The years we stayed in Taiwan

This is a collective memory project, which includes articles by 39 Malaysian students studying in Taiwan. Starting from Bai Yao, who was the first to study in Taiwan in 1953, generation after generation of Malaysian students have written their own stories about literary enlightenment and the shaping of their spiritual outlook.

For over sixty years, Taiwan has become a second home, even a place of permanent residence for many Taiwanese who have studied there. Whether they left (or returned) or stayed (or left their home country), the stories of these students are so complex and diverse that they can form a history of both ours and the other.

Malaysian Chinese literature cannot be without the "Taiwanese" chapter. How can Malaysian history not include the "Taiwanese" chapter?

This is for the record.

Editor's Note:

Zhang Jinzhong: The slow ship "MH Dama" bound for Taiwan continues its journey northward to the literary Taiwan after sixty years. This isolated force of diaspora Chinese-language literature clearly has successors.

Huang Jinshu: Taiwan’s unique historical circumstances are inevitably embedded in the memories of those who study in Taiwan, and even serve as a catalyst for them to reflect on their own historical situation and nourish their writing.

Li Zongshun: We want to record the footprints of those who stayed in Taiwan, look back and write about the past, use words to return to the purest years of the past, and meet ourselves who are still looking towards the future.

Zhang Jinzhong, Preface 1. A Slow Boat to Taiwan; Huang Jinshu, Preface 2. Footprints on the Sand; Where Bai Yao Walks, He Leaves Traces; Wang Runhua, A Stranger Returning to Taiwan; Dan Ying, The Soil Where Seeds Sprout; Liu Fang, Years in Fu Garden; Chen Huihua, Constellations, Fountains, and the Earth; Li Youcheng, Literary Chronicles of the 1970s; Ye Hui Met Him in Taiwan; Li Zongshun, A Cool October Breeze; Liao Yanping, My Connection with the Shenzhou Poetry Society; Zhang Guixing, Absolute Loneliness and Ruthlessness; Chen Zeqing, Those Years at National Taiwan University; Huang Jianhua, Later; Zhang Jinzhong, My Literary Crossroads, in Separate Times; Zhou Meifen, Those Years in Taiwan; Liao Hongqiang, Traveling in Taiwan: My Writing Process; Huang Jinshu, Windless Belt; Wu Longchuan, The Milky Way Tree; Chen Dawei, In Taiwan in 1990; Zhong Yiwen, From Durian to Stinky Beans; Plum Trees; Impressions of Taiwanese Poets; Fang Lu, Xinzhuang, To C
Xu Yuquan, Blooming Flowers Along the Way, Yang Bangni's Delayed Writing, Xin Jinshun's Wandering Fragments, Zeng Meiyun, Years in the Red Chamber, Huang Junlin's Working Life, Du Zhongquan, Taipei, Huagang, Cultural Dreams, Liao Bingling, My Mountain City Story, Mu Yan, Taipei Is Not Lonely, Gong Wanhui, Your Name Is Like Light on the Floating Foam, Luo Luo, the Dream Eater, Zhang Yiping's Photo, Travels in Taiwan, Shi Huimin, Moon in the Water, Zhoutian School, You Are the Raging Waves, Xing Yiwang, Corpus Cavernosa Memory, Wu Daoshun, Tilted Time, He Shufang, Meeting the Other Side, Weng Wanjun's Soliloquy, Taipei, Xie Mingcheng, Drifting Bookstore

Postscript by Li Zongshun: Lost Contact and Decryption