Elementary Education and Identity Formation in Colonial Taiwan: Focusing on Long Yingzong, Zhang Wenhuan, Zhou jinbo and Lu Herou

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 22K13041
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02010:Japanese literature-related
• Research Institution: Aoyama Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Sun Shihwei 青山学院大学, 文学部, 助教 (30881966)
• Project Period (FY): 2022-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 植民地台湾 / 国語教育 / 龍瑛宗 / 張文環 / 周金波 / 呂赫若

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Four Taiwanese writers who published in Japanese language during the Sino Japanese and the Pacific wars- Long Yingzong, Zhang Wenhuan, Zhou Jinbo and Lu Herou- received their elementary level education at a time when old educational system of cultivating traditional Chinese literai was prohibited. During the war time, the four writers face an identity crisis that cause they respond differently to Japanese wartime policy. Some chose to devote himself to left-wing antiwar movement, some maintained a third-person point of view, while some took part in the propaganda of wartime ideology. However, even though they presented an obedient attitude by playing the role of royal subjects of the empire, they all found instability and challenge in their national identity since they are ethnically Han Chinese. I argue that these different attitudes are responses to the extreme situation that helped rationalize their identity: being a subject of the Japanese Empire and an ethic Chinese.

Free Research Field

日本文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

明治維新により意図的に創り出された「国民＝ネイション」の概念は、内地においても教育によって広まり、日本本土の人々を帝国の臣民に規定するにとどまらず、それがさらに周縁へと拡大し、アイヌや沖縄の人々などにも波及した。西欧列強の植民地支配の構造を再現しつつ、対外戦争によって取得した植民地である台湾にも同じ論理を導入しようとしたが、「国民」の線引きの難しさが際立った。ところが1930年代以降の戦時下の文脈において、戦争目的を完遂させるために、急激に推進された皇民化政策を推し進め、本来「異民族」だった人々も臣民に規定しようとしたが、簡単には浸透しきれなかったことを文学作品への分析を通して示した。