Chu T’ien-Hsin

Chu T'ien-Hsin — No Comments
10
Dec 13

Chinese Book Censorship

Other than the general information I found in the bio section (from Norton World Literature, Volume F) it was extremely difficult for me to find more personal information on Chu T’ien-Hsin. This makes me wonder if there is a correlation between a lack of information on authors and China’s influence on Taiwan. I am curious to know more about Chinese censorship and how much “control” they have over their own writers (which, depending on your personal beliefs, may or may not include Taiwanese writers).

In a sense, they are controlling a part of the author/book’s identity and integrity by choosing to omit something or by deciding to rewrite plot lines.

According to a NYT article from October 2013, foreign writers who “agree to submit their books to China’s fickle censorship regime say the experience can be frustrating.”¹ A St. Louis-based writer whose thriller books are set in Shanghai said that Chinese publishers “altered the identity of pivotal characters and rewrote plot lines they deemed unflattering to the Communist Party.”

To be quite honest, I had forgotten that China was a communist nation. Living in a democratic country where we have the freedom to do anything we want and be anything we want, sometimes, your mind doesn’t think twice about freedoms that other people may not have.

If Man of La Mancha has been published in China, what information has been altered? Would someone reading the same work in China have a different opinion on the narrator’s identity? In my previous post, here, I summed up his identity/character as irritating. However, if something has been altered or omitted, would he still be the same character?

Would (or, has) Chu T’ien-Hsin allow(ed) China to make edits on Man of La Mancha?

 

Chu T'ien-Hsin — No Comments
09
Dec 13

What is “Identity”?

On a slight tangent from my previous post on Chu T’ien-Hsin, I want to define “identity”. I personally believe that identity is something that is raw and natural and uncontrolled; something that can explain your whole life in just a word.


Nelson Mandela: forgiving.


Paul Walker: humble.¹

Both of these figures have just recently passed away and the whole world has been talking non-stop about the type of people they were. Popular Mandela quotes (“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison“²) have resurfaced, being shared all over social media as Facebook statuses and Twitter tweets. People have been coming forward with stories of Paul Walker’s secret charity stories and deeds. Identity is a lifestyle that one innately leads, not something that can be constantly and consciously fixed or edited.

Based on what I’ve read in Man of La Mancha, if I could apply one word to identify the narrator, it would be: irritable. The speaker is highly obsessed with maintaining a certain impression on the public. His inner thoughts come off as annoying and fake.

Did Chu T’ien-Hsin write this character in this way because she, herself, did not know and could not understand a person with a “secure” (already fixed) identity? Maybe her personal struggle in understanding identity, place, and belonging hindered her from creating a fictional character who knew who he was, liked who he was, and showed others who he (really) was.

Chu T'ien-Hsin — 4 Comments
09
Dec 13

Chu T’ien-Hsin: Identity Crisis

Chu T’ien-Hsin is one of the most well-known writers in contemporary Taiwan. Her family fled from China into Taiwan in the late 1940s. Because of this, Chu grew up in Taiwan with Chinese practices.

One of the first things that comes to mind when asked about your identity is most likely your ethnicity and/or the location of where you grew up or currently live. If someone asked me who I was, I would begin by answering that I am a Korean American, born and bred in New York.

If I was Chu, however, and someone asked me the same question, I would hesitate in giving an answer. Am I Chinese because my ancestral line is rooted there? Or am I Taiwanese because I’ve lived here for my entire life (my research shows that she was born in 1958, after her parents/family had already fled China)¹?

Does Chu strongly identify with one society over the other? How would she describe her own identity? I’m sure children with parents of different races/ethnicities, and even adopted or foster children, deal with the same confusion and hesitation.

This clearly explains why Chu has consistently written about characters who explore identity, importance of place and belonging, as well as the concept of allegiance– these are the same things that Chu must have grown up questioning and wondering about.

The main character in Man of La Mancha deals with the same dilemna. He gradually becomes very worried about what will happen after he dies. He begins to prepare for his own death, not with proper identification that would give clues to his general identity (e.g. name, address, family contact info), but to elude to what type of person he was (or appears to have been). Does this character represent exactly how Chu has dealt with her identity problem? Did she want to control and maintain a certain character?

While at Taiwan National University, Chu and her sister began a literary magazine which allowed them to develop an “understanding of politics, economics, and a whole array of other fields…[they] wanted to feel involved with what was happening in [their] country and [their] society,” because being just a novelist is no big deal (Norton World Literature, Volume F, 1232). Did they start and maintain a literary magazine to show the public an intellectual and cultured facade? Did she want to identify with a certain or just one “country” and “society” by displaying her knowledge and interests in matters relating to a specific community?

It’s hard to imagine that someone would actually go that far (writing a literary magazine that covers scholarly topics/conversations) in order to maintain a controlled identity; it may be kind of a stretch. However, because of the irritating impression I get when reading about the character who goes to great lengths to leave behind a “controlled” legacy, I can’t help but question if a similar connection to Chu may exist.