     Formerly-and to a lesser extent even now-I was able to learn this language of Japanese this "well"because of this inequality.  However, I have never thought of putting this Japanese of mine to any other purpose than wanting to use it to achieve  equality for our people and to bring about understanding between human beings.  And even if I wind up getting revenge that way on those who pushed us down into inequality and lack of understanding, surely you will understand.

     Japanese control over Korea, which lasted more than thirty years, inflicted spiritual pain not just on Kim Tal-su but on many Koreans then living in Japan. Writers who became "really good at Japanese"under conditions of inequality in that society, literary talent that can invoke through the Japanese language even the atmosphere of such Japanese feelings as wabi [beauty to be found in poverty and simplicity] and sabi [elegant simplicity] -on all those writers was cast the deep, dark shadow of Japanese colonial domination.  This is not a problem of Korean writers but, as it stands, a Japanese problem, and needs to be treated as a matter of concern for us Japanese who deal with literature.  I myself feel their scars on my own skin.  I could not give an account of colonial literature if I left them out.  The same thing can be said of Taiwanese literature.

     According to the Hsin wen-hsüeh hsin-chü yün-tung jen-ming-lu (Role Call of People Involved in the New Literature and New Drama Movement) compiled by Jung Feng and contained in T'ai-pei wen-wu (Taipei Culture) 3:3 (1954), published by the Taipei City Literature Commission, there were, by the time of liberation, 170 figures active in cultural life, of whom fifty-three published in Chinese, seventy-three in Japanese, and thirty-four in both languages (the other ten are involved in the new drama).  These numbers indicate that 107 individuals, including those who wrote in both languages, understood Japanese and that they had, in fact, achieved a high level of proficiency, high enough to write fiction or criticism-clearly more than half the total number of 170.

2

     In my possession now are three works by Taiwanese writers:  Yang K'uei's Shinbun haitatsufu (The Newsboy), Lü He-jo's Gyûsha (The Oxcart), and Lung Ying-tsung's Papaiya no aru machi (The Town with the Papaya Trees).

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