"Rather Burn Out, Than Rust Out"
A brief history of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, stories of Mackay's mission, and the possibility of mending cracks in the community?
There was sad news from the U.S. last week: a mass shooting took place at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Southern California. The gunman was a Taiwanese immigrant who has been a member of the National Association for China’s Peaceful Reunification (NACPU). Dr. John Cheng stood up against the gunman and died unfortunately, but his heroic deeds saved many, and the casualties were only one dead and five wounded.
Seeing the location of the crime chosen by the gunman, I immediately thought of the relationship between the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the Taiwan independence movement (which I believe is also familiar to many Taiwanese). Starting from this incident, I take an indirect approach and talk about some stories of early years of the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, as a way of mourning.
Lastly, there is information about our reading club. We held the first meeting last Saturday and enjoyed the rich discussion. Thank all the participating friends! If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register and read Pai Hsien-Yung’s Taipei People together next time!
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這篇文章的中文版在這裡。
A mass shooting took place at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Southern California last week. The gunman was a Taiwanese immigrant who has been a member of the National Association for China’s Peaceful Reunification (NACPU), and the Presbyterian Church chosen by the gunman as the location of the crime bears deep relationship with the Taiwan independence movement. The ideological conflict of Chinese annexation and Taiwan independence here is self-evident.
There have been many analyses of this incident, on the politics of annexation and independence, national identity, etc., and of course it also involves the issue of the proliferation of guns in the United States. In fact, just the day before this mass shooting in the church, another mass shooting took place in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 and wounding 3. (And just as I prepare to publish this piece, yet another mass shooting took place in an elementary school in Texas, killing 19 students and two adults.)
Here are some of the related discussions I’ve read:
Chen Jiahong 陳嘉宏, “Chen Jiahong Column: Chou Wenwei Sealed in a Time Capsule” 陳嘉宏專欄: 被封存在時空膠囊裡的周文偉, Up Media, 20 May 2022, in which Chen points out that this incident should not be explained by “conflicts between waishengren and benshengren.” I think at least among the younger generation or in current-day Taiwan, people already view “conflicts between waishengren and benshengren” as a thing of the past.
Jocelyn Chung, “We won't be erased. Church shooting strikes at our identity as Taiwanese Americans,” USA Today, 17 May 2022, in which Chung elaborates the history of Taiwanese Americans and their oppressed past.
Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu, “How to respond to the shooting at Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church?” A Broad and Ample Road, 22 May 2022, in which Michelle and Albert talk about ways of grieving.
Therefore, I would like to approach the incident more indirectly by talking about the early history of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, with which I have more connection personally. I read materials written by Europeans and Americans who came to Taiwan in the 1860s to 1900s, read Mackay’s diary a few years ago, and wrote an article about Mackay. Therefore, when I think of the Presbyterian Church, the first thing that comes to my mind is the history of the church’s early establishment, especially the stories of Mackay.
The Presbyterian Church has a long history in Taiwan. After the opening of the treaty ports in Taiwan in the 1860s, many Europeans and Americans came to Taiwan as merchants, missionaries, and diplomats, among whom was the Presbyterian Church. The first missionary sent by the English Presbyterian Church was James Laidlaw Maxwell (1836 - 1921), who arrived at Taiwan in 1865. He first set up a hospital in Taiwanfu (台灣府, today’s Tainan), but was expelled by the local people, so he went to Takao (today’s Kaohsiung) and set up a church and a hospital in Kiau (旗後), and returned to Taiwanfu only after 1868.
In December 1871, George Leslie Mackay (1844 - 1901) came to Taiwan from Canada. Given that the English Presbyterian Church was already operating in the south, Mackay decided to go north to Tamsui to start the mission work in northern Taiwan. In March 1872, Mackay arrived in Tamsui, where he temporarily stayed at the home of John Dodd (1838-1907), a Scottish merchant, and later rented a house nearby. The story about Mackay’s house rental was extraordinary.
Mackay rented an old house in Tamsui that was to serve as a stable, and after cleaning, he pasted a sheet of Ten Commandment on the door. Mackay wrote in his diary about the reaction of the people: Seeing the sheet, “crowds gathered, talked aloud, blustered, threatened etc. and tore it off. I put out another. The crowd got more excited and angry, threw mud against the door and finally daubed the sheet with it. When they scattered, I put out another. They left it alone, but made many threatening remarks when passing.”1 Though based in Tamsui, Mackay spent most of his time traveling for the mission work. For example, in 1874, Mackay stayed in Tamsui for only about 2 months in total, and it is common to walk 30 kilometers a day when traveling around.
It can be said that Mackay established the church among people who initially opposed him with his strong will, and finally won the trust and respect of people with his persistent work. Not only did Mackay establish churches in various places, he also treated diseases and extracted teeth for many people. By 1898, the number of Christians of the Presbyterian Church reached 10,000 in the south and about 3,000 in the north (the population of Taiwan was about 2.5 to 3 million at that time2 ).
Although the arrival of the church was inseparable from the expansion of Western colonial powers, it was probably due to the diligent work of missionaries that people in Taiwan view the church in a positive way. This year marks the 150th anniversary of Mackay’s arrival in Tamsui, and many events have been held to commemorate Mackay’s spirit that “rather burn out, than rust out.”
In addition to missionary work and medical care, another major influence of the Presbyterian Church was the creation of Pe̍h-oē-jī (POJ, 白話字), which uses the Roman alphabet to spell Taiwanese and creates an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use writing system for a society with a low literacy rate at that time, along with the publication of the Church News (initially 台灣府城教會報 Taiwanfu Church News, now 台灣教會公報 Taiwan Church News) in POJ. Today, the Presbyterian Church still holds services in Taiwanese, a fact related to this historical origin.
Another impressive thing about the Presbyterian Church was its deep relationship with the Taiwan independence movement. The long-term experience of working in grassroot communities and the pursuit of justice shaped the church’s firm position in support of democracy and human rights. In the 1970s, when Taiwan was still ruled under martial law, fearless of oppression, the church issued “Statement on Our National Fate by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan” (1971), “Our Appeal by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan” (1975) and “A Declaration on Human Rights by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan” (1977), in which they insisted that “the future of Taiwan shall be determined by the 17 million people who live there.”
These probably marked the outline of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan in my mind.3
So this incident both shocked and saddened me. At the same time, I also wondered about the possible ways to mend the cracks in our community. But to raise this question seems difficult enough, and even to suggest it may be infuriating: If the community in our minds is something completely different, is there any community at all? At present when the colonial legacy of the KMT party-state has not yet been dispersed, will talking about reconciliation and tolerance be reduced to servility and empty talk, achieving nothing yet sacrificing one’s own dignity?
This mass shooting incident reminds me of a stranger I met on a bus a few weeks ago. That day I took the less usual route and sat by the window. A girl student sat next to me, and across the aisle was an old man in his 60s or 70s. The old man asked the girl how long it would take to his destination stop. I listened to their conversation, thinking he was just asking for directions, and that the conversation would end in two or three exchanges. Unexpectedly, the old man continued chatting with the girl after the first questions. He asked the girl what her major was and where she was going, and he also rambled about his own mishaps: that his wife was seriously ill, that he was beaten by his son last time he went to live with him, and that the students he taught were lazy and inattentive. I thought what a strange person, and what an improper way to engage another in a conversation. Yet the girl next to me was polite: she listened quietly, answering questions when asked, and the old man wished her good luck on her bar exam when he got off the bus in a hurry.
This encounter stayed in my memory and provoked me to reflect on myself later. The girl was very kind; in contrast, was my drawing boundaries for (in)appropriateness and (ab)normality an ungenerous thing? If the boundaries are always taken for granted, would it cut off some kind of connection inadvertently? How to get along with or communicate with people with different positions in a moderate way, and to see their humanity beside their political orientations? I think it may still be possible if we resort to a smaller community than the national level, but it may still be painful. I often wonder if such words sound stupid or too idealistic, and I also think of the final twist in The Handmaid’s Tale, in which all the suffering was reduced to a bunch of historical materials. It is a life-long commitment to learn to truly empathize and respect others. May there be peace and dignity to all.
About the Reading Club
Last Saturday, we held our first meeting about Wu Zhuoliu’s Orphans of Asia. The four of us thought the story was straightforward and introduced us to the Japanese era, and what was more valuable was that it was written in 1943 - 1945 during the Japanese era.
The protagonist Hu Taiming is an intellectual who pursues the ideal of the golden mean. He does not support radical political ideals, yet nor is he indifferent to injustice. However, he was unable to make a successful career, which along with his confusion and continuous struggle contributes to his sense of inability. Taiming guides us from Taiwan to Japan and China, and then back to Taiwan under the wartime system, revealing various aspects of these societies.
The story shows the institutional and cultural discrimination against Taiwanese, and the lack of a sense of belonging among Taiwanese. What surprised me most was the referrence to the contradictory relationship between sugar and rice production: sugarcane farmers were harshly exploited by large Japanese sugar companies, as the price of sugarcane was unilaterally decided by the companies, in linkage with the price of rice.4 It was interesting to see the issues I read in papers and monographs to appear in a novel.
Sioumeng Syu (許秀孟, a historian, whose field of interest is the landscape of daily life formed by matters, and her recent works include studies of ID cards and pork) was most impressed by the sense of alienation of the protagonist Hu Taiming, which is also evident in Lu Xun’s (魯迅) works — a popular theme in the first half of the twentieth century. In addition, it is special that Taiming also has a profound knowledge about Chinese classics, and the dual background of Japanese education and Chinese education becomes another source of his inner conflicts. We wondered if other writers at the time had similar educational backgrounds?
Graham Oliver (Graham Oliver is a writer and teacher from the United States) could not decide whether the author wanted us to identify with Taiming? On the one hand, Taiming has honorable ideals, but he is often frustrated and unable to live up to his ideals. Laura Wang (Laura Wang is a reader, writer, and teacher from New York, currently based in Taipei) said in reply that perhaps Taiming’s passivity better reflects the social atmosphere and constraints, and it is also a storytelling technique: the passivity and powerlessness of the protagonist may be able to inspire the readers to take action. In addition, Laura wondered if this passivity also serves as a criticism of texts and literature itself. There seems to be many things that literature cannot achieve.
Graham proposed his interpretation of the second to last paragraph of Chapter 4, which reads, “the darkness of the present day is a predawn darkness, … and in due course, it will pass.”5 Graham wondered if the hope here alluded to the end of war and the expectation of the Chinese (KMT) government to rule Taiwan. I originally thought Taiming was just hopeful in view of the moral strengths of Taiwanese, but Sioumeng pointed out that the people in the Japanese-occupied areas of China also used the coming of dawn as a metaphor for Japan’s defeat, so this interpretation should be valid.
The above is a brief summary of our discussion. Thanks to all those who participated! I learned a lot from your insights : )
Next time we will read Pai Hsien-Yung’s Taipei People at 10:00 am (Taipei Time) on July 2. Welcome to join our online reading club! Feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register!
References
Lin Wenpei 林紋沛, Travel for Knowledge: Knowledge about Taiwan Constructed by Charles Le Gendre, James Davidson and Other Westerners (1860-1905) 行旅致知: 李仙得, 達飛聲等西方人建構的臺灣知識1860-1905. Taipei: SMC Publishing Inc., 2020.
Lin Wenpei 林紋沛, “Mackay’s Missionary Journey in the Nineteenth Century” in Chang Lung-chih 張隆志 ed., Taiwanese History in Dairies (from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries) 日記裡的臺灣史(17-20世紀), 116 - 147. Taipei: Owl Publishing House Co., Ltd., 2021.
George Leslie Mackay, “24 April 1874 of the Diary of George Leslie Mackay,” Taiwan Diary Knowledge Bank of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica 中央研究院臺灣史研究所臺灣日記知識庫, https://taco.ith.sinica.edu.tw/tdk/馬偕日記/1872-04-24.
John Robert Shepherd, Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600-1800 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 154-162.
Although the Presbyterian Church prides itself on the pursuit of human rights, the church was divided when it comes to gay rights. In 2018, when Taiwan launched a referendum on same-sex marriage, there were all kinds of anti-gay remarks in the society, which much angered me at that time, and it was difficult for me to understand people with opposite positions. Now the law has been passed for several years, and the social atmosphere seems to be under gradual changes. Although homophobic remarks still occur from time to time, the society seems to move in a more friendly direction overall.
Regarding the contradictory relationship between sugar and rice production, the most comprehensive theoretical explanation is found in Ka Chih-ming 柯志明, Japanese Colonialism in Taiwan: Land Tenure, Development, and Dependency, 1895-1945 米糖相剋──日本殖民主義下臺灣的發展與從屬 (Routledge, 1998).
Wu Zhuoliu, Ioannis Mentzas trans., Orphans of Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 198.