Chen Wen-hsi was the first casualty of the 228 Massacre. He was also an unemployed loafer and the brother of a notorious crime boss. Was he a victim or a villain? 

By Yeh Hung-ling (葉虹靈) 
Translated by Mr. Almost

This piece first appeared in Initium Media (端傳媒) and is the copyright of the publisher. 

In his book Joy in Taiwan, Japanese cultural scholar Inuhiko Yomota (四方田犬彥) recorded a passage in which he recalled the suspense he felt visiting Dadaocheng, the birthplace of 228: 

“… it’s a question I’ve never been able to unlock, what kind of person was he? How did his death turn into a significant event the next day? Commentator Kyu Eikan (邱永漢) said Chen Wen-hsi (陳文溪) was the younger brother of Chen Mu-jung (陳木榮), a hoodlum from Bangka (now Taipei’s Wanhua district). When Mu-jung heard the news of his brother’s death, he immediately organized a crowd of people at the corner of Longshan Temple and Yanping Road. The next morning, they raised a commotion, shouting loudly: 'Taiwanese people, stand up!’ Boss Chen called on all the nearby businesses to close up shop, because the king of the streets was about to go berserk.

I also wanted to find the truth of this matter. Luckily, I found the information at the National 228 Museum. The press room of the Taiwan provincial chief executive published a book called “the factual report on the Taiwan riot,” where it’s clearly recorded that Chen Wen-hsi -- the younger brother of a local gangster -- was accidentally injured in the fracas, and then immediately died of his injuries…"

But beyond that, neither of the 228 memorial museums had any information about Chen Wen-hsi, not even a photo. There are mountains of portraits and letters of murdered intellectuals, but there is not even a hint about the first civilian victim of the massacre. This might be the result of a systematic erasing of the information. 

Another reason may be that the massacre, which has become a point of divergence in Taiwan’s history, was the result of a demonstration launched by a member of the Taiwan underworld. Instead, it is the sacrifice of Taiwan's intellectuals that is highlighted. 

But since the earliest event of 228 was the death of a man related to a Bangka street boss, perhaps it is not suitable for this solemn national event? 

That’s right. I also didn’t pay attention to Chen Wen-hsi, “the first victim of the 228 Massacre.” But who was this person that “died in the fracas?” It seems we are only familiar with the well-known victims, like the American-trained doctor Lin Mosei (林茂生), local politician Ong Thiam-teng (王添灯), Dr. Chang Chi-lang (張七郎) and painter Tan Ting-pho (陳澄波). 

THE HOODLUM AND THE FLAMES OF 228

With this question in mind, I searched through numerous 228 testimonies, memoirs and archives, and finally found a fragment in the fourth digest of the 228 oral histories from 1993. According to Wang Yun-ching (王雲青) — who was friends with Chen Wen-hsi’s nephew Chen Wu-chi (陳戊己) — Chen Wen-hsi loafed about at home, while his oldest brother earned a living working at a market stall. Wen-hsi, 27, was nicknamed “stinky ear” (臭耳) because he was hard of hearing and lacked marketable skills. Wen-hsi’s second oldest brother, Chen Mu-jung, was a street boss in Bangka’s Guisui Market area, and frequently interacted with “local characters” (江湖人士) in the neighbourhood; one of those characters was Lin Ping-tzu (林秉足), nicknamed “Mipoji” (密婆吉).

On February 28, 1947, when Lin heard that his friend's brother was killed, he immediately jumped up to seek justice. This is how Wang Yun-ching remembers the event: 

…He first went to Zhangcuo street to find Chen Tsai (陳財), the person in charge of the Datou drum troupe; he sent out people to beat drums, play the suona horn and protest loudly in the streets. Lin covered the cost of finding and sending out the troupe. At around eight or nine in the morning, Lin and two friends, Chen Wu-chi and Chuang Chuan-sheng (莊傳生), nicknamed "Thê-tshîng-tiau-á” (提松朝仔), set off from the old market Kang San Lau building and brothel. They led a large group, protesting Chen Wen-hsi’s death at the hands of the police. 

The protesters were led by the sounds of the drum, with Chuang on the drums and Chen Wu-ji on the cymbals. They pushed the massive troupe drum on a three-wheeled cart, with two to three white protest banners attached to the cart. Painted in big black characters on the banner was the phrase “Chen Yi (陳儀) is a dog of a bureaucrat.” 

Everyone knows what happened after the protest.

The vivid scenes depicted from Wang Yun-ching's memory pulls on a familiar thread: "The street boss looking for justice was the spark that led to 228." For those familiar with the historical tragedy of 228, the story adds a colourful hue, but it doesn't end there. 

Chen Tsui-lien (陳翠蓮), a Taiwanese historian of 228, looked into Chen Wen-hsi's past for her book, Conflict and Intrigue of Political Factions in 228 Incident (派系鬥爭與權謀政治) [1] Chen believes these hoodlums and unemployed vagrants who protested in the streets with their drums and cymbals, helped draw the public's attention to the matter, and made it difficult to put the situation to rest. 

WAS CHEN A VICTIM OR A VILLIAN?

In her new book, Reconstructing 228 (重構二二八), Chen Tsui-lien explores the story further: Lin Ping-tzu, Chuang Chuan-sheng and Chen Wu-chi were all former members of the Volunteer Disciplinary Patrol (義勇糾察隊) — a group of locals deputized by the Chinese Nationals (KMT) to maintain “order” upon receiving Taiwan in 1945. The patrol was later disbanded, and former members were incorporated into police vice squads and fire brigades. A local borough warden in Dadaocheng also claimed that Lin Ping-tzu was a paid informant for the Taiwan Garrison Command, and was responsible for providing intel on local affairs. Chen Tsui-lien suggests that because of their special status, Lin and the others were spared punishment, despite their role in gathering a crowd to sow unrest. 

Such informant networks were not unique to Taipei. Local toughs and crime bosses were in every city, and they were hired by the Garrison Command and the Counterintelligence Bureau (國防部保密局) to infiltrate the grassroots of society. We don't have much information to judge the relationship between Lin's mobilization efforts and his criminal background, but it's enough to add greater complexity to the matter. 

In a tragedy that has been called “the KMT’s retaliatory slaughter of Taiwan's elites,” it appears as if the first victim who lit the spark of 228 was an unemployed loafer whose brother was a crime boss in Bangka. While the person who led the first protest was a hoodlum who cooperated with the KMT’s intelligence networks. Are these people victims or villains? How do we place them in the already familiar landscape of 228? People will find the inherent moral intuition hard to use this time.

Perhaps this is exactly the perspective we can discuss now, 70 years after 228. Time has always been the most ambiguous problem in dealing with transitional justice. For the victims and their families, waiting too long makes justice impossible. [2] The longer time passes, the more historical details can be revealed. With continued textual research and debate, people can increase their understanding and judgment of history.

THE BLIND SPOTS IN OUR BRINARY FRAMEWORK

So it is with 228. The first Taiwanese doctor to train in the United States, Taiwan’s most outstanding painter, doctor, judge, lawyer and a whole generation of elites were uprooted. These pioneers who were eager to pursue democratic reform have won the respect and remorse of future generations of Taiwanese. 

It is Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the cadre of KMT military of political elites below him, that should bear the greatest responsibility. But perhaps it is time for the divergent, buried history to emerge from the tragedy tangled with the nation’s macro narrative, and let the overlooked historical figures emerge from the shadows.

This requires not only scholars to scour through the annals of history, but also for the public to enrich their perception of the victims. In recent discussions on transformational justice, some commentators have begun to examine the problems posed by the cognitive framework of the “ideal victim.” Victims of “moral innocence” are often the easiest to gain sympathy and support from society.

However, the more established such a cognitive framework becomes, the easier it is to exclude “people who don’t fit in, but are also victims of conflict or repression", such as armed rebels (who may take civilian casualties) and thugs and hooligans who break the law. This makes it harder for the diverse and deviant subjects to emerge. It also seems to establish a hierarchy among the victims — some are more deserving of compassion and respect than others. People have to try to shelve or shake this binary framework, before they can start to see those tangled black, white and ambiguous gray areas.

Such is the case with 228, and even more so with the wider and more complex White Terror period.

POINTING OUT SUBTLETY DOESN’T MEAN ABANDONING HISTORICAL JUDGEMENT

However, opening up such possibilities does not mean giving up judgment about events or their people. 

It is true that history often becomes a tool to serve the immediate care and interests of contemporary people. Whoever controls power or discourse may choose to tailor, omit or reorganize historical narratives that sit at the core of a group's identity. If such views are pushed to the extreme, one could come to the conclusion that “all traditions are invented, no history is true, and the present is the past.” [3]

However, when a society doesn’t believe that it is possible to reach consensus with others, or believes that all judgments will vary according to the social situation of the judges, and that there is no possibility of finding the truth, this high degree of skepticism may lead to nihilistic thinking, and can be harmful to public life.

Awakening people's historical cognition may be affected by their current situation. Understanding the unreliability of collective memory, and being alert about the destruction of alternative memories by political authorities, is not equivalent to giving up the pursuit of historical authenticity. [4]

The 228 Massacre is often regarded as the beginning of Taiwanese nationalism. The White Terror that followed set up a sad and repressed emotional structure on society, and became a collective memory of martial law for several generations of Taiwanese. How can we make these traumatic histories a resource for people to reflect on, think about and learn from? I think it’s necessary to have open dialogue so that different views can come to the fore, and seek resources from historical memory that can bind the community together.

Unfortunately, successive governments have not been mindful of this, including the Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration. There was no follow up on the transitional justice policies she proposed in her first campaign and inaugural address. On the eve of 228 in 2017, the government announced that the only files to be opened would be ones with unknown dates and objectives.

Seventy years on, it’s time for the public to wake up and try to see the quieter, perhaps more embarrassing memories.

Yeh Hung-ling is chief executive officer Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation. Yeh also serves as the spokesperson for the Transitional Justice Commission, an independent government agency established by the Executive Yuan. 

NOTES:

[1] After the Japanese surrender, a well-known businessman named Liu Ming (劉明) helped to organize a 30,000-strong Taipei contingent of the KMT's Volunteer Disciplinary Patrol (義勇糾察隊) to assist the KMT-organized Three Principles Youth Group (三民主義青年團) in maintaining order. Chen Wen-hsi was a member of the patrol, before it was disbanded by chief executive Chen Yi (陳儀). At the time, gangsters were a main source of recruitment for the patrol. — Chen, Tsui-lien. Conflict and Intrigue of Political Factions in 228 Incident. pp. 140-141. 

[2] Critics have often called the government's progress on transitional justice as "transition without justice." Restitution for victims who suffered under the KMT's authoritarian rule either during 228 or the Whiter Terror is mainly centered on monetary compensation. 

[3] In order to reconstruct the historical narrative of "who are we", "what have we experienced?" and "where should we go in the future," we need to trace the core of our modern nationalism to the origin of its mythic construction; for Chinese and Taiwanese, an example of this kind of myth is that all Han Chinese are descendants of Yan Di and Huang Di (炎黃子孫).

[4] In terms of the theory of collective memory, when contrasted with a “present-centered view” a “past-centered view” emphasizes that history has a certain continuity, behaviour is still based on a certain past, and that there are various social arrangements that resist arbitrary manipulation, such as eyewitness testimony, information revealed through archives, and the will of the people to seek the truth. 

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