The appropriations of Lu Xun in Taiwan in Colonial and Early Post-war Periods

Abstract

Lu Xun’s works and thoughts have played a significant role in the making of Taiwanese culture before 1949. This paper explores the various rather selective appropriations of Lu Xun in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period and in the early post-war years (1945-49), aiming to demonstrate the complex cultural exchanges and knowledge transmission between China and Taiwan in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on detailed textual analysis and empirical research, this paper first explores how the Taiwanese writer Lai He (1894-1943) reworked Lu Xun’s “My Hometown” (Guxiang) to convey the distress felt by local intellectuals in colonial Taiwan. It also discusses the two types of reception of Lu Xun’s works among Taiwanese intellectuals, mainly Wang Shilang’s praise of Lu Xun’s emphasis on the autonomy of literature and arts, and Huang Deshi’s penchant for realist literature exemplified by Lu Xun. Secondly, it examines the translation of Lu Xun’s short stories (into Japanese) and dissemination of Lu Xun’s thoughts in post-war Taiwan. Using Lan Minggu’s rendering of “My Hometown” as an example, this paper argues that at this time, it is more Lu Xun’s consistent anti-imperial and anti-feudalistic stance than his literary merits to which Taiwanese intellectuals were attracted. It also looks at how Lu Xun’s works were used by the local authorities as a means to advocate Mandarin Chinese, and how this early post-war Lu Xun wave subsided partly because of Xu Shoushang’s death, and partly because of the Nationalist government’s promulgation of the martial law in 1949.