factory worker. In 1944 she passed the Taipei Post Office's entrance examination. After the February 28 Incident of 1947, Hsu Chin-yu became politically aware under the guidance of Chi Mei-chen, a Chinese-language teacher from Jiangsu. Although she was a shy and introverted woman, she mustered the courage to join the Postal and Cable Services labor union to struggle for workers' rights. She was arrested in March of 1950 and sentenced to a 15-year prison term. After her release from prison, Mrs. Hsu opened a duck-egg shop in Pingtung County. Her feelings were bittersweet at the time because, as she put it, she was "trading a small prison for a big one."

Chiang Pi-yu's life, spanning 74 years from 1921 to 1995, was even more tortuous. Her father was Chiang Wei-shui, a leader of the Taiwanese intellectual resistance to the Japanese occupation. Her childhood years were spent in affluence, often in her father's Ta-an Hospital, Wenhua publishing house, and Taiwan People's Newspaper. Chiang Pi-yu eventually got married with a young Hakka man, Chung Ho-ming (who later changed his name to Chung Hao-tung).

In 1940, eager to help unify China and resist the Japanese, the couple traveled to the mainland, where they organized a voluntary brigade to educate peasants in Guangdong's hill country. Five years later, Chiang Pi-yu, now Mrs. Chung, returned to Taiwan with her husband. During the turbulent 1950s, Chung Hao-tung, then principal of a middle school in Keelung, was arrested and thrown in jail. Chiang Pi-yu was soon arrested herself and subjected to six months of interrogation in a military-police station.

After being released from prison, her upper-class family background did not save her from a life of poverty. She was forced to eke out an existence by selling red-bean cakes and noodles in the Fenghua red-light district. Yet despite the many hardships she endured, Chiang Pi-yu held fast to her father's dying wish and husband's dream: Her lifelong goal was to achieve democracy by peaceful means.

A historian of ordinary people

Lan Po-chou currently lives with his wife, son, and daughter in a rented house in Miaoli County. He explains what made him persevere during the long years he spent researching this heartrending history: "During the early years I found my work tough going, but every time I met a victim of political persecution, I became more determined to see the work through to the end. Meeting one victim after another and hearing her, or his, story touched me to the core. I also felt that I owed it to those who came before me to recount their history."

It is Lan Po-chou's hope that his account will make his readers appreciate that despite the atmosphere of censorship and taboo that reigned in Taiwan during the White Terror, a number of women struggled for their ideals without regard to their personal safety. He also hopes that The Good Women of Taiwan will broaden his readers' perspectives and help them resist pettiness and selfishness in their own lives.

Lan Po-chou believes that Taiwanese historiography needs to be developed concurrently on an official level, through the full opening of archives, and on an individual one, through oral history. Only by rigorously pursuing both these lines of historical inquiry in tandem can the true history of Taiwan be recovered.

During our interview Lan Po-chou told me that while he was toiling on his book, he ironically found himself slandered as a "Communist sympathizer" by otherwise thoughtful people. During the brief period he worked in a newspaper office, he was isolated and shunned by his colleagues. As he contemplated this irony, a sweet smell of betel nuts wafted through the window and I could not help but think about the strength of spirit that drove Lan Po-chou to uncover the true face of Taiwanese women and another hidden chapter of Taiwan's troubled history.

p.106

Book Title: The Good Women of Taiwan

Author: Lan Po-chou

Publisher: Unitas Publishing Co.

Date of publication: June 2001

Price: NT$240

p.106

Hsu Chin-yu

p.107

Kao Tsao

p.107

Fu Ju-chih

p.107

Hsu Yueh-li

p.108

Chiang Pi-yu (seated)