Author ｜
Yang Cheng-shu
Abstract ｜
On July 6, 1920, the 29-year-old Haruo Sato (1892-1964) embarked on the first long-distance journey of his life. His trip, which lasted until October 15 of the same year, was a three-month in-depth visit to Taiwan, which took him to the mountains in central Taiwan as well as the cities in central and southern Taiwan. In addition, from July 20 to August 5, Sato also crossed the Taiwan Strait to visit Fujian, traveling to areas such as Xiamen, Kulangsu Island, Jimei, and Zhangzhou. Sato’s literary footprint can be found in almost every location he visited, with 42 accounts and novels of his travels published over a period of 19 years, from 1921 to 1939. The motivations of his travels, his age during his trip, and the publication period, frequency, and quantity of his novels and accounts all indicate that this journey played an important role in Sato’s literary career. This paper examines the relationship between the guide and the author in Haruo Sato’s writings, and analyzes the relationship between the two based on the text and the backgrounds of the interpreters that appear in the text. Put another way, the interpreters who guided Sato on his trip, and their translations, had a variety of influences on Sato’s cultural exploration and literary production during his trip, which can be seen in his accounts of his travels in Taiwan and Fujian. These influences include the interpreters’ individual backgrounds and characteristics, as well as the contents, perspectives, attitudes, and methods of the guidance provided, all of which affected Sato’s perceptions and level of acceptance. Based on Sato’s process of writing his accounts of his travels in Taiwan and Fujian, this paper delves into how the activities and characteristics of the interpreters in Taiwan and Fujian differed, and how such differences influenced Sato’s perspectives regarding his travels, as well as his descriptive strategies towards local peoples. In particular, through Sato’s eidetic style of narration, this paper compares the roles and styles of three interpreters in Taiwan and Fujian, in terms of how their roles as planners, guides, and followers intersected with Sato’s role as an author. Through the support of Sato’s literary works and supplementary historical sources, this paper delineates the interaction and dependence between the translator and the other, thus examining how the other comes to understand a foreign land through interpreters, and how the other creates a personalized interpretation and description. Additionally,this paper also describes how the translator creates personal symbolism and meaning through the other's feedback and writings.
keywords ｜
Travels in colonized areas, Nanpo Kiko (Travels in the South), Ushinosuke Mori, Khoo Bun-Kui, Tenn (Hiong-siu)