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

Kang Yunwei’s short-story “Foolish Eighteen” (1967) centers on a teenage girl’s relations with her friends, parents, and teachers,chronicling the joys and sorrows that accompany the growth process, and the young woman’s awakening to an optimistic new life.

As the story begins, Fang Yi’an and her friends meet at school to register for their final semester of senior-high classes. Laughing and joking, the girls copy one another’s winter-break homework, complete the registration process, and then go together to a movie theater to see Roman Holiday. Whenthe military instructor – the school disciplinarian – chastises the girls for chatting during an opening-day ceremony, letting the entire school know who caused the disruption, the girls laugh and tease each other about it. The school’s standardizededucation fails to engage the young women, and they joke and sing while awaiting the teacher’s arrival, filling the classroom with anair offestivity. Moreover, they and other classmateshave won first prize in a school-wide “wall-poster” contest, adding to the gaiety. 

The girls have little desire to study. In class they pass notesback and forth and gossip about the teachers. Their grades could be better, but they aren’t overly concerned with scholasticachievement because Taiwanese women were traditionally expected to marry and bear children, notpursue higher education. Although protagonist Fang Yi’an’s family is financially well off, an emotional gulf exists between the girl andher father, a traditional authority figure who is always busy with his work. Yi’an’s parents are divorced – her mother had an affair and her father isremarried – and Yi’an experiences very little familial warmth. As a result ofher parents’ split, Yi’an is wary of marriage but still longs for romance, eagerly hoping to win the love of a fairy-tale prince. But these dissonant views of love and marriage are a source of confusion for the young woman.

When Yi’angets a crush on her Chinese literature teacher, a newcomer to the school, it only adds to her bewilderment. Handsome and learned, and a talented violinist, the instructor is every girl’s dream. Once, after graduation exams, when Yi’an and the teacher happen to be alone, he grabs and kisses her. Yi’an is startled and angrybutcan’t conceal her love for the man. Her puzzlement and uneasiness give way to shame, and she wondersif the teacher is “just playing with her,” leading her to question her sense of self – after all, a girl’s first kiss should be a memory worth treasuring. At last, sitting quietly in a temple, Yi’an has a realization: The kiss didn’tsully her, and the longing to be loved is a normal human instinct, not something to be ashamed of. Thus, her perplexity vanishes. She not only greets the teacher when she runs into him on the street – accompanied by his wife and children, no less – but also tells her friends about the kiss, showing that she has successfully broken through a barrier on the road to growth.

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

Kang Yunwei (1936- ) was born in Nanjing to a family with roots in China’s Henan province. In the wake of the 1934 Marco Polo Bridge Incident ¹ she returned with her grandmother to Henan, where she spent her early years. As a child she enjoyed watching plays, her earliest exposure to the arts. In 1946 she reunited with her parents in Kaifeng City, and in 1947 enrolled in elementary school. In 1949 she came to Taiwan with her grandmother and uncle in the wake of the Nationalist-Communist civil war, enduring another long separation from parents and siblings.In middle school Kang’s composition skills brought her to the attention of the Bureau of Education, her earliest recognition as a writer. After graduation she worked the Taiwan Fishery Marketing Corporation, performing clerical duties, a position from which she is now retired. Kang Yunwei has said that her desire to preserve childhood experiences in a chaotic, war-torn era is what spurred her to become a writer.

Kang began publishing after entering the workforce. In 1960 her short story “Anyan” ran in the Central Daily News supplement. In this period Kang’s works celebrated the brighter side of life, tending toward aesthetic romanticism. After marrying she wrote about women’s roles and gender relationships within the family, her simple, unadorned narratives both sincere and humorous. Preoccupied with family affairs, after she left off writing for nearly twenty years after the publication of Two Slaps in the Face (1968). Critic Shui Jing praised Kang’s writing, comparing Kang to Jane Austen for her incisive portrayals of love and marriage. Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai likened Kang’s fiction to “a needle concealed in cotton,” seemingly ordinary, yet implicit within are sharp observations of human nature.

Kang Yunwei has received the Chinese Artists’ and Writers’ Association Medal, the Youth Literary Fiction Award, and the Nine Songs Essay Award. Her publications include: Such a Beautiful Day (1966), Two Slaps in the Face (1968; the work was republished as Foolish Eighteen in 1970 and Stars on a Beautiful Night in 1983), Twelve Gold Hairpins (1987), Seeking a Soul Mate (1997), and I’ll Take You on a Scenic Tour (2004).

¹See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge