Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Li Ping Chen
Guest: Dr. Fang Yu Hu
Book: Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls Under Japanese Rule (U Washington Press, 2024)
Release Date: November 6, 2025

This episode explores Dr. Fang Yu Hu’s new book, which examines how Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan shaped ideas of citizenship and gender, focusing especially on the education of Han Taiwanese girls. Dr. Hu discusses the “Good Wife, Wise Mother” program, how it served Japan’s colonial modernization and assimilation efforts, and how Taiwanese elites and women themselves responded, adapted, and remembered this pivotal era. The conversation weaves personal, societal, and historical perspectives—anchored by Dr. Hu’s interviews with those who lived through this transformation.

Author’s Background and Research Journey ([04:43–07:45])

Key Points:

• Dr. Hu is an assistant professor at Cal Poly Pomona, specializing in gender, colonialism, and cross-border flows in East Asia.
• Her interest in Japanese colonial influence stemmed from her own family’s experiences—Japanese loanwords, customs, and cultural references from her childhood.
  • Quote: “As a child growing up speaking Taiwanese holo in my family … my grandparents who mentioned during the Japanese period, and so on and so forth. And so I became interested in how Japanese influences came to my family.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 05:38)
• Initial research stemmed from undergraduate and master’s theses on education, identity, and “ideal womanhood.”
• The final book is a revised doctoral dissertation integrating education and women’s studies, enriched with family oral histories.

Historical Context: Taiwan as Japanese Colony ([08:41–15:55])

Key Points:

• Taiwan’s pre-Japanese history: indigenous populations, Dutch/Spanish rule, Chinese Ming loyalist regime under Koxinga, Qing rule, and eventual cession to Japan after the 1895 Sino-Japanese War.
• Japan’s colonial agenda: Japan used Taiwan to showcase its modernizing, benevolent imperial model. It built infrastructure (schools, railroads, public health, factories) and promoted universal primary education—including girls.
• Japanese governance set up a parallel legal system and co-opted local elites for administration.
  • Quote: “Their goal is to produce a Japanese-speaking, obedient population which could be trained to work for the empire's profits, but could also use modern infrastructure.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 14:00)
• Japanese educational policy blended British (literacy, technical skills) and French (assimilation) colonial models and prioritized extending primary education to girls—unusual compared to other colonies.

“Good Wife, Wise Mother”: Gendered Colonial Education ([16:56–20:00])

Key Points:

• The “Good Wife, Wise Mother” (ryōsai kenbo) ideal promoted by Japan was a modern vision centered on nuclear families, gendered labor divisions, and citizenship.
• Education was intentionally gendered. Girls were trained in domestic skills (sewing, cooking) and ethics to become literate, modern “Japanese” wives/mothers; boys learned skills and discipline for work and potential military service.
  • Quote: “Girls were trained to be literate wives and mothers who could manage their households and teach their children, while boys were trained to work … [and] become soldiers in the future.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 18:39)
• The curriculum reinforced a hierarchy where women symbolized the civilization level of Taiwan—an assimilative policy deeply marked by patriarchal values.

Taiwanese Responses: Elites, Modernization, and Patriarchy ([20:00–25:00])

Key Points:

• Han Taiwanese elites and intellectuals largely embraced girls’ education from the 1920s–40s, seeing it as essential for modernity and societal uplift, though wary of full Japanization.
  • They sought modernization through education but tried to resist full cultural assimilation.
  • Quote: “These intellectuals and elites accepted girls education because they were pretty much persuaded by the argument that educated women were an essential part of modernity …” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 22:30)
• However, by engaging in the colonial system, they inadvertently reinforced both patriarchal and colonial hierarchies—women’s “backwardness” was cited by both Japanese and Taiwanese as symbolic of national progress or regression.
• Critiques in this period focused on limited opportunities for girls, reports of teacher–student exploitation, and continued patriarchal oppression in homes.

Mobilization for War: Schoolgirls’ Wartime Experiences ([25:00–34:01])

Key Points:

• From 1937 (with the escalation of Japan’s war in China), education pivoted to mobilizing schoolchildren—including girls—for the war effort.
• Schoolgirls learned Japanese language, participated in military-style training (marching, bamboo stick drills), wrote letters to soldiers, and prepared care packages and symbolic “thousand stitches belts.”
  • Quote: “They were also mobilized to clean up hospitals and shrines during the wartime period. And then, moreover, schoolgirls specifically prepare rice balls for soldiers, where they put their cooking skills they had learned in school to use.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 28:34)
• Work outside school included agricultural labor and sewing for soldiers.
• Interviewees expressed complex memories: pride in their practical skills or being selected for certain tasks, fond memories of “adventure” (e.g., evacuation to the countryside), but also fear and deprivation during air raids and food shortages.

Impact Beyond School: Marriage, Work, and Modernity ([34:01–41:29])

Key Points:

• The sewing skills taught in schools became markers of marriageability and enabled women to transition into paid textile work postwar—supporting Taiwan’s light industry.
  • Shift from home-based education under the Qing to school-based, multistyle (Taiwanese, Japanese, Western) skills under Japan.
• School brought girls into public spaces—interacting with boys, writing love letters, and, for the first time, participating in “free love” relationships, often using Japanese as a lingua franca for romance.
  • Quote: “The Japanese language became the common language of love … Holo or Ming Nan speakers … could communicate with the Japanese potential partners using Japanese language in these inter ethnic relationships.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 36:37)
• The impact was more profound for lower-class women, who were more likely to work outside the home and thus forge new social networks and independence.

Colonial Nostalgia: Remembering the Japanese Period ([41:29–50:41])

Key Points:

• “Colonial nostalgia,” as defined by historian Patricia Lorsing, describes how people recall colonial eras as “better times,” often due to subsequent political, economic, or social upheaval.
• Dr. Hu’s interviews revealed that many former students remember Japanese teachers as more caring, well-trained, and ethical compared to some postwar Nationalist regime teachers.
  • Quote: “One interviewee accused teachers in the post war period … only help their students after receiving some favors and bribes. And in contrast those interviewees praise her Japanese teachers as very caring.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 44:45)
• Favorable memories often arose in contrast to the traumatic early years of Kuomintang (KMT) rule—hyperinflation, the 228 Incident and ensuing massacre, long martial law, and institutionalized discrimination against local Taiwanese.
  • “The positive memory they had of their Japanese educational work and wartime experiences actually reflects their desire to define themselves in the post war society…” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 41:54)
• Interviewees pointed to practical skills and “Japanese spirit” (discipline, thrift, uprightness) as defining legacies, sometimes criticizing younger generations for lacking these attributes.
• Dr. Hu notes that these recollections do not justify colonial violence, but are contextualized against locally experienced hardship and discrimination after the war.

Reflections on Research & Surprising Findings ([53:26–57:53])

Key Points:

• Dr. Hu didn’t expect to write extensively on colonial nostalgia or romantic relationships, given the generation’s usual silence on such topics. Interviewees’ willingness to share (often via family members) was a surprise.
  • Quote: “I wasn't really expecting to write about romantic relationships at all because of the cultural sense silence on this topic. This generation tends to be shy.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 54:32)
• Image analysis of textbooks (illustrations) became unexpectedly central to her argument about gendered assimilation.
• Dr. Hu generally avoided direct political questions due to the sensitivity of Taiwanese history and politics, relying on what emerged organically in interviews.

Looking Ahead: New Research Directions ([58:56–59:56])

Key Points:

• Dr. Hu is now researching Taiwanese migrants to mainland China and Southeast Asia during the late 19th and 20th centuries, continuing to analyze intersections of class, ethnicity, gender, and shifts across colonial and postcolonial periods.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “I became interested in how Japanese influences came to my family.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 05:38)
• “Their goal is to produce a Japanese-speaking, obedient population…” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 14:00)
• “Girls were trained to be literate wives and mothers … boys were trained to work … and be soldiers.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 18:39)
• “The Taiwanese elites … try to break this link between modernization and Japanization.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 22:40)
• “The education she received was better than education in Taiwan today … students who graduated from elementary school could work in a job competently.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 48:19)
• “I wasn't really expecting to write about romantic relationships at all … this generation tends to be shy.” (Dr. Fang Yuhu, 54:32)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Author Background & Motivation: 04:43–07:45
• Colonial Taiwan Overview: 08:41–15:55
• ‘Good Wife, Wise Mother’ Policy: 16:56–20:00
• Taiwanese Elites’ Responses: 20:00–25:00
• Wartime Mobilization: 25:00–34:01
• Education’s Social Impact: 34:01–41:29
• Colonial Nostalgia: 41:29–50:41
• Behind the Scenes / Unexpected Findings: 53:26–57:53
• Next Project: 58:56–59:56

Tone and Style

Dr. Hu speaks in an engaging, thoughtful, and occasionally personal style, comfortably switching between nuanced academic analysis and vivid anecdotal storytelling. The conversation is accessible for listeners with or without prior knowledge of Taiwan, moving from broad historical strokes to granular details of daily life and memory.

Conclusion

This episode offers a sweeping, empathetic view of Japanese colonial education in Taiwan—how it reshaped identities, gender roles, and national narratives, and how its traces persisted in individual and collective memory. Dr. Hu’s research, grounded in oral histories as well as print sources, illuminates not only the intended goals of colonial policy but the complicated human realities of adaptation, agency, nostalgia, and critique.