Sun, Sep 12, 1999 page21

• Insightful social critic returns from long European sojourn

  • By Joyce Yen
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  In Chinese, her surname means dragon. Shortly after Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) came back from the US in 1983, she started a weekly column in The China Times and delivered one caustic social criticism after another like a dragon spitting fire, leaving no corner of the island unburned.

  Her column was aptly titled "The Wild Fires" (野火集) and so was the book that the essays would eventually be collected in. The writings made the young American literature professor an instant icon and the compilation, which came out in December 1985, became the best-selling and the most-talked-about book of the decade in Taiwan.

  Now, more than 10 years later, many social historians mark the "wild fires" phenomenon as the starting point of the cascade of events that transformed Taiwan into one of the most democratic countries in Asia. Before the island-wide university strike in 1989, before the death of Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in 1988, before the lifting of martial law in 1987, and before the founding of the DPP in 1986, there was the voice of a young woman impatiently asking: "O Chinese, why aren't you angry?"

  

  Influential critic

  There was nothing revolutionary in Lung's writings. Many writers and intellectuals before her had risked their lives and boldly asked for democracy and more individual freedom. Bo Yang (柏楊), Chen Ying-chen (陳映真) and Li Ao (李敖) had all gone to jail for their beliefs. As she was writing, many journalists and writers were put in chains for voicing their dissent point-blank.

  Yet, from the beginning, Lung chose to be influential rather than heroic. She knew what not to write in order to keep her column in a newspaper read by one million people. She knew when to be vague, and she tactically masked her dissatisfaction with the political machine while poignantly questioning quality of life in general. When she asked why Taiwan's elementary schools could only afford to build more statues but not toilets, the conservatives answered back that no kid in Taiwan had ever died of a bloated bladder. It only made her attackers appear more foolish.

  In retrospect, the book was a runaway success not only because of its eloquence and tact but also because of its timely appearance. In an earlier era, no newspaper would have dared run a column such as hers. But when the island was loosening up and letting out a cacophony of battle cries for a myriad of causes, it would become more difficult for a single voice like hers to inspire a phenomenon.

  The year following the publication of her first book, she emigrated with her Swiss husband to Europe. Since then, she has only come back for short visits and did not see for herself the bloodless revolution that she helped trigger.

  Lung continues to write profusely, in more than one language and for more than one audience. It is not unusual for her to publish an essay simultaneously in Taipei's China Times and Shanghai's Wen Hui Bao, with the German version appearing in the Frankfurter Allgemein, and the English version on the BBC's European service. To the Chinese audience, she offered a first-hand report of the fall of the Berlin Wall. To the European audience, she explained what it was like for Taiwan to hold the first-ever presidential election in Chinese history under military threats from Beijing.

  None of her subsequent books published in Taiwan have sold even half as many as the first. Nowadays, it is in China where her books are raking up the highest sales figures and her lectures are drawing the largest crowds.

  Rhetorical tactician

  Again, she is practicing the rhetorical tactic perfected in her first book. She bypasses all the unmentionables like forced abortions and the Tiananmen Square incident and chooses instead to write about Germany's high respect for human rights.

  In 1997, when she did stumble into controversy in China, it was all for a tongue-in-cheek essay about men's masculinity in Shanghai. A bedroom farce at most, the ensuing verbal battle didn't trigger a revolution -- instead, it only served to make her more famous on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

  If there is a place in the world where one can say she is infamous now, it is in Singapore. In 1995, an essay she wrote for the China Times, "I Am Glad I Am Not Singaporean," was reprinted in a Singaporean paper.

  "I don't like people telling me if I can chew gum. I want to be able to buy the foreign magazines I would like to read," she wrote. "No matter how high the economic growth, how safe the streets, how efficient the government I am offered, I am not willing to sacrifice one speck of my personal freedom and self-esteem in exchange."

  The Singaporeans' nationalistic feelings couldn't have been more hurt. Their reaction was unanimous, at least judging from the letters to the editor in various Singaporean publications: they were all glad she was not Singaporean.

  Now Lung is coming back to Taipei to become the city government's chief cultural officer. The least surprised would be those familiar with her writings and lectures. Although, for the past 20 years, she has spent more time living in the West than on Chinese soil, one thing in her remains thoroughly Chinese: the conviction that the pen is mightier than the sword, but a high-ranking official's cachet is the mightiest of all.

  As early as 1985, she was lamenting that the price to be paid for writing The Wild Fires was that she would never become a government official in her lifetime. After some fast and sweeping changes had taken place in Taiwan in 1997, she said that if President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) -- who had weathered his share of the Dragon Lady's criticisms -- would offer her the post of chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs, she would come back to Taiwan.

  Now, her wish has come true -- almost. Many wonder if a longtime critic of the establishment can fit into the red tape jungle of a sprawling municipal government. But no one can doubt her great communication skills and razor-sharp mind. Perhaps we shouldn't place any bets on the possibility of cultural exchanges between Singapore and Taipei, but in the months and years to come, we can all expect to see something very different in Taipei's cultural atmosphere.
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