The Tongue-Tied Fate of Wu Shou-li

For an ordinary visit at home, Wu Shou-li nevertheless appears with a suit jacket, slacks, and a solemn expression. With his white hair and thick glasses, in the fading light of dusk, as he speaks of the world of Fukienese scholarship, there is no doubt that this is the familiar likeness of the scholar.

Wu's polite character was visibly molded by his Japanese imperial education. What's odd is that the focus of his life's work--the study of Fukienese--first budded in Japan.

Wu was born in 1908, and his education was mostly during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The Japanese attempted to prohibit the use of the local dialect, but to little avail. Like many students at the time, during the day Wu attended a Japanese style primary school, studied Japanese books, and spoke Japanese when he saw Japanese people, fully respecting the "no speaking Chinese" rules. But in local private schools they studied Chinese texts using Fukienese.

This kind of bilingual education led Wu early on to become more and more aware that the pronunciation of his mother tongue and the sounds of many Chinese characters as used by the Japanese had a great degree of commonality. This kind of experience laid a considerable foundation for Wu's future research.

Wu entered Taipei Imperial University to study in the literature section of the humanities and politics college, specializing in East Asian literature (that is, the Chinese literature department). At that time he followed the research of his Japanese teacher Kanda Kiichiro, and absorbed a lot of knowledge about documents and texts, which proved helpful to his later collection and use of materials.

With the help of Kanda, Wu took a position at an institute for the study of Oriental cultures in Tokyo, and began studying Peking dialect Chinese. Two providential opportunities pushed him toward Fukienese. In one, the Asahi Shimbun needed a Fukienese person able to use both Chinese and Japanese to compile Amoy terms for a series on Asian liguistics. In the second, after returning to Taipei Imperial University, he was responsible for surveying South China gazetteers.

With the end of the Japanese occupation, Wu's research was also temporarily interrupted. However, after several studies of the Hakka language appeared, Wu figured, "Hakkanese can do it, why can't Fukienese?"

Wu produced important works, like An Introduction to Fukienese, and Taiwan Province Gazetteers--Volume Two, one after another. The former was the first treatise on the history of Fukienese, the latter a collation of literature and essays in Taiwanese, today still considered the best entree to the study of Taiwanese.

Aside from these individual works, what's taken most importantly by the academic world are Wu's collections of very old documents and writings in Fukienese. Through these he has pursued the way Fukienese was spoken and used 400 years ago, allowing moderns to understand and study old Fukienese documents.

Wu's destiny started with one book--the Li-ching Chi (literally Lichee Mirror Records). It is not clear how far back the Li-ching Chi goes; the earliest existing edition is from the Ming dynasty. It contains a popular Fukienese story from Chaochow. Scholars of linguistics believe that every language has a method for being written down, and Fukienese is no exception. This book shows that 400 years ago Fukienese were using Chinese characters to write scripts in their own tongue.

Wu discovered the existence of the book in a catalogue of Chinese books at Oxford University. This was the first book to use Fukienese to write drama. Because of its importance, Wu made great efforts to secure a copy. Japanese contacts told him that the book had appeared in the old book markets there, but its price of tens of thousands of yen put it out of Wu's reach.

But Wu, through friends in academia, finally got his eyes on not one but five copies. First, Kurata Junnosuke sent Wu a complete photocopy of the Li-ching Chi held by Tenri University. Through a priest friend, Wu acquired photos of the Oxford copy held by Professor Jau Tsung-yi at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Wu says it was good fortune in itself to have a Ming dynasty book preserved abroad, and then to get photocopies. Little did he expect that the Oxford version and the one in Japan would complement each other's lacunae, becoming a relatively complete volume.

Based on these two volumes, Wu wrote Studies in the Li-ching Chi--Collated and Corrected Edition and sent copies to major libraries. In response he received three more versions from Japan, France, and Austria, the latter sent by the Dutch sinologist Piet Van der Loon. Wu went on to publish a series of works including a collation of the five volumes, seeking the lost origins of Fukienese. These works are now basic to the study of Fukienese culture.

Also because of this book, Wu has discovered that there are many scholars, even foreign, who care about the study of Fukienese language, the happiest event for Wu in the course of his research.

Recently nativistic consciousness has been the subject of much attention. More and more scholars are getting into the study of Fukienese or Taiwan history. As for this phenomenon, Wu Shou-li says that you can't mention now and his era in the same breath. Early research couldn't find funding for publication, but today . . . one only needs a slightly upscale report and it becomes a hot item. "Times have changed, that's all I can say."

On December 7, 1988, a major fire in Wu's Wenchow Street neighborhood destroyed Wu's life's collection, but blazed a path of unanticipated fame. Now, sitting in his living room in a dorm at National Taiwan University, on the one hand he regrets the papers lost in the fire, a collection of data from four or five hundred years of Fukienese. On the other, he says, undaunted: "A fire is not so terrifying; what's frightening is that there will be no one to carry on the work!"

[Picture Caption]

Mr. Wu has already passed 80, but just mention the study of Fukienese and it is like a return to youth. His daughter reveals that his most-loved snack is shrimp flavored bits, a favorite of children.

Taiwan Province Gazetteers-Volume Two is a major compilation of Taiwan Fukienese documents and studies. It was lost in the fire, but old friends are now sending back copies he had originally sent to them.

After the fire on Chaochow Street, Wu lived temporarily in his daughter's apartment. He sadly put the recovered items in order, provisionally using cardboard boxes for bookcases.

Wu Shou-li surveys the remnants of manuscripts in the aftermath of the big fire. He is holding a surviving article, just like a family heirloom.

Taiwan Province Gazetteers-Volume Two is a major compilation of Taiwan Fukienese documents and studies. It was lost in the fire, but old friends are now sending back copies he had originally sent to them.

After the fire on Chaochow Street, Wu lived temporarily in his daughter's apartment. He sadly put the recovered items in order, provisionally using cardboard boxes for bookcases.

Wu Shou-li surveys the remnants of manuscripts in the aftermath of the big fire. He is holding a surviving article, just like a family heirloom.