Liang Jingfeng


Liang Jingfeng is a Taiwanese specialist on Taiwan nativist literature, especially native Taiwanese poetry since the 1920s. He also studies German literature, especially Heinrich Heine. He was a notable activist in the Tangwai movement that took to the streets in the mid-1970s in opposition to the KMT dictatorship and for democracy and the rights of workers, peasants and fishers. In the 1970s, he was very active in the Tangwai movement or Democracy Movement. Liang was active in the folk music movement scene and is known in Taiwan for writing the lyrics of the song Meilidao, the anthem of the Tangwai movement that became almost the unofficial anthem of Taiwan.

Education

Liang Jingfeng pursued advanced studies in German at Heidelberg University in Germany. In Germany, he translated poems by Bai Qiu together with Karlhans Frank. The small volume of poems was published in 1974. This translation marked Liang's commitment to poetry by Taiwan-born poets.
In 2011, Liang noted on his blog's website that he had returned to Bai Qiu, translating more of his poems – this time together with the German scholar Wolf Baus. Silvia Marijnissen mentions Liang's book ''Selected Historical Archives: New Taiwanese Literature Under Japanese Occupation. Part 4: Poetry.

Career

Liang returned to Taiwan in 1976 and obtained a teaching position at the German Department of Tamkang University. Liang focused on Heine.
He also focused on Taiwan's critical literature, especially poetry that had often been leftist and anti-colonialist during the period of Japanese colonial rule. He published "Who is Lai He?" in the leftist democratic opposition magazine Xiachao 夏潮 under the pseudonym Liang Demin in 1976.
His students read stories and novels by Xiangtu Wenxue authors such as Wang Tuoh, Wang Tuoh Yang Qingchu and Chen Yinzhen. Chen had been imprisoned by the government for "subversive activity" between 1968 and 1973 and was again imprisoned in 1979, in the context of the crackdown unleashed after the Meilidao incident, also known as the Kaohsiung Incident. In this, Liang paralleled the practice of other teachers at the Department of German and the English Department, most notably Wang Jinping . In 1977 or 1978, he was dismissed by the university because of his political activities; he then operated a bookshop in Tamshui and a hostel that let him keep in touch with students. Another subversive teacher was Liang's colleague Wei who motivated students to write essays about Wang Tuoh, Chen Ying-chen, Yang Ch’ing-ch’u, Wu Cho-liu, or Hwang Chun-ming. Since 1976, Wang the feminist activist and Tamkang teacher Lee Yuan-chen, Liang and their friend Li Shuangze formed what the chairman of the German Department at the time called, with a smile, a "Gang of Four". They took a stand in the debate about xiangtu wenxue, perhaps also in 前進雜誌 and Formosa Zazhi.

Taiwanese folk music movement

After his arrival in Tamshui in 1976, Liang was determined to help friends such as Li Shuangze to push ahead with their attempt, started in 1975, to convert the Western-oriented Campus Folk Music Movement into a socially critical folk song movement of singer-songwriters find an audience eager to embrace and develop their own songs. As one of the critics of non-political English-language folk rock, Liang, just like his friend and collaborator Li Shuangze, resented the Westernization of Chinese and regional Taiwanese culture, including its musical culture, and discovered locally rooted issues that could be addressed in new Chinese language folk songs. But the musical form found for instance by Li Shuangze remained partly indebted to that of simple Western tunes. Liang continues to celebrate his regional Taiwanese heritage. In the mid-1970s, when he started to get involved in the folk music movement, he craved however, much like Li Shuangze and others, a folk song movement faithful to China's – and insofar as possible, the island's – heritage. He saw in folk singers like Chen Da a genuine expression of the people's unalienated culture on the island of Taiwan that was still governed by a regime that facilitated cultural Americanization, despite avowed determination to achieve a Neo-Confucian Renaissance.
Probably in 1976 or 1977, Liang wrote the lyrics for the song "Meilidao" that was composed by Li Shuangze. The song became the key song of the radically democratic opposition movement and for many, the unofficial anthem of Taiwan. The song's name became the name of a critical opposition magazine, Meilidao.
Other songs created by the two were "We are the Young China" and "Little Friend, Do you know where the rice comes from?" – the song continued, saying that it is the result of the work of the peasants, the fisher folk, the workers. The songs were made famous by Li and then, after his death, by Yang Zujun, in the mid- to late 1970s a student at Tamkang University.
In 1978–1979, Liang distributed cassette tapes with these and other – often banned – songs on campus. The four Tamkang radicals were the factual organizers of the concert that was to feature, among others, their friend, aboriginal singer Hu Defu. Because Hu Defu could not appear, Li replaced him, talking about the cultural alienation that was implied when young people in Taiwan sang American folk songs while ignoring their own heritage. When Li symbolically smashed a Coke bottle on stage, the act was lambasted in the press as the Coca Cola Incident. Due to the Tangwai scholars, Chen Da, an old but soon noted Taiwanese folk singer, was invited to perform on campus in Tamkang. It was "a closeness to the regionalist culture" that linked the four Tamkang activists Lee Yuan-chen, Liang, Li and Wang Jinping to Native critical and realist literature, to Taiwanese folk music, and to the Democracy movement. This activism became less apparent, and was perhaps temporarily scaled down in the wake of the crackdown linked to the Meilidao incident in 1979. In 1987, many years after Li's premature death in 1977, and thus in the period when Martial law in Taiwan was about to be suspended, Liang and Lee Yuan-chen published his collected works, together with a biography.

Taiwan literature

Liang was described as a "Germanist" in a German publication and has published much on German literature. He has researched and published on Taiwan's literary heritage. As the faculty website of National Dong Hwa University points out, Liang compiled 日據下臺灣新文學──詩選集 in 1979. He edited the book with Li Nanheng. He is the author of Xiāngtǔ yǔ xiàndài.
After Liang had published "Lai Ho shih shei" in Xiachiao #6, Sept. 1976, he published Taiwan xiandai shi de qibu Lai He, Zhang Wojun he Yang Hua de hanwen baihuashi in 1994.
Ingrid Schuh's book 臺灣作家楊青矗小说研究 年以前 1975 / also mentions Liang's research and publication activity.
Liang published on Ye Shitao, Yang Qingchu etc., and together with Chen Mingtai an article entitled "Der Wiederaufbau der modernen Lyrik. – Deutsche und japanische Nachkriegslyrik."

Selected bibliography

Jiang's works include:
On 28 December 2010 Liang commented: "Habe vor, den ersten Zyklus der Sammlung "Neue Gedichte" von Heinrich Heine zu übersetzen. Die Gedichte sind meist geschrieben zwischen 1827 und 1831, sind also ein Bindeglied des "Buch der Lieder" und der späteren neuen Gedichte.
Man liest wieder die Gedichte, und wenn die Nacht etwas lang wird,
schreibt man die Texte mit der Hand ab. Die Handschrift ist heute wohl ein altmodischer Zeitvertreib. Aber vielleicht versteht man die Gedichte so besser. Hier sind die ersten Proben.
Hoffe, dass es einen neuen Frühling für jeden Menschen gibt, Brot, Rosen und Zuckererbsen."

Critical Editions

; English: 10 ; German: 19 ; French: 36 ; Spanish: 46 )