Like many of his generation, Huang I-chieh (黃奕捷) didn’t talk politics with his parents. But that all changed in 2014, when he participated in the Sunflower movement’s 23-day occupation of the legislature’s main chamber to protest the government’s opaque handling of the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement.
“My parents often called to see how I was doing. It was the first time that we’d ever really discussed politics,” Huang says.
It was not just Huang. His friends and fellow artists Liao Hsuan-chen (廖烜榛), Lee Chia-hung (李佳泓) and Wang Yu-ping (王又平) all had similar experiences.
Photo courtesy of Huang I-chieh
Over the past five years a new wave of student protest movements have emerged, including campaigns against the forced demolition of houses in the Wenlin Yuan (文林苑) urban renewal project and the destruction of Taipei’s Huaguang Community (華光社區).
And like many other young protesters, the experiences of these four fine arts students prompted them to look into Taiwan’s political past, enlisting their families to explore Taiwan’s democracy movements.
“We feel it is important to shed light on ordinary people like our parents — their memories, history and how their life experiences shape their views on politics,” Huang says.
Photo courtesy of Huang I-chieh
RECENT POLITICAL HISTORY
The result is Time Splits in the River (錢江衍派), a film project about the Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件), a brutal confrontation in 1979 between the pro-democracy dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) opposition and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) one-party rule, which resulted in the imprisonment of eight activists.
In the first part, the filmmakers ask their fathers, who are all in their 50s, to play the role of a Martial Law-era political dissident. In the second part, the four show their parents the filmed footage and discuss its significance.
The film’s first segment is inspired by the life of Shih Ming-cheng (施明正), a painter, novelist and the younger brother of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson and democracy advocate Shih Ming-te (施明德), who was one of those imprisioned.
In the 1960s, Shih Ming-cheng was imprisoned for five years because of Shih Ming-te’s involvement in political activism. He published two award-winning novels in the early 1980s, One Who Longs for Death (渴死者) and One Who Drinks Urine (喝尿者), now noted as pioneering works of Taiwanese prison literature.
In 1988, the younger Shih went on a hunger strike in support of his older brother, who was then serving a life sentence for his participation in the Kaohsiung Incident.
Four months later, Shih Ming-cheng died of heart failure at the age of 54.
The filmmakers say they chose Shih Ming-cheng because the artist was willing to die for his political beliefs. For the parents, however, the life of Shih Ming-cheng acts as a vehicle to revisit an earlier era.
REMEMBERING THE PAST
One of the films more poignant scenes involves Huang I-chieh’s father Huang Nan-yang (黃南洋), who plays Taiwanese writer Chung Chao-cheng (鍾肇政), and the fictional discussion he has with with Shih Ming-cheng, played by Lee Kun–ming (李坤明).
Chung/Huang recalls being a high school student during the Kaohsiung Incident, when he gave a speech in front of the whole school railing against the “riot inciters,” as the dissidents were described by the KMT-controlled media. He sold his collection of stamps — his entire savings — and donated the earnings to a government’s fundraising campaign to buy tanks.
But as the film proceeds, Huang Nan-yang steps out of character and starts reminiscing about his own life as an ordinary Taiwanese growing up under martial law.
In another scene, Lee Chia-hung’s father, Lee Kun–ming, steps out of character to discuss police torture in vivid detail, revealing his work as a police officer before retirement.
“The performance leads to something really true and honest,” Lee Chia-hung says.
GENERATIONAL DIALOGUE
Huang Nan-yang says Taiwanese society has undergone significant change over the past few decades. Like most people of his generation, he grew up believing his goal in life was to “work hard, make money and have a family,” and “it was better to leave politics in the hands of political experts,” he says.
“My generation was brainwashed into thinking we were Chinese. But if you tell our children that they are Chinese, they will say you are crazy,” 54-year-old Huang Nan-yang says.
“We will show support when they are out on the streets protesting. They are doing something that my generation should have done but never did because we were too busy earning a living,” Huang Nan-yang adds.
For the filmmakers, the project opens up a channel of communication and allows them to gain a better understanding of Taiwan’s past and present through the eyes of their parents’ generation.
“I do not know what change it [the project] will bring, but at least, we start talking,” Lee Chia-hung says.
Time Splits in the River is scheduled to play at Taipei Contemporary Art Center (台北當代藝術中心), located at 11, Ln 49, Baoan Street, Taipei City (台北市保安街49巷11號), from tomorrow to Sunday. The artists will hold a talk and discuss their work on Sunday. For more information, go to the event’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/events/1214639261910354.
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