Lee Rong-chun: A Lifetime Tilling Literary Fields

Located on Kai­lan­jiu Road in Tou­cheng Township, Yi­lan County, the Lee Rong-chun Literary Museum was once the teacher’s house of a Japanese primary school. When the Nationalist government came to Taiwan, the building was turned into the Tou­cheng Elementary School principal’s residence. It stood in disrepair for many years after the last principal moved out, and at one point even faced demolition. Public pleas for its preservation persuaded the Yi­lan County Cultural Affairs Bureau to first designate it a historic building, and then in 2009 to use it to enrich Tou­cheng’s cultural assets by turning it into the Lee Rong-chun Literary Museum.

manuscript of Dreams of a Villa

A lifelong mission

Born in Tou­cheng in 1914, Lee Rong-chun was his family’s fourth child. When his father died young, Lee’s mother, ­Huang Zhen, was left to raise the family on her own. Fortunately the children got along well with one another, and the home was both happy and harmonious. Lee spent his childhood amid Tou­cheng’s beautiful scenery, which honed his sharp powers of observation and his appreciation of fine things, and had his first chance encounter with literature in his teens, which planted the seeds of his lifelong authorial aspirations.

Lee joined the “Taiwan Farmers’ Volunteer Brigade,” a division of the Japanese military composed of Taiwanese soldiers, in 1937 at the age of 24. Ordered to mainland China, he ultimately spent nine affecting years there. It was during this period that he first read and was moved by Lu Xun’s vivid storytelling. Lee’s stylistic hallmark—meticulous depiction of details in simple, accessible language—may even have been inspired by Lu Xun’s work.

Lee began his writing career in China, turning the wartime suffering he personally witnessed and heard about into his first piece of fiction, the 600,000-character­-long Motherland and Compatriots. Unlike the majority of Taiwan’s native postwar writers, who wrote in Japanese, Lee wrote in Chinese, and his first-hand account of the war in China supplemented Taiwanese readers’ understanding of events there. Having completed the book in 1952 at the age of 39, Lee won a cash prize from the Chinese Literature Awards Committee in 1953. He used the money to publish roughly one-third of the novel himself. Unfortunately, the novel, the only work he succeeded in publishing in his lifetime, sold poorly and lost him money.

Lee returned to Taiwan in 1947, living with his ­youngest brother and caring for his nephew Li Jing­ming as if he were his own son. Li remembers his uncle as a lifelong bachelor unwilling to take on mentally taxing jobs. Instead, he rose early in the morning to write and spent his afternoons doing just enough part-time work to keep body and soul together, and to buy paper and ink. He never feasted or caroused, instead spending almost all of his time writing.

Located in a Japanese-style building on a quiet Toucheng street, the Lee Rong-chun Literary Museum invites travelers to travel back in time and learn about Lee’s 80-year life. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)

Culture from a wardrobe

Lee never had a submission accepted by a publisher and was never understood by the masses. His mother said he must have owed a debt in words from a previous life that he was repaying in this one. He spent a large portion of his life alone, immersed in the world of literature, and his commitment to writing was unwavering in spite of the material and circumstantial difficulties he experienced. Yet he assiduously sampled the world around him, writing in his simple but vivid prose about things such as the excited competition to climb poles to snatch offerings after the Ghost Festival (in the story “­Qianggu”), his family’s joy in celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival together (“Mid-Autumn Night”), and even the educational philosophy he observed in his youngest brother’s interactions with his children (“Teaching Children”). These works reveal the seemingly isolated Lee’s zest for life. Only an author whose spirit was overflowing could have produced such heartfelt prose.

Li says that Lee would often share manuscripts with him, but admits that he never read them carefully while his uncle was alive—he just admired his commitment to writing. It was only when Li was sorting through his uncle’s possessions after his 1994 passing that he discovered more than 3 million characters worth of well organized manuscripts in the wardrobe. Li decided to read Dreams of a Villa, a work his uncle had never shown him, in his elder’s memory. The book gave him a new understanding of his uncle’s early life and a surprising appreciation for his prose. He began devouring Lee’s books and ended up not sleeping much for the next several nights. 

After making his way through all of Lee’s manuscripts, Li understood what his uncle meant when he said, “I’m leaving you unlimited wealth.” The work was amazing in both its quality and quantity, a rare combination in the Chinese-language literary world. Li then organized the manuscripts for publication, ultimately releasing a complete works in ten volumes, including Remembering Mother, Sailing at Wu­shi, and Eightieth Birthday. He also put selected manuscripts and an edition of the unsuccessfully self-published Motherland and Compatriots on display in the Lee Rong-chun Literary Museum.

Visitors can travel through time within the warm, woody confines of the museum, viewing Lee’s manuscripts and collected works, and experiencing his life story through displays of old photos. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)

Reading Lee in a museum

Lee recorded bits and pieces of his life in Tou­cheng in the straightforward prose of his work, weaving things like the competition for offerings after the Ghost Festival and the rise and fall of He­ping Street into a rich historical tapestry that introduces readers to different aspects of the township. The museum not only seeks to introduce the public to Lee’s life and work through talks such as “Who Was Lee Rong-chun?” but also strives to link his work to Tou­cheng through things like a local map that marks spots described in Lee’s work and a walking and reading tour of the township that enables visitors to experience a different side of the area.

The museum itself details Lee’s life story through exhibits of old pictures and informational posters, and even displays excerpts from his work on the glass of its windows.

The museum features all of Lee’s work. The next time you are in Tou­cheng, be sure to stop in and give his cozy Japanese-style literary bower a look.        

Lee Rong-chun's work, Dreams of a Villa.

Lee began his writing career in China, turning the wartime suffering he personally witnessed and heard about into his first piece of fiction, the 600,000-character­-long Motherland and Compatriots.

Lee completed Motherland and Compatriots in 1952 at the age of 39 and won a cash prize from the Chinese Literature Awards Committee in 1953.

Lee Rong-chun's work Remembering Mother.

Writing was the wellspring of Lee’s life, and he tilled his literary fields daily.

Lee Rong-chun's works and manuscripts displayed in Lee Rong-chun Literary Museum.

Lee Rong-chun’s nephew Li Jingming conducts a walking and reading tour with museum volunteers. Dressed in T-shirts printed with excerpts from Lee’s work, they show visitors Lee’s Toucheng. (photo by Jac Queline)

After discovering his uncle Lee Rong-chun’s manuscripts, Li Jingming organized and published them in hopes of introducing the public to their beauty. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)