While writing the paper, I ended up consulting with my mother on the phone in regards to how to properly approach my project about her family history, and to learn more about what her parents experienced growing up during Japanese occupancy in Taiwan. I felt a little stunted on writing out a step-by-step semester project, as I realized I also needed to include interviews with those outside of her Native Taiwanese family– those whose parents migrated with Nationalist Party in the 1950s. She told me her father has early memories of hearing bomb sirens and having to run with his family into a bomb shelter when he was 5 years old. Given his trauma with war, he is the only one in her family who does not favor independence if there is a violent war in exchange.

When I asked her about her mothers experience growing up, she told me she a very different opinion given that her brother was a victim of “White Terror”– a period of political repression on the civilians imposed by the Kuomintang Part when they migrated from Mainland China after the Chinese Communist Party won. She told me her younger brother had been arrested at the age of 19 because he attended a book club meeting at the age of 16, unbeknownst to him that several of his friends identified as socialists, and so by association he was charged with “conspiring against the Nationalist Party”. When I asked her how long he spent time in prison, I expected maybe 4-5 months locked in a jail cell, but she casually responded he spent 10 years in a concentration camp. She mentioned that he is still alive residing in Taipei, and is a former author who’s published several books. But she couldn’t remember his name at all.

When I looked online for any results for ‘white terror taiwan author’, I ended up finding a detailed interview he gave to the author Julie Wu, who graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Literature, on the second page of Google.

https://thediplomat.com/2014/03/-taiwans-white-terror/

In it she details his life at the concentration camp “New Life Correction Center” on the island Hue Sho To– now called Green Island– where he spent 10 years doing physical labor for his ‘crimes’– crimes in which he was tortured into confessing. She states he offered to do the toughest jobs in order to “strengthen his weak constitution”, so while he spent the days making rice for prisoners which required carrying 60-80 kilogram buckets of water, he spent the nights teaching himself English and teaching his illiterate bunkmate, Huang, to read Chinese.

The part of the article that threw me off was that after he served his 10 years at the concentration camp, he returned home to be greeted by his mother and sister, only to learn that his father committed suicide one year after his arrest. He says he blamed himself for his fathers death, believing that if he had been a tougher, stronger boy, his father would not have worried so much about him.

“This is why I hate myself,” he says now.

My mother informed me that his mom, her grandmother, couldn’t handle the grief of losing her husband and son in such a short period of time and being left to take care 9 children as a single mom in Japanese occupied Taiwan, and for that reason has attempted suicide multiple times. But in the end, kept going.

Towards the end of the interview, he recalls rekindling with his childhood crush and finally joining in marriage. And though there were dark times when a flood destroyed his headquarters, leaving his company bankrupt and depriving his friends (who he hired from his same concentration camp) of their income, he left his newborn son with his sister-in-law and headed to the seashore with his wife to drown together. Fortunately, the sister in law stopped them before anything could happen.

His name is Tsai Kunlin. I still haven’t been able to find books that he has published online, but even if this project never comes into fruition, I feel a sense of obligation to tell his story given the small connection I have with him, even if it’s a few degrees apart.