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1 EXPLORING THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE NARRATIVES OF 1949 CHINESE IMMIGRANTS TO TAIWAN A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Yi Fan Pai * * * * * The Ohio State University 2008 Master s Examination Committee: Approved by Dr. Mark A. Bender, Advisor Dr. Dorothy Noyes Advisor East Asian Languages and Literatures Graduate Program

2 Copyright by Yi Fan Pai 2008

3 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the identity formation of 1949 Chinese immigrants to Taiwan and their descendants through the close examination of their personal experience narratives. The current population of Taiwan is the result of two major waves of immigration from the Chinese mainland: the first wave immigrating roughly 300 years ago; the second in 1949 when the Nationalist government fled to Taiwan. These two distinct populations have different cultural traditions, including food, traditional celebrations, speech patterns, and other aspects of culture. Personal experience narratives are rich vehicles for gaining insight into the identity issues highlighted by these differences. The main focus of the study is a series of personal narratives collected from a 1949 Chinese immigrant family that, as a case study, exemplify the process of the formation of generational identity. The results of the investigation suggest that the identity of first generation immigrants as non-taiwanese is almost non-negotiable in their narratives, expressed in part by their nostalgic feelings for mainland China. This contrasts with the dynamics of fluidity and stability of the identity/identities of the second and third generation Mainlanders, reflecting a lessening of social boundaries and other social shifts in Taiwan. ii

4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank numerous people who have contributed in various ways to my research and to the writing of this thesis. First, I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Dr. Mark Bender, for his guidance, constant encouragement, and insightful comment throughout my study and writing. I want to thank my committee member, Dr. Dorothy Noyes, for her invaluable suggestion and warm support. Dr. Amy Shuman has given me many inspiring advice at the initial stage of this research and I deeply appreciate it. I would also like to thank the East Asian Languages and Literatures for their support. Special thanks to Debbie Knicely for her countless help throughout my study. This thesis could not have been possible without the help of the informants from my own family, Li Mingzhen, Bai Minzhi, Bai Meizheng, Bai Jieyong, and Ai Wenzhe. I am indebted to them for generously sharing their life stories with me. I could not have completed this thesis without my family s constant support, especially from my grandmother. I deeply appreciate my parents for picking up the phone at midnight and listening to my problems, as well as their patience and understanding. iii

5 VITA January 18, Born Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C B.L., Shih-Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C B.A., The Ohio State University 2006 Now. Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: East Asian Languages and Literatures Areas of Interest: Chinese Literature and Folklore Studies iv

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract. ii Acknowledgment...iii Vita.iv Chapters: 1. Approaches to Identity Studies and Personal Experience Narratives: A Case of 1949 Chinese Immigrants to Taiwan 1 2. Situating the Narratives: Immigration History and Cultural Background of Taiwan Selfish Aunt and Monkey Soldiers: Exodus Stories in Context Encountering the Other: Mainlanders and Taiwanese in Personal Narrative Conclusion.. 64 Appendix: Translation and Romanization of the Narratives.. 68 Bibliography v

7 LIST OF FIGURE Page 1.1 Brown s Illustration of Ethnic Groups in Taiwan. 5 vi

8 CHAPTER 1 APPROACHES TO IDENTITY STUDIES AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE NARRATIVES: A CASE OF 1949 CHINESE IMMIGRANTS TO TAIWAN 1.1 INTRODUCTION We are living in grandmother s memory, said my aunt during one of our interviews. My family has lived in Taiwan for three generations and I myself was born and grew up in the island. Yet I still don t identify myself as Taiwanese. I am a Northeasterner, like my grandmother. That is, my roots are in the northeast of the Chinese mainland. Do not come back, find yourself a better place and stay there, grandma used to tell me, you do not have to come back; Taiwan is not our home. In 2004, I came to the United States, a presumably better place, and suddenly my identity as a Chinese faced a crisis. Where are you come from? everyone wants to know. Taiwan, I answer. Oh, you are Taiwanese, people say. No, I am Chinese from Taiwan, I say as I try to clarify myself. However, for the majority who are not familiar with the modern history of China and Taiwan, my clarification simply causes more confusion. What my identity is and how it is determined has thus become an imminent issue for me in this foreign land. Thus, what started a personal quest for identity as an individual and more importantly, as a third generation Chinese immigrant in Taiwan, has become the subject of this thesis. As an 1

9 ethnographic case study, it explores identity formation among the 1949 Chinese immigrants and their descendents in Taiwan and its relations to the larger social and cultural structure of contemporary Taiwan through personal experience narratives that is, stories told by people such as my grandmother about their life experiences. The main purpose of the study is to examine the construction of generational identity within a Chinese immigrant family in the process of living in Taiwanese society. The research is based on personal experience narratives collected in Taiwan and China in October 2005, summer 2007, and July 2008 from five of my family members. The thesis is composed of five chapters: Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the approaches of personal experience narratives and identity studies that have been done by both Western and Taiwanese scholars. Chapter 2 briefly touches upon the immigration history and cultural and political situation of contemporary Taiwan in order to provide a background understanding of the immigrant narratives. The issue of ethnicity and national identity in Taiwan (Republic of China; ROC) is complicated by the political conflict between People s Republic of China (PRC; or Mainland China ) and Taiwan since Therefore it is crucial to properly situate the narratives in the larger social and historical context. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the analysis of the personal experience narratives collected from the Chinese immigrant family in Taiwan. The narratives I have collected can be roughly divided into two groups. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the nostalgic narratives that relate back to the tellers life in Mainland China. These narratives were mainly collected from the first generation immigrants. Chapter 4 discusses the narratives concerning the experiences of encountering people of other backgrounds told by the second generation Chinese immigrants. 2

10 Due to nature of the research topic, the thesis utilizes two languages. All interviews were done in Mandarin Chinese and have been Romanized and translated into English. The Romanization used in this thesis is based on the pinyin system that is the official Romanization system of the PRC and at this writing will soon be adopted in Taiwan. 1.2 DEVELOPMENT OF IDENTITY STUDIES IN TAIWAN Scholars from both Taiwan and the West have written on the issue of 1949 Chinese immigrants and the relationships between different ethnic groups in Taiwan, exploring the question of the constitution of individual and group identity under the dynamics of social and political transformation (Zhang 2002, Wang 1993, Huang and Chen 1991, Zhang 1993, Brown 2004, Rubinstein 1994, Gates 1981). Most of the discussion focuses on political and economic elements and their influences on identity construction (Zhang 1993, Wang 2003). Building on these former studies, this thesis takes a folkloristic approach to examine the identity formation of 1949 immigrants through their personal experience narratives (Bauman 1977, Stahl 1989, Ochs and Capps 2005). Studies on ethnicity and identity began in Taiwan soon after the end of the martial law period ( ). Chang Mau-kuei 張茂桂 is one the earliest Taiwanese scholars to write on the issue of relationships between Taiwan s ethnic groups (Chang 1989, 2001, 2002, 2004). Due to the political atmosphere during the 1980s, ethnic identity and relations is still a fairly sensitive issue to broach. Chang claims that the conflict between ethnic groups in Taiwan first appeared during the seventeenth century when Han people ( 漢人, hanren) from Fujian province migrated to the island. Conflicts occurred between these early Han immigrants and the Aborigines ( 原住民, yuanzhumin). The Han 3

11 immigrants held political and economic advantage, and thus Aborigine identity was suppressed (Chang 2002, 2004). Taiwan s ethnic relations and the transformation of identity can be divided into four stages: the first stage is Han identity against Aborigine identity. The second stage is Minnan 閩南 (Southern Fujian province) identity against Hakka people from Guangdong province. The third stage, which is the focal point of this thesis, is the local Taiwanese against the 1949 Chinese immigrants. The fourth stage is Taiwanese nationalism against Chinese nationalism (Chang 2002: 223). Educated at the University of Arizona, Wang Fuchang 王甫昌 has studied and published on the issues of Taiwanese ethnicity since early 1990s. Specializing in the fields of ethnic relations, ethnic politics, and nationalism in contemporary Taiwan, he claims that the division between the 1949 immigrants and local Taiwanese is a political fabrication that has been enhanced by the unequal political and economic status since 1949 (Wang 1993: 75). His theory on ethnic fabrication provides a new schema for understanding identity change in Taiwan during the 1980s and 1990s. The term sida zuqun ( 四大族群 ; four major ethnic groups ) was first officially used by former legislator of Democratic Progressive Party ( 民主進步黨, DDP), Lin Zhuoshui 林濁水, around 1993 to describe the population composition of Taiwan 1. This term has later been widely used in academia in Taiwan. Western scholars such as Melissa Brown (Brown 2004), Murray A. Rubinstein (Rubinstein 1994, 2006), and Hill Gates (Gates 1981) have carried out studies on 1 According to Lin Zhuoshui, the four major ethnic groups in Taiwan are Hoklo, Hakka, Aboriginal, and 1949 Chinese immigrants and their descendents. Lin is a Taiwanese politician who was called the master of Taiwanese Independence Movement in his early years. Over the past few years, Lin has adjusted his political position and now tends to place emphasis on the national identity of the Republic of China. He has published many books and article discussing ethnic group relationships. 4

12 Taiwanese identities from different perspectives. Their works have helped me to construct my own interpretation of identity formation among the 1949 Chinese immigrant and their descendents. Melissa Brown illustrates the change of Taiwanese identity and suggests that the development of Taiwanese identity has gone through five stages (2004: 7-13). Below is a chart Brown proposes concerning the discussion of identity in Taiwan. Figure 1.1 What further complicates Brown s chart is the incipient awareness of ethnic identity among various groups in Taiwan. She places Mainlanders under the category of Han Chinese, yet Mainlanders do not necessarily share a common Han ancestry. For instance, I came across a few members of the Manchu Organization of the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) and they identify themselves as ethnic Manchu as well as Mainlanders. Brown s classification and my observations suggest the fluidity of identity formation in Taiwan. The first stage of development of Taiwanese identity Brown proposed is the era before the Japanese occupation at Brown and Chang suggest that under Qing ruling, Han people in Taiwan did not have a unified identity. Even though they distinguished themselves from the non-han groups, there is no proof to show a unified identity among 5

13 the Han (Brown 2004, Chang 2000). The second stage is the Japanese colonial period from 1895 to The Japanese government enforced something similar to today s ethnic classification. Except distinguishing Japanese from non-japanese, the colonial government also drew distinctions between Hoklo and Hakka based on their mutually unintelligible dialects and some significantly different customs (Brown 2004: 8). In the third stage from 1945 to 1947, Brown claims that during this short period of time the Han in Taiwan assumed a unified Chinese identity. The period is followed by the martial-law rule of the Nationalist government until This was the time Mainlander identity emerged in opposition to local Taiwanese identity (Huang 1991, Chang 1993, Wang 2003, Brown, 2004). The latest stage is from the end of the martial-law period continuing into the present, which is the era in which a new Taiwanese identity has emerged. 1.3 APPROACHES TO PERSONAL EXPERIENCE NARRATIVES Personal experience narratives began to be viewed as a folklore genre by the mid- 1970s when sessions on such stories were chaired at annual meetings of the American Folklore Society. Sandra Stahl, who defines a personal narrative as a prose narrative relating a personal experience; it is usually told in the first person, and its content is nontraditional (1977, 1989), has been central to establishing the personal experience narrative as an oral literary genre within the folkloristics framework. She states (Stahl 1989: 12): [Personal narratives] represent a genre that demands creativity and skill in composition and performance and a sensitive interpretive competency in response. In fact, while the personal narrative as a folklore genre builds upon traditional resources, any given example of the genre is by definition a creative text. The experiences at the base of personal narratives and the values that are expressed through them are original elements that the tellers add to the tradition of the genre when they create their stories. And, as we shall see, the allusions to common or 6

14 private reality listeners hear when such stories are told are the building blocks of literary folkloristics interpretation. Together the tradition of oral genres and the process of interpretation constitute a fundamental narrative theory, a commentary on the nature of oral literature. I have also drawn on William Labov s narrative theory to illustrate the structure of the Chinese immigrant narrative in Taiwan. Labov defines narrative as a way to recapitulate the past experience in temporal order (1972: 359). He proposes the six-part structure of a full-formed oral narrative and suggests that narrative can be taken as a series of answers to underlying questions (1972: ): 1. Abstract what was this about? 2. Orientation who, when, what, where? 3. Complicating action the what happened? 4. Evaluation so what? 5. Result or resolution. what finally happened? 6. Coda. Michael Toolan has elaborated on Labov s account of narrative structure. Labov states that abstract is the sketch of a narrative and that it offers an outline for the listeners (1972: 364). Yet, Toolan claims that abstract, in addition to Labov s understanding of the concept, also provides interactional ground for the speaker and the listener. He states that abstracts often contain requests for the extended turn at talk necessary to tell a story and performing requesting, advertising or floor-wrestling functions (Toolan 2001: 154). In the narratives I collected from my family, I have observed this function of abstracts in many cases. Ochs and Capps state that Narrative memory is shaped by the ever-present concern 7

15 for and anticipation of the future. Further, every telling of what transpired before provides a more or less coherent logic that affords an unsettling moment or affirmation of one s consciousness of life now and anticipated (2005: 199). They discuss the temporal sequence of personal narratives along with the explanatory sequence to explain the relations between the past/story world and present/reality (2005: 157). I also have borrowed Barbara Allen s idea on context relevance (Allen 1989: 237) as one of the characteristics of personal experience narratives. Personal experience narratives usually occur in response to the context of telling. The narratives I analyze in the following chapters demonstrate this quality of the genre. 8

16 CHAPTER 2 SITUATING THE NARRATIVES: IMMIGRATION HISTORY AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF TAIWAN 1.1 INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I provide the historical and social background in which the personal experience narratives of 1949 Chinese immigrants are situated. The complexity of identity in Taiwan is affiliated with the diverse cultural components and social and political changes of the island. By examining different aspects of Taiwanese history and social structure, I hope to enhance the exploration of immigrant narratives and the formation of the immigrant identity in the context of contemporary Taiwan. 1.2 TERMINOLOGY Before discussing the historical and cultural background of Taiwan, I will first provide definitions of several terms frequently used in this thesis. The purpose is to clarify the common confusion on these terms and therefore allow a better understanding of the following chapters. The term Taiwan ren 臺灣人 is usually translated as Taiwanese, yet it has had different meanings throughout the history of Taiwan and keeps acquiring new interpretations along with changes in the political situation. The thesis deals with 9

17 immigrant identity through their narratives and thus it is important to clearly define the term. In its broadest definition, Taiwan ren indicates everyone born in Taiwan and has thus acquired citizenship in the Republic of China. In the narrower sense, this term refers to a group of people whose ancestors migrated from Mainland China to Taiwan before the Second World War, despite their ethnicities. This thesis takes the narrowest definition of Taiwan ren. As used here, the term refers to the groups of Han people whose ancestors migrated from Southern China mainly Fujian province before 1945 and whose native language is Southern Fujian dialect (Li 1991). The last definition is usually used opposed to the term waisheng ren ( 外省人, outer provinces people or Mainlanders ) discussed below. Waisheng ren is a term used to describe the 1949 Chinese immigrants to Taiwan and their descendents. The term literally means outer province people. These recent immigrants are not necessarily from the same place or have the same self-identity, but have been considered as one community in opposition to the earlier populations on the island. Waisheng ren is a general term for these immigrant mainlanders in Taiwan despite their ethnicities and original family home, although many of them have distinct traditions and use different dialects. This term acquired a political connotation in the 1970s when the opposition movement against the Nationalist government started and the division between waisheng ren and Taiwanese became manifest at this period (Wang 2003: 88). In a later section, I will discuss in detail the relationship between these two groups. In this thesis, Taiwan ren is used interchangeably with the term bensheng ren 本省人. The latter can be translated as inner province people or occasionally native 10

18 Taiwanese. The inner province here means Taiwan. Bensheng ren is defined as the group of people whose ancestors migrated to Taiwan before the end of the Second World War (Li 1991). By strict definition, it refers only to the Han people whose mother tongue is Southern Fujian dialect. Yet, some scholars claim that bensheng ren should include not only Han immigrants but also Hakka people who migrated from Southern China to Taiwan around the same period 2. The last that term needs clarification is xinzhumin 新住民 ( new residents ) or xinyimin 新移民 ( new immigrants ). The idea of new immigrants is in opposition to the old immigrants. Thus the meaning of the term is changing whenever newcomers migrate to the country (Gong 2007: 10). The term has sometimes been used to indicate the 1949 Chinese immigrants and their descendents. Yet the new social phenomenon of transnational marriage during the past decade has brought in new groups of ethnic Chinese immigrants from Southeast Asia and Mainland China, therefore causing confusion over the definition of the term. For the purpose of this thesis, the new immigrants that are mentioned in the following chapters indicate the 1949 Chinese immigrants and their descendents. 1.3 IMMIGRATION HISTORY OF TAIWAN Taiwan is located to the east of the Chinese mainland separated only by the Taiwan Strait. Because of its geographical position, Taiwan is fundamentally an immigrant society the population of which is largely composed of Han immigrants from Fujian 2 The definition of bensheng ren has been challenged in the past few years by many aboriginal and Hakka scholars such as Wu Zhuoliu 吳濁流, Pu Zhongcheng 浦忠成, Xie Shizhong 謝世忠, etc. While Hakka are considered a distinct group in Taiwan, they are not given special minority status in the PRC, and are considered as Han. 11

19 province and Guangdong province. It has a long history of migration that can be traced back to as early as the Three Kingdoms period (184 C.E.-280 C.E.), although no documented settlement was built during this period. Historical records show that the Han people from Fujian province started to trade with Taiwan aborigines during the Song Dynasty ( ) and had settlements along the west coast (Chen 1990: 5). The focus of this thesis will be the most recent immigration group, waisheng ren, and its interaction with bensheng ren. In this section, I will give more detailed background on the migration histories of these two particular groups of people. There are two major immigration waves from Mainland China to Taiwan. The first wave was during the late Ming Dynasty ( ) and lasted through the Qing Dynasty ( ). The second one happened between 1945 and 1949 when the Nationalist government lost the civil war against the Communist party on the mainland and retreated to Taiwan. The cause of the first wave of immigration to Taiwan was the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty by the Manchus in There was much resistance to Manchu rule and the most important resistance movement was led by General Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 of the late Ming. Zheng and his army retreated to Taiwan when the Ming dynasty ended and continued the anti-qing movement on the island. Zheng Chenggong s regime in Taiwan ( ) can be considered the initial stage of Taiwan s modern development. Zheng brought around sixty thousand immigrants from the southern provinces to Taiwan (Chen 1990: 7). Zheng s grandson surrendered to the Qing government in Taiwan was then officially subsumed under Manchu rule. The number of Han immigrants dropped during the early Qing Dynasty because of a ban on maritime trade. Yet due to economic 12

20 reasons, the government had to relax the prohibitions on immigration to Taiwan. The number of immigrants from Southern China increased sharply in the early nineteenth century. Unlike their predecessors, these immigrants really set down roots in Taiwan and became the ancestors of Taiwan ren. Although these immigrants were mainly Han people, they had different places of origin and had formed several communities based on their ancestral identity. The disputes and even physical conflicts between these communities occurred continuously during this early phase of settlement. Scholars who study contemporary ethnic identity in Taiwan often draw analogies between this historical phenomenon and the situation nowadays to explain the conflicts between Mainlanders and Taiwanese. Taiwan came under Japanese occupation from 1895 to The fifty years of Japanese colonial rule deeply changed Taiwanese culture and identity. Taiwan s population was around three million at the beginning of the occupation with most of people descendents of the Qing immigrants (Huang 1992: 175). According to Taiwanese historian Huang Xiuzheng 黃秀政, the anti-japanese movement during this period had two phases: The first stage was armed resistance from 1895 to 1915; the second stage was political noncooperation from 1915 to The first twenty years of resistance was led by a group called Taiwan minzhuguo 臺灣民主國 (The Democratic Nation of Taiwan) and the resistance was very intense. The group claimed Chinese identity and kept very close connections with the Nationalist government in China (Huang 1992: 184). After 1920, the armed resistance to the Japanese rule basically ended but the political noncooperation continued. Naturally, the Japanese occupation was a breeding ground for 13

21 Taiwanese nationalism. The Republic of China restored Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan in 1945 at end of the Second World War. The Nationalist government soon assigned a chief executive, Chen Yi 陳儀, to Taiwan to establish a provincial government in the city of Taipei. The Nationalist government was welcomed by the local Taiwan people until 1947, when the 228 incident happened 3. This incident agitated the oppositional relationship between the waisheng ren and the bensheng ren. Later in 1949, the retreating Nationalist government brought in more than one million mainlanders to Taiwan and the problems between these new immigrants and local Taiwan people became sharper and sharper. Roughly one million waisheng ren migrated to Taiwan with the government in 1949, and 60% of them were soldiers (Taiwan: Fifty Years After the War, 1995). In order to help settle these new immigrants, especially the soldiers, the government built many juancun 眷村 (villages of the Military dependents) across the country between 1949 and Villages of the military dependents in a sense physically separated the new immigrants from mainland China and the Taiwanese, and as a result enhanced the distinctive identity of Taiwanese and Mainlanders. 1.4 FROM MAINLANDER CONSCIOUSNESS TO TAIWANESE ETHNICITIES As noted, the identity issue in Taiwan has continuously been a subject of controversy 3 On the evening of February 27 th, 1947, six policemen of Taipei city encountered resistance while searching for smuggling activity and accidentally hurt a Taiwanese woman. The incident turned into a physical conflict between the public and the policemen the next day, February 28 th. Because the policemen represented the authority of the Republican government, the local Taiwanese people turned their anger against the mainlanders in Taiwan (waisheng ren). The incident eventually led to large scale suppression of Taiwanese (Taiwan: Fifty Years After the War, 1995). 14

22 and debate. Since the early 1950s when new Chinese immigrants settled in Taiwan, the question of Chinese identity and the Taiwanese identity has been constantly raised at both the government level and among the public. Before 1987, Taiwan was under martial law due to the tensions between the Republic of China and newly-formed communist People s Republic of China. The Nationalist government tried to impose a unified Chinese identity upon the local Taiwanese and aborigines in order to resist the political threat from across the Taiwan Strait. A unified Chinese identity seemed like a plausible idea by which the government would generate unity among the people at that time. Yet after the 228 incident, any suppression of the expression of Taiwanese identity only provoked more resistance. At the time the term shengji yishi 省籍意識 ( Mainlander consciousness ) was used to describe the opposition between Chinese identity and Taiwanese identity. Wang Fuchang argues that the root of such opposition is immigrant superordination (Wang 1993: 70). The Nationalist government and the Chinese immigrants it brought into Taiwan were only 13% of the whole population of contemporary Taiwan. The so-called waisheng ren were much fewer than the bensheng ren, yet most of them worked for the government and thus presumably acquired a higher social status than the Taiwanese. To the Taiwanese, most of the 1949 Chinese immigrants sided with the government and represented the authoritative governing force. However, to make the identity issue even more complicated, the waisheng ren group did not necessarily share a unified Chinese identity either. These new immigrants were forced to become a group by political calamity, and the sense of identification came from the recognition of the common political situation instead of common ancestry. Therefore, I would like to claim that the debate over waisheng/bensheng identities from the 1950s to 15

23 the 1980s is a mixture of the ethnic identity issue and the national identity issue, and thus the political discourse must be taken into consideration. The mainstream discussion about identity after the 1990s stopped taking the waisheng ren and the bensheng ren situation as a political division. The most frequently used term current in the identity discourse is zuqun ( 族群, ethnic groups ). Moreover, the presidential election in Taiwan at March, 2008, has given the ethnic identity debate a new turn. The elected President, Ma Yingjiu 馬英九, according to the previous definition, is a waisheng ren. The election result thus shows that the boundaries of ethnic identity are no longer clear-cut in contemporary Taiwan society. 1.5 CONCLUSION Identity construction is a long and complicated process. This chapter has provided an overview on the historical and cultural background of Taiwan in order to situate the personal narratives of the 1949 Chinese immigrants in larger historical and social contexts. Taiwanese identities have been negotiated from both within the ethnic groups and without. The following chapters will discuss in detail how personal narratives within a 1949 Chinese immigrant family influence and exemplify the process of the formation of generational identity. 16

24 CHAPTER 3 SELFISH AUNT AND MONKEY SOLDIERS: EXODUS STORIES IN CONTEXT There was an event. A group of anti-communist fighters fled to Korea. Korea wanted to send them back [to China], but some of them wanted to come to Taiwan and some of them wanted to go back Then a group of fighters came to Taiwan. My mother thought that Korea is close to the Northeast, so there might be some of her family members among them. She took me and your mother to wait by the Jilong Port. She carefully looked each person who arrived by the boat to see if there were any of her family members. There was none. (Interview with Bai Minzhi, September 8 th, 2007) 3.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter explores the personal narratives concerning the informants early life experiences in China before immigrating to Taiwan in 1949 and how these narratives were passed down from generation to generation. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the preservation of identity during the period of political turmoil through personal experience narrative. As Barbara Myerhoff states, memory offers the opportunity not merely to recall the past but to relive it (1992: 238). By collecting and examining these narratives, I hope to revitalize these fading memories of our elder generations. The narratives of the 1949 immigrants are marginalized in Taiwan and are frequently taken as equivalent to political discourse. The reasons for this are complicated. One is the 17

25 localization movement in the past decade. Local culture and identity are emphasized and government policy has shifted to end of localism. Yet for the first generation of 1949 Chinese immigrants, the idea of localism was to take away their cultures and identity as Mainlanders. Most of these people I have encountered identify with the Republic of China as their country, but their ethnic identities are clear and vital to them and they would not call themselves Taiwanese. The first generation arrived in Taiwan in 1949 and most of them are elderly, if still alive. Thus, their narratives could easily be lost in the mighty torrent of history. The narratives I used in this chapter are from two sources: my fieldwork in Taiwan and China, and a documentary film on a village of military dependants. I interviewed three of my informants in October 2005, and again in September They are Li Mingzhen and two of her daughters, Bai Jieyong and Bai Meizheng. Ms. Li was born on the second day of the fifth lunar month in 1922 and passed away in the summer Her birthplace is Lishu county, Jilin province, China. Along with the Nationalist government s retreat, she fled to Taiwan with her husband at age 27. She gave birth to five daughters and a son in Taiwan. My interviews with Ms. Li were all done in her private residence in Taizhong city, Taiwan. Ms. Li Mingzhen was 83 years old when I first started to record her narrative and she was not in very good health. Therefore most of the narratives are short and sometimes in segments. In most cases, my interviews with Ms. Li were in an informal setting and we mainly talked about her life experiences in China. In a few recording sessions, I asked her to tell me stories about certain topics, yet the best stories are usually told spontaneously. My fourth informant, Ai Wenzhe, is the only Chinese who was born and lives in 18

26 Mainland China. She is the only daughter of Li Mingzhen s younger sister. I interviewed her in July 2008 in Beijing. I asked her specifically about the story concerning her mother and Ms. Li s reunion after being apart for thirty years. The reason I included this narrative here is to complete the story told by one of Li s daughters on the same topic. Ms. Ai Wenzhe was born at 1960 at Shenyang city, Liaoning province. In order to have a better understanding of the immigrant discourse in Taiwan, I have included a few personal narrative excerpts from a recently-made documentary film on the stories of residents in a village of military dependants. The film is titled Weizhong Mama de Juancun ( 偉忠媽媽的眷村, Weizhong s Mother s Village of Military Dependants ). It was released in Taiwan at June The narratives were collected from the residents of the Second Jianguo Village in Jayi city, Taiwan during the past five years. I am only using the exodus stories of the first generation immigrants from this film. 3.2 IMMIGRANT NARRATIVES IN CONTEXT Personal experience narrative serves as an essential link in creating family identity within immigrants families. As Sims and Stephens state, stories about family members and shared family experiences often communicate a sense of family identity, showing that family share a past, as well as values and beliefs that can be communicate through the family story repertoire (2005: 45). The following narrative interaction is an excerpt from the interview with Bai Meizheng. Earlier in the interview, Ms. Bai talked about her experience of listening to her mother s stories and the one below is the story that impressed her the most. 1. Meizheng (Mei): Okay, let me tell you the most impressive story. Grandma s sixth 2. aunt, I think she is the sixth aunt. It is her father s younger sister. She said this sixth 19

27 3. aunt, she has many children, but she doesn t love her children. And she only loves 4. her dogs. Have you heard of this story? 5. Pai: Yes. But I thought it was the fifth aunt, not the sixth. 6. Mei: Anyway, there is an aunt, and then the most impressive part to me-of course, it 7. must include my own imagination of that scene-, grandma said, the river is 8. frozen, and then if you want to go, because it is winter and the river is frozen, so 9. they can pull the sleigh across the river by the carriage-horse. And don t you forget 10. that my version of the story contains my own imagination, because grandma s 11. stories to me, the most important part is that all the images are so vivid. And then I 12. remember grandma said that this aunt, the horse is pulling, this aunt is sitting in 13. that sleigh, and when she arrived home, our grandfather comes out to welcome his 14. younger sister. He then discovers that she is holding something that wrapped in a 15. fur coat 16. Pai: A dog? 17. Mei: No, he saw her holding something and he thinks finally this time his sister 18. brought the children home. He didn t expect that when she lifted up the fur, it was a 19. dog inside. Our grandfather didn t even let her comes in to the house. He told her 20. to leave. He tells the same carriage to carry her back. ((LF)) It is interesting that my informant chose to tell the story as the most impressive one. She took multiple roles in retelling her mother s story to me, who is the interviewer and also her niece. Through the story, the interviewee implicitly expresses her value of being a mother and a daughter. There is a series of what I call selfish aunt stories that circulate in my family and everybody tells them in various contexts. Although other 20

28 family members besides my grandmother, Li Mingzhen, also tell selfish aunt stories, these stories are always told as grandmother s story. The different tellers might use various strategies to tell the stories to suit the context. Yet the ownership of these stories undoubtedly belongs to Ms. Li, the original teller of the narratives. In lines 2, 7, and 12, the narrator of the above excerpt uses reported speech to increase the credibility of the story and to gives the hearer the illusion that the quoted speech was actually uttered as reported (De Fina 2003: 94). The opening line of Bai Meizheng s narrative let me tell you the most impressive story, serves as a marker of personal narrative performance and sets up a storytelling mode for the audience in this case, the interviewer. This special formula, as Richard Bauman calls it, refers to the communicative relationship between performer and audience (1977: 21). In our case, special formulae serve more than one purpose. The narrator inserts the formulaic sentence have you heard of this story again after she gives the orientation to the story. I argue that the narrator uses it not only to key the performance but also to reassure the interviewer, who is her niece, that she shares the same knowledge with her about this family anecdote and furthermore, invites the interviewer to join her storytelling. I would like to draw on Labov s theory of oral narrative to examine the structure of the selfish aunt story (Labov 1972). The narrator starts her narrative with an orientation to the main character and the context. The orientation part of a narrative provides the setting of the story and specifies the participants and circumstances, especially of place and time, of a narrative (Toolan 2001: 155). In Bai Meizheng s narrative, her introduction of the sixth aunt s characteristics in the orientation plays the role of foreshadowing of the story s later development. There must be a problem for a mother who loves her dogs 21

29 more than she loves her children. In addition, the narrator expects the interviewer to already know this story and thus uses the orientation as a hint of their shared knowledge. She stops in the middle of the orientation and asks the interviewer have you heard of this story. By doing so, the narrator invites her audience to interact with her. Evaluation is a crucial part in Labov s diamond structure of oral narrative (Labov 1999: 233). It is the means used to establish and sustain the point, the contextually significance and tellability, or reportability, of a story (Toolan 2001: 157). There are multiple layers of evaluation in this narrative. The first narrator, Bai Meizheng, is giving explicit evaluation of her retelling of someone else s story. In line 7, the narrator makes comments on her narrative by saying of course it must include my own imagination of that scene, and in line 10 my version of the story contains my own imagination. The narrative itself reflects the moral stance of the characters and the narrator. He tells her to leave reveals his evaluation of his sister s action. It is not an acceptable behavior to put the dogs before the children. The narrative set up the family values for the teller and the listeners. The narrator thus identifies with the values by retelling the story. Personal narratives connect the present to the past and bring history into life. The stories we hear from the preceding generations sometimes are far more than just the family past but a history that is unfolded from personal perspectives. During the interviews I conducted with Ms. Bai Meizheng, I found that there is a more personal and maybe more humanistic perspective in the approach to the historical events. Ms. Li Mingzhen, at the age of nine, lived in Siping County with her family when Manchuria fell under Japanese control. It was September 18 th, 1931 and the enmity between the Chinese and Japanese was near the saturation point. Yet the latter part of the narrative 22

30 below displays a dramatically different side of the war. It should be noted in advance that Chinese traditionally regard monkeys as amusing and playful creatures. 1 Mei: I have been thinking about these stories for the past few days. Of course 2 grandma also told stories that are not about her families. I don t know if you would be 3 interested to those stories or not? 4 Pai: Yes. I know she usually tells two types of stories. One is about our family and the 5 other is about historical events. 6 Mei: You know my memory for stories is about their detailed content, Usually I don t 7 clearly remember the exact characters in them, because it s all about images when I m 8 listening to the stories. So when I was listening to grandma s stories, it s like, like 9 there were pictures appearing in my head one after another. Like movies. It s just like 10 a motion picture. I m very interested in the things like the monkey army ((LF)). 11 Pai: Monkey army? I ve never heard of this one. 12 Mei: You ve never heard of the monkey army! ((LF)) This was the time when the 13 Russians came to China. The Russians came to the Northeast [China] and then, the 14 villagers have never seen foreigners. So they said the monkey army is here, They 15 were really afraid! They thought the monkey army was here, because the foreigners 16 were all very hairy, and their appearances were quite different. ((LF)) grandma said 17 one day there was someone rushed to tell them the monkey army was here. Said that 18 he saw them squatting down to eat, and then after they finished, grandma said those 19 big boys, they were playfully hanging on the trees as hanging on a horizontal bar, and 20 the villagers thus believed that they were a monkey army. ((LF)) 21 Pai: My goodness! I ve never heard of this one. 23

31 22 Mei: I like this monkey army story very much. and I also know that grandmother told 23 many stories about the time when Japanese came to the Northeast [China], and their 24 relationship with Japanese. My feeling is that their relationship with the Japanese is 25 different from the anti-japanese complex we ve usually heard about, because some 26 Japanese [soldiers] were stationed nearby, it was possible that they had lots of 27 interaction and there were some young Japanese boys in grandmother s memory who 28 were terribly homesick, and they really thirsted for a little bit of care from these 29 Chinese families. Li Mingzhen s personal experience narratives went through different phases. Her oldest daughter, Bai Minzhi, told me during our interviews that her mother didn t tell too many stories to her about the retreat or the family in Siping County in her younger years. Bai Minzhi believes that it is because her mother was still trying to contact the family left in China at that time. She didn t tell many stories, says Bai Minzhi, she didn t feel the need of telling [about her family] because she didn t know that she had already lost them. Due to the political situation, Ms. Li gave up hope of contacting her family but the feeling of loss was so strong that the narratives were not tellable at the time (Ochs and Capps 2001: 258). Around 1990, the government of Taiwan and of China reopened the communication channel and Ms. Li finally reconnected with her relatives. Ms. Li told me many stories about her mother and her younger sisters. Those stories are full of tears and her longing for her family. John Harvey says that often survivors, just need time. Logically, however, there is every reason to believe that it is what people do during the time after major loss that matters most (Harvey 1996: 186). Personal narrative has a power to heal, to comfort, and eventually allows the narrators and the listeners to leave 24

32 the sorrow behind. Personal Experience Narrative on an Unexpected Event The following narrative is a portion from my interview with Ms. Ai Wenzhe on July, The interview took place in one of my aunt s private residence in suburban Beijing. Five people participated in this narrative event. Besides Ms. Ai Wenzhe, Bai Jieyong, and I, there were also two of my younger cousins from Taiwan. The purpose of this interview was clearly set: I wanted to learn about the reunion of my grandmother, Li Mingzhen, and her sister, Li Mingyu, who is also Ms. Ai s mother. 1 Pai: Aunt Wenzhe, could you tell me about how the second grandaunt got in touch 2 with grandma? 3 Wenzhe (WZ): Let me tell you, okay. One day my oldest uncle s son, came to our 4 house, to deliver a letter. That letter was the one your third aunt sent to China from 5 Japan, in her friend s name. But she didn t know our address, so she wrote to the old 6 home address forty years ago. I remember it was Jilin province, Lishu county, 7 Zhongzhengtang. Is that right? 8 Jieyong (JY): I don t remember. 9 WZ: I remember it s Zhongzhengtang. It was probably provided by your grandma, the 10 home address she remembered from childhood. But where can you find 11 Zhongzhengtang in this Lishu county after forty years. No. Then according to the 12 name, it said Li Mingyu. There was a genealogical record in the past, listing all the 13 names. The name with the character Ming, you could check the names that contain 14 this character. To see who is in the same generation with her, and then asked if there 15 was anyone who knows this Li Mingyu. Ah, she didn t write Li Mingyu, she wrote Li 25

33 16 Mingshan, because your grandma thought that Li Mingshan is the youngest. I mean, 17 because of the war, the younger one might 18 Pai: have better chance. 19 WZ: Yes. Right, right, right, but nobody knows Li Mingshan. After many twists and 20 turns, they found the old mailman who worked in the post office forty years ago. 21 They asked him, because they opened the letter and found that it was sent from Japan. 22 Japan and China had just established diplomatic relations back then, so people were 23 interested in this thing, and would like to get it done. 24 Pai: Which year was it? 25 JY: They [PRC] started to work on unifying the country If you got a letter from 26 Taiwan, you could be sentenced to death. 27 WZ: Yes. 28 JY: That was the time, the time I transferred the letter. 29 Pai: Which year it was? 30 WZ: The letter was wrote in 1980, 80. When the letter reached us, I think it took half 31 a year. There was a short pause here because the narrating was interrupted by the background conversation. Ms. Ai started her narrative with the sentence let me tell you. By saying that, she set up a storytelling frame to indicate to her audience that there was a performance about to begin (Bauman 1977). In addition to it, Ms. Ai also used this opening sentence as consent to my request for stories. She then provided an orientation to prepare her audiences for the narrative. There are two tellers participating in this narrative event. The major one is Ms. Ai Wenzhe, and the minor teller Bai Jieyong acted as an 26

34 assistant who provided factual details to the narrative. The interaction between two tellers is interesting. The fact that Ms. Bai is the one who wrote the letter from Taiwan makes her the authority on this side of the narrative. Ms. Ai acknowledged Ms. Bai s authority on the issue by asking her to provide detailed information about the address in line 7, 52, and 55. In return, Ms. Bai in line 8 disclaimed the right of telling and gave the floor back to the major narrator. After the exchange of questions between myself and two tellers and a short pause due to the background noise, the narrator resumed the telling and brought her audiences back to the storytelling mode by repeating a small portion of story before the interruption. 32 WZ: So they found the old mailman, he said that the location of Zhongzhengtang was 33 in such and such village now. That place is a village, they probably looked there, 34 looked for a person who has Ming in the name. Who is in the same generation with 35 her? No one knows Li Mingshan, so they went to Zhongzhengtang. If it was called 36 such and such tang in the past, it must be a rich family. Such a rich family, there 37 must have been someone who knew. So they kept looking. Eventually they thought 38 that the Li family had Ming in the name. Someone knew my mother, but the one who 39 knew her didn t know where she was. Then a person remembered that my mother 40 married into the Ai family in Shijiapu township, Lishu county. Shijiapu is not very far, 41 so there was a kind person who brought this letter to Shijiapu looking for Li 42 Mingshan. My oldest uncle s child knew that our family had an aunt called Li 43 Mingshan. This Li Mingshan was a younger sister of my aunt, he said, but this person 44 had already passed away. She died, in 1959 I remember my mother said she passed 45 away in Then my oldest uncle s son took the letter. He felt as if he had gotten 27