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.
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