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Political participation in 2004: an interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Chen Kuan-Hsing; Ti Wei; Ken-fang Lee

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2008

To cite this Article Kuan-Hsing, Chen, Wei, Ti and Lee, Ken-fang(2008)'Political participation in 2004: an interview with Hou Hsiao-

Hsien',Inter-Asia Cultural Studies,9:2,324 335

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Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, 2008

Political participation in 2004: an interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien

CHEN Kuan-Hsing and Ti WEI (Translated by Ken-fang LEE)

Looking back on political participation

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khchen@mx.nthu.edu.tw
Inter-Asia
10.1080/14649370801965760
RIAC_A_296742.sgm
1464-9373
Original
Taylor
9202008
Kuan-HsingChen
00000June
and
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Francis
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Francis
2008 Studies (online)

Chen: You have talked about the Coalition

for Equal Opportunity1 and Taiwan
Democracy School elsewhere. When you
talked about that, you were very much
within that situation. Now probably you
can talk about it from some distance since
the climax of the School for Democracy and
the election has passed. Can you tell us
what all this meant to you?
Hou: After participating in the School for
Democracy and trying to get involved with
the election, I found that actually there is no
space for the middle way in Taiwan, and
the whole political situation is really difficult. I tried to understand what the local
meant and came to realize that it is impossible, unable to make any change. The voters
took sides on either the Green or Blue
camp. This was the basic condition. There
was no middle way. The middle space
was completely emptied, a complete void.
By then you would know it was impossible
to make a change.
I used to think that we, as representatives of ideals, might stand a chance. But
actually what we talked about was within
the urban space. We were talking to some
rational citizens in a civil society. Yet, after
a while, all these people gave up. Perhaps
they thought it was good but it did not
make any difference to them after all. They
became indifferent after some frustrating
experiences. This is what I thought after the
candidates we supported lost the election.
Ms Cheng Li-wen got a high rating in the
poll but she lost. We actively supported Su
Ying-gui but he lost, too. Because of these
two cases, we realized what the structure of

the voters was composed of. It represents

the whole structure of Taiwans political
culture. It is very difficult to make a change.
The ad hoc National Assembly passed a
constitution amendment to reduce the
number of members in the Legislative Yuan
from 225 to 113. I dont know what the
impact will be, but it can be expected that,
in the short term, nothing will change. Even
though the size of the constituency has
been reduced, the basic condition is very
much the same and it cannot be changed
right away.
Chen: Can you talk about your participation in this election? It is complex enough
being in the culture circle or the film circle,
but this circle is probably even more
complex since it involves intellectuals and
political figures. We dont mean to gossip.
What wed like to know is the difference
between this circle and the film circle in
terms of their complexity. In the process of
participating in politics, you met some key
political figures and got involved in the
election campaign, has this made you see
the people and the society of Taiwan in a
different light?
Hou: For me, of course, it is different and
does not really make a huge difference. The
reason is that making films is basically a
way of understanding people. If you dont
know how to see through people, firstly,
how can you work with them? Secondly,
how can you direct them? This has been a
long-term training. It is not difficult for me
at all. The essence and experiences of each
person make them what they are. A
persons blind spot is their weakness. But
most people cannot see it; they cannot see

ISSN 14649373 Print/ISSN 14698447 Online/08/02032412 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14649370801965760

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An interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien 325

through themselves, including some highprofile political figures.
Everybodys opinions have something
to do with their background. In your growing process, if you find family unable to give
you enough support, you would find some
outside help. Once you look out for support,
youll change your attitude. You need an
identity, a certain sense of security, many
people join a group or a community because
of this. Thats what matters to many people.
We can see such personality in a lot of political figures, although they are not aware of
it. To have such an awareness is very hard,
few people have it. However, I found out
that many people in the Coalition for Equal
Opportunity have such an awareness. They
know their conditions and do their jobs
persistently. I quite like those people.
Chen: You just mentioned the Coalition. If
we measure, evaluate it in terms of the
success and failure of the election, it does
not mean much since no one in this camp
got elected. But if we look back and examine
it from the perspective of that moment,
what political effect do you think it made? It
doesnt necessarily have anything to do
with the election.
Hou: I realized that such an effect does not
last long. Both parties manipulated ethnicity
and made it an issue in elections; we stood
out as the whistle-blowers and shouted
loudly, You cannot do this! At that time,
both the Blue and Green camps tried to win
the middle ground voters. They probably
thought that we might have had some influence on the middle ground voters.
Chen: So you are saying that actually they
made a wrong political judgment? (Laughter)
Hou: In the end you might find that their
judgment was not wrong. It is exactly
because of this, that the extreme means2 was
taken. After the bullets, the Blue camp
almost collapsed. Either in the election for
legislators, or the elections for the ad hoc
National Assembly, the turnout was rather
low; yet the voting in the presidential elec-

tion was tough. It is clear that they want to

fight for the most powerful position. They
havent realized that, in a democratic society, the balance of power is important. You
cannot take all the pieces for yourself. You
cannot take all just because you have been
elected as the president. I have a feeling that
for the average middle voters it is hard to
understand such a way of thinking.
Chen: So far what you have said sends a
message that you are very aware of what
you have been doing. Politics is a field for
you to deal with your own problem. You
somehow turn back to your own art, your
work, is it right?
Hou: In fact, to participate in politics was
never my decision, because I never am a
political person. Every profession has its
know-how, its environment. If you want to
build up an environment, it takes a long
time. It is impossible to stride across politics
with my reputation in the culture circle. So
I was very clear about this in the very beginning. Besides, I was not really a member of
the Coalition at first. I was dragged into the
meetings three times. They said we needed
to organize, so we got it a name. We needed
a convener, so they all turned to me and said
that I was well-known. I thought about it
and accepted the offer. The more you get
involved, the more you invest in it. Since
you face it, you would put more faith in
what you believe. There is so much to do
and I have no time to loaf around.
As for my artistic production, such
participation may broaden my experience,
which means I have more materials. I was
not so sensitive to many parts of Taiwans
contemporary history earlier on, but now
I am. I turn back to my film career and think
about all this.
Chen: When I went to some election
campaign gatherings, I noticed that even
you were placed in the political space, and
there was something else, which was not
directly related to the elections. I remember
such an instance in one gathering, at a pub
on Chung Shan North Road.

326 Chen Kuan-Hsing and Ti Wei

Hou: Well, that was for the Organization for
Help for Industrial Injury. It was a performance held for laborers who had suffered
from industrial injuries.

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Chen: Such activities do not relate to elections. I was rather surprised to find you
using ordinary peoples language with ease,
especially in an authentic Min-nan dialect.
Can you talk a little bit more about such
form of political participation? What I mean
is that you are a bit like a cultural political
figure, the ways in which you interact with
the masses. When you look back, what do
you think of the whole thing? Did you
consciously use some of your resources?
What made you communicate with them so
well?
Hou: I have no problem communicating
with people. As a film maker, I have all
kinds of contacts. Besides, I dont have the
so-called class consciousness. I dont have
that in any way. Betel-nut culture, being
friends with workers, all these helped us
get along very well. It is not hard for me at
all. What is hard is whether I have time to
deal with this part. In the end, I can only
deal with it from where I stand. I joined
them with my visual-image resources.
Sometimes the power of visual images
is much stronger than that of participating
in movements, especially when you get it
right. For example, when I was working
with the Coalition, I sensed the people were
really nice. At some point, we reached a tacit
understanding and a consensus. We all
appreciated each other and spoke what we
thought. So I chose one day to set the lights
and shoot what everyone said, which
became the documentary of That Night of
the Coalition. (The full title is At That
Night, Hou, Hsiao-Hsien Was Shooting the
Coalition). It turned out quite well. Some
people made 10,000 copies for distribution
locally and abroad.
Interpretation of history is dominated
by rulers. They can say this and that and play
fast and loose. How can we recover history?
We may use words. But the masses cannot
read them. Only very few people will read

them. Thats why I want to recover it with

images. For me, it is jigsaw-like. Perhaps it
will last only 20 to 30 minutes, a short and
feature film type of thing. Some characters
may interest you, some episodes touch you.
Take Jiang Wei-shui for example, he studied
typhoid bacillus with some medical students
when he was in the fourth or fifth year
of medical school. He attempted to kill
Yuan Shih-kai with the bacillus. He went to
Tokyo and then to Manchuria. The whole
thing became like a play for absurd theatre.
Something like this can make a 30-minute
film. Whats more is that they wanted to kill
the Japanese Emperor, they even injected the
typhoid bacillus into tangerines and planned
to send them to the Emperor. He established
a forum for culture at that time and also
fought cunningly with the Japanese secret
police. It can be shot in a documentary form.
To put everything together is just like fitting
the jigsaws. We can do it within a certain
scale and pile up all the images. Finally the
whole picture may emerge/come clear.
From politics back to the images
Chen: I want to ask you a critical question:
What have you learned from this political
participation which you hadnt learned in
the past?
Hou: For me it is like this: since you understand more about this part, you have a
greater feeling about it, you will re-think
about your own production, your own position, the whole environment and what direction your production is taking. Now I really
regret that I did not make a huge amount of
money earlier. If I had made a lot of money,
I could have done so many things by now.
If I were Wen Shih-ren,3 I would extend my
scope to a tremendous scale (sigh), including some stuff for the new settlers, foreign
immigrants and so on. Now the population
structure in Taiwan has changed enormously. The elites have moved out and
more and more new immigrants are moving
in. Yet the social resources are not distributed to these new immigrants; no one looks
after them.

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An interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien 327

Those who marry foreign women are
normally the lower-middle and the lower
classes. They have contributed a lot to
Taiwans economic growth in the past
decades. They were the spine of the whole
assembly line. They did not move to the
craftsmanship or learn any skills for agriculture. We learned the skills and the set-up of
factories from the United States. The set-up
know-how is movable. It moves according
to the values of land and labor costs. Thats
why it moved to Thailand, to Southeast
Asia, and now to mainland China. These
remaining laborers cannot find suitable
wives, so they marry foreign brides.
Recently New Journalism and Business Week4
had special reports on this issue. In Vietnam
only we can find more than 3000 Taiwanese
kids. Probably because of dysfunctional
families, economic reasons or failed
marriages, these kids went to Vietnam with
their mothers. Since their nationality is
Taiwanese, they cant attend the local
schools. They cannot learn anything. Now
the Eden Foundation is trying to help out.
This is indeed a serious matter. Just think
about it: the elites emigrate abroad; new
immigrants come in, start families and have
kids. The whole society does not take this
seriously and does not provide a wellplanned structure to justly distribute social
resources. No institution or organization is
established to deal with this change. Thus,
these kids cant be educated and brought up
properly.
Sometimes you wouldnt think it is
possible to deal with all these because there
are so many things for you to do. As for
films, I have achieved certain things,
because of my age and my spending such a
long time making films. Many new people
have appeared, which means the whole
world is changing. All film forms are changing and the directions of film festivals are
also changing. The problem I am now facing
is that originally I made films for myself, for
my individuality. I have tried to go beyond
myself even though I am aware that the self
cannot be separated from the society he is
in. You always observe society and always
feel like saying something about what you

observe. All these drive you back to the

essence of humanity. But now you will find
such space has become narrower and
narrower. Since the internet has become a
common way of communication and the
whole world has changed, you realize that
there is no use influencing intellectuals or
older people. You have to have impact on
the young generation. This calls for adjustment, adjusting your current position and
finding a proper place to talk to them.
At the moment I am thinking and finding another position. The position Im now
standing on is rather safe because I can get
money from Europe and Japan. It is fairly
easy for me to make films. I can make whatever films I like. I can always make some
very individualistic films. But the problem
is that the impact is weaker. Ordinary
people wont watch them at all. Only the
film students or some culturally-sensitive
people will watch them. But I want to have
more impact on more people. When we
were young, we watched mainstream
movies. What this means is that those
movies were dreamworks. Stardom is a
dreamwork; genre films are dreamworks
too. In the end, Chinese [Hua-ren] film
circles will target audiences from mainland
China. The Chinese (Hua-ren) include
people from Hong Kong, Taiwan and
Southeast Asia. On this map, what on earth
can you do to develop local genres, to attract
other markets? At least the genre films
should be built up, then they can have
enough energy to grow. After that, we can
talk about some individualistic, experimental and indie films that some people like to
do. This energy should reflect back on the
mainstream films. If the mainstream films
dont exist, the experimental part can hardly
exist.
What I am trying to do, is to change to
another position to create some new genre
films in Chinese circles. If I could say that
my films used to be less dramatic, more realistic, a kind of very much my style, such a
style is actually more lyrical. Or put it
another way, it is about some aura among
people or about some peoples personalities.
It is very much in the Chinese lyrical and

328 Chen Kuan-Hsing and Ti Wei

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expressive tradition. The dramatic part is

implicit, underneath. But now, can I turn it
around and apply what I have already got
in a more dramatic structure?
I believe that the infrastructure of
Taiwans film industry needs building. The
training needs unceasing operation. Take
kung fu movies as an example, we need to
build up the scale and formats, such as
computer special techniques, arts, wirekung-fu fighting, and so on. Actually, you
need to train more new people. This is what
we Chinese can do. If we can complete the
infrastructure by ten percent, twenty, or
thirty percent, we would gradually improve
ourselves and the young blood can take a
great leap from such a foundation.
Chen: So all these are your tasks?
Hou: All these have been on my mind for a
while. I think that those tasks should be
completed. So I have many directions to
develop. One is the direction of Three Times
(the literal translation of the Chinese title is
The Best Times); the other is documentary
films. Of course I wont do a documentary
myself. Ill ask Lan Bozhou and others to do
it. Many young people can do that quite
well.
Chen: Will you expand your partnerships?
Hou: I have many projects in mind. For
example, after making the film The Last Rice
Farmer (or Let It Be), people should make
another film about fallow paddy fields.
These stories have been covered by the
China Times. I knew all these a long time
ago. They dug out the soil and sold it, then
dumped the soil and left the field unattended. That existed since earlier times. The
Last Rice Farmer deals with one chunk of
such stories. You need to do several of them
to make the whole picture clear. Thats why
I said I wished I had more money to do this.
Chen: So, your latest film, Three Times is also
a kind of representation of the process of
your social and political participation, is
it right?

Hou: Actually in the process of participating

in the political campaigns, I discovered a
new angle of examining the films I made
about Taiwans contemporary history,
including the history of the Japanese
Occupation Period, before that period,
after Japanese Occupation and when the
Republican government came to Taiwan.
The White Terror, too. I can make a film on
Hsiao Kai-ping. He was a forensic doctor.
His father was Hsiao Dao-ying. They fought
the Japanese with Chung Hao-dong during
the Second World War. They joined the
underground organization and were
arrested when they got back to Taiwan. At
that time, Hsiao Kai-ping was just a kid, he
could not accept it. He has written something about this experience. Li Guo-yuan, a
pianist, also had a similar experience. She
played the piano in the second part of my
film, The Best Times, which is named The
Dream of Freedom. She was sent to Austria
when she was very young because her
parents were political prisoners and did not
want her to get involved and suffer. During
her study in Austria, her father wrote
hundreds of letters to her and explained
what had happened. This can also make a
short piece.
Chen: You have been emphasizing short
productions. Actually in your early work,
we have seen some short pieces, or the ideas
of short pieces. Do you think it would be
easier for common people or the whole society to understand these jigsaws of short
pieces in contrast to the longer pieces?
Hou: Short pieces are faster to make. You
dont need to spend a lot of time on screenplays, thinking of the beginning, development, climax, and conclusion, or the cause
and effect, etc. Short pieces can digest a lot
of exciting materials and also be combined
together as a series of documentary-styled
films. We did something on Lan Bo-zhous
story before, something like Why We Did
Not Sing.5 Long interviews sort of thing.
This is supplementary. After watching the
film, some people may take interest in it
and would like to find more materials to

An interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien 329

read in order to understand the whole
thing.

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Chen: So you are trying to tell us your

present and future directions for making
films after the political participation?
Hou: I have a long-term plan, which is the
so-called best times. What I mean by this
is that not a certain time is beautiful. What
I try to express is that the past cannot be
repeated. So I will do a series of films on this.
In the middle of doing this, I will also
develop the documentary vein. Actually
I am still in the process of recovering history.
This covers many fields, many different
types of people. Sometimes you need to
delineate the people from other angles.
For example, Nanking was a very
important base for the Republican government. They built many mansions at that
time. Some of the mansions are still there.
Recently, a scholar in Nanking worked on
the stories of these mansions and developed
a very interesting narrative since each
mansion has its own story and the people
who lived in these mansions were somehow
related to each other. This is fascinating.
What I mean is that sometimes words are
not enough, I have to use images as a supplement. I thought of making telefilms but now
I find I dont need to do that. Telefilms are
difficult to make. You have to retrieve the
contemporary situations, costumes, and
atmosphere. The most difficult part is with
the actors. You just cannot retrieve the whole
thing. Previously, I thought of doing it at the
School for Democracy. I found it very interesting when I joined the forums and got
some ideas. For instance, people like Chien
Yung-hsiang, Su Ying-gui and Zhu Yun-han
see things differently even though they are
examining the same topic. It was really fascinating to me. Something like this would be
nice if it were like At That Night, Hou
Hsiao-Hsien Was Shooting the Coalition. To
tell a story with images is different from telling it with words.
Chen: So far you seem to be telling us two
different things. One is the use of images as

the medium of intervention in society. In

other words, you consider intervention a
possibility after the experience of political
participation. Or is it because there is no
other way? Another thing is that there is a
direct object you are addressing. You kept
emphasizing retrieving history. Can I put it
this way? You are anxious to have a
dialogue with this direct object because the
current political situations or political
figures tend to over-simplify the interpretation of history and tend to be one-sided. But
the true situation is far more complex. You
want to represent the complexity. It seems to
me that there are two different things. One is
to intervene in the interpretation of history
through images; the other is to retrieve the
complexity of history that has been lessened
by the political manipulation. These two
things are what you are concerned about in
the present and the future?
Hou: For me these two things seem to be
just one thing. This is complicated. But in
terms of form, making films can be as
simple as writing articles. For me retrieving
history basically has to be as objective as
possible.
Chen: So the plans you talk about will be
mainly on the historical part? In the vein of
Taiwans modern history?
Hou: The authoritarian regime has caused a
gap and, to a certain degree, distorted our
understanding of Taiwans modern history.
Only very few intellectuals and/or elites
know about such a gap. Such an understanding is rather limited. For most people,
the gap is there and they cannot fully understand who they are and what such history
means to them.
Wei: I have a feeling that your earlier films
also tried to retrieve history to some degree,
for example, the Taiwan trilogy. Is there any
difference between the earlier films and
what you are planning now?
Hou: For me, the Taiwan trilogy are simply
films. What I mean by film here is that

330 Chen Kuan-Hsing and Ti Wei

I only see the history bits from the angle of
characters. Because the complexity, diversity and multiple facets cannot be dealt with
in those films, I concentrate on the characters. I only delineate a kind of atmosphere,
an aura.
Wei: So what will you do afterwards?
Hou: Spread, spread out even more.
The way out for Taiwans cinema

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Chen: Can you talk a bit about the Association of Taiwan Cinema Culture that you are
in charge of. What does it do?
Hou: At first, trying to organize this association is trying to organize some activities.
Originally we thought we could set up a
learning and training center for apprenticeship. Roughly at the same time, the old
American Ambassadors Residence as the
historical site was conserved and refurbished by the Culture Bureau of Taipei.
They wanted to set up a cinema culture
center on this site, so they came for me. The
plan was to have a bar on the second floor,
and a caf and bookstore on the first floor.
We didnt do it ourselves since the knowhow was not simple for us. We subcontracted the work to the professionals.
The old garage was turned to a small theater
accommodating 88 seats. This is what you
now know as Taipei-Spot Film House. It is
run by the Association of Taiwan Cinema
Culture.
When we first started, the money was
mainly borrowed from my own company.
We spent at least seven or eight millions NT
dollars for decoration, hiring the staff, and
all the hardware facilities. Now it looks
quite glamorous but it did take a lot of
effort and time. Then came the software
part and management. I proposed the idea
of the third section to the Association. This
was inspired by Peter F. Druckers autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander. In
contrast to the public and the private
sectors, i.e. the government and the enterprises, the third sector is the social section,

which is a non-profit section and is based

on public interest. Only when we develop
the function of the third section can we be
independent and multicultural. By doing
so, the values of human society can be
maintained and guarded. Thus, we can talk
about cultivating community leadership
and civil society, and so on and so forth.
So the films we choose to play are very
different from those of the mainstream
theaters. We have our own standards and
tasks for choosing films and organizing
small film exhibits. For example, we had
North European Film Exhibits, Digital Film
Exhibits, East European Film Exhibits,
Indian Film Exhibits, South European Film
Exhibits, Latin American Film Exhibits, and
music-centered Taiwan and Chinese Film
Exhibits, and so on. Once one exhibit in
Taipei is done, it tours Hsinchu, Kaohsiung
and Taoyuan. We can find the Visual Images
Museum, Film Library and Performance
Hall respectively in the above cities and
show these films to the local people. If
they take interest, we will be more than
happy to share. What I am really proud of
so far is that we organized the Film Exhibit
for Celebrating the 100th Anniversary for
Yasujiro Ozu. We got hold of 36 of his existing 35 mm film copies, which are quite
amazing. Moreover, we published a special
book dedicated to Ozu, which is the most
complete introduction to his works in
Chinese so far. The theater has gradually
established its style and reputation. Since it
started three years ago, the box office
numbers have increased three times.
Above all, the most important role that
the Association plays is to train and support
more young talents. The best way to train
people is let them do it: practice. We have
operated the Cinema Apprentice Center for
two years. Now we have several groups
who are working and getting sponsored
by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Company Limited. After the members write
their screenplays, we tell them how to put
them into practice. They have no experience.
I offer my producers and casting of my
company to them; tell them if any problem
arises, they need to negotiate. What we have

An interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien 331

done so far is not enough. I have the feeling
that practical operation mainly derives from
me. Probably we need to find some other
support and find more energy coming in.
For instance, telefilms. We can shoot telefilms in the scale of making films. Such
training will be more useful. If such a platform can be established in a few years time,
we stand a better chance. Because now
Taiwans cinema is promising, many more
people would like to invest in it. Such an
opportunity should not be wasted.

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Wei: It is dangerous while you try to make a

change. You dont succeed and then you
cannot move on. You need a certain amount
of energy and quantity to accumulate first.
Then it can bring in a positive cycle.
Chen: The whole structure of the film
industry in Taiwan has reached the thinnest sustenance. To slowly strengthen it
means to re-build the structure of the film
industry
Hou: The reason is simple. If you dont have
energy and quantity, there will never be
talents. If you want to shoot a film, you have
to find people from Hong Kong or Japan.
We cant find enough talent here. Besides,
we dont have producers. Producers know
where to find the right people, get the right
teams and right directors. Also, they know
how to find the right stars, how much
people can achieve, and what ways are most
efficient. Furthermore, they know how to do
special effects, and where to find photographers to take the right shots. In any case,
photography, special effects, and art design
are all related. You have to make the right
judgments about all this.
Chen: Im thinking of another problem. To
establish a Taiwans film association can be
very meaningful. It can be a contact point to
the outside world. I dont know if they have
similar associations in Mainland China,
perhaps they have a writers association, or
a film association. All these can be linked
up to work out something together. If such
a linkage is set up, it might be easier to

promote Chinese cinema as a whole. It can

be a greater coalition. Maybe coalition is not
the right word. It can offer a kind of imagination, a Chinese (hua-ren) film organization. But we dont find support or adequate
conditions to do it, right?
Hou: I think that I should achieve something first. For example, if you want to work
with Asian countries to make films, you
should find the market first. It is doomed if
there is no market, because it just means
investing money in others films and no one
invests in yours. In mainland China they are
working toward that aim. They either make
big-scale epic films for propaganda, or some
very small-budget auteur films. Directors
like Wang Xiao-shuai, Jia Zhang-ke are
more auteur-like. Feng Xiao-gang is doing
very well in the mainstream.
Chen: What do you think of film schools
and academic training? For example, the
departments of film and the colleges of film.
From your experience, what do you think of
this training?
Hou: It does matter if they work or not. We
cannot deny that we get quite a lot of people
from film schools. Basically it must be the
love for films which drives a person to enter
a film school. But whether this person will
join this field depends on the conditions of
that person. I studied at a film school but no
one worked in this field except me after
graduation. Somehow at least I persist.
Chen: What I want to ask is that if a film
school asks, will you join them?
Hou: You mean teaching?
Chen: Yes, more or less.
Hou: My opinion is this: if you really want
to do it, you should start from elementary
schools. Try to get the copyrights for educational showing for elementary and secondary schools. If there can be an organization,
supposedly a government-sponsored foundation of culture or arts, which takes charge

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332 Chen Kuan-Hsing and Ti Wei

of seeking the good movies for the youngsters from the whole world, we can really
make this happen. They make the copies or
versions for public showing and promote
them. Actually Denmark has done this very
successfully. Even some European countries
want to buy from them and ask for their
catalogues. You need to have a vision in
choosing the right films for youngsters. You
need to establish such an institution and
then this task can be gradually achieved.
Regarding film schools, what I find difficult
is not the technical parts but cultural literacy. Techniques are easy to learn. You just
need to practice. If you learn it on the spot
for several films, then you can grasp it all
right. But cultural literacy is another story.
I dont think education should emphasize
techniques and skills. Its better to provide a
holistic training instead of just techniques.
Wei: You mentioned that we should see
what role Taiwan can play in the whole
Chinese culture world, or in Asia. Can you
talk about this since we have not really
touched on it yet?
Hou: Taiwans New Cinema in the 1980s
was a big change. It did not happen out of a
void. It came to bloom because peoples
power accumulated to a certain extent and
matured. Peoples autonomous space was
the soil for the New Cinema. By contrast,
the development in mainland China faces a
gap in cultural continuity. They do not have
such strong peoples power. Hong Kongs
New Wave was also a change. But they
took a different route. Because Hong Kong
was a colony, they went in the direction of a
film industry and mainstream cinema. They
basically followed the Hollywood style in
terms of the entertainment and form.
Taiwan is different. Taiwans New Cinema
is a reflection on the progress of growth and
life. This is somewhat unlike Hong Kongs
concerns. However, New Cinema cannot
become the mainstream. It was originally
the alternative for the mainstream market.
It belongs to some people who enjoy films
and make films the ways in which they
think they are more like auteurs. When we

talk about New Cinema, we have to

mention Ming Chi. He was a weird guy. He
started a training course at the Central
Motion Picture Co. for four years and
brought in many film technicians to the
industry. While he was the general manager
of the Central Film Co., he recruited Hsiao
Yeh, and Wu Nien-chen to be schemers. At
that time, many new directors got their film
degrees abroad and came back. It was just a
perfect timing for everything. You had good
opportunities, a lot of promising people and
the right atmosphere. Thats why New
Cinema came to maturity.
The realistic aesthetics of New Cinema
and humanistic concerns are its legacy and
strengths. In comparison with mainland
China which is now releasing its peoples
power, Taiwan shows the social power that
has lasted three generations. Such power
runs deep and wide. Unlike the Cultural
Revolution, which created a major gap
between different generations, our cultural
taste has not suffered from that gap and has
been rather enriched for three generations.
The process of modernization in mainland
China is too short and too fast. Many hardware facilities have been built right away
(dao-wei) but the software set-up has not
been established or cultivated. It is not
ready yet. So, that is where we stand in
the Chinese-language world. Regarding
cinema, no matter if you want to move
toward the mainstream or the alternative
trend, the legacy and the strengths that the
New Cinema left us should be what we
cherish and further develop.
Cinema, politics and culture across the
Straits
Chen: We have been talking about the
whole, which involves mainland China.
Actually you are close to them, arent you?
As far as I know, the researcher friends of
mine, Dai Jing-hua for one, thought that
you support mainland Chinas film-makers
unconditionally in terms of film production.
What I want to ask is probably beyond the
cinema level. For instance, we cannot neglect
some intrinsic conditions in mainland China

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if we want to think of the whole Chineselanguage world from Taiwans standpoint.

What do you think of their soil? According
to your previous observation, many aspects
are not ready yet. If you want to establish a
more mainstream Chinese-language market
on such soil, you need to understand how
the society works.
Hou: The last time I was there was nearly
eight years ago. I went there again last
month and stayed for ten days. I was in
Shanghai and Nanking. I went to their
morning markets around six oclock. I like
to go to their markets and see their daily
life. Just by taking their bus, and seeing
how they live their lives, you will realize
there is a huge difference between the transnational and the local emerging power. By
watching their TV and reading their newspapers, you will know that they still have
some kind of restrictions. There is a long
way to go in terms of their concept of public
sphere and urban civil society. But if films
want to focus on this, I sense that we cannot
do it immediately. As I just mentioned, at
different stages you make different films.
You have to be effective first and then make
adjustments later.
Chen: To put it directly, working with mainland China can be operated at various
levels. One is film schools, another is the
film industry, yet another includes training
for directors. How do you see such linkage
and cooperation at this level?
Hou: I havent contacted them, so I really
dont know. The fastest way to know if it
works is by shooting a martial arts film in
China; then the mode of cooperation will
emerge.
Chen: Id like to examine this on a broader
political environment, especially after Lien
and Song visited mainland China. What
I am aiming at is actually something moving
beyond cinema and involving all fields,
which includes three connections, direct
flight etc. What do you think of the trend in
the near future after their visits? I dont

think it makes any sense if we just talk about

cooperation with mainland China without
setting a premise on that.
Hou: Regardless of whether Lien and Song
went to mainland China or not, what I care
about is to set up something on this
Chinese-language chunk. I like to focus on
what we can do in this area. We have some
advantages on some fronts because we
have been through the process of modernization, we see things much clearer and
know how to function. What Liens and
Songs visits mean to the people there,
the intellectuals in particular, is that they
saw certain kinds of leaders who were
immersed in an atmosphere of liberalism,
thus making Lien and Song a kind of standard, a model. They have never come
across such kinds of leaders in mainland
China. Now they have met such leaders in
person. In Taiwan, most political figures
play smart. Lien Zhang is not that type.
When he was in China, his attitude, his
perspective, and his personality was broadcast on Central TV. People over there then
changed their impression of Taiwan. Many
people said dont fight, we cannot possibly
fight against them.
Chen: Their reactions seem very interesting
from our perspective. Lien is quite a dull
person in Taiwan but he showed his
demeanor while he was in China. It seems
to me that Beijing in some ways is like a
large platform. For people like Lien it
works almost therapeutically. This helps us
to consider some problems in Taiwan.
Compared to the scale of mainland China,
Taiwan is small but packed with people
who have talent and potential. The platform of Taiwan is now becoming narrower
and narrower for these people. In these
circumstances, many of them need to go
out and find some other space or platform
for them to perform on. Besides, the political condition also pushes some people to
mainland China. Such a condition is of
course bad for Taiwan itself. We all know
that there are at least 600,000 Taiwanese
now in Shanghai.

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334 Chen Kuan-Hsing and Ti Wei

Hou: Ive sent my film copies to Beijing Film
College before. I did not expect my films
would actually provide them with a different perspective. They had never seen
Chinese movies take such a perspective
before. They had never thought about it.
They were more influenced by the Russian
system, which is different from the European-American system.
I feel that if you have a strong base of
Chinese culture, you will have more power
to tell a story while you get in touch with
some Western stuff. And what you show
will be different from the west. I thought of
this a long time ago: why should we make
films like the Europeans or the Americans?
You cannot compete with them by imitating them since the whole background is
different. They have their own traditions,
logic, and abstract thoughts. We have
something else. Yet when you confront
them, you will start to look at your ways of
representation in a different light. Most of
the cities in China are still developing. They
think that the fifth-generation directors,
such as Zhang Yi-mou, started prolific
productions more freely and creatively, yet
the sixth-generation directors are more
subtle and down-to-earth. They take more
interest in local issues. Otherwise, the films
would be shot more with the Westerners
viewpoints. They learned from the West
and shot in the Wests perspective.
Epilogue: the best times
Chen: My final question is, when you look
back at the time you worked with friends of
the Coalition, do you think it is the best
time of your life?
Hou: Oh, yes. They were all different and
with healthy personalities. I sensed that was
an important point. These people are
worthy of my admiration. They have done a
lot in their own fields.
Chen: Do you want to say something else,
which we did not have a chance to ask
you? Especially about this participation
process?

Hou: Well, probably people think I am kind

of falling into silence. I dont care if it is
silence or not. If I achieve something in the
end, that will tell. During the period over
the heated incident of gunshots, some
people through various channels asked me
to make a film about it. They got their
money ready. I told them I could not do it in
such short period. This is not just about the
gunshot incident itself, it extends to something else, including the meaning behind it
and why it happened. In what way can I tell
such a story and make sense? Once we pass
the heated discussion, something will
slowly emerge. What was not clear earlier
would become clearer. I can do it but to do it
to what extent and to what means are what
concern me. I cannot be taken advantage of
by any political party. It is impossible for me
to make any film for a single partys interest.
Wei: So the most significant impression of
this experience on you is that it helps to
shape and adjust some of your ideas and
tasks while you make films?
Hou: It seems to open another window for
me. It is much broader, much clearer and
helps me take a firmer belief in what I will do.
Wei: So the film practice, social practice and
political practice are all linked together in a
clearer way?
Hou: Simply put, I got more material for
making films. I always see from the viewpoint of humanity. Whatever I do is always
related to this. I see the negative side of
Taiwan is expanding, which is bad for
Taiwan.
(Interviewed at SPOT-Taipei Film House,
October, 2005.)
Notes
1. The coalitions aim is to urge local politicians to
stop manipulating ethnicity issues for partisan
interests.
2. Here Hou meant the gunshot attack on President Chen Hsui-bian and his Vice-President,
Annette Lu. The day before the election, Chen

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survived a mysterious election-eve gunshot

attack that slightly injured him and helped him
win re-election.
3. A very successful entrepreneur in Taiwan, he
died in his mid-50s. Wen devoted himself to
charity work in his 50s and helped reduce the
illiteracy in mainland China.
4. Two magazines issued a special report on this
topic, see New Journalism (No. 906, July 2004);
Business Week (No. 917, June 2005, Taiwan).
5. Lan, based on Jiang Bi-yus life and her times,
made this documentary to record part of the
history of the White Terror period in the 1950s.

Translators biography
Ken-fang Lee is associate professor and chair of
the Graduate Institution of Translation and Interpretation at National Taiwan Normal University.
Her research interests lie in feminism, Chinese
American literature, cultural translation and translation studies.
Contact address: Graduate Institution of Translation
and Interpretation, National Taiwan Normal
University, 162, He-ping East Road, Section 1, Taipei
106, Taiwan.