Massacres and Cover-ups, Part 1

Annie  0:28  
Welcome to the hearts in Taiwan podcast where we explore and celebrate our connections to Taiwan. I'm Annie, I'm Angela. And every episode we unpack an aspect of our heritage and experiences that have shaped our identity. We're looking at the time period when our parents lived in Taiwan and its influence on Taiwanese identity today. This episode is part one of a two part series, because there's a lot to discuss.

Angela   0:54  
So I feel like we need to start off with some caveats. Because this is really a sensitive topic. And part of our audience, you've already known about these incidents, probably because your parents taught you about them, or you've heard stories of your relatives. So I want to preface this with a content warning that as we retell these incidents, they may be triggering for you. But we're also going to cover things of like how these incidents relate to other parts of world history. So we have chapter markers for all of our episodes. So you can see how our chapters are laid out so that you can skip over any parts that you don't want to hear, retold. And skip to the parts that you haven't heard of or don't know about. Just a reminder of the context that Annie and I come from, our parents immigrated to the United States in the 1970s. So their entire lives in Taiwan, were under martial law governed by Chiang Kai Shek, when information was controlled very tightly. So our parents probably weren't aware of what was happening while they were growing up in Taiwan. And when they moved to America, and had us as kids, they weren't equipped to teach us about these things. So we never learned about these historical events until very recently. And we're sharing what we learn as we go. Because we know there are a lot of people like us who weren't taught about Taiwanese history. And we're learning that even Taiwanese people weren't taught about it, because it was kept out of the education systems. And there's a lot for all of us to learn, we recognize that this is not going to be the one authoritative source of information. We're just trying to share what we know so far as a start. And we invite you to learn along with us, especially as we draw connections to other observations we have about the world and trends that we're seeing. So

Annie  2:54  
one additional thing to add history not our favorite subject, for either, or either, yes. So I got a two out of five on my AP history exam,

Angela   3:10  
I can't believe you can remember that.

Annie  3:13  
Oh, I remember. I remember because of how much I hated it. So instead, we're going to split up 228 and White Terror. And we each have done our own research on one of us on 228 Angela on 228 and myself, Annie on White Terror, and we will tell each other about what we have learned and go from there.

Angela   3:39  
Hopefully it sounds more like to friends gossiping than a history lecture.

Annie  3:43  
So here we go. Alright, Angela, let's dive in to 228. All right.

Angela   3:53  
So this is one of the most defining moments in time, which galvanized the movement in the interest of people in Taiwan wanting to establish a distinct and separate identity from China. So this number 228, it refers to the date February 28, and in Mandarin, it's known as er er ba. I think a lot of people think of it as a one day incident because it's labeled by the date February 28. But it's actually a few weeks of time, that is all kind of bundled into this incident where what happened on February 28 was more like if you think about earthquakes like a foreshock, it was like the small, small incidents that happened before the really big things started to happen.

Annie  4:45  
So was it like a catalyst to trigger all of the other stuff for the following three weeks?

Angela   4:51  
Yeah, in February 27 and 28th I think only five people were killed, but in the following weeks thousands of people were killed. So that's why we would call it a massacre because it was not just the handful of people that were killed on the actual date that it's labeled by, but more the, the time period surrounding. Okay, yeah. So to set the stage of like what happened, I have to explain the the context. And this happened in 1947. But before that Japan occupied Taiwan for 50 years, from 1895 to 1945. And basically, when they lost World War II, in 1945, they returned Taiwan back to China. And so in 1945, Chiang Kai Shek was the leader in power in China. So he like basically received Taiwan back from Japan. And he designated this guy, Chen Yi, to be like a governor of Taiwan. So he put Chen Yi in charge in Taiwan, and Chen Yi - this guy, he's like, everything I read about him. He's like, kind of the worst person, this Chinese guy was really corrupt. And so from the time he got control in 1945, the Taiwanese people were like, at first, you know, excited to not be under Japanese occupation anymore. And they were like, Oh, good. Now we're not being colonized by Japan, we can be ourselves again, and we can return to prosperity. But none of that actually came to fruition, because the way Chen Yi managed things. It was all kind of in service of the government and the government's profit, not good for the people. And they had monopolies on things. They had no qualms about labeling it as a monopoly. Like they actually named it the Monopoly Bureau. So there was like, no illusion, about anything fair about it. 

Angela   5:04  
It almost seems like it's like rubbing it in your face. Yeah. Everything like Haha, can't What are you going to do about it? Huh? Yeah, what it is so like, want to try something like Come at me, bro.

Angela   7:22  
And one of those monopolies was on tobacco. And so the Taiwanese people, you know, from 1945 to 1947, they're kind of frustrated because not only are they, you know, under this kind of unfair government role. They didn't have adequate representation in the government. And there was high unemployment, even healthcare was not being managed well, so the people were getting dissatisfied with what the government was doing. And on February 27, in 1947, there was a 40 year old widow, she was selling cigarettes. And she was accused of selling illegal cigarettes. And the police arrested her and beat her. And so a group of people were like, That's not right. And they went and like, like an angry crowd that went and like, went to the tobacco monopoly Bureau and was like, Hey, what's going on? Like, you can't do this to her. So the authorities, she just shot into the crowd, and they killed one person. So that was February 27. So then the next day, more people heard about this and they decided to put together a peaceful protest. And they went in front of the government buildings to protest this and say, like, hey, that wasn't right. Especially like you just indiscriminately killing someone for, for trying to call you out. And the government used machine guns on that crowd, and they killed four people. So this incensed more people because they were like, what, we can't even speak off. We can't even like, say that something is wrong. And like, now we're gonna get get shot. So more.

Annie  9:08  
I'm getting peeved. Just listening to this. Yeah, I mean, not peeved you I'm just getting really irritated. And like, pissed off hearing about this. So

Angela   9:18  
yeah, coming from, like our experience as Americans and like always having like freedom of speech, and like people being able to mouth off about whatever. And like not having fear of getting shot for seeing stuff. This is this is a very different experience, right? Yeah. So there started to be more active protests and more and more people. So the government actually that day, declared martial law. And they said, Hey, everybody, stay home. We're just gonna try to calm this down. But the radio network, which is how people communicate at that time, started to tell the story of what had happened. And so protest started happening. All around Taiwan is saying like, hey, like, this monopoly stuff and like you guys accusing us of things and like, beating us killing us, whatever, that's not okay. Like, this is not the government that we signed up for. So Chen Yi said, Okay, we're going to form this 228 Incident Settlement Committee. So he said, like, okay, committee, do your thing, do your, like fair investigation, and we'll see if the officers who, you know, shot and killed people were doing the right thing, or if they were acting improperly. And if it parallels with when we complain about, say, police behavior in America, we want to see justice, where if an officer is acting out of turn, that they get investigated, they go to trial, and they get whatever the sentencing is that is appropriate for if they abuse the lethal force that they're armed with. So he's like, okay, we're gonna do a committee like he did this right away, right? But actually, what he was doing was just buying time, what he was really doing was he was calling in the military from Mainland China. And he's saying, like, hey, Chiang Kai Shek, send me a bunch of troops, because I got to fix this thing that's happening in Taiwan. I got I've got an appraisal happening on my hands. And I gotta shut this down. So Oh,

Angela   11:22  
yeah. So he was like, really disingenuous, he's like, just basically saying whatever he needed to say, to keep people calm, until the army arrived on March 8. So those those troops that he ordered from Mainland China, they they came on March 8, which is like 10 days after the the 228 incident 1000s of troops arrived, and they started arresting and executing everyone that they could find. And this is where the massacre comes in. Because it's not just like shooting onesie twosie people in the streets, it was they like rounded up and killed 1000s of people just just based on like quelling this potential uprising or resistance. So it's not, it wasn't just like, random people to it was like the most educated, the most well equipped, to organize, basically have have good clout to get people to listen to them. If it had anything to do with criticizing the KMT. Government, they basically tried to round up all of all of these organizers. They even killed the members of the 228 Incident Settlement Committee, you know, that committee that chimney himself formed, because he didn't like that their conclusion was the need for reform of his government. And then for some reason, they went after middle school or high school kids, and then all the teachers.

Annie  12:53  
Oh, my God, what an A-hole. Yeah, there's so many bad words that I want to say right now, I don't want to turn this into having to label it explicit.

Angela   13:10  
Yep. And, of course, their next step was to shut down all the newspapers that reported on this massacre happening, so that the only media remaining were three government controlled newspapers. That's why most of what we know about that time is based on what foreigners observed and reported back to their home country newspapers, because they couldn't be punished by the Chinese government without causing an international incident.

Annie  13:37  
What, what the hell,

Angela   13:40  
I mean, about basically, it's kind of like when in America, we have a two party system. If the other party is in power, then like you complain that like they're making all these laws and stuff that you don't agree with. But you know, that, you know, the next election, you're going to have a chance to make a change, and that supposedly, the democracy reflects the will of the majority of people, like the most votes. But in this system, it was like, not just oh, we're not represented, but like, now they're actually shooting us for having an alternative point of view. This is where the need for distinguishing your identity came in. Because it's like, I don't want to have anything to do with this government. And so that identity being China, because the government, the KMT, government was like the seat of power, it was in China. So that's why I say like, the 228 Incident is not just one day, and it's not just the four people that were killed that one day this this was a massacre where 1000s of Taiwanese people were killed just for having critical view of the government power at the time was

Annie  14:55  
Talk about heavy. Yeah, right. And that's just like the beginning. of this whole story.

Angela   15:01  
Yeah, like I mentioned that they enacted martial law, but then he promised to lift it. So did that actually happen?

Annie  15:11  
Well, surprise, surprise. No. So that is a perfect lead in to what is this period of martial law. So now going into this White Terror piece is this martial law ended up extending for 38 years. So it went from 1949 all the way to 1987. Isn't that crazy?

Angela   15:42  
This is an editor's note, we noticed that some places say White Terror lasted for 40 years. And some say that it lasted for 38 years. So we looked into the history, it turns out that Chen Yi did lift martial law, like he said he would. But a couple years later, the KMT felt the need to enact martial law all over China, and also specifically in Taiwan, due to what they were calling the communist rebellion at the time. Remember, before 1949, the KMT was the governing party for all of China, and the communists led by Mao Zedong, were a rebellion party in the Civil War. So the KMT declared martial law primarily to suppress that rebellion. The only problem was once the KMT lost the Civil War and had retreated to Taiwan. They never lifted that martial law in Taiwan until 1987. That's why the length of the continuous martial law is reported as 38 years since 1949. Even though White Terror is counted as 40 years since the 228 Massacre in 1947.

Annie  16:54  
So yeah, not just that, but it was actually up until 2011. When it was surpassed by Syria. It was the longest period of martial law in the world.

Angela   17:06  
Oh my god.

Annie  17:07  
So it was passed by Syria in 2011. Because Syria then because theirs was 48 years. I ended in 2011.

Angela   17:17  
Oh my god. So what is it? Like? I feel like people say martial law and like, don't really understand what does that mean? Because it's just a euphemism for the horror of like, how the actual experiences under marital law so what was martial law like?

Annie  17:30  
Kind of going off of some of the stuff that you were talking about with 228 , during this entire period? Uh huh. About 140,000, Taiwanese were imprisoned, about three to 4000 of them were executed. And what you were saying about 228, this is similarly the people that were targeted, were really the intellectual social elite, the people that, you know, had the highest chance of being able to actually organize some sort of rebellion, movement uprising. So this was all in service of keeping the ruling party, the KMT, the ruling party, and slight sidebar, I thought this was really interesting is actually, you know, you think about all of these things seem so far away, literally. I mean, yes, the time period, sure. It ended 1987. We were we're eight or seven years old. At the time, yes, we were here. But but so one of the victims, the sidebar was actually killed in his home in Daly City.

Angela   18:36  
I heard about that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know about it when it happened. But like, I can't believe they even went outside of Taiwan. And like chased people down out here.

Annie  18:46  
Exactly. So that makes it hit home that much more, right? That's the thing where it makes you feel like, oh, sh-- fill in the blank were like, Oh my gosh, this actually crosses oceans, literally, because so this was a journalist. His name was Henry Liu. He lived in Daly City. And so he was writing, let's say not so nice things about the leadership at the time, but he was in Daly City,

Angela   19:13  
which you think is okay, because we're in America, we have freedom of speech. So it should be okay to write whatever you want about the rest of the world.

Annie  19:20  
So not so much. I mean, and the whole idea behind this is that the KMT, in this particular case with this idea of martial law is they were trying to really establish and build their stronghold of their rule in Taiwan. And ultimately, they had the ambition of retaking China, but whatever, that wasn't really the point of martial law here. I mean, they institutionally, the idea behind this is your favor. They were favoring the people that came from mainland Chinese mainland Chinese people over the people who were born in Taiwan, and so all of the policies, all the people they put into positions of power be in education and law enforcement. And the military, were all people that they saw as favoring their position of rule over Taiwan, which is primarily mainland Chinese. So as part of that, as an example, that, you know, like you said, Jaffa had been under Taiwan had been under Japanese rule for the previous 50 years. So of course, all of their curriculum, their language, media, everything at that time was Japanese centric. So now with the KMT, here, they essentially changed and call it re educated, everybody living in Taiwan, as essentially Chinese, right. So all of their curriculum in schools were switched over to become very China centric. And all of their history and everything, Mandarin, of course, and the pedagogy and all of the media, everything was all in Mandarin. And they even renamed streets and spaces in the public, after things that were very China centric, as well. So all of this to essentially, like reinforce this idea called Chinese-ness and ruling over all of the people, but whether you came from Mainland China, or you were born in Taiwan, like you are now under our rule, and you will live and learn at such.

Angela   21:36  
So I've heard like the terms like nationalist Chinese and nationalist Taiwanese, so nationalist Chinese was like the, the KMT that was in power at the time, and like, basically, trying to instill this national identity of as China, among everybody in Taiwan.

Annie  21:53  
Exactly, exactly. I mean, the idea, this whole martial law thing, right, is it I mean, it's, you're essentially forcing you're force feeding a certain lifestyle in certain way of understanding and all of that on to people who don't necessarily want it. But you're like, Well, guess what, too bad. This is just how it's gonna go. And also, the other thing is you can't speak up against because of course, you're gonna get, you're gonna go to jail, you're gonna get shot in the head, or whatever it is, if you speak up, or even hint at possibly, maybe you might even be thinking anything against the current ruling party. So there's all these stories later of things like, there's one that just grosses me out. It's like these prisoners being strung together, they get tied together by their hands. And you they walked or they have to be walked towards a river, and then they would shoot the first one. And of course, they would fall over, and then it would pull everybody down and drown everybody as a way to save on the bullets, so that other people, so yeah, and you had mentioned this concept of Chinese nationalist Taiwanese nationalists. And all of this, really, for the, at this point, you know, call it these early stage, Taiwanese nationalists, the martial law really drove them to establish this idea of while the KMT their identity of what the KMT represented, that they were essentially this call it like illegitimate regime. And that plus this institutionalized discrimination, essentially against these native born Taiwanese, those two things combined, really set the stage for decades and decades of tension that have fueled this, this nationalism for Taiwanese into what it is today, as martial law has been lifted, and things have been established, so to speak around transitional justice, you know, and all those things, kind of after the fact that we'll get into in part two that have built this force around this Taiwanese nationalism that goes squarely against the KMT. And what is seen as the KMT's sort of ideology.

Angela   24:30  
Okay. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. So when the military was coming to, like, arrest someone or something, what would be their accusation? Would it be that you're just disloyal? For what?

Annie  24:46  
Right? Yeah, it's the basis for I mean, and it's so broad and general that you can manipulate it effectively to whatever you want you meaning the ruling party, but essentially you keep it so broad and vague that you You can manipulate it to whatever serves your benefit at that moment.

Angela   25:05  
Yeah, actually, because I think I've read that people were either accused of being Japanese loyalists, because they still spoke Japanese because that's what they were taught for 50 years. So if you're a benshengren, and you have been living under Japanese rule, then you have some Japanese influences in your house. And so then it's very easy for the government to accuse you of being a Japanese loyalist, which the KMT the Chinese government was, like, viewed Japan as their enemy. So then they're like, okay, you are either a Japanese loyalists, so I can label you as an a spy for the enemy, or you're a communist, which was the other threat like this KMT government was in Taiwan, because they were taking refuge from Mao Zedong, who went out with communism in mainland China. So they could either accuse people of being the one threat Japan, or the other threat, communism in order to legitimately, quote unquote, imprison people in the name of national defense. Right? Yeah.

Annie  26:15  
And I mean, this is it's, of course, we'll get into in the part two, but this is it's like so reminisce, I think a lot of people can think of a lot of other incidents, including Oh, and said country that we're in and are in other countries and other periods of time, like this is very typical type of process to go through to maintain, establish and maintain your rule as whatever you're ruling over. So it's, it's gross.

Angela   26:52  
So living in that, I feel like there were two experiences of this one was the waishengren, who came over with the KMT. They were well aligned with the KMT. They were probably only there because they were loyalists. Right? So that's one experience. So like, they had no problem accepting the education and accepting the whatever. Whereas the other experience under martial law was the benshengren who did live under a constant threat of being accused of being a Japanese or a communist loyalist. And it feels like nobody was safe, because I even hear about people within the KMT government that got accused of these things and executed. So even if you're in the government, you will not see. And the bad guy I talked about earlier, Chen Yi, the one who was like the governor, basically, of Taiwan, he's like so two faced in so many ways, that even though he was the KMT government, a couple years later, he was found out that he was actually planning to go and surrender to the communists. So Chiang Kai Shek had to execute him to be even though he was the one that like, caused all this problems. And like, killed all these other people. He actually was a turncoat himself. And like, he was just gonna, like, do whatever seemed profitable, or like, you'll follow the power at the time. And so he was not loyal at all, even though he was the establishment. So yeah, like he didn't even survive, right. Like, I think he was executed in 1950. So he, he only survived another like, three years after 228, just like what, uh, what a terrible judgment of character to like, put that guy in charge. Actually, one thing are, like, I hear a lot of Taiwanese people saying that they maintain their Taiwanese languages. Because they were actively resisting the Mandarin that was being taught in schools. I think they assumed that everyone from Mainland China spoke Mandarin, and was like bringing their language to force it on the Taiwanese. But actually our family, my mom and your dad's the family spoke Cantonese. And my dad was from Fujian. So his family spoke Fujianese or Hokkien. But when they arrived in Taiwan, they were learning Mandarin at the same time as the Taiwanese people. Because the KMT decided this was the education that we're going to unify all the language is under Mandarin. So it wasn't that, like our families had a head start in Mandarin. It's like the same time that like everyone had their language at home where like the parents spoke Cantonese, or Hokkien. But at school, the kids were learning Mandarin and so that's how like my mom can understand Cantonese but she can't speak it. But like both my parents also basically lost the language of their parents because of this standardization of Mandarin.

Annie  30:05  
Yeah. It's a lot to process my brain hurts just thinking about it. Just gonna put it out there.

Angela   30:17  
It's like, we can be pretty glib about it now, but we have the luxury of living in a democracy for our whole lives that so we we haven't had this fear of having basically our thoughts policed, which a lot of other people around the world have had experienced under governments like this. I actually relate it to... you know how Korean dramas are so popular?

Annie  30:44  
I love me a good Korean drama. Thank you very much.

Angela   30:49  
Yes, one of the best Korean dramas very, very popular right now is Crash Landing on You? Which I

Annie  30:54  
still have to watch that I have not watched it. I know I have so many things that I had to do. And was that watch Korean dramas? You have to focus? Oh, yeah, the Korean, right. Gotta watch and read. Yeah, yeah, what's the is.

Angela   31:09  
So it's like, it's basically a North Korean soldier, and a South Korean businesswoman. And she ends up crash landing in North Korea. And so it's like the love story of them two. But it's really like the culture clash of South Korea which is a democracy, seeing the difference of like how the North Koreans are living under communism, and how well their view of the world is controlled, much like with Communist China, the media, the press, like awareness, and the stories that are told by the government of like, the scary capitalists, and like how people who live under the communist rule, they're, like, totally accepting of these narratives. And they don't realize that they are being oppressed. Interesting. So that drama makes a lot of lightness of the contrast between living under communist single party rule versus a free and say, capitalist or democratic state. But the The reality is that there are a lot of controlling governments out there. And it's not too long ago that our own families lived under a government that acted like this,

Annie  32:33  
right. And this stuff is very serious, the concept of martial law has always seemed so far away. But having it feel so much closer, really puts more of a reality to the seriousness of this, and how closely it can affect people. I mean, I know people who their parents would visit family members in jail, I mean, their parents. It's literally like, it's that one generation up, like, it's not that far away. And it is literally people who are our family, and our friends. And it still blows my mind. But it makes me want to educate myself more about these things. And one thing before I finish is, remember in the beginning of this whole process of the podcast, and you had said, I didn't tell you this time, but you had said, Oh, I think timing would be great, because 228 is coming, and we can just do something on that date. First thing, I thought to myself, what the *beep* is 228? Secretly in my head, Google, what is 228, Taiwan?

Angela   33:53  
I think you're not alone in that, actually. Because I've even heard Taiwanese people say that they didn't, they didn't learn about this. So even though the government has has made steps we'll talk about in part two. I think a lot of people have an individual have to learn about it individually. And so so that's why we're doing this episode. Because it seems like it's not well known enough, right? And when you don't understand your history, then you don't understand why people feel so strongly the way they do. And this gives me an appreciation like we you know, at the beginning of the episode, we said like we never liked studying history back in high school. But I think it's because that history seemed like the history of not our people like yeah, like no relevance to us. Yeah. But actually, when we do look at the history of our people, and then compare it to the history of America, there's a lot that I now understand, like, the good and the bad of American history, compared with a lot of the bad of Chinese and Taiwanese history, and gives me a much greater appreciation for what we have here in America. Even though there's a lot of criticism that I have for the American government, I am really grateful that we have a multi party system, I am really grateful that we have freedom of speech. And now that I know what martial law can do, and like how it's not only while you're living under it, but also like how it can affect generations for hundreds of years after now, if there's any hint of the government taking totalitarian control, I am going to really understand the implications of that a lot more.

Annie  35:43  
So that was part one. Come back for part two, where we'll discuss parallels with other governments and events in history and what has been done for transitional justice in Taiwan since the end of martial law.

Angela   35:59  
The music you hear at the beginning of the episode is from the song close to home, and at the end of the episode is another song never look away, both by Vienna Teng. You also heard the national anthem of the Republic of China courtesy of the Office of the President of the Republic of China. Thanks so much for joining us for Hearts in Taiwan. You can support us by telling a friend about this podcast. We would love to hear from you. Let us know if you learned something new from this episode, and what you want us to explore and ask about in a future episode. Until then, follow your curiosity

Annie  36:33  
and follow your heart!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai