Taiwan Today

Two national museums are receiving a boost from the government as they strive to raise public awareness of Taiwan’s historical legacy and literary heritage.
 

Each year on Oct. 17 Taiwan celebrates its one-of-a-kind heritage and the tireless efforts of activists throughout the country’s history to elevate the populace. Designated as Taiwan Culture Day by the government in 2016, the date was selected to commemorate the establishment of Taipei City-headquartered Taiwan Cultural Association (TCA) in recognition of its remarkable work in promoting mass literacy during Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) and beyond. This year’s edition marked TCA’s centennial anniversary, a historic moment made even more meaningful by the legislature’s recent decision to upgrade the status of two museums in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, according to Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得).
 

The move targeted National Museum of Taiwan History (NMTH) and National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL) with the goal of strengthening the facilities’ research, collection, exhibition and promotional capabilities while bolstering countrywide efforts to showcase Taiwan’s rich history and literature to audiences at home and abroad. NMTL and NMTH now fall under the purview of the Ministry of Culture (MOC) along with prominent institutions like National Museum of History (NMH) in Taipei and National Museum of Prehistory (NMP) in southeastern Taiwan’s Taitung County. According to NMTL Director Su Shuo-bin (蘇碩斌), the independent budget that comes along with the change will greatly enhance operation across the board.
 

NMTL was founded in 2003 in the refurbished Japanese-era building once housing Tainan’s prefectural office, making it the first national-level museum in the country dedicated to collecting, studying and promoting Taiwan’s underexplored literary past. From the final years of Japanese rule to the end of martial law in 1987, local literature was often overshadowed by traditional Chinese and Japanese influences, Su said. “To put it simply, former government policies urged authors and academics to self-censor,” he said. “This has resulted in skepticism over whether homegrown works truly exist.”
 

Alongside the social liberalization and cultural localization movements in the early 1990s, the government launched plans for a museum devoted to Taiwan literature. However, when it opened 18 years ago, it was given a lower organizational status due to differing opinions within the legislature, where the opposition parties held the majority, Su recalled. “Now it’s time to rectify the situation and renew efforts to fill in the gaps in Taiwan’s literary history,” he said. NMTL’s collection currently comprises more than 110,000 documents including letters and manuscripts dating from before World War II. “Many of the materials were dug out from forgotten corners in homes or warehouses,” Su said.
 

Broad Appeal

The director, who is a professor at Taipei-based National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, has an ambitious plan to raise the profile of Taiwan compositions among international audiences. To expand local authors’ reach on the global stage, NMTL has been working on translations in English and several other foreign languages. Another significant mission is to help bring homegrown literary works to the screen. One such success is the 12-part historical drama “Seqalu: Formosa 1867,” which premiered on the government-sponsored Public Television Service channel in August. Set in the country’s southernmost region, the high-budget show is based on a novel that won the NMTL-organized annual Taiwan Literature Awards in 2016.
 

Su believes the growing trend of film and TV adaptations will be invaluable in attracting more attention to original works. “In the past, local producers rarely drew inspiration from the wealth of available written material,” Su said. “We should make the most of our rich literary heritage by intergrating authors’ imagined worlds more deeply into our cultural fabric.”
 

NMTH Director Chang Lung-chih (張隆志) is similarly enthusiastic about the potential of page-to-screen hits like “Seqalu” to raise public awareness of the country’s past. As part of his institution’s ongoing efforts to compile Taiwan-related historical materials in a range of languages, NMTH published a Chinese translation of French-American author and diplomat Charles William Le Gendre’s encyclopedic work on Taiwan in 2013. Completed in 1875, “Notes of Travel in Formosa” was a valuable primary source for “Seqalu” producers, with the character of Le Gendre taking a leading role in the show. Starting in September, the museum is organizing a series of video forums inviting academics and experts from a range of industries to discuss the crossover effects of such projects.
 

Big Picture

According to Chang, the government initiated plans to establish a Taiwan history museum around the same time it commenced preparatory work for NMTL. NMTH formally opened its doors in 2011, complementing older institutions like NMH and National Taiwan Museum, which respectively specialize in Chinese and local natural history. “We aim to present a comprehensive picture of the country’s many peoples and cultures,” Chang said. “Taiwan is far more than an amalgam of its social mores and folk customs. Our institutions must represent our diverse influences as well as our collective social consciousness and emerging national perspective.”
 

Chang is a senior researcher at the Institute of Taiwan History officially established in 2004 at Academia Sinica—the country’s foremost research organization—in a major move away from classifying research on Taiwan as a subdivision of Chinese studies. “Before the country’s democratization in the 1980s, many topics were taboo and there was little room for a non-Sinocentric view of history,” he said, adding that NMTH reflects a paradigm shift resulting from the rise of civil society and new thought over the past three decades.
 

The museum houses a permanent exhibition called “Our Land, Our People: The Story of Taiwan,” which gives an overview of the country’s past from the prehistoric era and influxes of settlers and colonizers from China, Japan and the West up to the present day. Chang believes that incorporating the island’s Austronesian origins dating back tens of thousands of years is critical to presenting a more balanced and objective narrative. NMTH is also strengthening its work regarding events such as elections, political campaigns and social movements over the past century. Digitization of relevant archives in collaboration with teams from Taipei-based National Chengchi University and other institutions is underway with the aim of widening access to researchers and the general public. These and similar endeavors are greatly benefiting from the museum’s upgraded status, Chang said.
 

At the same time, NMTH has joined an alliance of Tainan museums including NMTL, Chimei Museum, Tainan Art Museum and the Museum of Archaeology, a branch of NMP, to help develop the city’s artistic, historical and literary resources. For its part, NMTL has formed affiliations with 33 local-level literary organizations around the country in an effort to enhance information sharing and the exchange of management practices. Such cultural and educational networks serving all corners of the country exemplify the continuation of the ideals embraced by TCA to this day. “The government’s elevation of vital museums like NMTL and NMTH demonstrates that the time of forgetting or distorting the country’s cultural traditions and literary achievements is firmly behind us,” Su said. “Today we can unapologetically celebrate their representations in modern society.”

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw