Chapter I

RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS DURING THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF TAIWAN

Yang Kui is one of many Taiwanese writers who used their work as a means of protest during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. Current knowledge about Taiwanese literature before 1949 is limited. In 1979 the first collection and examination of stories produced during the literary resistance movement of the Japanese Occupation period was published under the title Taiwan Literature under the Japanese Occupation.

     Most of the writers of this period were privileged young Taiwanese students. These students completed their primary education in the imported Japanese style school systems in Taiwan before traveling abroad to Japan (and to a lesser extent mainland China) to pursue higher education. Consequently, most stories were written in Japanese. Some of these works were translated into Chinese, and published in literary journals in Taiwan in an attempt to rouse support for the literary resistance movement.