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A lot of stories begin with some kind of pursuit, whether it’s trying to find a lost manuscript, a missing person, or a lingering memory. If there’s any single place where the most numerous, meaningful, and profound pursuits are all collected, it’s undoubtedly a museum.

Page Tsou is an artist who frequently wins international awards and whose work has been selected five times for the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition. He is also a huge fan of museums. The mechanical factory in his hometown made him particularly fond of the precision and rationality behind machinery, and he believes that museums are similarly specialized, conscientious places. However, when he received an invitation from the National Taiwan Museum to create a picture book on the theme of Formosan clouded leopards, Tsou was faced with a stack of cryptic, stilted historical documents that gave him a huge headache.

“My works tend to be quite different from those of other illustrators, as I often branch out into different fields and draw on other art forms as well,” says Tsou. Living as a graphic designer, illustrator, curator, and even an interior designer, he’s extremely familiar with business language and knows exactly what the market likes, but picture books are different. He sees creating picture books as a kind of fate, so he only wants to work on projects that he finds interesting and feels strongly about.

“You can easily find information about Formosan clouded leopards on the internet. What I wanted to do was give the reader something that sparked their interest.”

Just as Tsou was getting worried, a member of staff at the museum introduced him to a painting of the leopard and uttered a sentence which touched him deeply. In that moment, Tsou immediately knew: “This is the story I want to draw.”

“Although the Formosan clouded leopard hasn’t been found, it still lives on in paintings.”

The Formosan clouded leopard, which belonged to the same big-cat family as tigers and lions, was Taiwan’s largest and most ferocious wild animal but it typically stayed hidden in the forest, and its image as a brave, mysterious animal has made it a sacred symbol in some indigenous cultures.

A staff member at the museum showed Tsou a scientific illustration of the leopard by Robert Swinhoe, a British diplomat who was stationed in Taiwan during the nineteenth century. Swinhoe was a naturalist as well as a diplomat, and during his tenure he discovered and recorded a large number of local Taiwanese species. He longed to find a Formosan clouded leopard but it continued to elude him, so he had no choice but to entrust someone to draw this illustration according to the fur he collected.

More than a hundred years later, an employee at a technology company called Chiang Po-jen happened to see an adventive leopard at the zoo and joined the ranks of those who were actively looking for the animal in the wild. Even with the help of his modern technology, humans still haven’t been able to see the leopards with their own eyes.

The two men might have been from different eras, but it was the same pursuit and the same failure. However, in Tsou’s eyes none of it was in vain. Instead, it created a dramatic “needle in a haystack” search that spanned multiple time periods which added a romantic sense of destiny to the serious subject matter. Tsou took the Formosan clouded leopard as the main basis of the book and then used the two failed pursuits as parallel stories, which was how he managed to pull an emotional core out of the cold historical data.

Although the Formosan clouded leopard hasn’t revealed itself in real life or in the picture book, Tsou transformed the sense of regret into hope by using an absent protagonist to create space for imagination and bring a stagnant period of history to life, sparking the reader’s curiosity and getting them to contemplate it in a way that may even spur them into action.

Tsou’s Rationality for Planting Easter Eggs  

In addition to his unique perspectives, the main thing that makes international brands like Gucci, Disney, Michelin Guides, etc. line up to work with Tsou is his meticulous and undeniably exquisite illustration style.

In this book, the game of hide and seek doesn’t just relate to the concept of finding the leopard but is also part of the reading process itself. From the black and white photos of the restored museum exhibits and the feathers of the bird specimens inside, to the design of the locks on the windows and the structure of the buildings and vehicles, his paintings are almost like precision scanners where every detail is so realistic that you feel like you’re in the scene, while the nostalgic tones and brushstrokes add an enchanting sense of mystery.

“I like to include Easter Eggs in my work where I hide messages in the picture that can be understood without being explained,” says Tsou.

It is hard for readers to look at his books and illustrations only once. He uses so many details to build such vivid worlds in each of his illustrations that readers keep coming back to the same images again and again because they want to play detective by comparing the different pages and worlds to try and decipher the hidden clues in the pictures.

Tsou was in constant contact with the team at the museum during the revision process to ensure that the information in the book was still accurate when he changed certain details for plot purposes. For example, it would actually be impossible to have a transmission tower on the mountain where the camera is installed, but it was important for visual flow to have these man-made constructions gradually appear in the lush mountain forests. Meticulous design like this allows the reader to discover the real reason that the leopard disappeared for themselves without explicitly stating it: mankind.

Using Hide-and-Seek to Convey a Larger Message

Although the book tells the story of a species losing its habitat due to human exploitation, Tsou didn’t want it to be too on the nose. Instead, he chose a game that people of all ages and nationalities could understand so the story’s universal message could be conveyed in a way that children could genuinely enjoy.

“It’s a local issue, but really it’s a global problem,” says Tsou.

The moment when the staff member at the museum told him that the leopard “lives on in paintings” was a creative spark for Tsou. In turn, Tsou might not have expected that his picture book would come to play the same role as the original scientific illustration: that by using a paint brush to capture the legend and elegance of the Formosan clouded leopard, he has inspired people to keep searching. 

Maybe one day, this endless game of hide-and-seek will eventually end in a surprising grand finale. After all, what could be more haunting than unfinished business?

Everyone reads comic books. Even if you stopped reading them after reaching adulthood you’ll have to admit, pretty much anyone who grew up in Taiwan has their personal history of comic book fandom. Which makes one wonder: how much of our attitude towards life, our personal style and tastes, even our core values, do we owe to the influence of the comic books we read growing up? It wouldn’t be going too far to suggest, at least for some of us, that comic book were some of the major influences on our spiritual and moral development.

LGBTQ comics have a long history in Taiwan. Sub-genres for gay oriented fan-comics, boys love, otokonoko, and gender transformations have tended towards the bottom of the leader boards on comic book websites, but they have always maintained a dedicated following, and the fans of these sub-genres represent a sizeable subculture. The sinuous lines of nude forms and heightened aesthetics of attraction in these comics helped create a common vision of imaginary desire for the gay community. You could even argue that LGBTQ comics are bolder, more radical, and more open than most other expressions of LGBTQ culture, including literature and film.

Rainbow Apartment is a collection of six stories by young Taiwanese comic book artists. The stories are spatially structured around an apartment building, the sort of seven-story building we see all over Taipei, perhaps showing its age a bit, located in Yonghe or on Shida Road or some other convenient location where the rents are a bit cheaper and where young workers tend to congregate. Populating this easily imagined space with LGBTQ content brings out a vivid and fresh perspective on the daily lives in the LGBTQ community. Set in 2024, five years after Taiwan’s legalization of same-sex marriage, the stories envision a world in a which space has been made for those with nonconforming gender identities and sexual orientations – whether in the city itself, online, in a coffee shop, or on a cell phone that enables connection to a virtual world. The world of 2024 appears ready to embrace all the colors of the spectrum. The struggles and glory of the past are now history, and a new era is about to unfold.

“Apartment of the Future”, the ground floor of the collection, is the time machine that transports us to 2024, and deposits us in front of the Rainbow Apartments. On the surface, the world doesn’t appear much different, but a new story is about to begin. As we follow the stairs upward, like an invisible visitor from the past, we steal glimpses of six floors of human life.

“Colorful”, on the second floor, uses a soft multi-hued palette to tell the typical “boy meets boy” story: a muscular young man is working as a nude model for drawing classes at an art institute when he catches the eye of the institute’s director. But first they must navigate a tiny barrier that stands between them – the HIV virus. In the world of the 2020s, however, HIV is not the end of love and sex for the infected. Graced by the sensuous lines of the male body, this seductive HIV love story ultimately comes through with a clean bill of health.

After feasting our eyes on the male form on the second floor, we make our way to the third floor, “If You Are…”. The visual style of this comic adaptation of the Hikaru Lee short story “One Hundred Years, One Hundred Meetings” leaves visual space for the text passages to do their work. Having never had a lover, young, single urbanite Wen is feeling like an old maid before her time. We see her swiping away on a dating app in nearly every corner of her slightly messy apartment, hoping to find simple love in the simplest way possible. While many of us are accustomed to thinking of Taipei as a city with no particular aesthetic appeal, as we follow Wen’s searching gaze on her movements through the city, the beauty of urban life takes shape. While the source material deals with the love between two women, one living, one deceased, this adaptation interprets the barrier that separates the living and the dead as a metaphor for the psychological barriers that prevent two people from drawing closer.

The story of the fourth floor, “Playmate”, also deals with lesbian subject matter. Drawn in pencil, the free and sturdy lines have a strong tactile feel. This tale of two women coming together highlights the subtle interactions they share. Washes of pink watercolor create a uniformly feminine space; an amusement park, nail polish, cosmetics, a vegetarian restaurant, and scenes of intimate contact are all done in deep rosy tones.

On the fifth floor, “Trust”, the palette shifts from dusky rose to a more softly feminine pink. The apartment is simply furnished and cramped, but livable enough when done up with a few touches of personal style. The sense of space created by the comic is familiar – the typical metropolitan apartment. For the two attractive urbanites who live there, it is a world all their own, a refuge in which to cultivate their love for each other – that is until a crisis strikes. In truth, it is a crisis so small as to be almost laughable, but it’s enough to reveal the anger, jealously, and mutual suspicion that so often accompanies love, as well as the sweetness and intimacy that holds the two together.

Climbing to the sixth floor we enter “I Had a Good Dream Tonight”, a world of black lines and shades of gray, visually reminiscent of a classic black and white movie. Only the main character’s lustrous head of black hair stands out from the dull gray background tones. In the spirit of realist cinema, we follow her through the routines of the day. Only after we see her taking medications and using the men’s restroom do we realize she is a trans woman in the process of transitioning. While many images of trans women in the media are of hyper-sexualized drag queens, focusing on glamour, makeup, and fashion, “I Had a Good Dream Tonight” is an honest and unadorned portrait touched by a dull anguish that even the advances of 2024 cannot completely erase.

Finally, we arrive on the seventh floor, the highest floor of the building. In Taiwan, the top floors of buildings are often cheaply constructed additions that can be rented at lower cost. Thus, they are often inhabited by students on a budget. Here, with the story “Darling Knight”, we are greeted by full-color images in vigorous, youthful tones. The story is set within the milieu of gay youth culture: workouts at the gym, part-time jobs, pride parades, classes, and social media. Two roommates nurse a budding attraction for each other through good-natured teasing, horsing around, and daily life interactions. Drawn with a touch of prototypical comic book flair, this is a story about dawning self-knowledge and the need to live as one truly is. Throw in a few references to boys love comics, fetishization of the male body, and some humor in the form of a boys-love-obsessed ex-girlfriend, and you have all of the elements needed for a dependable, bread-and-butter LGBTQ comic.

The climb from the first floor to the seventh has taken us on a journey through this many-hued structure of images from the near future, delivering an introspective and thoughtful take on the LGBTQ community in contemporary Taiwan. Media representations of LGBTQ culture have evolved over multiple decades of recent history. While works of literature, theater, film, and television all speak to the creative energy of the community, comic books are perhaps one of the freshest, most enjoyable, and most effective mediums at its disposal. The six comics collected here can be appreciated on the basis of their stories, art, and the issues each addresses. But taken as a whole, this collection’s most affecting attribute is its pervasive sense of familiarity and intimacy. The LGBTQ comics of the past have been sexy, funny, dramatic, satirical… but Rainbow Apartment is probably the first complete LGBTQ comic compilation, and the first that does so much to help normalize LGBTQ lifestyles.

There are so many comic books in this world, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to create. Just thinking about all of the labor and effort required is enough to make one tired. Let us all appreciate the work that went into this magnificent collection, while also looking forward to the work of the future comic creators who will keep telling these important stories. May their beautiful words and images continue to put the pride and dignity of the LBGTQ community on display.

I dimly recall in 1982, while I was still in middle school, I once stumbled across a copy of the Taiwanese movie In Our Time in a pile of boisterous Hong Kong movies. It only caught my eye because Lo Ta-yu had a song by the same name. My impression of Taiwanese films at the time was a complete mess. They gave free showings of patriotic movies like Eight Hundred Heroes and Everlasting Glory in the school auditorium, while commercial movies were either about gambling, or they were so-called “social realist dramas”, salacious tales of vengeance populated by gangsters and their molls. Their suggestively eye-catching posters were pasted pell-mell on the blank walls I passed on the way to school. If I mentioned Taiwan films to my elders, they would reply by shaking their heads with derision.

My father would only take me to see foreign films, explaining that they were more “authentic”. On the basis of that single word, I established my cinematic standard. Domestic productions at the time were generally overdubbed in painfully exacting Mandarin, and the image quality was rigid and grainy. The plots were completely disconnected from real life, like watching a stage play. Thus, I readily adopted my father’s view that the higher quality foreign films were the luxury goods of the cinema marketplace.

Later, in the VHS era, video stores were buzzing with word-of-mouth recommendations for Growing Up. I watched it with my brother and found it moving, so we dragged our mother out to see it. She had the ability to become completely emotionally invested in TV dramas, so I was hoping to see if a Taiwanese film could also get her waterworks going. My mother, a woman with zero faith in the domestic film industry, tears streaming down her cheeks, declared, “It’s fantastic! It really tugs at the heart strings!”

As far as I can recall, that was the first Taiwanese movie that felt “authentic” to me. The characters, the story, the way they talked… it all seemed like the sort of thing I observed all around me in daily life.

Years later I was working in the film industry, and had the good fortune to have brief but beneficial encounters with directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wu Nien-jen, and Ko I-chen, and the great film editor Liao Ching-Sung. Just observing the passion and intelligence they brought to their work was an education in itself, to say nothing of the stories and anecdotes I eagerly listened in on. I began to develop a deep admiration for that generation of movie makers. They were a community of idealistic risk-takers, always lending a hand in each other’s projects. Only then, after my curiosity was finally piqued, did I go back and watch all of those movies I had missed out on before (the same movies my friends had told me were “pretty dull” in my younger days). A vague outline of Taiwan cinema began forming in my mind.

I’m not sure if I had simply matured, or if my experiences had changed me, but those movies we all thought were “pretty dull” now seemed to seethe with a subtle power. Even contemporary film makers would have struggled to match their depth of insight. It defies the imagination that these movies made decades ago, often under difficult circumstances, are still being discussed in international film circles today.

After watching some documentaries and reading about the history of the Taiwan New Wave, I began to understand both the course of its development and its impact. But I was still curious how this group of young movie makers had managed to achieve so much while working within an authoritarian system that discouraged independent thought. With the lifting of martial law still years in the future, many of them had worked directly inside the official media organizations of the KMT, the ruling political party. What were their thoughts in those times? What did they experience?

Years later, as I was flipping through a book by Hsiao Yeh while sitting under a tree waiting for my children’s weekend soccer class, I made a discovery. It turned out Hsiao Yeh had recorded many of his experiences of those times in his books! As I read Hsiao Yeh’s descriptions of those familiar figures, I began thinking: could I draw a graphic novel to retell these stories? Not for the sake of praising movies that had already received ample recognition. Not for the save of celebrating the achievements of those who had long since been recognized as masters of their art. What if I drew this graphic novel solely for the sake of learning and sharing what had happened in those times? What were their thoughts? What had they experienced?

Comic book artist HOM told us how it all began.

It was her first visit to the Yang San-lang Museum in New Taipei City to do background research. As she perused the works of the Taiwanese master of oil painting, she began to observe the details in his handling of color and light, in the thickness of the paint on the canvas. She began wondering about the course of his creative life. Like Yang San-lang, HOM was also an artist interested in capturing youthful vigor and personal belief on canvas. Like him, she had experienced periods of disillusionment, but resolutely refused to put down her brush. Before leaving the museum, her eyes fell on a quotation from Yang San-lang: “In my next life I will still want to paint.” HOM was shaken. “That was the moment the distance between us closed,” she said.

HOM was already the recipient of two Golden Comic awards: Best Youth Comic for Magical Moment: The Actor in 2019, and Best Overall for Big City, Little Things in 2020. She had always worked on contemporary stories with characters roughly her own age. Priceless, a collaboration with the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, was her first undertaking involving historical subject matter, her first book done in color from cover to cover (176 pages), and her first time coping with the pressures of publishing serially online.

Illustrating the Life of a Painter: A New and Intriguing Challenge

Was HOM worried at all about this project? “Not at all. I thought it was interesting! It was a huge challenge for me, something completely new. Telling a historical story, talking about painting. I’d never done anything like it.” A comic book artist illustrating the life of a master of oil paints – the concept alone was enough to intrigue HOM. “Throughout the process I was thinking about how best to express another artist’s ideas on painting, as well as the process of his growth. Even though I’m a painter myself, there were still bound to be many differences between us.”

HOM studied fine arts at university, though she is the first to admit her main concern at the time was passing exams, so she didn’t learn anything about Yang San-lang beyond what was required. On her first visit to the Yang San-lang Museum, when she saw the tools of his trade, including those he used on his trip to France, an idea popped into her head. She would trace his artistic development step by step, from his youth, when he first began painting, on until he became one of Taiwan’s greatest oil painters.

Like a pair of eyes tailing the artist, HOM slowly charted the course of his growth, the changes in his personal vision. “The process of creation allowed my understanding of him to deepen over the course of the project.” It also brought about an artistic breakthrough of her own; in tribute to Yang, she began to utilize changes in light and shadow in her work. “From his paintings I learned he was always chasing the light. Most of the time he was outdoors, painting from life. He enjoyed the way light played across objects. He belonged to the plein air school.”

Understand the Story of the Land Where You Grow, and Keep Painting

Of course, there were also struggles. HOM recalled that she had developed tendinopathy while working on Big City, Little Things Vol. 4 and 5. Her hands hurt every time she lifted them to her keyboard. “Though I was recovering, my hands hurt all the time, even when I wasn’t working. The doctor told me I had to stop, but I felt there was more I wanted to draw! I was hurting in body and spirit. Creative work is so interesting to me, I feel there will always be things I want to draw. I’m past the point of thinking about whether people will like what I do. I’m happy as long as I can keep creating.”

I asked if there was anything she wanted to tell her readers. She answered, “I hope everyone will get to know Taiwan’s artists, and understand the evolution of the fine arts in Taiwan, the history of their development, and the general environment of artistic production. The years of Japanese colonial rule saw vigorous growth in art. In fact, art was flourishing worldwide. Taiwan was absorbing many influences from Japan at the time, so naturally the arts tended towards the official schools of Japanese aesthetics. But there were also artists like Yang San-lang and Tan Teng-pho who leaned more towards Western art.

“This is similar to Taiwan’s current situation with regards to comic book art. Japan was a big influence at first, but more recently there are new influences from Europe, North America, and Korea. The problem is how to blend all of these forces together in a way that strengthens the artistic landscape of Taiwan. For the time being there is no solution. This is the common problem that all Taiwanese artists are grappling with. But whatever, we’ll just keep drawing. So what I’d really like to tell my readers is to go out and feel the pulse of Taiwanese art. Try to understand the entire context of it. This is the land where we grew up. We need to have our own understanding of this place where we were born and continue to grow.”

As an artist herself, and as someone who has adapted the life of Yang San-lang to the comic book medium, I wondered if there were times when HOM felt quite close to the master? HOM answered by going back to the beginning of the project. “It was my first visit to the Yang San-lang Museum. I had already toured all of the exhibits, and just as I was about to leave, I saw this quotation: ‘In my next life I will still want to paint.’ It made total sense to me. Because he loved painting so much there was no room for doubt. He was so incredibly prolific. There’s really no room for doubt. When I saw those words, that was the moment the distance between us closed.”

The first time I saw the cover of Miss T’s Sexcapades in Japan, I thought it might be another typical shojo manga. To be sure, it has plenty about young ladies and their youthful misadventures, but once I took a serious look inside, I discovered so much more than I had imagined. In addition to the above, it is also (and excuse me for spoiling the surprise) a bold and visually explicit exploration of a young woman’s sexual journey. In other words, this is no ordinary comic book!

Books from Taiwan invited RiceDumpling, the creator of Miss T’s Sexcapades in Japan, to have a chat about the development of the book. On the morning that I conducted this phone interview with RiceDumpling, I discovered her voice was as full of energy and enthusiasm as her comics, and the conversation got off to a roaring start.

When the Girl Next Door Meets Prince Charming(s): Miss T and Her Bevy of Beaus

Miss T from the comics gives readers the same refreshing feeling as RiceDumpling herself. She defies the shy and gentle stereotype of Asian women, instead reminding me of that favorite gal-pal many of us have: easy-going, clear about what she wants, unafraid to go out and get it. If she sometimes comes across as rash, it’s always in an endearing way. “If there really was a Miss T in this world, she wouldn’t be all that strange,” is how RiceDumpling describes her. RiceDumpling intended Miss T’s full-contact, no-harm-no-foul approach to life to convey the idea that life is a game – even if you fall down, you can always get up and try again. Miss T’s unflappable attitude in even the most unfortunate and awkward of circumstances helps readers to adopt a more tolerant and relaxed attitude to the book’s often racy content.

And what about Miss T’s various hookups? While most are as dashing and well-heeled as the male love interests in a TV drama, none of them can further Miss T’s mission to maximize pleasure in the sack. “I wanted to work in that gray area between love and hate. That’s what gives the story tension.” RiceDumpling notes that there are a range of reactions to the male characters in the story, according to each reader’s preferences and tastes. In this way, the online fan discussions of the perceived flaws and virtues of these characters has helped to expand the the range of issues addressed in the comics.

Authentic, Bold, and Uproariously Sexy: An Original and Unlikely Combination

In addition to its easy-going narrative style and well-defined cast of characters, one aspect of Miss T’s Sexcapades in Japan that continually intrigues readers is its bold choice of subject matter: online hookups. It’s not just RiceDumpling’s frank approach to writing about one night stands, it’s the fact that she chose to not to sensationalize them, instead writing about sexual exploration as a normal part of adolescence and young adulthood. When asked how she brought realism and humor to hookup culture, a still-controversial topic often associated with content warnings, she responded, “Even with the typical high-school drama there are two sides to the coin: there’s the puppy love and there’s the bullying. The writer can always choose to focus on what’s wonderful about a topic, or they can choose to focus on the darker side of things.” In order to deal with society’s often negative reactions to explicit portrayals of sex, RiceDumpling chose to push in the opposite direction, innovating a new approach that emphasized humor and compelling narrative.

As fresh and outstanding as her work is, RiceDumpling admits that at first she only shared it with close friends. Later she published the first three chapters online, and only after a flood of enthusiastic responses was she finally approached by a publisher. Now her comics is not only selling well in Taiwan, but also in the country where the story is set – Japan!

When a Comic Book Crosses the Line, or The Many Uses of Miss T’s Sexcapades in Japan

A devoted reader of online forums, RiceDumpling has continued to seek out reader feedback even after the publication of her book. To RiceDumpling’s surprise, and through no intention of her own, Miss T’s Sexcapades in Japan has become a sort of aphrodisiac for many couples. One reader claimed that she and her boyfriend had averaged one love-making session per chapter. A complete read-through took the couple two whole days! Readers in the early stages of a romance shared the graphic novel with their partners, and found that it helped them take their relationships to the next level. “I never imagined the book would become an intimacy aid!” RiceDumpling joked.

In addition to improving relationships, RiceDumpling feels that the book also serves a valuable purpose by opening up discussion on difficult subjects. The entire story revolves around sex and hookups, two topics still considered sensitive if not downright controversial in Taiwan. Readers often post about their reading experiences as they progress through the book, creating the opportunity to exchange viewpoints with others. Since the sex comes packaged in a humorous narrative, it helps dispel the awkwardness of broaching a taboo topic. You might even say the book is a conversational lubricant!

Go on an Adventure with Miss T and Discover the Joy of Being a Young Woman

When asked what she hoped Miss T’s journey would mean to readers, RiceDumpling referrenced an online discussion the topic of the benefits of being a young woman. The vast majority of participants were of the opinion there were no benefits – the posters didn’t like being women. Reflecting on her own experiences growing up – dealing with negative stereotypes, the pain of menstruation – RiceDumpling found she was sympathetic to their complaints.

“Reading those comments I found I wanted to draw a story about the joys of being a young woman,” RiceDumpling said. She hoped her readers, in addition to enjoying the story, would feel inspired to go on their own adventures, just like Miss T., RiceDumpling also hoped that by reading the comics, overseas readers can gain a better understanding of Taiwan and the young women who live here.

Home: A Common Ground for People of Different Backgrounds and Viewpoints

“Home” is a story informed by multiple historical viewpoints. Taking the land of Taiwan as common setting, it knits together the lives of American, Japanese, ROC soldiers, and a local Taiwanese woman and her son. For the most part, the stories of these characters are pieced together from historical persons with the addition of material from local folk-tales.

The character of the American pilot is based on Charles V. August, a prisoner of war incarcerated at the Huwei military airfield during World War II. On January 4, 1945, August was shot down as he strafed the airfield with his Grumman F6F Hellcat. His plane was seized by the Japanese and studied to learn more about American military aircraft.

The character of the Taiwanese woman in Japanese clothing is derived from stories about local comfort woman employed by the Japanese soldiers. It is said that the chambers used by the comfort women can still be seen in the remains of the barracks, but it is likely that this is merely local legend.

The character of the ROC airman is based upon research into the lives of the soldiers in charge of equipment maintenance at the Huwei airfield after the Japanese surrender, and the story of an ROC soldier who was forced to camp in a Japanese-built water tower because there was insufficient room in the other buildings.

Final Entry: The Life of a Japanese Pilot Stationed in Taiwan

The character Fuji Takahashi was modeled on the Japanese naval airmen assigned to the Huwei airfield. Many details from the story were drawn from veterans’ memories as recorded in A Squadron of Joy and Pain: Youth at 17, including the feelings of the young pilots towards Taiwan, the local snacks that reminded them of fried rice cakes from Japan, their love of tropical fruits, and the joy they felt upon learning they would be able to eat rice and meat in Taiwan.

In the later stages of World War II, Huwei airfield was used by the Japanese military to train pilots for the war in the Pacific. The primary purpose of the airfield was basic flight training, and many Japanese and Taiwanese recruits had their first experiences of flight while based there. The recollections of these trainees often make note of that first time soaring up into the sky and the excitement of breaking through into the open expanses above the cloud layer. “It’s so wonderful! Is this what Heaven is like?” one of them exclaimed. The experiences of the pilots in the story are an accurate representation of the feelings of the naval airmen of the Huwei airfield.

Class Dismissed: Interactions Between Local Taiwanese and Recently Arrived Mainlanders

The story “Class Dismissed” is concerned with the interactions between local Taiwanese and the recent arrivals from the mainland in the wake of the 1949 ROC retreat to Taiwan, set within the context of the military family housing settlement that was established near the airfield. The crisscrossing pools behind Jianguo First Village were the result of American bombing during World War II. After filling with rainwater, the craters formed deep pools that were used as swimming holes by the children of the village, sometimes leading to incidents of drowning.

The school attended by the children in the story began as the Huwei Air Force Dependents Elementary School, which only accepted the children of those serving in the ROC air force. In 1966 the name was changed to Zheng-Min Elementary School and the school began to accept children of all backgrounds. This led to the situation depicted in the story, in which local children were fined for speaking their native language of Taiwanese, as opposed to the national language of Mandarin. The National Language Movement of the 1960s and the experience of being fined for speaking Taiwanese left deep impressions in the collective memory of the people of the era.

Handkerchief in Hand: Marital Relations Through Rootless Times

After the release of new guidelines for the renovation of outdated military family housing settlements in 1996, many residents of older facilities were forced to move out, and Jianguo First Village in Huwei was no exception. After relocations were carried out between 2004 and 2006, Jianguo First Village ceased to exist as anything but a historical side note. Only after a successful campaign by local preservationists did the village return to use in a new form.

“Handkerchief in Hand” reflects the decades of changes experienced by the residents of Taiwan’s military family housing settlements. The anxieties of the loving couple in the story were commonplace in the midst of the ROC retreat to Taiwan. The technical skills possessed by air force and naval personnel gave them an advantage when securing the resources required to relocate their families during the retreat. Army personnel, on the other hand, often came over to Taiwan alone, leaving their spouses and dependents behind. From the endless waiting and homesickness in the early years in Taiwan, to the disappointments experienced when travel to China was once again permitted, to the final relocation out of the outdated settlements, the story illustrates the struggles of these military families. Like colonies of duckweed, they lived a rootless existence, transplanted from one body of water to another, only to be scooped up again and carried away by the passage of time. Helpless to decide their own fate and bitter from broken promises, the suffering and futility they endured are woven into the history of military settlements all across Taiwan.

Summary: Documenting Place, Understanding History, and Wishing for a Peaceful Future

These four stories adopt various historical and ethnic perspectives on Jianguo First Village, bringing to life a rich array of memories regarding the ethnic tensions and conflicts produced by war. Though some of these groups saw each other as enemies or adversaries, in the end each lived out their lives on this same patch of land.

Viewing the land itself as the common denominator helps to illustrate that each character’s story is but one small piece of history, each with roots in the events of World War II. Moving beyond the conflicting worldviews and ethical debates, we discover each character’s suffering is real, and the resolution of their suffering only comes through mutual understanding.

Four Clear Days in Early Summer not only documents the memory of place, it also expresses a wish: that we can better understand the rich diversity of our history through the lives of these distinct characters. Even more, it is a wish for world peace and the end of all wars.