User:Bolandoando/sandbox

How does your culture or heritage or your identity as a Taiwanese-American influence, motivate or affect the way you approach your work?

...For me, I don't know if it's so much cultural as in an interest in history and telling stories that have been told, that need to be told. But for me it's like a feeling of injustice.."

"There's like a total lack of understanding in this country of what Taiwan is...and then once I had started learning more and more about it and learning about "228" (the "228 Massacre" was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan which resulted in an estimated 10,000-30,000 deaths, the incident marks the start of the Kuomintang's White Terror period) which, I had never heard the term before...my parents were too young...and nobody really talked about it, they didn't really have a broad understanding of what happened, they only knew that they were...told to stay home (Martial law was not lifted until 1987) that it was dangerous outside and so, actually, when I was discovering more about it I was kinda telling them (her parents) about it too."

(during the martial period in Taiwan, thousands more inhabitants vanished, died or were imprisoned...was an impetus for a people's movement for democratic reform.)

"I originally started wanting to write the "Great American Novel" but it turned out that when I started to write I also began to interview my parents and to learn more about the history of Taiwan and the more I learned about that, the more I wanted to tell that story because I felt that was a story that had to be told and it needed to have a voice so that's how this story kinda evolved and it evolved partly from their (her parents') story but then I really fictionalized it to make it more universally appealing to the general reader...so that it (the novel) would introduce people who wouldn't normally learn about Taiwanese history to Taiwanese history.

Notes on the novel

Message on Taiwan

Background on The Third Son

Upon researching the political history of Taiwan and learning of the "2/28", Wu decided to write a novel that communicated the experience of the Taiwanese under Japanese rule and bridged the silence surrounding this time period.

"There's...a total lack of understanding in [America] of what Taiwan is...and then, once I had started learning...about '228' which I had never heard the term before..."

Wu's inspiration for the novel evolved first from an initial desire to write...to a desire to provide a voice for the Taiwanese and Taiwanese-Americans.

"I originally started wanting to write the "Great American Novel" but it turned out that when I started to write...[and] to interview my parents and to learn more about the history of Taiwan...the more I wanted to tell that story because I felt that was a story that had to be told and it needed to have a voice..it [the novel] evolved partly from [my parents'] story but...I really fictionalized it...so that [the novel] would introduce people who wouldn't normally learn about Taiwanese history to Taiwanese history."