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In Contrast to the Taiwanese Writers,
Yang Kui is more concerned with the development of class awareness,
of the social identity that transcends nationalistic identity.
Near the end of the "The Newspaper Boy" Mr. Yang is asked, "do
you like the Japanese?" After thinking about the question for
while, Mr. Yang answers that he likes his friend Tanaka better
than his own brother. Mr. Yang feels a closer bond with Tanaka,
a Japanese newspaper boy in Tokyo, then he does with his elder
brother, who is a policeman working for the Japanese officials
in Taiwan.
Thus, it seems as though Yang
Kui's work is a curious mixture Japanese proletarian and Taiwanese
anti-Japanese later of the period. Perhaps Yang Kui was influenced
by his experience in Japan in May unusual manner, distinct from
the experience of other Taiwanese writers of the period. Elements
of his work seemed to overlap with the interest of some of the
Taiwanese student political organizations are rising in Tokyo
at the time gains sympathy with the working-class in Tokyo and
the farmers exploited by their Japanese overlords in Taiwan
coincide with the activities of the leftist faction of the Cultural
Association. When Yang left Tokyo to return to Taiwan in
1927,
they became heavily involved with the plight of the Taiwanese
farmer; at the time, the Cultural Association was involved with
helping Taiwanese farmers organize the Formosan Farmers Union
(June 1926).
Perhaps Yang Kui was more heavily
influenced by political agitation then were his fellow writers.
His stories and weapons of connections between private and public
events, allowing the reader to the local society through the
framework of a specific individual. Yang's use of autobiographical
material here may also have helped in to clarify his personal
identity, to cultivate his political consciousness, something
that would surface again and again as he continued to write.
"The Newspaper Boy" succeeds in
providing the reader with a clear picture of the working-class
society in Japan as well as airing anxieties of some of the
Taiwanese farmers. Important issues of class vs. national consciousness
are raised here. Literature for Yang, as well as for other Taiwanese
writers, served as a vehicle for self-expression as well as
for expressing protests.
While Yang succeeded in presenting
many important issues in his work, his execution of "The Newspaper
Boy" is not flawless. Yang Kui runs into a problem with all
proletarian/revolutionary writers encounter: the problem of
"embodying political ideas in believable incidents and live
characters."
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