Colección del castillo de alburquerque

The boys in "The Boys from Fengkuei" (Fengkuei lai te jen , 1983) are village youths who, finding life in a small village restricting, m ove to the big city. T he story starts on Penghu, a sm all, scenic island o f f T aiw an. The m ain protagonist, A-ch'ing's home is in a village with clear view s o f the sea. But, as we m ight expect o f an adolescent, the natural beauty o f his surroundings does n o t im press him, and on a clear bright afternoon he is restle ss and bo red to death, as he has nothing to do except hanging around or riding a m otorcycle with his friends.

His parents seem to him to be stuck in an unchanging rut o f routine which makes him want to "escape from their old and dark house"28 W hen he goes to the cinema, the building is broken down, with "light coming through the hole in the ro o f and reflecting o ff the dust in the air" ju st like his depressing hom e.29 The film s shown are out-of-date "grandmother's films," and w atching them, "he feels his life is little by little, trickle (drip) by trickle, drifting away from the arms he opens like the character "ta," like a m uddy river, flowing, flowing, flowing, unceasingly flowing past, he will finally erode away and die."30 The boredom o f his life makes him feel that "he would like to fight someone."31

His friends share his feelings. Sometimes, when they are in a good mood, they dive fo r clam s and sell them to the seafood restau ran t, or search for beautiful coral to sell to tourists. W ith the money they earn, they gamble. This eventually leads to the incident which makes him decide to leave the island for the city. He and his friends get involved in fighting w ith the p etty gangsters from whom he has w on some money, and he gets in trouble w ith the authorities His m other becom es very angry with him, and so, fed-up and asham ed, he and two friends, A-jung and Kuo Tzu decide to go the city, Kaohsiung.

A lthough they have relatives and friends from their village to help them find a place to live and a job in an electronics factory, it is still difficult to adjust. T hey find the city strange and frightening. The rush h o u r traffic looks like a disorderly "field o f cars," and at night "tongues o f flam e" leap up from "the oil refinery" as though they are "licking the sky."32 In the city even acts o f kindness can be m isunderstood. W hen the friends go to help a m an injured in a

28. "Fengkuei lai te jen" (The Boys from Fengkuei), TYHSC, p. 41. 29, Ibid,, p. 42.

20, Ibid., p. 43. The character "ta" means "big" in Chinese. 21. Ibid., p. 40.

car accident, the man's relatives assume that the young m en have caused the accident— why else would they want to help?

N ext Chu shows how the friends' lives in K aohsiung begin to diverge. W hile A-ch'ing studies Japanese in his leisure time, his friends get involved in the night life— chasing factory girls and hanging out with friends o f doubtful character. A village friend, A-ho, who had come to the city earlier, gets in trouble with the police, and decides to get away by working as a sailor. But he has been living with his girl friend, Hsiao-hsing, and does not know that she has become preg n an t. A t the tim e o f the story, this w ould be c o n sid ere d m orally reprehensible, and so Hsiao-hsing, who wants to be independent, determ ines to have an abortion.

A -ch'ing is attracted to H siao-hsing and th ey beco m e frien d ly , he accom panies her on the visit to the abortionist, and w hen he needs to go to his village for his father's funeral, Hsiao-hsing goes with him. On their return from the small island, A-ch'ing feels vulnerable living in the city, and seem s to have lost a sense o f direction in his life, and Hsiao-hsing decides to w ork in Taipei and to end her relationship with A-ho. However, the trip back to the village serves to introduce Chu's contrapuntal theme o f the security provided to A -ch'ing by his village roots. Although he is uncertain in his life in the city, w hen he w ent home, his fam ily and the people o f the village welcomed him. E veiybody invited him to stop for a cup o f tea and a chat. Having this foundation as his spiritual support, even though he is now apart from them, living in the city, he can depend on a firm relationship w ith his hom e and village to provide h im w ith a sense o f identity, and encourage him to take a more positive attitude tow ards life.

The final episode describes the boys sitting on the banks o f the city river recalling their happy times on their island swimming in the sea. A ttem pting to repeat that experience, they run into the river and swim together, talking about

their dreams o f getting m arried and having children. A lthough they find relief from their fears in swimming, nonetheless, a feeling o f uncertainty about their future lingers: "The beach is extended into the unknowable distance, in the same way, they do not know what direction they will take."33

The m ajority o f the rural people who go to work in the city are dedicated to sending money back to their rural homes, even at the expense o f a comfortable life for themselves. For instance, A-jung's sister, a backing dancer with a band, sends m oney to help to build an extension to her fam ily's house, and always takes gifts home on national holidays. Because o f this, she is not well off. W hen A-jung and A-ch'ing first show up in Kaohsiung to see her, she is eating a bowl o f cheap instant noodles.

Chu's portrayal is in accord with m ost Nativist's descriptions o f the harsh life o f w orking class people. In his poem E xport P ro cessin g Zone, w ritten in 1979, Li Ch'ang-hsien sim ilarly explores the financial burden borne by female factory w orkers.34 M ost N ativist writers hoped their w riting w ould contribute towards m aking an improvement in the working classes' m aterial conditions; in d escrip tio n s o f w orking class people, they w ould em p h asise the worker's prim itive living conditions. For exam ple, two stories from the n ovelist Yang C h'ing-ch’u's collection F actory P eople (K ung-ch'ang je n , 1975) explore the problem s o f factory w orkers.35 In "Low Class People" (T i-ten g je n ) Yang discusses the conditions o f the temporary workers, and tells o f one m an who had w orked in a factory for thirty years, still considered tem porary by his company. He has no housing benefits, no bonus, no insurance, and no pension, he is not

33. Ibid., p. 70.

34. See P'eng Jui-chin's analysis, Taiwan wen-hsueh t ’an so (The Search of Taiwanese Literature) (Taipei: Ch'ien-wei ch'u-pan-she, 1995), p. 167.

35. See Kao T'ien-sheng, Taiwan hsiao-skuo yii hsiao-shuo chia (Novels and Novelists from Taiwan) (Taipei: Ch'ien-wei chu-pan-she, 1994), p. 163.

even allowed to take the company bus. W hen he is notified that he is going to be fired, he throws him self in front o f the manager's car, hoping his death will get some money for his elderly father. This is one o f m any stories in w hich Yang exposes the ruthless exploitation o f workers. In another story, "Factory People" Yang prom otes the idea o f dem ocratic self-governing w orkers’ organisations. During the 1970s the head o f the worker’s organisation was often the factory boss, with the result that the organisation did not protect its m em bers rights.

As C hu m oved tow ards the n a tiv ist p o sitio n , p o rtra y in g w orkers sym pathetically, her workers too live in dilapidated and rundow n conditions. They have to rely on their dreams, and study in o ff duty hours, to further their search for a better life. But, it is important to note that her sym pathy does not extend to putting forward actual or potential social m easures to relieve their lot. A passage taken from the "Boys" shows a group o f young m en looking at H siao-hsing’s handkerchief, in which the rainbow colours o f the h an d k erch ief symbolise not only the young m en’s sexual awakening, but also a rom antic ideal world;

Hsiao-hsing also works in the factory. E veiy m orning th ey have to take the ferry from Chi-chin to the city, most o f the time, w hen they leave home, H siao-hsing and Chin-ho (A-ho) have already gone to w ork. As they w ent downstairs, they always see a lonely h an d k erch ief hanging on the diying fram e on the balcony, som etim es it looks apple green, goose yellow, water blue, or eggplant purple like a square dream , sw inging in the hallw ay draught, waving to people.36

36 "Fengkuei lai te jen", TYHSC, p. 53.

Chu's young men are lonely and lack social position, and their dreams are som ew hat unreal and sentim ental. On the other hand, w hile Y ang too is sympathetic, he focuses on the power struggle in the workplace. It m ust be said that C hu is rather paternalistic in her attitude to the w orkers, th ere is no suggestion that her workers w ill rebel against the status quo; w hereas Yang's workers are more confrontational to the management.

B ecause C hu is a strong believ er in trad itio n , in h e r p o rtray al o f immigrants to the city, villagers such as A-ch'ing are shown as m orally innocent and caring. For instance, the scenes o f young m en playing around or fighting w hich usually feature in Chu's stories about adolescents, are depicted as play or the result o f a sudden burst o f temper, rather like anim al cubs, sym bolising a growing sense o f freedom and strength. Often there is no definite conclusion, the fight ju st fades away. W hen there is a serious fight the participants escape to the sea to purify them selves in the pure w ater and clean se th eir "filthy, em otionally exhausted bodies":

Inch by inch the sunset eats up the beach. Finally, it becom es dark as the sun sinks into the ocean, the sand blows in the w ind, and the delicate, clear evening breeze m akes people feel very, v ery tired , w anting to ab an d o n th eir fo u l and heavy bags o f skin and le t the tid e carry themselves away. . . ,37

H ow ever, this is not a stoiy o f crime and punishm ent, these young m en do not have to end up under arrest in order to accept their faults, the cleansing o f their bodies in the sea symbolises the sense o f m oral awareness.

The treatm ent o f "The Boys from Fengkuei" is more experim ental than the first two film stories discussed, with much m ore lingering reflectio n on the protagonist's feelings o f boredom and waste o f time. Instead o f conventional p lo t developm ent, the story jum ps from episode to episode w ith o u t linking passages, in a way more reminiscent o f film techniques.

Chu's change in attitude from her Three-Three days is evident enough in her acceptance o f the couple who choose to live in "sin," and her sym pathy for the girl who chooses to have an abortion rather than rem ain in a restrictive relationship. Unlike M other Pi in "The Story o f Hsiao-Pi," H siao-hsing is more independent and is willing to be pro-active in working out her own life.

In "Boys from Fengkuei," Chu depicted the transition from adolescence to adulthood, the in secu rity and perils o f venturing from the (u n ap p reciated ) security o f the parents' house into a world which is usually indifferent and often hostile, a transition which is sometimes cushioned by the know ledge that home is still there behind them.