Wife of author of The Ugly Chinaman to halt book publication

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Wife of author of The Ugly Chinaman to halt book publication to prevent content being misused by Taiwan secessionists

The wife of Bo Yang, deceased writer born in the Chinese mainland and based in the island of Taiwan, announced that the publication of one of Bo Yang's books that criticizes bad habits of Chinese people in the 20th century was to be halted as some of its content might be used by secessionist forces to insult China. This has attracted attention on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. 

Chang Shiang-Hua, Bo Yang's wife, refused to include a passage from The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture into the teaching materials for middle school students in the island of Taiwan. Chang announced that she would no longer release the book after the current contract with publishers on both sides of the Taiwan Straits expires in 2024. 

"Bo Yang once said: 'when China progresses, then we can stop reading this book,' meaning that when the Chinese people stop indulging in closed, conservative and unrealistic problems of the past and have new goals to pursue, this book should be scrapped," Chang told the Global Times in an exclusive interview where she shared her decision to stop publishing the book. She also mentioned she hopes publishers will stop publishing the book from now on.

The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture, published in Taiwan island in 1985, was the island's bestseller of the year. The book is a collection of dozens of essays by Bo Yang, mainly criticizing the deep-rooted bad habits of Chinese people in the 20th century. With an attitude described as "wishing iron could turn into steel at once," Bo Yang called various drawbacks of traditional culture "soy sauce jar culture," which aroused strong cultural shock in the Chinese world.

Chang told the Global Times that at that time the book was directed at the Kuomintang (KMT) cadres in the island of Taiwan, noting that the interpretation of this book cannot be separated from its background and it is necessary to have the corresponding historical knowledge to understand the meaning expressed by Bo Yang.

"Children who are just in their first year of junior high school between the ages of 10 and 12 have absorbed very little Chinese culture. But now, the education authority of Taiwan is trying to implant a subjective sense of [hating the mainland] in the youth first," Chang said. 

She noted that the publisher did not negotiate with her on the exact essay to be used and she was concerned that under their deliberate title of "The Ugly Chinaman," young people in the island would easily misinterpret the concept of China.

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