Dai Huaxuan, Assistant Professor, Department of Taiwanese Literature, Aletheia University

Written near the end of the Japanese colonial period, Yang Qianhe’s “The Season When Flowers Bloom” (1942) explores the frustration and uneasiness of upper middle-class women who are expected to marry directly afterhigh school graduation. Huiying, the story’s protagonist, is the author’s vehicle for reflections on the meaning of women’s existence and the possibility of personal growth. 

In Taiwan’s traditional patriarchal society, few women enjoyed educational opportunities, particularly those from impoverished families.Girls were married off as soon as they were old enough. And even if they did receive schooling, education was merely a preparation for marriage – women studied the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, piano, and cooking, and schools were tantamount to “bridal academies.” This is Yang Qianhe’s lament: In Taiwan’s traditional values system, even a well-educated womanhad no control over her life and destiny.

The story portrays the mixed emotions – sadness, apprehension, longing, and melancholy – of a group of female students on the cusp of adulthood. Many of the young women are engaged and will marry right out ofschool. Just as expected, within a year of graduation half ofthe classmates have married, and many are mothers-to-be.Having no say in the matter, the young women completely accept suitors their families have chosen for them. In the girls’ minds, marriage is a rite of passage, a farewell to adolescence and a formal entry into adulthood. Regrettably, however, the women often stop learning and growing after they marry, spending their days attending to household duties. Seeing this, Huiying can’t help but question the age-old traditions that mandatewomen’s lot in life. After she graduates an aunt pressures Huiying to marry, and although she doesn’t bow to her elder’s wishes, she still experiences inner turmoil. Later, after reading an instructive letter from an older brother, Huiying finds the strength to choose – she not only refuses a wedding engagement, but takes a job at a newspaper as well, ignoring friends’ and neighbors’ well-meaning career advice. In the school of life, Huiying’s experiences are much different from those of her married classmates.At the time, however, World War II had unsettled life inTaiwan. Thus, Huiyingresigns after only a short time on the job. Nevertheless, the storysuggests that a woman should be at liberty to make her own life choices, free from patriarchal society’s traditional constraints.

The story endson a memory, with billowing waves symbolizing life’s various challenges.A good friend of Huiying’s has given birth and is sharing with Huiying the joy of motherhood; at the same time the author integrates life’s meaning into the happiness of nurturing the growth ofnew life.

Dai Huaxuan, Assistant Professor, Department of Taiwanese Literature, Aletheia University

A Taipei native, Yang Qianhe (1921-2011) was a 1940 graduate of what then was Taiwan’s only institution of higher learning for women, the Taipei Women’s Academy. In 1941 Yang’s writing found favor with literary luminary Nishikawa Mitsuru, who secured her a position at the Japanese-language Taiwan Daily Newspaper (Taiwan Nichinichi Shimpo). Thus Yang became Taiwan’s first female reporter, responsible for the “family and women’s page,” writing articles on childrearing, health, and family life. The page’s content had a strong nativist flavor, featuringtraditional Taiwanese recipes andinterviews with outstanding figuresin Taiwan’s arts circles, such as the painter Guo Xuehu and the writer Lai He. Yang left her position in 1942 when the women’s page was dropped on account of the war. Although the newspaper job lasted only ten months, Yang considered it the high point of her life.

The years 1940-43 marked the peak of Yang Qianhe’s writing career. In September 1941 her first published essay, “Crying Woman,” appeared in Literary Taiwan. In July 1942 Literary Taiwan carried her short story “The Season When Flowers Bloom.” Subsequently, Yang’s work was much in demand, and she continued to publish in noted literary periodicals of the day.In 1943 she married Lin Jiaxiong, giving birth to a daughter and two sons. Family duties and the worsening war situation forced Yang to put down her pen; after the war,the official ban on the Japanese languageprevented her from resuming her literary career. In 1950 she ran as an independent for a Taitung County legislative seat, becoming Taiwan’s first popularly elected representative. The following year she was appointed director of the Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association. She resettled in the United States in 1977.

Yang Qianhe began writing again after her husband’s death. In 1977 she published Prism, a Japanese-language autobiography. In March 1995 Life’s Three Prisms, a Chinese translation of the work, was released in Taiwan. Yang’s Japanese works, Chinese translations of her work, and speeches have been collected in The Season When Flowers Bloom(2000).The writer passed away at the age of ninety in her Maryland home on October 16, 2011.