By Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Translated by Lin King)
A warm, charming, yet sharply critical postcolonial novel that also turns out to be a clever metafiction – a bold attempt to interweave fiction, history and translation into the whole multi-dimensional novel.
Set in late 1930s, a Japanese writer, Aoyama Chizuko, with tremendous passion for good food and sparkling curiosity, meets a Taiwanese multi-talented interpreter Ông Tshian-hóh (or Ō Chizuru in Japanese) in Taiwan, under Japanese colonial rule. It is a tale of love between two women; but there is something one sees and the other doesn’t, when the power dynamics of nation and class come in.
This book is so layered and delicious in many ways. It vividly depicts natural and daily landscapes in Taiwan at that time, and the detailed and delightful descriptions of the Taiwanese food through the whole book are absolutely captivating. As the two become bonded through sharing their big appetite and struggles from the social expectation and oppression on women, the relationship between them gradually evolves with humour and mystery. How Chizuko, the main narrator, becomes completely enchanted by Tshian-hóh’s sweet smile and her extraordinariness – her ability in speaking different languages, excellent skills in cooking, erudition in Taiwanese and Japanese culture and history, etc. – is humorous, slightly awkward, yet very romantic.
However, there underlies something painful – all the above intriguing themes are woven together under one crucial question; is love possible under a power imbalance – between the ruler and the ruled? Chizuko’s first-person narrative and her behaviour, which she believes comes from care for ‘Chi-chan’ (that is how Chizuko calls Tshian-hóh, coming from her Japanese name), gradually reveals that there is a cruel gap in what they perceive and experience.
The intricacy of this book left me with different feelings – excitement, pain, sorrow, regret, hope, and more – as I turned the pages. I was also awed by its wit.
Part girl-meets-girl, part mockumentary, part big literary ambition, Taiwan Travelogue is a robust examination of love, power, and history. You will not know the whole picture of this book until the very end.
Reviewed by Yuka