Ghost Month

by Ed Lin

  As I was nodding off, our car broke out of the final tunnel, and I looked for home.

  The moon pinned a perforated black bowl to the sky. The stars above and the man-made lights of the ancient basin that held Taipei blinked to each other and formed overlapping constellations too close together to name.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Taiwanese people are known for their politeness and tendency to work long hours. They throw themselves into eating and overworking as comfort from painful memories and nagging political questions. Good eats and an office cubicle are tangible and have their own permanence—valuable attributes in an island that is prone to uncertainty in the form of natural disasters and political reckonings as a young democracy continues to figure itself out. It’s not always something that can be done politely.

  As I write this, there are three major protests rocking the nation. One is in response to the death of a young man serving in the army who was allegedly being punished too severely by superiors. Another is against the construction of Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant. The third is in response to the demolition of private houses in Miaoli County to make way for planned developments. The path to the resolution of these issues will determine Taiwan’s future, even as some unresolved and unresolvable issues continue to fester.

  All Taiwanese bear the scars of history. The native Taiwanese were pushed out of their lands and are still marginalized in society. Taiwanese descended from early Chinese immigrants suffered the capricious taxation whims of the Qing Dynasty of China, then colonization by the Empire of Japan and subsequently the brutal early years of the Kuomintang regime. The mainlanders who arrived in Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War were cut off from families left in China; when contact was established decades later, they found out their relatives had been executed, starved to death and tortured. All Taiwanese can relate to the island’s history on a personal level.

  When my father was a boy, he watched American planes bomb Taiwan during World War II as Japanese anti-aircraft guns fired back. As a young man, he served his mandatory military duty for the Republic of China on Kinmen Island, which is about a mile off the coast of China but controlled by the Kuomintang. China bombarded Kinmen with shells that dispersed Communist propaganda leaflets upon impact. The Kuomintang retaliated by blaring their loudspeakers, encouraging the Chinese people to rebel and promising that the forces of Chiang Kai-shek would provide military support to overthrow the Communists.

  My mother’s family is from northern China. Her father, my grandfather, was an officer in the KMT, while his older brother was a prominent Communist. If my grandfather’s brother hadn’t died of cholera at a young age, he would have been one of the revolutionaries they used to sing about in the ’50s. When I watched The Sound of Music with my mother, she told me that her family had escaped from China like the von Trapp family, eluding Communists block-by-block, all the way to the boat. Ironically, when The Sound of Music was shown in Taiwanese theaters, the censors chopped the film in half, lest any viewers compare their lives under martial law with that of Nazi Austria.

  My parents met in New York, where my sister and I were born. Even though I have never lived in Taiwan for an extended period, my life is a part of the stories of my benshengren-and-waishengren family. These have become the stories of my characters.

  I’d like to thank everybody in my family for opening up upon repeated questioning.

  Thank you, Uncle Danny, for taking care of Cindy and me in Taipei. Within ten minutes of landing, you handed us a rental cell phone, and less than an hour later you had us feasting.

  Aunt Lily, thank you for taking us to Din Tai Fung for an incredible meal that remains current in my memory.

  Dennis Cheng, thank you for taking us places in your car and in your stories. I’ll never be able to eat shrimp again without feeling the need to shoot hoops.

  Anna Cheng, thank you for your humor and for translating your junk mail.

  Amer Osman, thank you for showing me the ins and outs and ups and downs.

  Catherine Kai-lin Shu, thank you for hanging out with us in the night market and for providing a bunch of background info. Some of the best “Inside Scoops” you’ve ever filed!

  If you’re in Taipei, Jo Lu and NCIS (Northern California Inspired Sushi, natch!) will rock your world. Check out ncisushi.com.

  Thank you, unnamed and anonymous people.

  Thank you: Juliet Grames, for your insight and encouragement; Bronwen Hruska, for your vision; Paul Oliver; Rachel Kowal; Meredith Barnes; Rudy Martinez; Janine Agro; Amara Hoshijo; and the entire crew at Soho.

  Thank you, Kirby Kim, for being game.

  Thank you, Cindy, for your love, your careful eye and your brave heart. And thank you, Walter, for falling into a regular sleeping schedule.

  Epigraph from Tao Te Ching, translated by D.C. Lau.

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  GLOSSARY

  BENSHENGREN:

  Descendants of Han Chinese, mostly from Fujian Province, who emigrated to Taiwan essentially before Japanese colonial rule began in 1895. Also known as Hoklo and “yams,” because Taiwan is shaped like one. The “home province people” constitute the vast majority of Taiwan’s population—84 percent, according to the CIA’s World Factbook—and are concentrated in the middle and southern areas of the island. Although collectively they represent about 80 percent of the island’s population, benshengren subgroups traditionally had sharp divisions. Benshengren originating from rival towns in China made a practice of burning down one another’s temples during bloody conflicts. Orphan of Asia by Wu Zhuoliu, a novel written in 1945, details the life of a yam villager’s hardships under the Japanese and disillusionment during travels through China, embodying the “sorrow of being Taiwanese” half a century before the phrase was famously spoken by then-President Lee Teng-hui. Benshengren were once viewed by waishengren as people brainwashed by the Japanese who didn’t appreciate the sacrifices made by the Kuomintang and the Republic of China during the civil war. The view is more complicated and subtle now, as most of the KMT membership is made of benshengren.

  BOPOMOFO:

  A phonetic system used by those learning to speak Mandarin and also a shortcut for inputting Chinese characters in electronic media. In the song Rose, Rose, I Love You by Wang Chen-ho, blue-collar benshengren joke that when they struggled to learn Mandarin, “Bopomofo” sounded like “boar pour more.” I thought that would make a great name for a band.

  CHIANG KAI-SHEK:

  The most important figure behind the architecture of modern Taiwan, with a divisive legacy. To some, he was the brave Generalissimo, the president of the Republic of China who defended the island from the clutches of Communist China and inspired his followers’ hopes that someday he would unleash his armed forces and retake the mainland. To others, his Kuomintang party oversaw a period of martial law (in 1947–87, the longest imposed in the modern era) marked by ruthless repression and outright assassinations of dissidents. No matter your view, I think you’ll enjoy reading the excellent The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China by Jay Taylor, probably the only objective assessment of the man. In recent years, with the opposition Democratic Progressive Party gaining power, Taiwan has renamed many places that had been named after Chiang. Most notably, the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport is now Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Some Chiang statues have been removed from public areas, as well, usually occasioning some high-profile clashes with supporters trying to block the removals. Interestingly, during a three-day trip to Beijing in July 2012, I saw only two representations of Chiang’s old foe Mao Zedong. It’s especially curious because as the Communist Party of China and Kuomintang have grown closer in recent years, the men who once embodied those respective parties are fading from view. Note that “Chiang Kai-shek” is actually a Romanization of the man’s name in the Cantonese dialect, although it’s by
that moniker that most of the English-speaking world knows him. Jiang Jieshi, written in Pinyin, is the name that Mandarin speakers praise and curse him by.

  CHINA:

  A large, populous country formally known as the People’s Republic of China that is located across the Taiwan Strait, to the northwest of Taiwan’s mainland. As one of the world’s longest-lived civilizations, and considering its diverse demographics and history of being divided and united countless times, China may be more a continent rather than a country. Through the centuries Chinese culture has greatly influenced Taiwan, along with China’s other neighbors. Probably best known as the birthplace of Confucius and the manufacturing site of Apple products, China lives in fear of an invasion by its small neighbor. Why else would it have more than 1,600 ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at Taiwan at the end of 2012, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense? Nonetheless, China has already invaded Taipei in the form of tourists crowding the memorial halls of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek. The strategy of these shock troops is to disrupt solemn changing-of-the-guard ceremonies by talking loudly and using flash photography.

  DEMOCRATIC PROGRESSIVE PARTY (DPP):

  A political party founded by benshengren in opposition in 1986, although it wasn’t legally recognized until the next year, when martial law was lifted. Initially, the leadership comprised men and women who had been persecuted, tortured and/or jailed during the White Terror. The party was then bolstered by the return of Taiwanese dissidents from abroad throughout the 1990s. The DPP was founded mainly to advocate for Taiwan formally declaring independence from China, which regards the island as a stray sheep of a province that needs to be coaxed back into the flock—with electric prods if necessary. When the ruling Kuomintang party fractured ahead of the 2000 Presidential Election, the DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian managed an unlikely win. Ironically, warnings from China not to vote for Chen bolstered support for him. Chen served two terms, which were often marked by political gridlock, legislative showdowns and dwindling popularity. After leaving office, Chen was convicted of bribery, further tarnishing the DPP’s public profile. The party’s reputation recovered in time to nearly take the 2012 Presidential Election.

  GAN:

  A word in Mandarin. When spoken with the descending tone, it means “to do.” When placed before the words “your mother,” the phrase rudely suggests something to be done to your mother. Gan can also be used alone to express the f-bomb. This usage of gan originated in Taiwan but has been growing among Mandarin speakers in China, along with the increased number of Taiwanese expats. Woe to any schoolkid unfortunate enough to have gan in their name. The Last of the Whampoa Breed, edited by Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-Wei Wang, includes a story about a kid named “Gansheng” by his waishengren dad, who was unaware that the name meant “fuck a baby” to the kid’s benshengren classmates.

  GUANYIN:

  The Buddhist goddess of mercy. In Taiwan she is worshipped by Buddhists as well as Taoists and adherents to I-Kuan Tao, a syncretic religion that incorporates elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. The twenty-foot-tall Guanyin statue in Da’an Forest Park that Jing-nan contemplates in the first chapter has a controversial past. The statue was slated to be removed from the site during construction of the park in 1994, but Buddhist nun Shih Chao-hui staged a hunger strike by the statue until the Taipei city government relented. Why was the statue slated to be removed? There is a longstanding belief among Taiwanese that Buddhist iconography (and Buddhist monks and nuns) should be contained in monasteries in remote mountaintops, away from worldly matters. Taiwanese politicians often set up campaign headquarters in local Taoist and folk-religion temples, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, a Buddhist temple would never be seen as appropriate for such secular activities.

  HAKKA:

  Nominally a subgroup of benshengren, Hakka have their own language and culture independent of other benshengren and waishengren. Unlike nearly every other distinct Han Chinese group, Hakka have resisted being absorbed into the melting wok of turbulent history. Their name literally means “guest families,” which indicates that they were a people who were constantly on the move. Hakka communities exist throughout not only Asia but the world. Their respect for manual labor gave them the fortitude to establish Taiwan’s camphor industry under often-harsh conditions. Wintry Night by Li Qiao is an excellent saga about a tough-as-nails pioneer Hakka family just scraping by. As of 2012, one fifth of all Han Chinese, including benshengren and waishengren, are Hakka, according to the Republic of China’s Office of Information Services.

  INDIGENOUS GROUPS:

  The Republic of China’s Department of International Information Services puts the population of Taiwan’s first people at 2 percent, or about 520,000, at the end of 2011. Out of fourteen officially recognized indigenous groups, the three largest—Amis, Paiwan and Atayal—make up about 70 percent of all aborigines. The early decades of the Republic of China were marked by political disregard for aborigines, who were insultingly called “mountain people”—no matter where they lived—in official documents. Their sacred lands and burial areas were ruthlessly overturned and developed. In perhaps the most egregious incident, Thao (also known as Yami) living on their native offshore Orchid Island were told in the 1970s that the government was building a fish cannery that would provide needed jobs. The Thao later discovered to their horror that the facility was a nuclear-waste site. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that more than seventy thousand barrels of radioactive waste from Taipower are stored on the island as of 2013. It’s no wonder that the Indigenous Peoples’ Action Coalition of Taiwan staged a symbolic headhunt of the Republic of China government on its centenary in 2012. Omi Wilang, an Atayal, told the Taipei Times, “We have nothing to celebrate, as the aborigines have only suffered under the ROC government.” Actually, more than a few people of aboriginal descent have done well. A-Mei, a member of the Puyuma nation, is a huge pop star not only in Taiwan but in Asia as a whole. Like many Asian performers, she sells out shows in the US in those traditional meeting places of the Asian community—casinos. Cape No. 7, a 2008 blockbuster, starred Van Fan, who is Amis.

  KOXINGA:

  The story of this Japan-born son of a Chinese father and a Japanese mother has been exploited by different parties throughout the years to suit their political aims. The Ming Dynasty in China collapsed in 1644 at the hands of the Manchus and their allies. Koxinga, a Ming loyalist, built up and trained troops on islands offshore. He invaded Taiwan in 1661 and expelled the Dutch, who held sway over the island from Fort Zeelandia in present-day Tainan. Koxinga managed to rule over Taiwan until he was felled at an early age by either malaria or a fit of madness. The Manchus and their Qing Dynasty forces soon took control of the island. Centuries later, when Japan colonized Taiwan, Koxinga was upheld as a symbol of the shared heritage of the Japanese and Taiwanese. When the Kuomintang came to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek was often compared with Koxinga as someone who would not submit to barbarians on the mainland. Koxinga is hailed by present-day Chinese officials as a man who expelled the Dutch from Chinese territory. Was he really a hero, though? After all, reading about Koxinga and his men raiding the shores of China and the Spanish-held Philippines makes them sound like the common pirates who took refuge in Taiwan over the centuries, albeit well-organized ones.

  KUOMINTANG:

  The Chinese Nationalist Party, also known as the KMT, co-founded by Sun Yat-sen several months after the Republic of China was declared in Nanking, China, on January 1, 1912. After the collapse of the Qing, China’s last dynasty, the opponents to a united China and enemies of the KMT were a colorful assortment of warlords who were incorporated into the revolution or eventually defeated. After Sun died in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek assumed leadership and purged the KMT ranks of left-leaning members as well as members of the Communist Party of China, although the Soviet Union had supported the KMT itself in its formative years. With the help of advisors
from Nazi Germany (Chiang’s adopted son Chiang Wei-kuo commanded a Panzer unit during the 1938 Austrian Anschluss), the KMT fought a large-scale war with Chinese Communists even as the Empire of Japan sought to expand control of northern China. Infamously, Chiang was kidnapped by his own troops to force him into an alliance with the Communists to fight Japan. While the KMT and Communists allegedly fought a united front against Japan, the Communists perfected their use of guerilla warfare and used it to great effect during the Chinese Civil War, which saw the KMT retreat to Taiwan in 1949 and establish Taipei as the new capital of the Republic of China. Under martial law on the island, the KMT and the Republic of China were effectively one and the same, a cozy situation that enriched the KMT coffers. In December 2001 The Economist noted that the KMT was the richest party in East Asia. The party’s worst enemy turned out to be infighting, rather than Communists or the independent-minded Democratic Progressive Party. The party splintered ahead of the 2000 presidential election, and some now say that outgoing president and KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui had planned all along to hand the victory to DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian. In the wake of the election, waishengren lamented that the sting felt like losing China all over again, as documented in Remembering China From Taiwan: Divided Families and Bittersweet Reunions After the Chinese Civil War by Mahlon Meyer. The KMT used its time as an opposition party to build links with its old rival, the Chinese Communist Party. In 2005 officials from the two parties met in China in the highest-level exchange between them in sixty years, to seek peace and to forge trade links. It was an audacious move, as the two sides have never signed a peace agreement or armistice, and from a legal standpoint, the Chinese Civil War never ended. The KMT stormed back into power in 2008 with President Ma Ying-jeou’s election; he was re-elected in 2012.