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Fang Yu Hu, "Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls Under Japanese Rule" (U Washington Press, 2024)
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Marshall Poe
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Li Ping Chen
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- [02:08]
Li Ping Chen
Hello everyone and welcome back to New Books in East Asian Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Li Ping Chen, your host for today's episode. Today we will be talking to Dr. Fang Yuhu about her new book, Good Wife, Wise Mother, Educating Han Taiwanese Girls Under Japanese Rule. This book was Published by University of Washington Press in 2024. In this book, female education and citizenship serve as a lens through which to examine Taiwan's uniqueness as colonial crossroads between Chinese and Japanese ideas and practices. A late comer to the age of imperialism, Taiwan Japan used modernization efforts in Taiwan to cast itself as a benevolent force among its colonial subjects as well as imperial competitors. In contrast to most European colonies where only elites receive an education in Taiwan, Japan built elementary schools intended for the entire population, including girls. In 1897, it developed a program known as Good Wife, Wise Mother that sought to transform Han Taiwanese girls into modern Japanese female citizens. Drawing on Japanese and Chinese newspapers, textbooks, oral interviews, and fiction, Dr. Hu illustrates how these seemingly progressive projects advance a particular Japanese vision of modernity, womanhood and citizenship, to which the colonized Han Taiwanese people responded with varying degrees of collaboration, resistance, adaptation, and adoption. Dr. Hu also assesses the program's impact on Taiwan's class structure, male female interactions, and political identity both during and after the end of Japanese rule in 1945. This book expands the study of Taiwanese history by contributing important gendered and non elite perspectives. It will be of interest to any historians concerned with questions of modernity, hybridity, and colonial nostalgia. Alright, so this is just a brief introduction about the book. Now let's hear it from the author. Fan Yu. Welcome to the show.
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Dr. Fang Yuhu
Thank you so much, Li Ping, for having me.
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Li Ping Chen
Of course. We're so excited to talk about your book. But before we do that, Fan Yu, I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interest and anything you like us to know.
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Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yes. I am currently an assistant professor of history at Cal Poly Pomona. My research interests include gender and colonialism in modern Taiwan and cross border flows in East Asia. I have published in the journal Eros of Monash University and 20th century China. And then today I'm excited to talk about my book.
- [05:25]
Li Ping Chen
Me too, about your book. And so how did you start this project? How did you kind of like thinking about colonial education, especially for the Hann Taiwanese girls?
- [05:38]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah. This book is actually a culmination of a personal and intellectual journey. I was intrigued by the use of Japanese words in my native language, Taiwanese holo or ming nan. As a child growing up speaking Taiwanese holo in my family, even after we moved to the US When I was in elementary school, my family regularly ate Taiwanese sushi and miso soup. My grandfather, for example, really enjoyed watching sumo wrestling. And my grandparents both liked to listen to enga songs in both Japanese and Taiwanese renditions and in Conversations 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. As an undergraduate student, I completed an undergraduate thesis on education and identity, looking at how one's level of education influenced their national and ethnic identity. Later, at a master's program at the University of Chicago, while I was looking for sources for a master's thesis topic, in the library I found copies of Taiwan Ming Bao, which is the Taiwan people's newspaper published in the 1920s and actually onward but I focus on the 1920s and the concept of womanhood emerged from the newspaper. And so I've completed a master's thesis on the ideal womanhood during the Japanese period. And as I began working on my dissertation, I combined basic education for my undergraduate studies with women's studies for my master's degree to look at girls education under Japanese rule. I also want to mention that having a grandmother around who mentions her school reunions on a regular basis helps me think about using oral interviews as part of my research. This book is the product of my revised the doctoral dissertation.
- [07:46]
Li Ping Chen
Thank you for sharing the journey, especially as you mentioned as the years in making and we are so happy to see the final result the book itself. And also thank you for sharing that the personal aspect for this project, your family and also the grandmother's experience. And later on we'll be talking more especially different chapters about the interviewees and also their experiences as well. And so now we want to talk about this book and we have listeners that actually already know a lot about Taiwan or some of the listeners maybe didn't really know too much about Taiwan or not that familiar with Taiwan. This book talk about particular chapter in Taiwanese history. This is Japanese colonization. So I was wondering, can you start our conversation with maybe some of the introduction about Taiwan, especially as a Japanese colony?
- [08:41]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yes, of course. So let me begin with an overview of Taiwan's history before Japanese rule. And so various indigenous Astronesian groups live in Taiwan. And the first formal rulers of part of Taiwan were the Dutch in Tainan in southern Taiwan from 1624 to 1662. And soon it was followed by the Spanish in Danshui in northern Taiwan from 1626 to 1642. This was a result of the European age of exploration which lasted from 15th to 17th century. So it was during this European colonial period that some Han Chinese men from Fujian province in South China immigrated to Taiwan as workers. Later the Dutch rolled out the Spanish in the north and then later Zheng Chengguang or Koxinga as he was known in the Western language, whose father was a Chinese pirate turned official for the Chinese Ming Empire. And then his mother actually came from a Japanese warrior family. So Kosinga pledged loyalty to the collapsing Chinese Ming Empire as the Manchu Qing Empire was conquering Taiwan. And Zhen Chenggong had decided to take over Taiwan from the Dutch as his base to fight against the Manchus. So Zhan Chenggung defeated the Dutch and then he established a government in southern Taiwan with his followers so Yan, his regime did not control the entire island of Taiwan. After the Manchus conquered China proper, they decided to conquer Taiwan also and eventually Zheng Chengguang's grandson surrendered to the Manchu Empire in 1683. The Manchu rulers restricted immigration to the island because of its reputation as an uncivilized, dangerous place full of indigenous peoples and unruly Han Chinese settlers. But despite the restriction and their views towards indigenous people, Taiwan became important to East Asia, the region and the entire world in the 19th century. The Treaty of Tianjin, signed in 1858 during the Second Opium War, or known as the Aerial War of 1856-1860, put Taiwan in Chinese regional and global spotlights, as Dam Sui and Keelung were open as treaty ports to Europeans for tea and camphor trade. In 1874, Japan invaded Taiwan to attempt to colonize southeastern Taiwan. Later, some battles took place in Taiwan during the Sino French War of 1884-85, when China and France fought over influence in Vietnam. And so the Qing government basically came to recognize the importance of Taiwan and instead of keeping it as part of the Fujian province as what it has done, it made Taiwan as separate province in 1887 and then began modernization projects such as railroads, modern port facilities, a telegraph system and a rail line. The new provincial government successfully built some railroads, but other efforts paused. It was in this regional environment that Taiwan became a Japanese colony. The first Sino Japanese war between the Qing Empire and Japan took place from 1894 to 1890, 1995, when they fought over control over Korea and Japan won. And so the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed in 1895, in which China ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands to Japan forever. Japan actually initially considered selling Taiwan to other countries because it was too expensive to manage Taiwan. But eventually the Japanese used land tax reform, government monopolies on goods and a bond issue to finance Taiwan by 1905 and to govern Taiwan. The Japanese Diet, its Parliament, passed Law 63 in the year 1896, which gave the Governor General of Taiwan the power to make and implement laws and regulations specific to Taiwan without further having to follow mainland Japanese laws. And so this sort of where discrimination can arise in terms of governing. Japanese officials conducted a census and made maps to identify and register people. They also redesigned the hokkou or hukou system, with Taiwanese leading each area. Officials received cooperation from local elites who serve as headsmen and commissioners to keep order and extract profit for the government. They also created a modern police force and military police to police the population. Although there were some mining and light industries, Taiwan remained largely agricultural. So as a Japanese colony, the officials built railroads, roads, factories, banks, parks, organized hygiene and public health campaigns, and set up local newspapers and professional and literary journals. They also set up the most important institution, schools. Officials actually looked to British and French models of colonizing Africa and Asia, where the British focused on literacy and technical education, while the French focused on assimilating the Africans into modernity and a higher level of civilization. And so what the Japanese colonists did was they blended the two styles in the school system as they sought to educate as many Taiwanese as possible at the primary school level. 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. This educational goal included indigenous and Han Taiwanese populations, and also girls and women. So compared to the limited educational opportunities that were available to elite girls and women during the Manchu qing rule from 1688 to 1895, schoolgirls and educated women became more visible in public spaces with increasing educational and work opportunities. My book looks at the creation, implementation, and impact of Japanese colonial education in Taiwan through these schoolgirls experiences.
- [15:55]
Li Ping Chen
All right, thank you, Fangyi for this amazing overview. And especially sort of Taiwan as this regional and global content zone, if not confrontation zone. Here we hear a lot of different influences and also different kind of cultures and ideas, practices. And also thank you for mentioning the different policies and the infrastructure and also the industry and also the different institutions, Especially during the colonial period. And your focus, the book focused on education. And I want to sort of highlight the title of your book. That is Good Wife and Wise Mother. And this is where you kind of like unpack and analyze in chapter one as well. So what is this? What was this ideal womanhood that turned. That's called Good Wife and Wise Mother. And how was this ideal implemented in Taiwan's colonial education?
- [16:57]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah, thank you for that question. So this idea of womanhood, of Good wife, wise mother. My book title is A Modern Japanese conception of Modern Female citizenship. The concept of Good wife, wise Mother was centered on nuclear families in a modern industrial society. It was part of the Japanese assimilation policy, Toka that sought to use education to assimilate, which means to japanize Taiwanese people, to have Taiwanese people speak Japanese, and to be loyal to the Japanese emperor and the empire. And so when colonial officials established primary schools for Taiwanese children in 1898, the curriculum included the Japanese language, ethics, arithmetic, arts like singing and drawing for all students. Sewing and handicrafts lessons were required of girls starting either third, fourth, or fifth grade, depending on the resources at the school. For boys, vocational training in agriculture, commerce or industry was required in 5th and 6th grade. In language and ethics courses, lessons included explicit division of labor and behaviors depending on one's gender. This is where the school curriculum was gendered. As I show in my book, girls were trained to belittle literate wives and mothers who could manage their households and teach their children, while boys were trained to work to bring income to their families. And also, boys could be trained to become soldiers in the future. And that's why I argue in my book that Japanese assimilation is gendered. And that's why my book title is Good Wife, Wise Mother. It sort of represents this core idea in the Japanese assimilation project.
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Li Ping Chen
Yeah, specifically, as you mentioned, the goal for this kind of education, especially female Education is for them to be the modern female citizen and particularly in the domestic context, be a wife, be a mother. And so this is very specific context. So it's not necessarily for their intellectual pursuer. So maybe some women do inspired to do so. But at least for the colonial regime, the primary target, primary contest is domestic as wife and mother. And also as you mentioned, this kind of colonial education have a specific kind of curriculum design that is kind of divided by kind of one's gender. Female and male, boy student, girl student. There's specific practices specifically if I can say this kind of my discipline and expectation of their behavior and also about their upgrade as well. And with that. So this is about the colonial education and how the colonizer they intended to do. But what about people's response, especially as you mentioned earlier in the overview that before Japanese colonization there's already Han Taiwanese people living in here. And then also we have the Qing dynasty influences here. And already there are are different model and different trends of education already existed in Taiwan before Japanese colonization. So I was wondering especially you mentioned in chapter two about local kind of like respond. So how did Han Taiwanese elites and intellectuals they think about this, how did they respond to the girls education specifically 1920s to the 1940s?
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Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah, so they really embrace girls education from the 1920s and 1940s. And some of some listeners might wonder why don't we have. Why didn't I analyze responses since the 1890s and early 1900s? This is because the group of Taiwanese I analyze are ones who actually received Japanese education. So they basically came of age and started to come comments on education and other institutions under Japanese rule around the 1920s. And also it was a more relaxing time so called in the Japanese empire in the 1920s. So 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 as a way to elevate elevate the level of civilization of Taiwan. And in this effort, the Taiwanese elites and intellectuals actually try to break this link between modernization and Japanization in the colonial educational program by focusing on the modernization part of it, but avoid Japanese Asian. So it means that DC Lease really wanted Taiwan to modernize with modern infrastructures where people learn how to use modern institutions, institutions. But then they didn't want people to actually become loyal Japanese subjects in both mind and body. But I argue that Taiwanese who accepted girls education inevitably reinforce patriarchy and colonial hierarchy. Why do I say this? This is because the Japanese assimilation project was inherently gendered where colonial Educators taught children about colonial hierarchy in school lessons and school lessons dep. The Taiwanese girls and women as backward, more often so compared to the Taiwanese boys. They made women a symbol of Taiwan and its level of civilization. So backward women would mean backward Taiwan. And so it is very difficult to embrace girls education without reinforcing colonial hierarchy. The easiest way, however, for Taiwanese elites and intellectuals to criticize this colonial education was by focusing on girls education as well. In newspaper articles and fictional stories, we see criticisms that focus on the lack of educational opportunities, sexual exploitation of the schoolgirls by their often male teachers, specifically Japanese teachers, and then the continued power that patriarchy exerts on Taiwanese girls and women, as we see in the home space.
- [25:01]
Li Ping Chen
Thank you especially for mentioning about the elite Taiwanese intellectuals, their kind of response. Especially you mentioned this kind of modernization versus Japanization, where the modernization actually already mediated by the empire itself and Japanese Empire specifically. And how the kind of like education institution and also the structure itself was implemented and already gendered by colonial regime. And so that will be around the 1920s or so. But the history changes and specifically from 1937, as Japan is actually intensified its military operation in different parts of Pacific and from 1937 in China as well. And this is where they are thinking about, hey, we need more obedient and loyal subject, especially colonial subject. So in chapter three, you talk about this period. So I was wondering, can you tell us more about how were students, especially school girls, mobilized for the war efforts from 1937? And in this chapter you also interview some people. And I was just wondering, can you share us about what they think about the colonial education and also how they remember the war?
- [26:31]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah, sure. Schoolgirls were mobilized for the war both on school grounds and outside of school between this period, 1937 and 1945, when Japan began a full scale war against China. So this is even earlier than Pearl harbor and then also earlier than the invasion of Poland by Germany on the European front. So on school grounds, schoolgirls and boys learned to be patriarch Japanese through Japanese language, history and ethics courses. Their teachers asked them to write letters to thank soldiers. And then some students also received military training using bamboo sticks, swords and even guns during their training. The swords and guns, as I understood, have been more at the the middle school level, but elementary school bamboo sticks and other bodily strengthening exercises. They also learned about marching and singing in school. And they were mobilized to participate in victory parades in their hometowns and cities. As they marched and sang, students also participated in special concerts organized for soldiers and soldiers families singing for them as a way of sort of like thanking them and also sending good luck. Additionally, their teachers require them to collect scraps of metal in class as homework assignments, and students were aware that these scraps would turn into weapons. Schoolgirls, along with boys, received agricultural lessons in school, and they were mobilized to work on farmland during the war. Some of the tasks included catching insects, gathering grass and plants, making compost, and harvesting rice. Something else that these students were mobilized to do was that the teachers would take them to military hospitals to visit injured veterans, where they donate money and goods to these veterans. 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. And then what I call the iconic class they took in school, sewing, was also put into practical use as teachers required them to make care package bags for soldiers during school time. So they make these care packages, and then later on, they would stuff goods in there. Also, outside of school, they were asked to participate in the making of sending buddy, which literally meant thousand person stitches. It is a white cloth with red words of good luck for the soldiers. This cloth supposedly contains stitches from 1,000 women, and so they would say it represent the unity of women from across different ethnic groups in support of this war. So what did schoolgirls think of their education, the war? They remember the war and the education with fondness. They were obviously scared during the wartime period, as they recall how scared they were during the air raids and then the rationing, also when they were going hungry or couldn't eat much meat or rice. And they remember this is more than six decades later. But they also recalled the wartime mobilization period with some pride. One interviewee, for example, have fun when her family evacuated from the city to the countryside, where she caught shrimp and had plenty of food. It was likely very new and exciting for a city resident who never had that kind of experience of catching shrimp in the river. Another inter interviewee recalled that her letter was chosen to be sent to soldiers on the front line because she had written the best letters in her class. So her teacher picked hers to be sent over. Another woman wrote many letters on behalf of her classmate because she was good. And so I think in that case, her teacher had her write letters as if it's coming from, like, you know, 30, 40, some, you know, school girls. I also heard from a woman who was proud that she was the only student who volunteered to make the wartime simple pants for women, the mombe Another interviewee appreciated the cooking skills she had learned, especially because. Because she came from a well off family where she never had to do any chores. And I see she was very happy that she learned in that context. So it was a scary time for sure. But wartime mobilization allowed them to showcase the skills they had learned at school. And in the case of one I mentioned, who actually had fun when they evacuated from the home and into the strange new home.
- [31:42]
Li Ping Chen
Thank you, Fang. You especially mentioned the different aspect and different fronts. The school girls were mobilized. So in schools it will be some trainings, basic kind of physical trainings, miniature trainings or so. They also received lessons about farming and cooking, sewing as well. And they also mobilized to. They were also mobilized to writing letters, preparing care packages, ladies in the hospital, so on and so forth. But outside of school grounds, they were also mobilized in a community, as you mentioned. One of the example is to participate in sewing the thousand stitches in a way that. To show their support for the soldiers and also symbolically their loyalty to the empire as well. And also you mentioned that your interviewees seem to remember this period, even though it's very scary, the bombing and the war, but also they seem to find some moments of, as you mentioned, fondness that in their life as well. And I think later on in chapter five, we'll be talking more about especially this kind of colonial memory and even colonial nostalgia. But here again to think about the school grounds, school as a training center, center to mobilize these women, the school girls, for the war effort, particularly from 1937. And so with that, so this is about school life. They are mobilized in schools, but also in the communities as well. But the colonial education impact is actually long lasting, especially as you analyze in chapter four. So it's not just about their school, their schooling and you know, when they're in school, but it's also outside of school. And this is about their life as well. So I was wondering, can you tell us more about how colonial education impacts local marriage practices and also the domestic lives of educated girls and women, especially towards the end of the Japanese rule, and also some parts of the early post war years as. As well?
- [34:02]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Well, yeah. So I argue that based on my research, many interviews and some published oral histories, I argue that Japanese colonial education brought huge, you know, big changes to educated women and their families in both work opportunities and also marriage networks during the wartime period and also in the early post war years. So let's talk about the sewing lesson to look at the impact. First, sewing was a marker of a woman's marriage ability during the Qing and the Japanese periods. But what differed between the two periods was that training was done at home during the Qing period versus at school during the Japanese period. And also during the Japanese colonial period, Japanese and Western styles were introduced to Taiwanese girls and women. So they learn about Taiwanese, Japanese and Western style sewing. Although the colonial government intended the household training for home uses only, the practical implication of sewing in primary and secondary schools suggests that it has vocational purposes, which led to the emergence of seamstresses in the post war era where these women became very important in the first home and later on these, the light industry, textile industry. And that also then propelled Taiwan on the industrial path during the Cold War period. Now let's talk about public space as another way of looking at the impact of education. So by attending schools, girls are now in the public space. Compared to the traditional Confucian idea of keeping girls and women locked inside the home, including if they have any chance of getting education, transportation during the Qing period, under the traditional Confucian idea, it would be inside the home as well. But then during the Japanese colonial period, girls had to interact with boys for some activities in their classroom or school. And then for those secondary school girls who actually attended separate schools from the boys, it was segregated. They had to commute to those who have to commute to school. They saw schoolboys as they rode buses and trains. And so some boys and men began writing love letters or even talking directly to these schoolgirls. And then some working women that they were interested in cases of free love so increased during this period because there were more interactions between the two genders. And then my research also found that the Japanese language became the common language of love as they express their love in writing and in person when they speak to each other Holo or Ming Nan speakers, they could not communicate with Hakka speakers using Japanese. And Han Taiwanese people could communicate with the Japanese potential partners using Japanese language in these inter ethnic relationships. So in this chapter, I argue that changes were even more profound found for women of lower socioeconomic backgrounds than those coming from the upper class backgrounds. And so it was true that elite and upper middle class women were more likely to receive more education. But then women from these families were less likely to work after finishing their education because in reality there was no financial need for them to do that. In contrast, women of lower socioeconomic background, they often have to work to help support their families. And so by being in the workplace, these women have more chances to meet potential marriage partners or meeting someone who introduced them to somebody. And so it does increase free love relationships which some resulted in marriage. But I do want to still the audience keep in mind that in most marriages from the generation, it was still family members who arranged these marriages. But even in my interviews and in some published oral histories, we hear more instances of free love relationships during this period.
- [38:41]
Li Ping Chen
Indeed, some of the newspaper back in colonial time will have like news or anecdote about, you know, in this village they have free love, they in low poor. So as you mentioned, that's kind of like a free love or even as you highlight Japanese language as kind of expression of love as modern romance. And is part of this kind of impact of women receiving education and how they are experiencing modernity, how they are exposed to different modern infrastructure and also the of the gender boys as well. And in addition to public space, you also mentioned sewing as a skill that they learn not just at home, but actually in school. They are exposed to not not just the local t swan, but also Japanese and Western styles. And how this is important not just for them to maintain the household, but to sort of make women an important force later in the textile industry as well. And let's see. So you mentioned also about the impact on women in different class as well. Whereas the upper class women might receive more or higher education, but after marriage, many of them tend to stay at home. Whereas a lower class of women, many of them need to earn their living. So they continue to stay in public space, they continue to utilize the skills they learn from school. So it's comparatively much more changes for the lower class women. And with that, so we talk about the schoolgirls and especially how they are being mobilized by war and also what happened after they graduated in terms of their marriage, in terms their work opportunities as well. So I want to now turn to chapter five. So this is a chapter where you actually sort of share a lot of experience that share a lot of experiences and memories of these former Taiwanese students. And you use the term cloning colonial nostalgia. Earlier in chapter three, we already sort of touched upon it a little bit. But in chapter five, I was wondering whether you can tell us more about what exactly is colonial nostalgia and why are these former Taiwanese students. They are nostalgic about the colonial period.
- [41:29]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah. So colonial nostalgia is a. A difficult concept. But according to historian Patricia Lorsing, colonial nostalgia is the misinterpretation or incomprehension of the colonized territory and its people or the fabrication of a non existent dimensions of colonial life associated with the loss of social cultural standing after the end of the colonial period. And so in the case of Taiwanese who received Japanese colonial education, 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. Even though they live under a colonial and gender society that placed them below the Japanese population with less educational and work opportunities. So as you can imagine, the post war society had new rulers from Chinese Nationalist government Kuomintang and their followers in exile. There were also new generations of Taiwanese children and grandchildren who likely have trouble sympathizing with their their experiences. And so we can look at the published oral histories and memoirs by aging Taiwanese in the 1990s and the early 2000s as an attempt to claim their place in society and history as their generation was disappearing. During this time, this Japanese educated generation expressed their anxiety over social changes and economic uncertainties of the post war and contemporary Taiwan by invoking their experiences under Japanese colonial rule. And so between 2011 2013, I interviewed over 50 Taiwanese women and men who received some years of primary school education or more. They were born in areas ranging from the north to South Taiwan. Between born in the years 19 between the years 1915 and 1933. So it, it means that when I interviewed them there were between the ages of 70s to the 90s. I did not interview anyone from Eastern Taiwan because I didn't know anyone who could introduce me. My method was a rolling process where I asked families, friends and colleagues for potential interviewees. And then it sort of go on that way. And I mentioned earlier my grandmother class continue whole reunion. So I interview some people from her class. And so I conducted interviews about their educational experiences. As I conducted interviews about their educational experiences, some interviewees expressed criticisms the voice criticisms against the Chinese National School of Kuomintang government. Their criticisms were not unfounded. The post war inflation in fall of 19445 was worsened exacerbated by the ensuing Chinese Civil War which lasted until 1949. Which made the lives of the Taiwanese harder than just having inflation. The two to eight incidents or the Taiwanese uprising against the Chinese Nationalist government The Guomindang in February 1947 was followed by the longest martial law in human rights history so far until 1987. So these two the martial law and the Tutuay incident has silenced this generation of Taiwanese. But besides these immediate what I call immediate issues that happened in the 1940s, one long term issue was institutionalized discrimination. The Chinese Nationalist government Kuomintang favored Chinese mainlanders and limited educational and work work opportunities and positions for the local Taiwanese something that echoed what the Japanese colonial government did. One interviewee who was an elementary school teacher for 40 years in a post war period also criticized the Kuomintang government's attempt to change the Taiwanese people's favorable view of Japan. He said that it was wrong for the Kuomintang government to ignore ignore Japanese modernization efforts as he praised the Japanese for building modern infrastructures such as dams and public schools to elevate Taiwan's standards of living and culture. So in other words, he was praising Japanese modernization program and then like what the Nationalist government was doing. So that's what he says. But they're all again, I think it's tied to the institutionalized discrimination that happened. And so here are a few issues that some Taiwanese interviewees discuss in their fond memory of the Japanese period. One was that one sort of theme that pop up was that oh, teachers from the Japanese period receive proper education and training and they really care about their students. And these teachers mostly Japanese and the students are talking about referring to are Taiwanese, right? One interviewee accused teachers in the post war period for who only help their students after receiving some favors and bribes. And in contrast those interviewees praise her Japanese teachers as very caring. Another interviewee remember is that teachers in the Japanese period would provide free tutoring lessons to help them pass these exams. And then I have some interviewees who became teachers in the post war period claimed that some Chinese mainlander teachers did not even have the proper secondary school or higher education degrees to be teachers. They said some could not even speak standard Chinese Mandarin, but they were were teachers at the time. The other thing that pop up was that these interviewees would talk about how they learn good manners and useful skills from the teachers. Some of them invoke the idea of this Japanese spirit they say in Mandarin and so they say they learn it through the ethics lesson sense. But when they use this term Japanese spirit, when I say the Bunjin shin that's in Taiwanese holo they meant what these interviews meant was it refers to obedience, honesty, decisiveness, thriftiness, loyalty to Japan and uprightness. One interviewee said that Japanese people have practiced what they preached. They taught students how to be upright, serious diligent people. In contrast, this interviewee claimed that the Chinese nationalist Guom education taught Taiwanese students to be upright. But in reality the rulers Guom down and other mainlanders in Taiwan were actually liars and swindlers. So it's a huge accusation. One interviewee also thought that as she heard about news of like the young generation, the younger generation disrespecting their elders or even hurt or they heard about murder cases on the news. They say, oh, this is a reflection of the failure of the post war education. As for skills, one interviewee said that the education she received was better than education in Taiwan today or in the early 2010s. When I interview her, she said it's because students who graduated from elementary school school could work in a job competently, no problem. But the young Taiwanese students in the 21st century saying kids nowadays, that's what she said, couldn't do it. So in summary, we really cannot ignore how the post war inflation and Tatui incident in 1947 might have shaped how these Taiwanese viewed their new rulers, the Kuomintang. But my research points out the importance of their experiences as Japanese colonial cities subjects and specifically their educational experiences has shaped how they view the Chinese Nationalist gun government and their policies and Chinese mainlanders who are the new rulers and residents of Taiwan.
- [50:42]
Li Ping Chen
Thank you, Fangyu, especially for all your hard work to interview so many people and that's very valuable material and thank you for sharing with us and also in your book as well. And I want to specifically highlight that their memory and their experience of Japanese colonial regime and colonial education, as Fangyu analyzed in chapter here is there is a contextualization here. So this is in comparison or in some cases in sharp comparison with their post war experience, especially the nationalist reaction regime. So as you mentioned, so there by no means that their nostalgic memory or colonial nostalgia of Japanese rule, there's by no means to kind of justify colonial violence or so. But this is here we see kind of context here. So this by comparison and sharp comparison with the post war situation, whereas their Japanese experience is institutional, receive institutionalized stigma. And for our audience, if you want to know more about what happened in Taiwan in post war period, especially education and what do we mean by this kind of like, kind of like this kind of stigma of their local identity, of their Japanese influences. So we have another episode for you. So this is. Let me just quickly find it. All right, so this is. We have an interesting interview with Jennifer Liu and the book is about indoctrinating the youth secondary education in wartime China and Post War Taiwan, 1937-1960. So I did this interview with Jennifer back in May 2024. I will link the episode in the show note later as well. So this is specifically about the China Youth Corps, so Zhou Gu Tuan and how the nationalist government used this institution to sort of gain the support poor and indoctrinate Sinocentric ideology in Taiwan, especially Taiwanese youth as well. So with that and so we talk about the different aspect of colonial education and I was wondering that even though this book is already very rich itself, but I was just wondering is there any material that didn't get to be included in this book or anything that you would want to share with us that is the most unexpected material that you encounter in the writing and research for this book?
- [53:27]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah. So honestly I wasn't sure what I was going to write when I started the research. And I would say the most unexpected chapter that I didn't imagine I would write on is the colonial nostalgia chapter, the concluding chapter. But this topic came up so strongly you all I was doing these interviews where these people express like a strong sentiment and I want to add that not that maybe some of them were actually really like the Chinese nationalist government regime, it's just that I guess if they did they didn't voice it. I had because of the they lived through the martial law, the Tutu Yen and martial law. Many of them don't actually directly want to comment on the politics even than let's say contemporary politics in the early 21st century. But again some of them still, you can say, maybe couldn't help it expressed it as those who expressed their opinion tend to be critical. So I want to say that it's not that all of them were critical of the Kuomintang government, it was just that the one that talked about it commented on the post war period tend to be critical. And then another topic was 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. They don't want to talk about it. I remember one interviewee was accompanied by her daughter and her daughter started saying oh no. Like when you're basically commenting on how there's a love relationship between you and dad, right? And then you can see the interviewee, she was smiling quietly but didn't say more add more it was all from her daughter who come who talked about their relationship. So I didn't. Yeah, so I didn't think enough materials around it. But I'm glad, I was glad. I'm glad that I heard something stories from a few people and also there were some published oral histories that provide some insights so we can get a glance at the situation in the time during that time. And then another thing was the I want to say is the image image analysis. So I was glad that I came across these illustrations in the Japanese language text books to do gender analysis in chapter one. And the set of language textbooks became very crucial to my argument about gender assimilation. And then also finally, as a historian, I don't discuss my interviews and interviewees like anthropologists might do, except in the acknowledgment section of my book, which you can see in a way is unfortunate or so I did not include what I call the emotional or political part of my field work. By emotion I mean how interviewees felt about their experiences. Although I tried to convey some of that in the colonial nostalgia chapter about how they view. Because I asked them, what do you think? Do you think education helped you think like that? And that's where they start talking about voice their criticism of the Chinese nationalist government, if they had any, and about it. That's why they make comments about kids nowadays are just not as polite, don't respect the elders and things like that. And for the political part, Taiwan is now a highly partisan society after it democratizes in the late 1980s, early 1990s and after long, you know, the longest martial law in recorded history. So I avoid asking questions that would be interpreted as political and ask them to voice their political stance. I also try to avoid asking anything that that happened politically, socially after Japanese rule ended in 1945 that have no direct connections to their Japanese educational experiences. So sometimes I have people who ask me more about the post war period. I am not able to provide more because I stopped, I didn't ask questions on those period. And now the information I was able to provide information, information I was able to provide and points I was able to make in the book came from those few instances where comments did come up.
- [57:53]
Li Ping Chen
Maybe for next book when you have more time and space to ask those questions. And just a very quick note here. So earlier we mentioned about the martial law period in Taiwan. Just want to add it's from 1949 to 1987. And also earlier Fan Yu mentioned about 228. So this is about the February 28th incident took place in 1947. It's an anti government uprising. And this is kind of like an important chapter in Taiwan history which has a long lasting impact. And we won't have time to talk about it. But I just want to sort of at least get this note in. So if our audience is interested definitely please check it out. And so with that and so we have been talking about the book, some behind the scene as well. So Fang Yu, what are you working on right now or what's your next project?
- [58:56]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Yeah, thanks. For asking. So I am currently working on Taiwanese Taiwanese migrants to mainland China and Southeast Asia during the Japanese colonial period. So from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century. What I want to do is sort of what we call cross the political period divide. If I can cross from the Japanese into the post war period more and actually working on it instead of having pick up something from the book project on women and girls education. So for this current project I want to look at how Taiwanese migrants navigating these colonial spaces in Southeast Asia but also semicolonial spaces in China and still using the analog lens of class, ethnicity and gender that I have used in my book. So I'm the beginning stage of it and I'm really excited about this new project.
- [59:57]
Li Ping Chen
We are excited about this new project as well. It sounds really good and we are looking forward to forward to hearing more from you and reading more from you. Fan Yu, thank you again for being on the show today. I really enjoy our conversation.
- [60:12]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Thank you so much for having me.
- [60:15]
Li Ping Chen
And thank you our audience for staying with us till the end. I hope everyone is staying safe, taking good care. See you guys next time. Goodbye.
- [60:30]
Dr. Fang Yuhu
Sam.