Chapter 2: The Echo of Conscience Passing Through the Corridor of History
——Reading poet Xiang Yang’s “Outside Chiayi Street” and “At the Sakkadang Stream”
“Outside Chiayi Street”
—For Chen Cheng-po
When you fell down, the sky had already turned dark.
In front of Chiayi Station at noon,
the frightened eyes of Chiayi people, wide open,
together with you, angrily staring,
at this dark, sunless, upright sky.
As if still before the eyes, the year 1926,
outside Chiayi Street that you painted with colored brushes,
favored by the colonial empire,
in 1933 you outlined the Central Fountain,
warm sunlight scattered across the golden land,
your eyes so gentle, love
followed the oil paint, stroke by stroke, kissing Chiayi.
At that time you must also have been like the people of Chiayi,
waiting for the collapse of the colonial empire,
waiting for the unfamiliar motherland across the strait.
The Chiayi in your canvas
still surged with the sound of the fountain,
passionately calling toward freedom and warmth outside the frame.
In 1947, as if still before the eyes,
you met the motherland in a police station occupied by doves of peace.
What you received as reward was the motherland’s fiery kiss,
and together with coarse iron wire,
your body returning to the motherland was bound.
Along Zhongshan Road you knew since childhood, you were taken to Chiayi Station.
Facing the upright sky, the motherland rewarded your chest with a bullet.
This dark, sunless upright sky
together with you angrily staring,
the frightened eyes of Chiayi people wide open,
in front of Chiayi Station at noon,
when you fell down, the sky turned dark.
Chen Cheng-po (1895–1947), a native of Chiayi, was an outstanding Taiwanese painter. In 1926, his painting “Outside Chiayi Street” was selected for the 7th Imperial Art Exhibition in Japan, making him the first Taiwanese Western-style painter to be selected for an official juried exhibition. From then on, he became renowned in Taiwanese art circles. His works often took Chiayi as their subject, suffused with the simple, warm tones of Taiwanese folk life and local customs during the Japanese colonial period.
After the outbreak of the 228 Incident in 1947, Chen Cheng-po, as a member of the Chiayi City Council, was elected as one of six negotiation representatives. He was unexpectedly arrested by the military. On the morning of March 25, he was bound with coarse iron wire, paraded through the streets for public display, and then executed by shooting in front of Chiayi Railway Station. His family was not even allowed to retrieve his body, which lay exposed in the streets, where flies and mosquitoes would not leave. Later, the corpse was returned home; his death photograph still exists today. Lying supine on a straw mat, a bullet passed through his chest, blood splattering, his eyes wide open. The painter who devoted his life to beauty, goodness, and peace ultimately used his blood to paint the sorrow of Taiwan and the motherland meeting.
“At the Sakkadang Stream”
It feels as if one can hear wild deer running,
in the most gentle and beautiful shallow bay of the Sakkadang Stream.
From the settlement of the Taroko people hundreds and thousands of years ago,
calls and pestles together pound the sky,
which remains as blue as ever to this moment.
It also feels like the sound of water, urgent and pressing,
following the red-whiskered bulbul on the branches of Alnus formosana,
calling the entire valley.
Metamorphic rock remains in contemplation, silent and solemn,
within the whispering among all trees,
reconsidering thoughts.
And mountain wind, stopping here,
listens to the sighs secretly written into the folds of rock by history.
The drumbeats of Taroko tribal ceremonies,
the gunfire and artillery of Han settlers opening mountains and Japanese military conquest,
all enter the dark and winding marble veins one by one,
watching the Sakkadang Stream rush forward.
Wild deer, wild deer, no longer crying out,
only allowing the waterfalls between two mountains
to bear witness to the chaotic flight of hooves.
At this moment, everything appears vividly before the eyes,
the sound of water composed like a symphony of color and curve,
climbing along the giant rocks on both sides of the Taroko Gorge,
on the shore where Sakkadang Stream has been stranded for a thousand years,
following the sound of water, one can vaguely see wild deer foraging.
- “The Aesthetic Emotion” and the Deep “Historical Consciousness”
When reading poetry, the most basic reward one can obtain is an “aesthetic emotion,” whether it is the beauty of humanity or the beauty of nature. The poet’s emotion and thought, through the organic “encoding” of imagery, transmit messages that are then “decoded” by readers through rational reflection and emotional participation, forming a two-way communication. In this process of communication, what the poet expects from the reader is strong resonance and lasting impression; what the reader expects from the poet is a vivid and moving aesthetic experience that touches the heart.
For those familiar with the cultural landscape and natural scenery of Taiwan, Xiang Yang’s two poems easily touch the reader’s heart. They are like echoes of conscience, passing through the long corridor of history, knocking open the sealed doors of memory, allowing readers to experience both the beauty of humanity and the beauty of nature. Poet T. S. Eliot believed that poetry must produce two effects: the provision of pleasure and the influence upon life1. The present author believes that “providing pleasure” leans toward consumption, belonging to a lighter and lower level; it is the primary effect of general narrative prose and travel writing. In contrast, “influencing life” must be integrated with the reader’s aesthetic experience—this may be the transmission of “some kind of new experience,” or “a new understanding of everyday things” (Eliot’s words, see note 1). In other words, it concerns whether the reader can perceive the “new thinking (knowledge, experience)” contained in the poem. More specifically, whether these new thoughts can resonate with readers and generate waves of aesthetic emotion. Eliot regarded the perception of new knowledge or experience as the “social function” of poetry, while the resulting aesthetic emotion, in the author’s view, is the most direct and powerful impact of poetry on the reader.
These two poems differ in subject matter: “Outside Chiayi Street” focuses on human figures, while “At the Sakkadang Stream” records objects and events. Their similarity lies in the fact that both can produce vivid and profound emotional impact on readers, because the poet integrates “historical consciousness” into the structure of imagery, conveying a personal historical worldview: a method and attitude toward certain historical moments. This gives the poems not only aesthetic depth but also intellectual depth. In “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T. S. Eliot stated: “What is important is that tradition involves a historical sense, which is indispensable to anyone who would continue to write poetry after the age of twenty-five.” This “historical sense” is consciously embraced by Xiang Yang. Such awareness is not common among the generation of Taiwanese poets influenced by modernism, because poets who possess it tend to have a deeper understanding and contemplation of the land they were born into and its people, as well as a firmer and more profound identification with their own ethnic and cultural belonging.
II. Historical Reverberation: “Outside Chiayi Street”
“Outside Chiayi Street” is a typical portrait poem, outlining the life of the outstanding early Taiwanese painter Chen Cheng-po, while also witnessing the era in which he lived: from the middle Japanese colonial period to the early post-colonial national regime period, when Taiwanese society was in a state of turbulence and disorder. At the opening of the poem, the poet immediately uses “recollection-presentification” to re-present a bloody historical scene: Chen Cheng-po and petition representatives, bound together with coarse iron wire, are publicly executed by shooting at the square beside the fountain in front of Chiayi Railway Station.
Such an opening does not follow the normal chronological progression of time; rather, it is a deliberate “flashback technique” employed by the poet in order to make readers feel the shock of death and to highlight the absurdity of that era, breaking away from the conventional biographical or chronological framework that moves from birth to death. The flashback pushes time-space backward and forward simultaneously, using two of the painter Chen Cheng-po’s early famous works—1926’s “Outside Chiayi Street” and the 1933 “Central Fountain” in front of Chiayi Station—as extensions of his life narrative and as focal objects sustaining the imagery, thereby expanding and stretching the temporal-spatial scene.
In the third section, the poet subjectively reconstructs the psychological state of Chen Cheng-po during the period when these two paintings were created (mid-to-late Japanese colonial era): “waiting for the collapse of the colonial empire / waiting for the unfamiliar motherland across the strait.” The poet’s speculation arises on the one hand from the general psychology of colonized people yearning to break free from colonial fate and longing for freedom; on the other hand, it derives from the painter’s beautiful idealization of the distant, unfamiliar motherland. This continues into the following passage:
“You meet the motherland in a police station occupied by peace doves / what you receive is the motherland’s passionate kiss / and together with coarse iron wire, your body returning to the motherland is bound / along Zhongshan Road you have known since childhood you arrive at Chiayi Station / facing the blue sky, the motherland rewards your chest with a bullet.”
This describes the real historical scene after the 1947 February 28 Incident, in which the painter was executed by the “motherland” military and police. The poem employs contrast to highlight the painter’s innocent thoughts and pure disposition, while what he faces is this extremely brutal “motherland,” thereby forming a stark contradiction between expectation and reality, indirectly indicting the absurdity of that historical moment.
“This sunless blue sky” is a contradictory and ironic phrase, using “blue sky”—a symbol associated with the Kuomintang emblem—as a metonym for the ruling government of the time, carrying strong satirical force. It conveys how the regime “covered the sky with one hand,” coldly and ruthlessly exterminating Taiwan’s intellectual elite in order to consolidate authoritarian rule.
It is worth noting that the final lines of the poem reverse the order of the opening lines, forming a palindromic structure. The author believes this is intended to create a ring composition, reinforcing mutual echo between beginning and end, generating atmosphere, and strengthening the poem’s overall emotional impact, forming an unbroken lingering aftermath that deepens the reader’s impression.
III. Fusion of Scene and Emotion: “At the Sakkadang Stream”
The Sakkadang Stream is a tributary of the Liwu River. As early as the Japanese colonial period, in order to build the Liwu Hydropower Plant, the Japanese carved a 4.4-kilometer-long, one-meter-wide trail along the cliffs of the Sakkadang Stream. The trail was originally named “Mystic Valley Trail,” and was not restored until the year 2001 to its original Atayal name “sgadan,” meaning “molar tooth.” According to legend, the ancestors of the Atayal people discovered a molar tooth while clearing the land, hence the name. The waters of Sakkadang Stream remain crystal clear and blue-green throughout the year, like a hidden realm secluded from the world. The entire trail extends forward along the stream, with huge boulders scattered across the riverbed. Because the gorge is filled with marble, as the stream flows through it, calcium carbonate is released from the marble, giving the water a jade-green and bluish hue. The scenery is extremely enchanting; the beauty of water and rock in Taroko Gorge is fully expressed here. The Sakkadang Trail possesses rich ecological resources; the white marble canyon landscape and clear, tranquil deep pools are deeply captivating. Along the way, there are numerous butterflies and bird species, and monkeys can often be seen climbing trees on the opposite bank. It is a natural classroom created by nature itself.
This poem “At the Sakkadang Stream” integrates local cultural and natural landscapes. At the opening, it points out that this river basin has been the homeland of the Taroko people for generations, imagining the scene a hundred years ago: wild deer running through the shallow currents, and the rhythmic calls and pestle pounding of millet by the Taroko people, full of vitality and aesthetic rhythm, opening up a century-spanning historical vision.
The second section returns to reality, describing the sights and sounds of mountains, forests, and waters in the present moment. To animate imagery, the poet uses personification, allowing the sound of water and bird calls to form resonant overlapping echoes. Even the originally indifferent metamorphic rock acquires human qualities, capable of contemplation and reflection. This corresponds to Wang Guowei’s concept of the “realm of object-in-me” in poetic theory: “using my perspective to observe things, thus all things take on my coloration.” In aesthetics this is called “empathy transfer.”2 Through emotional projection onto external objects, those objects acquire human qualities—thought and emotion. As Zhu Guangqian stated: “Because of empathy transfer, physical things can possess human sentiment, and lifeless things can acquire vitality.” (Zhu Guangqian, same note 2).
In the third section, the “mountain wind” continues the use of personification: “And mountain wind, lingering here / listens to the sighs secretly written into the folds of rock by history.” It then shifts into historical narrative, recounting events that took place here: “the drums of Taroko tribal ceremonies / the gunfire and artillery of Han Chinese mountain opening and Japanese military conquest.”
The final section, “one can vaguely see wild deer foraging,” echoes the opening “as if one can hear wild deer running,” forming a structural ring. This reflects that after man-made disasters subside, wild deer and other animals return to life again, which is the natural order of the ecosystem.
Conclusion:
After reading these two poems, the emotions linger for a long time. Writing poetry does not require deliberately exhausting ingenuity or using strange and obscure language; as long as the poet writes with sincerity and emotion between the lines, readers can feel an “aesthetic emotion.” Of course, to make this emotion vivid, profound, and lasting in the reader’s mind depends on the accumulation of the poet’s experience and the appropriate use of rhetorical techniques. In this respect, poet Xiang Yang has already achieved remarkable success.
Even more valuable is Xiang Yang’s persistent local consciousness and Taiwanese identity. It is precisely these that enable him to focus on this land, to write deeply about its natural scenery and the joys and sorrows of its people.
Note 1: See “The Social Function of Poetry,” in Eliot’s Literary Criticism Collection, translated by Du Guoqing, Pastoral Press.
Note 2: See “On Beauty,” in Collected Works of Zhu Guangqian. “Empathy transfer” refers to projecting one’s emotions onto external objects, as if those objects share the same feelings. It is a very common human experience. When one is joyful, mountains and rivers seem to smile; when one is sad, wind, clouds, flowers, and birds seem to sigh. In farewell, candles may shed tears; in moments of inspiration, even green mountains seem to nod. Willow catkins may at times appear “frivolous,” and evening peaks may seem “somber.” Why did Tao Yuanming love chrysanthemums? Because he saw in the frost-resistant remnants the integrity of a loyal minister. Why did Lin Hejing love plum blossoms? Because in their faint fragrance and sparse shadows he saw the noble bearing of a hermit.
