At the heart of this book lies the essential ambiguity of the colonial experience. On the one hand there is a desire to be rid of the foreign master. But on the other is a profound desire to emulate him, and in the final analysis become the same as him. In the European colonies, differences of skin color make this all but impossible. But with Japanese colonizing Taiwanese it always remained a perpetual and alluring possibility.
In pursuing this study the author interviewed 10 surviving doctors from the colonial era, eight in Taiwan and two in Japan. All, interestingly, chose to speak to him in Taiwanese rather than Mandarin, though often reverting to Japanese from time to time to explain particular issues. And all, when pressed, expressed their dislike or suspicion of the KMT, though disagreeing on their preferred alternative.
There is an interesting chapter on Japanese doctors in occupied eastern China during the 1930s. There, too, modern medicine was introduced as a legitimizing procedure. Because we bring you effective cures for your ailments, the argument went, our presence in your country must be a good thing. Another way of looking at it would be to call it compulsory modernization by force of arms.
Back in Taiwan, relationships between individuals routinely formed exceptions to more general attitudes. After watching his former mentor depart for Japan in 1945, one Dr. Chen wrote in a centennial publication of Taipei's National Taiwan University Hospital: "Seeing Professor Kurosawa board the truck and leave us, I thought to myself: `Mountains and oceans are being placed between us, but the physical distance will never weaken this teacher-student relationship that we've shared.'"
Chen's colleagues had the same affection for their former professor, and as a result they arranged for him to revisit them in Taipei in 1966.
This book is in essence an academic work, rather than one aimed at the general reader. Nevertheless, it throws interesting light on a specific historical situation. And the author also raises an important general question: What are we to think of real improvements that come about as a result of an undesirable political situation? As he succinctly puts it, "Does it matter by whom science is delivered to a local community, so long as it is delivered?"
His answer is complex, but one thing is clear. This is exactly the question that faced those Taiwanese doctors of 60 years ago and more. And in practice their answer was "No." They believed in science, and as a result they simply went ahead and delivered it anyway.
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