When Meinong, an agricultural settlement in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan is mentioned, many tourists immediately think of it as the best-preserved Hakka cultural settlement in Taiwan. It is renowned for its rich cultural heritage and its simple, picturesque rural landscape. 

Visitors can experience traditional architecture such as sanheyuan (three-sided courtyard houses) and tobacco drying towers, as well as traditional handicrafts including oil-paper umbrellas and blue Hakka shirts. They can also savor classic Hakka cuisine such as lei cha (pounded tea), ban tiao (Hakka flat rice noodles), and braised cabbage (gaoli cai feng).

For those wishing to gain a deeper understanding of Hakka culture, a visit to the Zhong Lihe Memorial Hall is essential. There, visitors can learn about Zhong Lihe, the celebrated writer who is honored as the “Father of Modern Taiwanese Literature.”

The Zhong Lihe Memorial Hall in Meinong is Taiwan’s first memorial hall dedicated to an ordinary civilian writer, built through the collective efforts of private citizens rather than the government. As such, it is an exceptionally precious cultural landmark. (Image: Isocyclo / Wikimedia Commons)
Stepping out of the Zhong Lihe Memorial Hall, visitors are greeted by the hills directly across the road. It was amid this natural landscape that Zhong Lihe conceived and wrote many of his moving literary works. (Image: Lu Yixin / Vision Times)

I still remember that, as a child, I was drawn to an old copy of Oleander (Jiazhutao), published by Yuanxing Publishing, on my father’s bookshelf. The title caught my attention because it was the same name as the oleander plant, whose branches were often covered with what we children called “alien hairy caterpillars” (the larvae of the Oleander Hawk-moth). Although the plant produces brilliant flowers, it is highly poisonous. Curious, I picked up the book and began reading it. My father later told me that its author was a Taiwanese writer who lived in Meinong. 

Years afterward, I was surprised to learn that Zhong Lihe was in fact one of the most important Taiwanese writers of the postwar era, and that his life had been marked by hardship, displacement, and suffering. Most admirable was that, through countless days of poverty and adversity, he never stopped observing the world or writing. He continued to write tirelessly until his death at the age of 44.

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Zhong Lihe was born on Dec. 5, 1915, into a prosperous family in Gaoshu township in Pingtung county in southern Taiwan. From an early age, he received a classical Chinese literary education. At the age of 18, he moved to Jishan (Qishan), Meinong, where he helped his father manage a farm. This experience later inspired the only full-length novel published during his lifetime, Jishan Farm (Lishan Farm). During this period, he resolved to devote himself to literature, embraced literary realism, and fell in love with Zhong Taimei, a farm worker who was four years his senior and had never received formal schooling.

Because they shared the same surname, their relationship violated the traditional Chinese taboo against marriage between people of the same surname. Rejected by both their families and society, the couple left together in August 1940 for Fengtian (present-day Shenyang, Liaoning Province) in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo set up in northeastern China (Manchuria) in 1932 after Japan’s invasion of the region. 

Lihe and Taimei chose to identify themselves as natives of Meixian, Guangdong, in order to integrate into what they regarded as the Chinese homeland. This reflected the Hakka cultural tradition of tracing one’s ancestral roots, and perhaps also Zhong Lihe’s deep admiration for the rich heritage of Han Chinese civilization.

In 1941, Zhong and his wife welcomed their eldest son, Zhong Tiemin, who would later become a writer himself. That summer, the family moved to Beiping (now Beijing). In April 1945, Zhong celebrated the publication of his first book, Oleander, which would also be the only work published during his lifetime.

The volume contained four novellas: “Oleander,” “New Life,” “Floating Threads,” and “Thin Light.” Among them, “Oleander,” which depicts life in the crowded communal courtyards of Beiping, stands out for its criticism of the darker aspects of local human nature. Its vivid portrayal of ordinary urban life in prewar Beiping makes it a rare and distinctive work in the history of Taiwanese literature.

During his years in Beiping, Zhong personally witnessed the city’s poverty, filth, and disorder, as well as the selfishness, greed, moral decay, and emotional numbness that afflicted many people. The idealized vision of his ancestral homeland that he had once cherished gradually crumbled.

After Japan announced its surrender in August 1945, Zhong returned to Taiwan with his wife and four children in March 1946, after years away. The following month, he accepted a temporary position teaching Chinese language at Neipu Junior High School in Pingtung County. Soon afterward, however, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

The Zhong Lihe Memorial Hall in Meinong. (Image: Lu Yixin / Vision Times)
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