A Potpourri Missive from Taiwan
The tragic death of a civil servant; Yang Shuang-zi's TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE (translated by Lin King); marvelous art installations in Chiayi; a joyous baseball win. Plus, watch a capybara munch on grass.
Tw: suicide
Hello dear readers,
Two particular bits of news—on widely different ends of the spectrum—have occupied our attention since we last wrote.
On November 4, the body of a civil servant, whose last name is Wu, was found in his office; he had hung himself. His death has sparked a major outrage on Taiwanese social media, especially as details from an apparently toxic workplace have emerged. The details are horrifying—but unsurprising—for anyone with even a passing knowledge of Taiwanese work culture. Before he died, Wu often arrived at work before 6 AM and would stay until 8 PM. Yet, he had to clock in and out at normal hours, meaning that he rarely received overtime. He was often asked to redo work after submitting it, and his direct supervisor would scream at him for making relatively minor mistakes.
What particularly incensed people: Wu worked for the Ministry of Labor. He was a data analyst for the northern regional office of the Workforce Development Agency, which oversees a broad range of duties, among them job training for disabled people, vocational training for youth, and approval of migrant labor applications.
In a depressingly familiar fashion, Wu’s death sparked the usual round of politicization and recrimination. The DPP immediately sought to close ranks around the Minister of Labor, painting the head of the northern regional, Hsieh Yi-jung—who was not Wu’s direct supervisor—as a rogue agent wielded power abusively and imperiously. In typical Taiwanese fashion, Hsieh was characterized using a series of gendered tropes, depicting her as “hysterical” and “superstitious.” They leaked information of her “menopausal” outbursts. In one particularly damning leak, Hsieh was recorded ordering all of the people in her unit to stop talking to the press. She also mentioned that a spirit medium had talked to the victim, and he was at peace and happy. The gendered reporting about Hsieh persisted even after her apology; following the release of her apology video, critics questioned her, asking: "Why didn’t she cry?"
To be fair, the overwhelming evidence does paint a picture of Hsieh as a bully who created a toxic work environment. Numerous reports have emerged about how she would shame her team, expect them to be on call 24/7, and engage in abusive behavior. Legislators have compiled numerous reports of Hsieh Yi-jung yelling at subordinates, making personal attacks and sarcastic remarks, and even throwing official documents. Hsieh threatened colleagues who filed complaints, vowing to track down and prosecute whistleblowers. Among her employees, she earned the nickname “White Terror of the Northern Branch Office.” During her two-year tenure, 81 employees (out of 110) resigned or retired, among them nine directors, five division chiefs, two section chiefs, and one site manager.
But we also know: suicide is rarely monocausal, and it’s tempting to search for one culprit or cause. Scapegoating a single bully distracts from a broader, systemic discussion of Taiwan's flawed work culture and its lack of adequate mental health resources. It also sidesteps the issue of elitism within the civil service, which fosters an environment where supervisors feel they can act with impunity.
Scapegoating is also part of a depressing cycle in the Taiwanese media circus, where people focus on recrimination and punishment. While the DPP sought to hound the northern regional manager, the opposition parties TPP and KMT had bigger fish in their sights: for nearly a month, they’ve been calling for the resignation of the Minister of Labor, Ho Pei-shan. They said that Hsieh held a cushy job because she was a beneficiary of DPP factionalism. After criticized for handling the situation too lightly, Ho was forced to resign, even though she had only been in the job for a couple of months. Prior to Wu’s tragic death, Ho had made statements about how civil servants were being overworked because many key ministries are understaffed. Her replacement, Hung Sun-han, is by all accounts progressive, and especially known for his activism around migrant rights. However, his main background has been in environmental issues—he was a delegate to the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference—and not in labor reform.
Even though we’re not optimistic, let’s hope that Wu’s death can prompt some real change in abusive work environments in Taiwan, and that this cycle of recrimination and scapegoating can end one day.
Yang Shuang-zi’s TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE (translated by Lin King)
In much less depressing news—we have been thrilled and rejoicing with the rest of the Taiwanese literary community over Yang Shuang-zi winning the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature for Taiwan Travelogue (臺灣漫遊錄), translated beautifully by Lin King (金翎). Yang’s story is a delightfully Taiwanese one. Yang Shuang-zi is the pen name of Yang Jo-tzu (楊若慈). She adopted the name as an homage to her twin sister Yang Jo-hui (楊若暉), who died from cancer in 2015. When they were around five years old, their father left the family and their mother remarried, leaving the twins with only their grandmother to rely on. After their grandmother passed away, the twins received various forms of assistance from school teachers and instructors. They also began working to support themselves. Jo-tzu, the elder of the two, became an apprentice at a fried chicken shop and a bakery, while her younger twin Jo-hui worked as a part-time assistant at an educational materials company. They worked during the day and attended night school.
The twins became fascinated with yuri (百合) culture, also known as “girls’ love,” a genre focusing on romantic relationships between women. The younger twin began to research yuri culture, while the older sister began to write fanfiction. Around the same time, the younger sister was diagnosed with cancer, and the two made a pact to write together; Jo-hui would research and Jo-tzu would write. In 2015, the younger sister passed away from cancer.
Since her sister’s death, Yang Shuang-zi has written seven books. Taiwan Travelogue was published in 2020 in Taiwan and won the Golden Tripod Award, our top literary prize. We read it recently and thought it was marvelous. Yang creates a novel-within-a-novel, writing a fake book of a Japanese woman writer traveling across Taiwan in 1938. It explores ideas about power disparities within relationships, colonial power, female friendship and love, and more.
In her acceptance speech, Yang spoke movingly about the struggle to define Taiwanese identity. This line has been getting re-posted on our social media feeds everywhere, but we’ve found it so moving that we think it’s worth posting:
有些人會問我，為什麼要書寫一百年前的事情？我總是回答：書寫過去，是為了走向未來。一百年前，就有臺灣人說「臺灣是臺灣人的臺灣」。一百年後，今天的臺灣人也說這句話，但是對話的對象並不相同，一百年前我們對日本人這麼說；一百年後的今天，我們對中國人這麼說。
這一百年來，不變的是我們一直面對著身邊有強大而具備侵略性的國家。與此同時，臺灣人自己內部的國家認同、族群認同，也很不相同。現在有些人會認為自己是中國人，就好像是一百年前，有些臺灣人會覺得自己是日本人。
我書寫，是為了回答，臺灣人究竟是什麼人。而我持續地書寫過去，是為了迎向更好的未來。
Some people ask me, “Why write about events from a hundred years ago?” I always answer, “Writing about the past is a way to move toward the future.” A hundred years ago, Taiwanese people already said, “Taiwan is the Taiwan of the Taiwanese.” A hundred years later, today’s Taiwanese people still say the same thing, but the people to whom we’re speaking has changed. A hundred years ago, we said it to the Japanese; today, we say it to the Chinese.
For the past century, one constant has been our proximity to a powerful and aggressive neighbor. At the same time, the internal identities of Taiwanese people—national identity and ethnic identity—have also varied greatly. Nowadays, some consider themselves Chinese, much like a hundred years ago when some Taiwanese considered themselves Japanese.
I write to answer the question: Who are the Taiwanese? And I continue to write about the past to strive for a better future.
Art Installations in Chiayi Celebrate Local Lore
This past weekend, we traveled to the southern city of Chiayi. Over the past three years, the Chiayi government has sponsored a public art project, commissioning various artists to collaborate with local communities in creating installation art. Elementary schools, elderly groups, religious associations, and other civic organizations across Chiayi participated. Each installation reflects a piece of local lore.
Albert's favorite was a collaboration between indigenous artist Kaling Diway (陳勇昌) and the Ludong community (鹿東社區) in Lucao Township (鹿草鄉). Ludong is a fishing community, and each year, the pond in the village is drained so that the villagers can catch fish together. It’s a collective event where the community comes together to share their catch.
Baby P.’s favorite was the installation "Loaded Flight," which pays homage to “pigeon whistle racing,” a recreational activity over a hundred years old. Developed by Chiayi farmers during the off-season—this is when fields are fallow—the event involves training pigeons to wear bells that produce sound when they fly. Villages agree on race boundaries, and pigeons must find their way home. At the end of the competition, the villagers gather for a big meal and award prizes.
A local saying in Yizhu goes, “We don’t worry about food. We don’t worry about clothes. We only worry that pigeons won’t carry whistles.” (不煩惱吃，不煩惱穿，煩惱粉鳥不揹笭。)
Michelle has too many favorites to narrow it down to just one. The first is an exhibit to celebrate the diverse fauna and flora—reptiles, rare butterflies, migratory birds—in Piqian Village. Local middle school kids helped to color the birds.
Another exhibit features a mudskipper, capturing a cherished memory of the villagers. Fishermen would wade through knee-deep mud, using specialized techniques to catch these unique creatures. (We had to look up "mudskipper"—it's an amphibious fish known for its unusual body shape that thrives in muddy environments.) The sculpture was crafted using traditional bamboo weaving techniques.
A final exhibit depicts children running while holding sugarcane, inspired by the memories of elderly residents recalling how trains carrying sugarcane would pass through their township. As one remembers, "When the train came, we would chase it and pull the sugarcane out.”
The exhibition will continue until December 8th in the public square in front of Chiayi County government.
Baseball Joy
For the past month, Taiwan has been going crazy about the WBSC Premier12 international baseball tournament, which invites the twelve top-ranked baseball teams in the world. Team Taiwan is one of the top-ranked teams. Just as we were about to send this missive, we learned that the team won the tournament! Congratulations Team Taiwan!
Book Club: Ae-ran Kim’s My Brilliant Life and Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue
Thanks to everyone who joined us to talk about Andrea Lee’s Red Island House. For November/December, we’re reading Ae-ran Kim’s My Brilliant Life (translated by Chi-Young Kim) and meeting on Friday, December 6th at 7:00 PM EST / Saturday, December 7th at 8:00 AM Taiwan time. (Apologies for our time mishaps; we changed the Taiwan time, as we forgot about daylight savings.)
For January, we’ll read the aforementioned Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue (translated by Lin King) on Friday, January 24th at 7:00 PM EST / Saturday January 25th at 8:00 AM Taiwan time.
Reply here for the zoom link; thank you!
Capybaras: A Magical Cross Between A Sea Otter and Guinea Pig
And finally, for some reason—readers, please tell us if you know why!—Taiwan has had a craze around capybaras the past couple of years. Now there are capybara cafes popping up everywhere, and the vibe has infected no-longer-a-baby P., who is definitely in her capybara phase. We’d describe this adorable rodent as a cross between a sea otter and a guinea pig.
We had a bit of a snafu with an event in Yilan, so to appease a very temperamental No-Longer-Baby-P, we discovered a capybara hangout nearby. Watching them peacefully munch on leaves turned out to be a surprisingly zen experience.
“Taiwan Travelogue” seems right up my alley. Do you think I should read it in Chinese or English? Or which one first?