A Taipei District Court judge yesterday ordered the government to pay Taiwanese dance-legend Tsai Jui-yueh (
The White Terror era, from 1949 to 1987, was a period of harsh political repression under KMT rule. During this time martial law was in force and many people -- especially intellectuals and the cultural elite -- were persecuted.
Tsai's husband, Lei Shih-yu (雷石榆), was arrested and detained in 1949. A few months later, he was sent to China by ship. No reason has ever been given for his arrest, detention and enforced exile.
Lei was then a professor of Chinese Literature at the National Taiwan University. In mid-1949, the young couple decided to leave Taiwan for the safer haven of Hong Kong, where Lei was to teach at the Chinese University and Tsai was to give dance lessons.
But the day before their departure, two intelligence officers came for Lei and took him away in full view of a roomful of visitors who had gathered for a farewell party.
Lei was expelled from Taiwan with dozens of other professors. Tsai and her baby boy were forbidden to leave Taiwan with him.
It wasn't until 1990 -- 41 years after their forced separation -- that the couple met again. By that time Lei had remarried in China.
After Tsai's release, her lawyer sought an explanation from the KMT government for her detention. She was told she was considered a traitor after she received a letter from Lei.
While offering some compensation for her ordeal, the court said that investigators had found insufficient evidence to prove Tsai had been detained for the amount of time she claimed.
Tsai listed her day of arrest as Nov. 13, 1949, and her day of release as Jan. 7, 1953, more than three years. For her time in detention, she asked the court for NT$3.94 million.
Unfortunately for Tsai, KMT records fail to bear out her claims.
According to the presiding judge, the documentation states that she was detained from March 19 to Aug. 4, 1950.
Tsai, who now lives in Australia, was unavailable for comment, but a Taipei-based colleague surnamed Lin told the Taipei Times that she was pleased with the outcome of the trial.
Tsai, 81 years old, went to Japan to train in modern dance as a teenager. When she returned to Taiwan, she began a career as a dancer and dance instructor. In 1964, she established Taiwan's first dance studio, the China Dance Club Studio (
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