Orphan of Asia, completed in 1945, is an autobiographical novel by Chuo-liu Wu, dramatizing the internal, external, and personal struggles of the protagonist Hu Taiming. This central character is “born in Japanese-occupied Taiwan” and grows up with a continuous clash of culture in his life: his grandfather puts forth much effort to educate his grandson with the principles of traditional Chinese values. However, Taiming is forced into the Japanese education system because of Japanese presence in Taiwan. The story begins with a depiction of his childhood. Taiwan has only been annexed to Japan recently and therefore, the country is under much pressure and change. The education system transfers to Japanese teaching methods and education, the path that Taiming is forced to comply with and follow. He is a strong scholar and eventually graduates from one of the universities. He becomes a teacher for the Japanese education system and has a very high ranking. But throughout this process, Taiming loses the connection he previously possessed with his original culture and family. He realizes that he does not want to be part of this system and way of life any longer, but when he tries to go back to the way things were, he realizes that all his ties are cut off and no longer attached to him; he has to find his way back.
The novel follows the internal struggle Taiming faces with the clashing of all of these lifestyles and cultures continuously being forced down his throat. He starts the journey to return to his roots and regain his rightful place, the place where he feels he belongs. However, the journey is hard. It is long and perilous. It is a consistent struggle. Taiming does not find peace and a sense of comfort and belonging in Japan, where he obtains a student’s position in the studying of physics, nor in China, where he marries a beautiful woman and has a daughter together with her. Things take a deadly and terrible turn when Taiming is accused of being a spy as the tension between China and Japan elevates significantly. It’s a hard and long fight, and Orphan of Asia depicts the struggle of just one man out of the millions that suffered similarly.
Orphan of Asia is widely considered a classic piece in more modern Asian literature. It vividly and efficiently expresses the ideas of “the postwar Taiwanese national consciousness” of its time. The novel evokes the ideas of “political, cultural, and psychological impact of colonialism,” especially in the Taiwanese culture.
Chuo-liu Wu, also known as Zhouliu Wu, was born in 1900 and passed in 1976. Wu was a very famous and critically acclaimed journalist of his time, being one of the leading literary authors and journalists in Taiwan. Most known and celebrated for his “realistic, politically charged short stories and novels”, Wu has crafted several other notable pieces, some of which include The Fig and Formosan Weeping Forsythia.
