A Beautiful Century
TRANSLATED BY KEVIN LI
Dr. Guo Xiucong (right, sitting on truck) on a tour around Taiwan treating cholera and promoting hygiene, prior to 2/28.
This translation of Lan Bozhou’s groundbreaking 1987 narrative interview of two survivors of the White Terror provides a deeply personal look into the period of martial law and mass anti-communist violence in Taiwan. Lan traces the history of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism—and its suppression by the KMT—in Taiwan through the biography of Dr. Guo Xiucong (郭琇琮), a martyr of Taiwan’s martial law period.
Editor’s Introduction
The defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II marked the return of Taiwan to Chinese sovereignty after fifty years. Yet Taiwanese celebration after five long decades of colonial rule would be short-lived: the island was returned to a country embroiled in a violent, decades-long struggle between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT, Nationalist Party). The KMT and CPC’s tenuous cooperation—which helped China emerge victorious out of World War II—quickly dissolved following the removal of Imperial Japan from the world stage.
The Chinese Civil War resumed in full force in 1945. This period in Chinese history was marked by uncontrolled inflation, corruption, and a series of unequal treaties. The right-wing KMT regime had a decades-long record of mismanagement and corruption and ruled over the semi-colonized country with an iron fist. In exchange for their own security, KMT officials essentially sold their young nation’s sovereignty to the United States.
Across the Taiwan strait, the KMT regime planted their corrupt, rotten roots. Taiwan was not spared by the economic plight facing the rest of the country. The Taiwanese people quickly realized that while they once again belonged to their own country, they had in fact returned to a right-wing, fascist dictatorship incapable of serving the people’s needs. Tension began building up between KMT national and provincial authorities and the Taiwanese people, culminating in what is now known as the “228 Incident.”
The 228 Incident began on February 27th, 1947, when a loose cigarette dealer was apprehended and beaten by Tobacco Monopoly authorities. The spark had set the struggle aflame, and the day after, the Taiwanese people of all walks of life took to the streets in protest of the KMT regime. What followed was a series of strict crackdowns, ultimately leading to a declaration of martial law on the island lasting 40 years. The end of this period—known as the White Terror—in 1987 marked the expansion of personal freedoms and the beginning of multiparty elections in Taiwan, currently dominated by the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The 228 Incident, as a symbol of the White Terror, is a touchstone of contemporary Taiwanese political memory. Yet in popular discourse, the memory of 228 is dominated by its use by both parties to entrench liberal democracy and justify continuing anticommunism. This framing strips the 228 Incident from the broader, China-wide struggle against the KMT in favor of liberal binaries of democracy versus authoritarianism and wàishěngrén (外省人, KMT-affiliated arrivals to Taiwan from the Mainland) versus běnshěngrén (本省人, Fujianese and Hakka Chinese migrants who populated Taiwan since the Ming and Qing dynasties). Perhaps most importantly, this popular narrative violently erases the nationalist and class character of the resistance against the KMT before and after the 228 Incident. Decades of anticommunist, anti-Chinese education has consequently obliterated any significant left-wing power in Taiwan. The mainstream Taiwanese interpretation of the 228 Incident thus serves a dual purpose. Not only does it erase the legacy of widespread communist organizing in Taiwan, it subsequently appropriates Taiwan’s history of left-wing resistance in service of the language of Western liberalism. This takes many forms, from the explicitly anticommunist education under the KMT to a contemporary anti-China, revisionist history forwarded by the DPP.
In this context, Qiao Collective is pleased to publish a translation of Lan Bozhou’s “A Beautiful Century.” This landmark investigative piece was originally published in the short-lived left-leaning magazine Renjian in 1987, just weeks after the end of 40 years of brutal martial law. One the first journalists to publicly detail the 228 Incident in Taiwanese media (news of the incident had spread across mainland China as events unfolded), Lan Bozhou profiles Dr. Guo Xiucong (郭琇琮), a martyr of the White Terror period through the recollections of his widow, Chen Zhihui, and comrade-in-arms Cai Hanting, survivors of the same period. Recounting the lives of Guo and his family, comrades Chen Zhihui and Cai Hanting piece together the components of a post-colonial Taiwanese identity rooted firmly in the legacies of the Chinese May Fourth Movement, Marxism, and the CPC.
As groundbreaking as Lan’s piece is, the text contains painful signs of Taiwan’s anti-communist past and present. Fearing persecution, the two interviewees are given pseudonyms. References to the CPC and communism are downplayed, if not outright censored, instead replaced with vague allusions to an “organization.” In the thirty-seven years following this piece’s original publication, Lan Bozhou has given further context surrounding the life of Guo Xiucong in other written and visual media. Our translation attempts to be textually faithful to the original work, and we supplement certain sections with further information in the footnotes.
As the DPP and U.S. continue to fan the flames of cross-strait relations, we encourage our readers to undergo careful study of Taiwan and Taiwanese political history, a history both unique and deeply intertwined with that of the mainland. For more information, we encourage readers to explore Taiwan: An Anti-Imperialist Resource.
Foreword
Between late-February and mid-March, 1947, the Taiwanese people rose against officer Chen Yi’s administration. The restoration-era uprising included not only the Taiwanese masses, but a handful of exceptional young Taiwanese intellectuals.
The uprising, having undergone violent suppression, ended in tragic defeat. Of those who survived, many intellectuals struggled in their disillusionment, yet through their anguish they managed to carve an ideological path forward. At once, the incident led them to dismantle and further re-examine their motherland, sucking them into the intellectual and political whirlpool of the [Chinese] Civil War, where they bravely engaged in the arduous struggle over their newly-reborn motherland.
In 1950, the Korean War broke out, and the United States Seventh Fleet encircled the Taiwan strait.
An international event seemingly removed from the Taiwanese people, this incident had far-reaching consequences from Taiwan.
The “free world,” under the banner of the Stars and Stripes planting itself in Asia quietly led a full-on, thorough, and resolute political purge that quietly unfolded on Taiwanese soil.
Dr. Xu Qiang (许强) of Jiali, Tainan of the first graduating class of Taihoku Imperial University School of Medicine (presently National Taiwan University School of Medicine), earned his doctorate at the age of 27. The Japanese praised him, calling him “Asia’s first nominee of the Nobel Prize in Medicine.”
Wu Sihan of Baihe, Tainan left the School of Medicine, Kyoto Imperial University in secret to join the underground anti-Japanese resistance in Mainland China. After his return to Taiwan, he abandoned medicine to join the Taiwanese labor movement.
These two became embedded in the 1947 uprising through radically different relationships, and both were murdered during the 1950 purge.
November, 1950. Dr. Xu Qiang, Wu Sihan, and others reached the end of a painstaking, prolonged interrogation. They were sent to the court of martial law to hear their sentencing.
Over the next few days, fourteen people were sentenced to death. Among them was the subject of this piece, Guo Xiucong, whose life history will begin to take shape, piece by piece…
An unmarked grave of history
These past two months, I fumbled my way around these desolate grounds, finding fragmented, silenced, traumatized remnants of history. I felt in particular, during a censored era, how history divided the “imperial court” from the “people.” The former were feeble hoodwinks, while the latter were unmistakably powerful in their truth.
I kneel to a silenced, gagged history, my heart pounding in shame, remorse, and devotion. Bit by bit, I humbly listened to the People’s history, a voice powerful in its profound courage.
Following Renjian’s call for a “People’s history” of Taiwan, I, but 27 years old, fell into an unmarked grave of history, worn away by an intentional cover-up.
These past two months, I fumbled my way around these desolate grounds, finding fragmented, silenced, traumatized remnants of history. I felt in particular, during a censored era, how history divided the “imperial court” from the “people.” The former were feeble hoodwinks, while the latter were unmistakably powerful in their truth.
I kneel to a silenced, gagged history, my heart pounding in shame, remorse, and devotion. Bit by bit, I humbly listened to the People’s history, a voice powerful in its profound courage.
By luck, I ended up tracing the footsteps of an extraordinary group of people who, in their youth, witnessed the end of WWII and the restoration of Taiwan.1 They were all medical graduates of either Taihoku Imperial University or well-known universities in Japan; they were all veterans of the anti-Japanese resistance; and their hopes of Taiwanese restoration were soured by the Chen Yi administration and channeled into rage and rebellion. They were all participants in the February 1947 uprising, and witnessed in anguish and disappointment its eventual failure. At the time, amidst the intensity of the Chinese Civil War, they rediscovered what it meant to have a country. In 1950, the Korean War broke out, beginning the great power clash between East and West. Under a comprehensive purge, a generation of young Taiwanese partisans and their families were hunted down and killed. These firebrand youths, under the violent cyclone of history were thereafter buried deep underground by the roar of a rapidly growing society. The passage of time continued to erode away their memory and they disappeared, seemingly without a trace.
Hope in a newfound identity
Their anti-Japanese resistance; secretly studying vernacular Chinese (白话文) and Mandarin (普通话) under Japanese rule; their joy when hearing of Japanese surrender and the return of freedom to Taiwan; their rage and resistance to the corrupt Chen Yi regime… I, a writer not yet 30, see a unifying ideology underscoring their resistance: that we are one and the same [本是同根]. After the violent suppression of 228, they were left reluctant. What is China? What is the motherland? Where does Taiwan go from here? These were heavy questions, and burdened their hearts, longing for answers. After 1947, as the Chinese Civil War sharply changed course, they contemplated Taiwan’s role in the endless complexity of modern Chinese history.
With their study, the haze cleared before their eyes. They arrived at a newfound identity, a self-discovery that had given them the answer and showed them hope and the great work ahead. The future of Taiwan, the future of China, they found a clear, resolute answer.
Yet, in 1950, under the framework of a budding cold war, they were captured and killed during a global purge. Under the banner of “freedom,” they were silenced, eradicated, left to rot.
In 1948, one year after the 228 incident, the people of Jeju Island rose up. The US teamed up with the Syngman Rhee regime to violently and thoroughly suppress the movement, killing 70,000 people.
As I approached this forgotten era, concepts once clear as day blurred. “Freedom” and “slavery”; “liberators” and “slaughterers.” Yet amidst such confusion arose a living breathing ideology and history.
From this unmarked grave of history, to my surprise, I found another kind of power. Under the threat of cover-up, the truth breathed life into the People’s history.
Those denouncing the murders of 228 were merely shoveling more dirt onto the grave. They appropriated the grave and placed a tombstone befitting only to their own needs, away from the People. They dared not excavate the living breathing memories that made up the People’s history of Taiwan.
My heart trembled as I approached the grave, clasping my hands together, kneeling in prayer. This left-behind history was seemingly limitless in what it could teach me, buried in the grave of Taiwan’s most brave, selfless, passionate, and purest of heart. Investigating these moments in history, it was as if I conquered my disillusionment and overcame my fear. I washed from their names the sands of time, and their memories resurfaced once again. A new generation of Taiwanese youth can now revisit an overturned history and find within themselves a new identity, one full of hope and life.
A field of hanging laundry
Chen Zhihui (陈至慧): My name is Chen Zhihui. In 1950, I was detained alongside Dr. Guo Xiucong, and we were both sent to a military detention center.2
I was allowed recreational time once a day. I’d make up an excuse to “use the restroom” and head to the square where the male detainees hung their laundry. Every day, I recognized Xiucong’s clothes, and fish through the waistband of his underwear for his note. Passing notes in military detention, they would execute you for being caught! And here Xiucong and I were, risking our lives to talk to each other. On that day, he left a short, six-word note: “Article two, Clause one. Death Sentence.”
Dr. Guo was punished under Article two, Clause one. At that time, for that clause, the only road led to death.
I clutched the note, my heart aching. I could barely stay standing. But I still left cautiously. In military detention, we were used to seeing fellow youths sentenced to death. After half a year, in the early mornings we would hear other political prisoners walk away to the firing squads. In their last breaths, they let out slogans with all their might. In truth, I knew very early on that Dr. Guo Xiucong wasn’t going to make it. And yet, to this day as soon as I face this cruel, cruel truth, it brings me unbearable pain. That night, I couldn’t sleep among the sobbing of the 47 people who shared my cell.
The next morning, I scribbled on a small piece of paper: “If I make it out of here alive, I will write your life story. In 33 short years, you have accomplished what others couldn’t do in 50 – no, 100 years. I’ve already thought of a title: A Beautiful Century [Japanese: 美しき世紀; Chinese: 美好的世纪]. I’m worried it’s a little tacky, that you wouldn’t like it.”
I went back to the square the next day and found Xiucong’s note: “Don’t worry about a tacky title. As long as you write down my ideals, beliefs, and actions, I can rest easy!”
Dreaming of Schweitzer
As far as I know, Dr. Guo comes from a family of graduates of the imperial provincial exam (举人). The Guo clan, alongside the Pan and He clans, were three distinguished families from Shilin [district, Taipei]. Shortly after the Japanese occupied Taiwan, Dr. Guo Xiucong’s grandfather led a militia of able-bodied men who, like him, refused to become Japanese slaves. Hiding in Zhishanyan (芝山岩), they killed six Japanese teachers. The elder Guo later hid his entire family in Mengjia (艋舺, present day Wanhua 万华, Taipei).
Dr. Guo Xiucong was influenced from a young age and grew up with anti-Japanese nationalist sentiments. Because his family was well-off, he was able to study at Huashan Elementary school (桦山小学), a school for Japanese nobility. After graduating, he entered Taipei No. 1 High School (present day Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School). Under the Japanese colonial education system, Taiwanese students at No. 1 High School were few and far between. His classmates included Koo Chen-fu and Lin Tingsheng… people who made different choices and had led very different circumstances across the twists and turns of history. Imagine, Dr. Xiucong died nearly 40 years ago, and these people are living with dignity! Who’s lucky? Who’s unlucky? Let’s let history speak for itself.
Before the 228 incident, a sudden cholera epidemic broke out across Taiwan. Dr. Xiucong went all around the province treating patients and promoting public health practice. He went deep into the mountains, serving our indigenous compatriots by treating their illness and teaching them out to read. He earned their trust as a friend. I worked as his assistant. I remember one day, he turned to me and sighed. “I wish I could stay here in these mountains, and do what Schweitzer had done in Africa!3 But no, not in these chaotic times. We have to change society, for the pursuit of survival and self-respect of all Taiwanese people. Only then can my wishes come true. Only then can I serve as a doctor in these remote lands.”
Oh, motherland!
After graduating from Taipei No. 1 High School, Guo Xiucong’s ideology was shaped by the May 4th Movement’s arrival to Taiwan. He was steadfast in his belief in saving China through science, and through his hard work, graduated at the top of his class. He entered the Tokyo Institute of Technology. But his father didn’t support his pursuit of engineering, and even went to Japan himself to bring his son back to Taiwan.
His father said, “You’re studying engineering now, and what will you do in the future?”
Guo Xiucong replied, “I’ll return to the Mainland and build up China. I’m going to work for China’s scientific development!”
His father then threatened him. “If you don’t come back to Taiwan and go to medical school, I’m cutting you off!”4
Guo Xiucong laughed, “I won’t make you any money for you as a doctor!”
His father said, “It's up to you, as long as you come back to Taiwan for medical school!”
In truth, Dr. Guo was an outstandingly gifted and brilliant individual, all his father wanted was for his son to be by his side. After a month of studies in Japan, Guo Xiucong packed his bags and returned to Taiwan.
Back in Taiwan, Guo Xiucong entered Taihoku College [presently National Taiwan Normal University]. During his three years of study, he was a gentleman and a scholar, excelling in activities ranging from equestrian to swimming and track and field, from music to ideology.
In 1942, Guo Xiucong began at the Faculty of Medicine at Taihoku Imperial University. As a medical student, he became nationalist, firm in his identity as a Chinese person. Much of this was due to a certain Professor Xu, who arrived in Taiwan from Peking University.
In 1941, Professor Xu was recruited by Mitsui and Mitsubishi to teach vernacular Chinese and Mandarin to their businessmen.5 When not teaching, Professor Xu recruited progressive, nationalist youths and taught them written Chinese and spoken Mandarin. He brought with him 1930s era literature, works by authors including Lu Xun, Ba Jin, and Lao She.
Synergy Society (协志会)
Dr. Cai Hanting (蔡汉廷): My name is Cai Hanting. During the 1950s, as a part of the “Taiwan University Medical Student Case” I was arrested, sentenced to, and later survived 15 years in prison.
I must have heard Guo Xiucong’s name for the first time while studying at Taipei No. 1 High School! Upperclassmen would talk about brother Guo, who made a name for himself all across Taipei when he was at Huashan Elementary School, where he once cursed out Japanese colonial officials while they were on inspection. When I entered the Taihoku Imperial University’s pre-med course at Zhishanyan, I finally had the chance to get to know the man I had come to admire. It was at a Presbyterian church near Shilin Station. Under the guidance of Pastor Chen Sizhi, the “Synergy Society” used music, including singing and instruments, to organize Shilin-area students.6
Every morning, brother Guo, then a medical student at Taihoku Imperial, brought his little sister, a student at the No. 3 Girls High school (presently, Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Girls High School) to wait for the train at Shilin Station. Whenever he wore his four-pointed hat – symbolizing the highest honor for us students – and strolled the streets of Shilin, neighbors and onlookers would give him their compliments.
Indeed, during the later years of Japanese rule, among Taiwanese youths, Guo Xiucong stood out as the best of the best. In the “Synergy Society,” there were other idealistic Taiwanese youths as well. I remember an upperclassmate named He Bin (何斌), a medical student who also excelled in literature, philosophy, and the arts. A resident of Shilin Avenue, he was three grades ahead of brother Guo.
After graduating, He Bin served as a dermatologist at NTU. Following the 228 incident, much like all of us educated Taiwanese youths, he felt disillusioned. The corrupt, violent bureaucratic dictatorship shattered his love for the motherland. In his despair he began to ponder. He pondered modern Chinese history, and the ongoing Civil War before finding a new direction. Clutching to ambitious ideals, He Bin charged headfirst and went from Hong Kong back to the Mainland in search of a new national consciousness.
There was also Jiang Wenkeng (姜文铿), who studied at the Private Taipei High School [presently Private Taibei [泰北] High School]. He too was an ideological early bloomer, a progressive youth. A Hakka from the from Guanxi Township, Xinzhu, he knew brother Chen Xiucong’s sister through Pastor Chen’s “Synergy Society.” Later on he entered the Faculty of Law at NTU, and started dating Chen’s little sister afterwards? When the 228 incident occurred, he chaired the NTU Self-Determination Alliance and was detained and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He spent 15 years on Green Island [formal penal colony]. Separated from him by a great sea, Guo’s little sister spent those 15 years in prolonged loneliness before seeing Wenkeng again. To this day, I’m not sure how the two of them are doing.
Thinking back to the days singing at the “Synergy Society” fills me with warmth and joy! brother Guo and I both sang tenor. You know, back then I had no idea how brother Guo got so good at Mandarin. During the final years of Japanese rule, brother Guo the Taihoku Imperial student would use Mandarin to sing Su Wu Mu Yang (苏武牧羊) and Man Jiang Hong (满江红). Only later on did I learn that he had been learning our motherland’s language and characters under Professor Xu starting all the way back in 1941.
One day after school, per usual I was heading to the “Synergy Society” when I heard someone say that brother Guo disappeared! They said it was because he was with Professor Xu from the motherland, and they were speaking Mandarin and cheering for the “The Three Principles of the People” when the Japanese Military Police captured them.7
Brother Guo was freed after restoration. Japanese torture had left his ribs broken, and he was sent to the hospital for surgery. They removed his festering ribs and it took two weeks in the hospital for him to recover.
At that time, even though Taiwan had already been recovered, the Japanese army still had control over Taiwan. On October 10th of that year, the first National Day after restoration, the students at Shilin came together and publicly celebrated National Day.8 This was the first time Taiwanese compatriots were allowed to celebrate National Day after Mr. Sun Yat-sen founded the Republic. Everybody was ecstatic. At the celebration, I saw brother Guo lead the crowd to sing our national anthem and the anthem of our national flag in his perfect, unaccented Beijing dialect. I thought to myself, Guo must have gone through special training, otherwise how would he know these songs?
Before 228, the brother Guo I knew was still an anti-Japanese nationalist…
Shattered Dreams
Every day Taiwanese people, who once welcomed the motherland’s leadership into Taiwan, gradually grew disappointed. The political repression and economic dictatorship brought upon by Chen Yi of the central government had pushed the Taiwanese people to their limits.
Chen Zhihui: Dr. Guo Xiucong had been in prison for three years at the time of restoration. He was freed personally by Colonel Zhang Shide of the Taiwan Branch of the Three Principles Youth Corps.
The KMT knew that Dr. Guo Xiucong knew how to rally the educated youths of Taiwan, and tried their best to recruit him. But he didn’t have political ambitions, and declined, citing his unfinished degree.
After release, Dr. Guo Xiucong went back to school to study for a makeup graduation exam. He passed without a hitch and finished school as a part of the first graduation class of a post-restoration NTU. After graduation, he worked at the NTU hospital as a surgeon, lecturer, and chief of the Taiwanese provincial public health authority’s office of epidemic prevention. By then, Taiwan had been restored for over a year.
Every day Taiwanese people, who once welcomed the motherland’s leadership into Taiwan, gradually grew disappointed. The political repression and economic dictatorship brought upon by Chen Yi of the central government had pushed the Taiwanese people to their limits.
At this time, a ship that arrived in Taiwan from the Mainland brought cholera. Dr. Guo Xiucong occasionally published columns in the paper encouraging vaccination and other sanitary measures.
This must have been when I first met Dr. Guo Xiucong! Before the war, I had studied nutrition in Japan, and paid a lot of attention to the cholera epidemic. It worried me a lot. As a professional and person of character, he was well-respected and admired. I met Dr. Guo Xiucong through Zhang Yuefeng, a high school classmate of mine. At the time, she was coworkers with Dr. Guo Xiucong at the ministry of health.
I still remember our first date at Taipei New Park [presently 228 Peace Park]. That day, we shared with each other our views towards the cholera epidemic and public health. It was also at that time when Dr. Guo Xiucong invited me to join their ranks, which I accepted.
I was so naive back then, I really thought that he wanted me to work with them at the public health authority. I had no idea that the job entailed traveling around the entire province, investigating both medical and social conditions. This even included investigating changes post-228.
Dr. Guo Xiucong had a warm soul and was a profoundly deep person. I think of myself as someone who matured early. When I was in fourth grade, I had already read classics La Dame aux camélias and Jane Eyre, which I had taken from my dad’s bookshelf. Nonetheless, on our dates, I could feel Dr. Guo Xiucong’s growing worries, I felt powerless. I could feel a latent fire growing within, waiting to burst.
Every time we went out on a date, Dr. Guo would hand me a book. The next time we saw each other, like an academic advisor, he would carefully and patiently pick at my brain, dissecting any new insights I had picked up from the reading. I remember that the books were mostly Chinese works from the 1930s, works by authors like Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Lao She, Ding Ling, among others. It was then, under his guidance, when my nationalist consciousness grew.
Dr. Guo Xiucong, who had once traveled all the way to the Keelung Port to welcome our motherland's leadership into Taiwan, began criticizing Chen Yi’s corrupt, arrogant, bureaucratic dictatorship. In early 1947, before the 228 incident, Dr. Guo Xiucong published an article in the Shin Sheng Daily. He wrote about how he had grown hopeless in the face of Chen Yi’s governance, writing from a nationalist angle, with hopes to reform Taiwanese society democratically.
At that time, Dr. Guo Xiucong’s father, who was high up in the Chang Hwa Bank, grew increasingly anxious regarding his son’s political statements. He worried that his son’s politics would be disastrous for his family; and thus a great rift had formed between father and son.
His father had trouble understanding: their family was rich. They enjoyed status and lived well. How did he produce such an “anti-government” son?
Dr. Guo Xiucong told his father: “The Guo family has a proud tradition of opposing oppressive governments.” He criticized his father’s “obedience and conservatism, worrying only about the needs of the family.” “Didn’t you want me to grow into an accomplished, capable person? Didn’t I listen to you when you told me to study medicine? Father, there are three types of doctors. The first stops at treating illness. The second not only treats illness, but finds the root cause. The third is like Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. He sees the people’s illness, the country’s illness. He’s a doctor who saves our country. That is the kind of doctor I aspire to be.”
This is how Dr. Guo spoke to his father.
2/28
Cai Hanting: I woke up early on the morning of February 28, 1947 and my father told me that the night before at Taiping Ding (Presently, North Yanping Street), the Chen Yi regime killed a woman running a cigarette street stall. Nearby, the people rose up, having endured over a year of rage. They rushed towards the police station and demanded that the killer be tried for execution. My father also told me, it was chaotic outside, and to stay inside if possible.
That day, I had errands to run near the NTU main campus, so I had to go out. I waited an hour for a bus that never arrived, and decided to walk to school instead. Approaching Roosevelt Street, I heard others on the street heading towards the State Monopoly Bureau, petition in hand. Out of curiosity, I joined them.
The petition didn’t have that many signatories (maybe 20-30, who were all neighbors with the cigarette seller). But the employees of the Monopoly Bureau were so scared, they nearly emptied the entire building! With nobody to submit their petition to, the people grew angry, and took a few boxes of tobacco and torched them on the spot.
Later on, the people, led by a wooden two-wheel cart loaded with a large drum as it was pulled along the street. They had taken to the streets in protest. I saw a middle-aged man vigorously beating the drum. He was wearing a white headband, on which he had written “XX PETITION BRIGADE.”
When the march reached the radio station next to New Park, some people suggested that they rush the station building and broadcast news of the incident throughout the entire province. As a result, the spontaneous representatives of the people entered the radio station and explained their demands to the announcer. The announcer had no other option but to broadcast them.
After the broadcast, the march marched towards the regime office via the NTU hospital. At this time, the crowd had grown larger and larger. Of those that had joined the march, many were unemployed. I stood at the edges of the crowd and looked from afar. The people’s representatives had nearly entered the administrative building. The doors then shut, and suddenly we heard the sound of gunfire from the roof sweep through the crowd. A handful of protesters were shot and fell to the ground.
In the plaza, the center of the crowd crouched down; others fled out of fear. I hid behind a tree, my body in a cold sweat. Even after the gunfire subsided, the crowd were too scared to get up.
At this time, I suddenly saw a Jeep emblazoned with American flags approaching, piloted by a young American soldier. I saw a man, around 40-50 years old, signal the Jeep to stop. The Jeep slowed down and inched forward, and they collected the bodies of the wounded and dead before slowly driving off.
I took the chance to run towards the train station. By then, the streets had fallen into chaos. The people would pull over and assault any wàishěngrén passing by. Near the station, I saw an elderly wàishěngrén dressed in a Cheongsam. An angry běnshěngrén called at him to stop, another went and struck him. The old man sank to his knees, begging for forgiveness, and he was let go.
Near the north gate, I saw a man wearing military pants crouching in a gutter holding a dossier. A chill ran down my spine and instead I hurried back home.
That night, I turned on the radio receiver. The police announced a state of martial law in Taipei. But back then, radios were uncommon, and the news didn’t travel quickly. After martial law, from time to time stories about the Chen Yi regime taking advantage of the situation to loot and plunder.
The radio played music all night. I later heard that Dr. Xie E (谢娥), a National Politician on the radio.9 She announced to the public that there had been no gunfire by the central government. She said that the injuries were caused by the large crowd and the subsequent trampling.
The morning of the second day, an enraged crowd surrounded her hospital and demanded that she explain the previous night’s broadcast. Some of the more firebrand members of the crowd took her furniture and other assets and threw them into the street before setting them on fire. On the walls of her home, they hung a large poster that said “This is the end of the corrupt and degenerate officials and their running dogs!” Her neighbors responded immediately, and hung up their own poster, which said “Many thanks to the people, who have punished a toxic insect for us!”
Chen Zhihui: It finally happened. The monopoly office inspector incident ignited the people’s rage, which had built up over a year of suppression. At that time, Dr. Chen Xiucong and I were deeply in love. He would show up at my door and give me updates.
It must have been the day of February 28th. Using connections he had built up as a traveling physician, he quickly called forth our indigenous compatriots from Xindian.10 With a line of banana farmers, workers, and fishermen from Tamsui alongside students from Shilin to join the people in their march. He made preparations to go to militarized zones in the outskirts of town to obtain weapons for a protracted war.
On March 1st, nervous and excited, I accompanied Dr. Guo Xiucong to Shiqiao Tou (presently, an intersection of North Yanping Road and West Chang’an Road). We met up with Wang Tiandeng and Lin Miesheng, among others. We prepared to march towards the regime office to protest. I remember that Mr. Lin Miesheng spoke to Dr. Guo Xiucong in his capacity as the Chair of Humanities at NTU. He told him that we absolutely cannot hurt any innocent wàishěngrén compatriots.
In the afternoon, we arrived at the radio station to link up with Song Feiwo (宋非我). He was born and raised in Taipei City. In his early years, he worked in a mine in Keelung, and participated in the Taiwanese New Drama movement in the 1930s. In 1946, he starred in Walls (壁) and Luohan Fuhui which played at Zhongshan Hall in Taipei City, which led him to his censure and ban from acting. He had a radio program, “Tudi Gong Travels Taiwan,” where he publicly criticized the government, which was well-received by the public. Through his radio program, he called forth the people from across the province, “Unite in our fight!”
That day, along the streets of Taipei, walls were plastered with slogans and fliers. “Down with the Chen Yi Kingdom.” “Wake up, Taiwanese Compatriots! Fight for bread! For freedom! For democracy!” “No compromises, only armed struggle!” “We won’t sit as our compatriots are shot and detained!”
In Taipei, everywhere you looked, there were soldiers, military security guards, and police, all armed. Patrol cars cruised back and forth. We heard the sound of constant gunfire, and blood flowed down the street, glimmering in the sunlight. Students walked out of their classes, factories were on strike, and merchants closed their storefronts. Everything had come to a halt; Taipei was a dead city.
On March 2nd, at 10 am, NTU, Yanping High School, the Law and Commerce College (presently, Taipei City University, the Normal College, and many other high schools convened a student meeting at Zhongshan Hall. There were thousands in attendance. At the meeting, they attacked the rampant corruption in the Chen Yi regime and demanded “political democracy” and “freedom of education.” At the meeting, they produced fliers to pass to city residents and encouraged the people to unite in armed struggle.
Dr. Guo Xiucong saw that Chen Yi was biding time. Dr. Guo believed that victory would only come through armed struggle. And so, he organized a covert meeting, where he assigned Xu Qiang to the student movement and Wu Sihan to organize workers and farmers. He ensured that they all stayed in contact and arm themselves as soon as possible.
At this time, Dr. Guo Xiucong even urged me to organize the female students and form a team of medics to join the front lines. But my father, worried about my safety, forbade me from leaving the house. So I’m not familiar with the specifics of the armed struggle.11
In Taipei, everywhere you looked, there were soldiers, military security guards, and police, all armed. Patrol cars cruised back and forth. We heard the sound of constant gunfire, and blood flowed down the street, glimmering in the sunlight. Students walked out of their classes, factories were on strike, and merchants closed their storefronts. Everything had come to a halt; Taipei was a dead city.
Cai Hanting: Between February 28th and March 4th, Taipei was in constant downpour. Under these conditions, the streets fell quiet. The Organizing Committee held a meeting at Zhongshan Hall and decided to “unite all the people in the province; to reform the political system and address the 228 incident.”12 At this time, the entire province is facing a swarm; governing agencies have been paralyzed. The Taipei Organizing Committee sensed the need to unite the province and immediately decided to notify all 17 province-level cities to form their management committees and deepen their own work.
In the afternoon, a classmate passed on to me an order from the Student Alliance. I was to arrive at an assembly at 6 pm that day. After linking up with classmates there, as a group, we were to be brought to the old hall at the Normal University. There were already hundreds of people seated in the hall, sitting in groups on the floor. It was an orderly meeting. I remember that night it was windy and a little chilly. Suddenly, I saw a person with a handkerchief covering their face, guiding the constant inflow of student brigades streaming into the hall. I recognized the voice as that of brother Guo. We recognized each other at the same time, and he put his index finger over his lips, urging me to keep quiet. To this day, I remember looking past his glasses into his two eyes, glimmering with a mythical light.
Later on, Brother Guo stood at the front of the brigade and with a roaring voice, announced there had been infighting within the Organizing Committee. He shared that some may have compromised with Chen Yi. In response, he said, we must tighten our organizing and strengthen our power and struggle till the end.
That night, our task was to seize the armaments from the police stationed at the southern airport. At Xindian, our indigenous compatriots arrived, bringing with them Japanese swords, hunting rifles, and bamboo poles. Unarmed students took bamboo poles and fashioned them into weapons, sharpening the ends one by one. We had prepared to our fullest and waited for the remaining brigades to arrive before departing. We waited until 4 in the morning, and nobody had come. Brother Guo then resolutely gave the order to retreat, and for everybody to return home.
After that day, I didn’t see the elusive brother Guo for a while.
Chen Zhihui: On March 6th, instigations by vigilantes, led by Detective Lin Dingli, and the loyalist service led by Xu Dehui, Taipei City descended into chaos. Lootings followed assaults one after the other. I didn’t see Dr. Guo Xiucong for several days. Word on the street was that there were large shipments of weapons from Shanghai that arrived in Taipei to suppress the revolt. These rumors, bit by bit, revealed themselves to be true.
My father insisted that I do not leave the house. He said to me, “Look outside, this situation is untenable. If Xiucong shows up, tell him to hide until after things calm down! The organizing committee is on Chen Yi’s hitlist!”
At dinnertime on March 7th, I heard a broadcast from the Organizing Committee’s communications lead, Wang Tiandeng. He reported that the Organizing Committee’s “Handling Outline” and the 42 proposals outlined in the Proposal for Reforms were rejected by Chen Yi and Ke Yuanfen (Chief of Police). At the end, he solemnly called upon all peoples of the province and announced, “the Organizing Committee has completed its mission. From now on, all peoples in the province must unite. Only together can our strength stand tall in the face of oppression!”
But those two days, I heard no news of Dr. Guo Xiucong. I heard he had ordered students to lay low, to avoid pointless martyrdom.
Cai Hanting: On March 8th, the situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Military police arrived in Keelung from Fuzhou. The residents of Taipei oscillated between fear and rage. Before the sun had gone down, the streets had gone quiet, and everyone shut their doors and turned off their lights. It was a dead city, though you’d occasionally hear a crying infant.
Around or after 10 pm, the sound of machine gun fire pierced the sky. It came from around Yuanshan, and subsequent sounds of gunfire dispersed into the clouds. We heard no signs of humans. I hid in the dark and dared not sleep. The army really did come, and I was anxious, not knowing what had become of brother Guo or my other comrades.
On the second day, the radio announced martial law once again. Hundreds of unarmed corpses lay before the Yuanshan Armory, all high school students, 18-19 years old…
Chen Zhihui: The 21st Division had arrived. From the 9th onward, Taipei was covered by the sounds of gunfire. The streets were lined with bloodied bodies. Every day, the radio announced new orders from the garrison headquarters: civil servants must return to work. Workers must return to work. Students must return to the classroom. But many of those who left the house never came back. There was an omnipresent melancholy and all-encompassing fear that blanketed the city.
Brother Guo had finally sent a messenger, who told us that he had evacuated by boat to Sanchong.
Depression
Chen Zhihui: Following a suggestion from Professor Xu, throughout this time period Dr. Guo Xiucong organized under the alias Lin Yijun (林逸俊). He kept his face covered and luckily avoided arrest and assassination. Nonetheless, he hid in Sanchong for over a month.
In April of 1947, Dr. Guo Xiucong’s father passed away from a lung illness. Dr. Guo took off his glasses and grew a beard. He also wore a workers uniform, and covertly returned to his family’s home, where almost nobody recognized him. For an entire year afterwards, he roamed throughout with this disguise.
Dr. Guo Xiucong later told me that up until the arrival of the 21st Division, the student brigade only had 50-something guns and very little gunpowder. The Huashan Armory, which they had seized, was low on stock. Considering the massive supply deficit, he knew that if they continued the fight, they would pay an even greater, bloodier price. And so, he ordered all indigenous, worker, peasant, and student brigades into hiding. After March 9th, numerous student leaders were killed, one after the other.
Nowadays, I often think, Dr. Guo must have been remorseful. After the incident, he entered a long ideological depression. Where would Taiwan go? Dr. Guo Xiucong painstakingly contemplated this question…
This was May of 1947. His teacher, Professor Xu introduced him to a person by the last name Cai.13 Undoubtedly, for Dr. Guo, meeting Cai marked another turning point in his life. I’m not clear on the details, but I do know that Cai led him to redefine his understanding of the Chinese’s people’s struggle.14 His heart, on the search for a national consciousness, had found a new home.
After his father’s death, the Guo estate in Shilin, which consisted of 11 mansions, served as a shelter for Guo Xuicong’s friends, who came from all walks of life. The Dr. Guo Xiucong that I knew had few materialistic desires; he looked up to Tolstoy’s compassion. Every holiday, Xiucong’s father provided aid to Shilin’s impoverished. Xiucong once told his father, to his face, “true charity would be to take our family’s property and land, and redistribute it to these people…”
After the both of us were detained, I once passed him a note which read, “I can’t tell you how much I wish that one day, future generations will rename the East Road in Shilin after you.”
Dr. Guo Xiucong chastised me. “Individualist heroism is a worthless ideology, we have to work on our worldviews, Zhihui.”
But believe it or not, the selfless Xiucong was actually extremely stingy. Before we married, while we were still dating, all he’d bring would be a bag of peanuts, or a stalk of sugarcane! When we went to the movies, I would have to buy tickets! I could never wrap my head around this. How could the heir of the Guo family be like this? One time, he asked me to borrow my necklace. I asked him what in the world he’d do with it, and he replied that one of his friends needed money badly, and that he’d first pawn the necklace and lend his friend the money. After his friend’s paycheck came in, he’d return it to me.
He managed to hide away in Sanchong, avoiding the apex of the violence. After returning to Shilin, Dr. Guo Xiucong was hired by the Ministry of Health. The health minister was a Dr. Jing Libin (经利彬), who had arrived from the Mainland, previously serving as the dean of Peking Union Medical College. He admired Dr. Guo Xiucong’s work ethic and passion, and charged him with promoting basic health and sanitation in the area. At the time, people would say to Xiucong, “Keep it up, and you’ll be the Dean of NTU Hospital in no time!” Little did they know, he thought nothing of these individualist pursuits!
In 1948, Dr. Guo Xiucong spent some time abroad.15 He returned to China rejuvenated! Somehow, he put even more time into his work, and was busier than ever! The dark cloud of 228 had been swept away. I saw in his eyes a newfound shining light.
“Reformed Taiwanese Opera”
Those days, Dr. Guo Xiucong and I, already married, would often travel for work to the shadier areas of Taipei. We were tasked with investigating the social conditions of and around Wanhua and the Kang San Hotel. He traversed these ancient backstreets nearly every day. Perhaps out of fear of getting snitched on, he’d ask me to dress up like a Madame and accompany him. Sitting at food stalls, we’d chat with the girls working there. After a while, he finally finished his investigative report. He surveyed their family backgrounds and health problems, and presented a detailed, thorough analysis.
Dr. Guo Xiucong was always working on himself. To better his own work, he learned to speak and dress like the working class. Before long, he fit in with the rest of them. He loved to sing Taiwanese folk music, especially works by Lyu Quansheng (吕泉生). After our daughter was born, he’d cradle her in his arms before bedtime, singing her lullabies. He loved popular Taiwanese music, like Mayflower (五月花) and He bian chun meng (河边春梦). I once asked him why he, a well-educated intellectual, chose to sing simple folk music. He looked at me sternly and corrected me. “These songs are not lowly… these are songs loved by the working people. If we are to work with the people, of course we have to like their music too!”
Later, Dr. Guo Xiucong joined the Taiwanese Provincial Postal and Telecommunication Workers’ Union. At their school, he used entertainment to educate the workers. During the summer of 1948, we staged five performances of a reformed rendition of the traditional Taiwanese opera, Madame White Snake (白蛇传), at Zhongshan Hall.
Dr. Guo Xiucong served as the writer and director. The musical director was Jiang Wenye (江文也), who adapted the music for an orchestra with both Chinese and Western instruments. The actors were a mix of NTU students and union workers. I remember that Dr. Guo Xiucong even taught Jiangxi folk dance using traditional Hakka tea-picking songs. The five worker opera performance made a brief slash in the Taipei cultural circles. Dr. Guo Xiucong later left the union after clashing with a Mandarin teacher surnamed Ji, who had arrived from the Mainland.
Purge
It must have been Dr. Guo Xiucong’s petit bourgeois upbringing – Cai didn’t bring him into underground work right away. At that time, the government was trying their best to woo Guo in. If he was a normal person with normal, selfish ambitions, today he might be a veteran, expert politician sitting in the Legislative Yuan, at the ripe age of 69! After a period of close observation, Cai finally organized Dr. Guo into doing some work.
Xiucong’s active organization skills alongside his existing reputation among the masses attracted a crowd of passionate, idealistic students. He even brought me to chair a book club, where I read old Russian authors, like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Gorky with a handful of students.
One night in the fall of 1949, as we laid in bed together, not yet asleep, Dr. Guo Xiucong suddenly said to me, “You have to mentally prepare yourself, there may be a day when the two of us are martyred.”
As a new mother who was also woefully politically ignorant, these were definitely words I did not want to hear. I held onto our newborn. Even under Japanese rule, I had never heard of killings for ideological reasons.
Dr. Guo Xiucong went to the study and took out a copy of Pearl S. Buck’s book, The Patriot. He turned to a section for me to read. The text described over a hundred patriotic youths sentenced to death by the Yangtze River. I then understood that under chaotic times and a savage political environment, this was indeed a possibility…
Cai Hanting: On May 13, 1950, intelligence agencies requested that President of NTU, Fu Sinian (傅斯年, also romanized as Fu Ssu-nien) arranged a meeting between intelligence officials and a few deans of the Medical School. Fu Sinian agreed and notified Wei Huoyao (魏火曜), head of the NTU hospital. It was a Saturday and there was a scheduled meeting between department chairs. Intelligence officers stood before the chair’s office and waited for Xu Qiang, Chair of Internal Medicine, Hu Xinlin (胡鑫麟) (the father of violinist Hu Naiyuan 胡乃元), Chair of the Ophthalmology Department, and Weng Tingfan (翁庭藩), first Chair of Internal Medicine…
Xu Qiang and Hu Xinlin were detained in the parlor. Weng Tingfan had to attend to family matters and returned to Miaoli, temporarily avoiding arrest. Intelligence officers first took Xu Qiang and other detainees to an unknown location. I was a recent graduate at the time, and I had just begun work at the hospital. But because I had once borrowed a few books from Dr. Xu Qiang, I was jailed as well. In fact, we didn’t do anything, aside from reading a handful of political and ideological banned books.
Chen Zhihui: Politically, we were carelessly unalert, and we
had no idea that the security apparatus had been following us since
our performance of Madame White Snake. After the NTU Guangming Daily
and Keelung Middle School were both sniffed out, countless bright eyed youths
were detained. Only then did Dr. Guo Xiucong and I flee Taipei to dodge
arrest.16
Dr. Guo Xiucong was such a workaholic! We had fled to avoid persecution,
but wherever he went, he connected with the local organization and continued
working.17 We passed
through Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Lanyang and visited almost every single
indigenous village. Later, I started to miss our newborn, and Dr. Guo Xiucong
had to take me back to Taipei.
Somebody must have turned on us. When we returned home, that night, intelligence officers surrounded the four corners of our home. I once again left behind our 6 month old newborn, we escaped through an underground tunnel in his house. I heard our neighbors cover for us, telling the spies, “I heard they went to the Mainland.”
Cai was arrested at the end of April, 1950. At the time, we had no idea. It was only after we were detained and thrown in jail that I found out that Cai had confessed to everything. He was the first to snitch on Dr. Guo Xiucong. I’m not sure if Dr. Guo knew about this, and I’m even less sure about how he would take the news. His ideological mentor, his political role model turned him in! How could you explain that?
Cai Hanting: That afternoon, we were detained. I filled out the paperwork and handed over my clothes, belt, shoes to the police for a strip search. I entered the cell, and behind me I heard the loud thud of an iron door closing. Right then and there, I was paralyzed in fear.
I leaned on the wall by the cell door. Suddenly, I saw a man leave a narrow cell, dragging his feet along the corridor. He held on to the wall for support as he slowly limped his way out. I saw blood flowing down his legs, which were red and swollen. It was here that I saw those shining eyes behind the glasses.
“Ah! Brother Guo!” I couldn’t help but call out his name. In silence, it was those eyes of his in their resolute compassion that brought peace to my state of shock. The police escorted him out, still limping.
“Enough is Enough”
In the detention center, Cai’s cell was diagonal from ours. When he was called out for questioning, nearly every single detainee booed him as he walked past their cells. But not Brother Guo. He didn’t show a trace of malice towards Cai. Not only did he refuse to curse at Cai, unlike the rest of us, he once even told me that Cai was the person he respected the most in this world.
After Cai was detained, he snitched on the entire organization, leading to the height of the 1950s purges. When revolutionaries become traitors, the people will never look at them the same. But Brother Guo always saw the best in people, even the snitches. I never understood how he looked at Cai, a man hated to the bone by so many of us, with so much forgiveness and respect. A character of such generosity! Cai ratted out on countless precious patriotic lives in exchange for a prominent position in the intelligence bureau, and passed away only recently.
There was a clear pattern, every time Cai left questioning, a new batch of comrades were jailed. Even Brother Guo was reaching his limit. One day, as Cai was being escorted out, as he passed the cell we shared, Brother Guo spoke up, “Brother Cai, say no more, enough is enough…”
One day, Brother Guo suddenly turned to me and laughed, “It all makes sense to me now. This time, I think I’ve met my match. All you all did was read a few books, you should be out of here in a few months! But me, I’ve already lived an extra seven years. I should have died at the hands of the Japanese military police. I got lucky, that’s all. It’s unfortunate though, I wish I could have lived a few more years, done some more work. There’s so much to be done!”
Later, the central government offered him to confess to the entire province in exchange for a second chance.18 They tempted him with a cushy official job, and even brought up Chen Duxiu as an example. They told him, a petit bourgeois guy like him would surely be criticized and fall from grace one day. But Brother Guo stood resolute, unwavering.
In the end, Brother Guo, Xu Qiang and other core leadership were sent to the Green Island military court, and I never saw him again.
I’ve already lived an extra seven years. I should have died at the hands of the Japanese military police. I got lucky, that’s all. It’s unfortunate though, I wish I could have lived a few more years, done some more work. There’s so much to be done!
Bloodstained Gold
Chen Zhihui: We were hiding in Chiayi at a friend’s house in May of that year. It was the night of May 2nd! After the lights went out, the police knocked on the door with the butt of their rifle, and pulled us out of bed. Our friends, the Xu brothers, were both graduates of the NTU Faculty of Law. Later on they were both shot dead.
That night we were taken to the detention center in Yanping Road in Taipei. Shortly after jailing him, they cuffed together Dr. Guo Xiucong’s legs together with 11-pound cuffs. I couldn’t take it. He would occasionally pass me notes to keep me comforted.
It was only later on that I found out that we had escaped Shilin by a thread. The police searched the entire nearly 18,000 square foot estate. My father was forcibly taken in for questioning, and my younger brother was taken to Taichung to search for us. My father was locked up for three months, where they pressured him for our whereabouts and travel history. After Dr. Guo Xiucong and I were detained.
A few degenerate officers tried to extort my father, saying they had to call three different people to get him out. Each call would cost 20 bars of gold. He believed them and sent 60 bars before they left him out.
After Dr. Guo Xiucong, my loving husband, was sentenced to death, the same lowlifes approached me. They said that they could save Xiucong’s life in exchange for 80 bars of gold. My father knew that it was a scam, but out of desperation for his son-in-law he sold 4 buildings and paid them off, but Xiucong’s fate was already sealed.
Be Brave and Live On
Chen Zhihui: It was four or five in the morning on November 28th, 1950. Shouts and political slogans roared throughout the prison cells. The detention rooms, normally dead silent, flared up in rage.
I was crowded in a cell and peered through the tiny window. The sky yearned to be clear. I had already lost my mind. I knew that it was the last cry of Brother Xiucong and his comrades, Xu Qiang and Wu Sihan.
The day before their execution, in the laundry field I received Xiucong’s last note. On a tiny strip of paper, he wrote a few short words.
“Zhihui, take care of mom and dad. Please have me cremated, and spread my ashes across this land. Maybe it will help someone grow ong choy one day! Please, be brave, and live on…”
- Chinese: 光复 (restoration, retrocession, return) arrow_upward
- When published, this article changed the names of the interviewees. Her real name, which is used openly in other texts/interviews, is Lin Xuejiao (林雪娇). arrow_upward
- Referring to Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian physician and theologist. arrow_upward
- Guo Xiucong, alongside many of his Taiwanese comrades, were trained as medical doctors. In a later interview, Lan Bozhou explained that in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, local Taiwanese faced intense job discrimination. Medicine was one of the few professions accessible by the Taiwanese population. And thus, the young vanguard of the anti-Japanese and anti-KMT resistance largely consisted of medical doctors. arrow_upward
- As Lan Bozhou explains in a 2023 interview, as the Japanese Empire expanded across Asia, they needed to train and teach Mandarin to a colonial civil service in Southern China and Southeast Asia. arrow_upward
-
Lan Bozhou in a later piece emphasizes that the Synergy Society was
founded by He Bin as a youth organized aimed at promoting local Han
Taiwanese culture.
It was organized under the context of the Japanese-directed kōminka
(皇民化, lit. “becoming subjects of the emperor”) movement in Taiwan, which
aimed to fully convert colonial subjects in Japanese-occupied territories
such as Korea and Taiwan into Japanese citizens. This included the adoption
of Japanese names, customs, and the renunciation of one's ancestors and
heritage. Many of Taiwan's past and present leadership, such as Lee Teng-hui
and Tsai Ing-wen hail from families who have undergone this procedure.
He Bin and later on, Guo Xiucong, used Synergy Society to promote local Taiwanese culture and resistance to the Japanese regime during amidst the kōminka movement. They did this through the use of the arts, promoting local Chinese music in botMandarin and Minnan dialects. In addition to cultural work, the Synergy Society also hosted more overtly political activity. Guo Xiucong and other core leadership of the Synergy Society covertly studied Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People. They were ardent believers in several key elements of the Three Principles, including land reform, limits on Capital, and anti-imperialist resistance.
Following the restoration of Taiwan, the Synergy Society's organizing activities reached a new apex. It transformed into a site of political education, Mandarin lessons, and political music and art. Guo Xiucong was heavily involved in these activities, which including teaching Shilin resident's the ROC national anthem as well as March of the Volunteers, an anti-Japanese song written during the WWII and later became the national anthem of the PRC. arrow_upward -
Lan Bozhou later clarifies that his arrest occurred after the US enters WWII,
and was preparing for armed resistance once Chinese troops reached Taiwan. The
Japanese military police arrested Guo Xiucong, Cai Zhongru, and many other
anti-Japanese student leaders for their research of Chinese literature, study
of Mandarin, and other anti-Japanese activities.
In 1943, after the IJA retreated from Southeast Asian, Japan ramped up its recruitment of infantry from Taiwan, an important line of defense for the Japanese empire. In January 1944, the Japanese authorities in Taiwan began to actively encourage Taiwanese subjects on the island to adopt Japanese surnames, signifying the peak of the kōminka movement. At the same time, Allied forces were also bombing Taiwan. arrow_upward - As Japanese occupation came to a close, the details of their surveillance over anti-Japanese activity in secondary and post-secondary schools were revealed to the public. Per Lan Bozhou, this led to (1) rapid expansion of student organizing and (2) the widespread recognition of Guo Xiucong as a student leader. Guo Xiucong and the Synergy Society organized the first celebration of the Double 10 National Day in Taiwan. arrow_upward
- Guo's contemporary. Alongside Guo, she was a physician who developed a Chinese nationalist consciousness -- studying Mandarin, etc. arrow_upward
- Refers to the Taiwanese yuánzhùmín (台湾原住民, lit. “original peoples of Taiwan”). See Notes on Terminology #3 in Taiwan: An Anti-Imperialist Resource for more information. arrow_upward
- On March 4th, underground CPC member Li Zhongzhi (李忠志) organized a cohort of former prisoners of the Japanese occupation, including Guo Xiucong. Organizing through universities including NTU main campus, the Normal College, the NTU College of Business, Yanping College, they created three squadrons, of which Guo Xiucong commanded the second, which assembled at the Normal College. On March 5th at 2AM, the third squadron led by Li Zhongzhi consisting of Atayal fighters stormed the Jingwei Military Armory, taking it over with relative ease. They then joined the second squadron and attacked the Machangding Armory. The two squadrons had assembled a sizeable collection of weapons, and proceeded to attack nearby military and police stations. At dawn, the three squadrons marched on the Central Administrative Office. arrow_upward
- Beginning on March 1st, the 228 struggle was conducted on two fronts. The first front consisted of the Organizing Committee meeting at Zhongshan hall, which was consisted primarily of the local gentry and people's representatives. The second, in response to the inaction of the Organizing Committee, began preparing the public for an armed struggle. At the heart of the armed was the Taiwan Working Group of the Communist Party of China, at that time an underground organization, which was tasked with supplying weaponry to the resistance. arrow_upward
- Refers to Cai Xiaoqian (蔡孝乾) (1906-1982), then-Taiwan Provincial Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Born under Japanese occupation, Cai Xiaoqian participated in left-wing organizing in Taiwan and was an early member of the CPC Youth League and Taiwanese Communist Party. After the Taiwanese Communist Party was broken up by Japanese authorities, he joined the Communist Party of China, and was the lone Taiwanese participant in the Long March. He returned to Taiwan in 1946 and served as an organizer of the underground CPC. He is referred to solely by his last name in the text. arrow_upward
- Even prior to 228, the Taiwan Working Committee of the CPC had already been eyeing Guo Xiucong. The underground party secretary, Liao Ruifa (廖瑞发), a survivor of leprosy, approached the Guo household one afternoon with a box of cash disguised as a cake. Guo was away at work at the time. Liao bet that Guo Xiucong, as a man of principle, would be unable to accept such a bribe, and personally hand-delivered the package, unopened, back to Liao that night. Liao used the opportunity to recruit Guo Xiucong into the CPC. Guo Xiucong, at Liao's invitation, formally joined the Communist Party of China in June of 1947, where he led various youth groups. arrow_upward
- In a later interview, Lan Bozhou clarifies that this refers to a trip that Guo Xiucong took to Hong Kong, where he met other key organizers of the CPC. It was in Hong Kong where Guo Xiucong attended a screening of the White-Haired Girl (白毛女), inspiring him to use the arts to foster political education upon his return to Taiwan. arrow_upward
- In October, Guo Xiucong conspired with Lin Qiuxing (林秋兴) to bring a detailed provincial map of Taiwan to Hong Kong, where it would be transported to the Mainland. Prior to departing the port of Keelung, Lin Qiuxing caught and arrested prior to departure. arrow_upward
- As Guo Xiucong evaded KMT authorities in Taiwan, he continued to organize with the CPC. He founded the Lanyang Working Group as he traveled through Yilan and Luodong. arrow_upward
- The authorities would have required Guo Xiucong to confess in a province-wide radio broadcast for a second chance, demonstrating the sheer level of influence Guo Xiucong had over the people of Taiwan at the time. arrow_upward