Taste of Apples
Encyclopedia
Taste of Apples is the name of an English language translation of collected short stories of the Taiwanese
writer Huang Chunming
. The translation is by Howard Goldblatt
and was published in 2001 by Columbia University Press.
(An earlier version of Goldblatt's translations was published by Indiana University under the title The Drowning of an Old Cat and Other Stories in 1980.
.
One aspect of their lives that his stories treat is the way in which their lives contrast with Mainlanders and Mainland culture. An important theme is the influence of language (Taiwanese Hokkien vs. Mandarin Chinese) on keeping these two groups of people distinct.
A related theme is change and the impact of modernity. Huang Chunming wrote in the introduction to the English translation, "In the sixties and seventies, when the modern world began making inroads into the out-of-the-way town of Lanyang, where I was born, the conflicts between the new and the old created a rich source of powerful and dramatic material. Whenever my antennae detected the new dramas being played out in my hometown, the desire to write about them raged inside me."
, banyan
trees, bonito
fish, sparrows and sweet potatoes, and the blazing tropical sun is a prop in nearly every story. His characters often exhibit strong and even mystical attachment to their natural surroundings, including explicit expressions of fengshui ideas.
The story provides an example of quintessential Huang Chunming narrative: unadorned observation of the fundamental human condition ("They seemed to shed a heavy emotional burden simultaneously -- he having seen his wife walk through the door, she having seen her husband drink some tea") juxtaposed with wry examples of the incongruity and provocativeness of modernizing Taiwan (the protagonist's occupation is "sandwich-man" or "ad man"
- shouldering billboards for a movie theater and dressed in the costume of a nineteenth-century European military officer").
The story was adapted into a film entitled The Sandwich Man
directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien
.
) due to the advent of more modern forms of communication, and the man's reluctant entry into a company of funeral followers. The story realistically captures the twin torments of his material desperation and his ambivalence about his new "friends."
The group that the man falls in with—the arhat vagrants—is a classic collection of down-on-their-luck locals: Scabby Head, Turtle, Know-It-All, Fire Baby, Blockhead, One-Eye, Gold Clock. They hang out under a tree across from the coffinmaker's shop, waiting to be called upon to assist at funerals.
The apples the family eats in the hospital symbolize the instantaneous change in circumstances: a heretofore unaffordable luxury in the Taiwanese context will now be a commonplace as their lives are touched by the American presence.
The story includes elements that can be read as metaphors for the social situation in Taiwan: a pressure cooker that explodes and a cap that disguises disfiguring marks on an innocent little girl's head.
hotel.
The story addresses wide-ranging feelings of ambivalence and confusion in a society that has a complicated history of relations with Japan, and is experiencing rapidly changing mores.
In a tour-de-force of imaginative dialog writing, Huang Chunming describes how the Taiwanese man avails himself of artiful use of language to simultaneously humble the group of visiting Japanese businessmen and to upbraid a misguided Chinese literature student.
Supplementary bibliography (found at http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/bib.htm):
"The Fish." Tr. Linda Wu. In Nancy Ing, ed., Winter Plum: Contemporary Chinese Fiction. Taipei: Chinese Materials Center, 1982, 165-77. Also in The Drowning of an Old Cat and Other Stories, 1-11.
Le Gong [French tr. of Luo; The Gong]. Trs. Emmanuelle Pechenart and Anne Wu. Arles: Actes Sud, 2001.
"His Son's Big Doll." Tr. John Hu. In Chi Pang-yuan, et al., eds., An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Literature. Taipei: National Institute for Compilation and Translation, 1975, II, 321-42. Also in The Drowing of an Old Cat and Other Stories. 37-60. Also in Kwok-kan Tam, Terry Siu-Han Yip, Wimal Dissanayake, eds., A Place of One's Own: Stories of Self in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. NY: Oxford UP, 1999, 143-64.
"Sayonara, Tsai Chien." Tr. Howard Goldblatt. Renditions 7 (1977): 133-60. Also in The Chinese Pen (Autumn 1975): 1-66, and in The Drowning of an Old Cat, 217-70.
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
writer Huang Chunming
Huang Chunming
Huang Chunming is a Taiwanese literary figure and teacher. Huang writes mainly about the tragic and sometimes humorous lives of ordinary Taiwanese people, and many of his short stories have been turned into films, including The Sandwich Man .-Career:Born in Ilan, Taiwan, Huang began his higher...
. The translation is by Howard Goldblatt
Howard Goldblatt
Howard Goldblatt is Research Professor of Chinese at the University of Notre Dame. He is a translator of numerous works of contemporary Chinese/Taiwanese fiction, including The Taste of Apples by Huang Chunming and The Execution of Mayor Yin by Chen Ruoxi.Goldblatt received a B.A. from Long Beach...
and was published in 2001 by Columbia University Press.
(An earlier version of Goldblatt's translations was published by Indiana University under the title The Drowning of an Old Cat and Other Stories in 1980.
Subject Matter and Major Themes
Huang Chunming's subject matter is the people of TaiwanTaiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
.
One aspect of their lives that his stories treat is the way in which their lives contrast with Mainlanders and Mainland culture. An important theme is the influence of language (Taiwanese Hokkien vs. Mandarin Chinese) on keeping these two groups of people distinct.
A related theme is change and the impact of modernity. Huang Chunming wrote in the introduction to the English translation, "In the sixties and seventies, when the modern world began making inroads into the out-of-the-way town of Lanyang, where I was born, the conflicts between the new and the old created a rich source of powerful and dramatic material. Whenever my antennae detected the new dramas being played out in my hometown, the desire to write about them raged inside me."
Motifs
Huang Chunming's characters are native Taiwanese fishermen and villagers, and often have Taiwan's trademark "Ah" prefix on their names. His stories are full of neighborhood temples and folk religion observancesChinese folk religion
Chinese folk religion or Shenism , which is a term of considerable debate, are labels used to describe the collection of ethnic religious traditions which have been a main belief system in China and among Han Chinese ethnic groups for most of the civilization's history until today...
, banyan
Banyan
A banyan is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree...
trees, bonito
Bonito
Bonito is a name given to various species of medium-sized, predatory fish in the Scombridae family. First, bonito most commonly refers to species in the genus Sarda, including the Atlantic bonito and the Pacific bonito ; second, in Japanese cuisine, bonito refers to the skipjack tuna , which, in...
fish, sparrows and sweet potatoes, and the blazing tropical sun is a prop in nearly every story. His characters often exhibit strong and even mystical attachment to their natural surroundings, including explicit expressions of fengshui ideas.
The Fish
This story provides a glimpse into the nuanced interactions between a grandfather from a Taiwan mountain village and his teenage grandson, who is coming of age and gaining experience of the larger world.The Drowning of an Old Cat
A typical band of Huang Chunming characters, all in their 70s—Uncle Cow's Eye, Uncle Earthworm, Uncle Yuzai, and Uncle Ah-zhuan, led by Uncle Ah-sheng—venture forth from their usual hangout (the neighborhood temple, in the shade of the banyan tree) to challenge the coming of a modern swimming pool to their rural town.His Son's Big Doll
This story probes the roiling thoughts and emotions of an uneducated man as he juggles the challenges of finding employment, relating to his wife, providing for his son . . . and maintaining dignity.The story provides an example of quintessential Huang Chunming narrative: unadorned observation of the fundamental human condition ("They seemed to shed a heavy emotional burden simultaneously -- he having seen his wife walk through the door, she having seen her husband drink some tea") juxtaposed with wry examples of the incongruity and provocativeness of modernizing Taiwan (the protagonist's occupation is "sandwich-man" or "ad man"
Sandwich board
A sandwich board is a type of advertisement composed of two boards and being either:*Carried by a person, with one board in front and one behind, creating a "sandwich" effect; or...
- shouldering billboards for a movie theater and dressed in the costume of a nineteenth-century European military officer").
The story was adapted into a film entitled The Sandwich Man
The Sandwich Man (1983 film)
The Sandwich Man is a 1983 Taiwanese film jointly directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wan Ren, and Tseng chuang-hsiang. The script by Wu Nianzhen is based on a story by Huang Chunming entitled "His Son's Big Doll" ....
directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Hou Hsiao-Hsien is an award-winning film director and a leading figure of Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement.-Biography:...
.
The Gong
This story is an empathetic account of an old, derelict, and hungry man. The two main threads of the story are the man's loss of employment as a town crier (complete with attention-getting gongGong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
) due to the advent of more modern forms of communication, and the man's reluctant entry into a company of funeral followers. The story realistically captures the twin torments of his material desperation and his ambivalence about his new "friends."
The group that the man falls in with—the arhat vagrants—is a classic collection of down-on-their-luck locals: Scabby Head, Turtle, Know-It-All, Fire Baby, Blockhead, One-Eye, Gold Clock. They hang out under a tree across from the coffinmaker's shop, waiting to be called upon to assist at funerals.
Ringworms
This brief story describes a few hours in the life of a low-class husband and wife in Taiwan, together with their gaggle of children. Their concerns range from day-to-day subsistence, how to snatch some brief moments of intimacy, and how to broach touchy subjects like birth control.The Taste of Apples
For a native Taiwan man who has migrated with his family to the urban north of Taiwan, everything changes when he is riding his bicycle and is hit by the limousine of an American military officer.The apples the family eats in the hospital symbolize the instantaneous change in circumstances: a heretofore unaffordable luxury in the Taiwanese context will now be a commonplace as their lives are touched by the American presence.
Xiaoqi's Cap
This story involves two greenhorn salesmen, one of whom has a "bad attitude" which rapidly evolves in the course of events.The story includes elements that can be read as metaphors for the social situation in Taiwan: a pressure cooker that explodes and a cap that disguises disfiguring marks on an innocent little girl's head.
The Two Sign Painters
Two rural men have migrated to the city and now find themselves working on towering buildings. Their suddenly heightened visual perspective is complicated further when they become the center of official and media attention and get a taste of "all news, all the time" culture . . . .Sayonara / Zaijian
This story concerns a Taiwanese trading company employee who must act as a "pimp" in the course of entertaining visiting businessmen from Japan who want to visit a hot springTaiwanese hot springs
Taiwan is part of the collision zone between the Yangtze Plate and Philippine Sea Plate. Eastern and southern Taiwan are the northern end of the Philippine Mobile Belt....
hotel.
The story addresses wide-ranging feelings of ambivalence and confusion in a society that has a complicated history of relations with Japan, and is experiencing rapidly changing mores.
In a tour-de-force of imaginative dialog writing, Huang Chunming describes how the Taiwanese man avails himself of artiful use of language to simultaneously humble the group of visiting Japanese businessmen and to upbraid a misguided Chinese literature student.
Supplementary bibliography (found at http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/bib.htm):
"The Fish." Tr. Linda Wu. In Nancy Ing, ed., Winter Plum: Contemporary Chinese Fiction. Taipei: Chinese Materials Center, 1982, 165-77. Also in The Drowning of an Old Cat and Other Stories, 1-11.
Le Gong [French tr. of Luo; The Gong]. Trs. Emmanuelle Pechenart and Anne Wu. Arles: Actes Sud, 2001.
"His Son's Big Doll." Tr. John Hu. In Chi Pang-yuan, et al., eds., An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Literature. Taipei: National Institute for Compilation and Translation, 1975, II, 321-42. Also in The Drowing of an Old Cat and Other Stories. 37-60. Also in Kwok-kan Tam, Terry Siu-Han Yip, Wimal Dissanayake, eds., A Place of One's Own: Stories of Self in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. NY: Oxford UP, 1999, 143-64.
"Sayonara, Tsai Chien." Tr. Howard Goldblatt. Renditions 7 (1977): 133-60. Also in The Chinese Pen (Autumn 1975): 1-66, and in The Drowning of an Old Cat, 217-70.