However, there are people who were born here and grew up here but do not identify with this land, are not concerned for the people here, and naturally alienate themselves from the lives of the people of this land. Even if Taiwan literature had the biggest of hearts it would not be able to embrace them. Some have described this framework as the "identifying with the land" (pen-t'u hua) characteristic of Taiwan literature. This is not simply a characteristic but should in fact be the foundation on which Taiwan literature is constructed.  Going back in time, this framework can be used to view Taiwan's New Literature movement during the past several decades and even the 300 years of Taiwan writings from the times of the Dutch and Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Coxinga), and thus to verify that Taiwan literature has its own historical origins and its own unique spiritual traditions.

        A review right back to the origins adequately proves that Taiwan literature is neither an illegitimate child nor an abandoned child.  At the same time through this sort of framework miscellaneous things can be filtered out to prove that the basic substance of Taiwan literature is a product with its roots in the land.  Strictly speaking, whether Taiwan literature is up to the Nobel literature prize test or whether it has avant-garde world literature techniques are secondary issues.  The main issue is whether a Taiwan literature that identifies with the land can be established from the numerous literary components and changing factors in Taiwan literature?  Today, if our literature can vertically continue the past 300 years of Taiwan's bitter historical destiny and can horizontally summarize the lives of the 18,000,000 inhabitants of this island, then no matter how crude the expressive techniques, it is still recognizable as our voices singing with our mouths the songs of our hearts.  It will not matter even if the voices are hoarse.

        Therefore we must emphasize that an "identifying with the land" framework provides the best perspective and by means of this framework, we can sigh and say that our ancestors really used their own voice, our own voice, to sing the songs of our hearts.  Our continuing Taiwan literature confirms that we are a people with poetry and song, and in this we can be confident that we are a people with our own literature.  At the same time, in searching after the sounds of the singing, we find that no matter how great the suffering and the calamities, the singing never pauses or goes out of tune.  This is the voice of Taiwan and we have a responsibility to keep on singing it.

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