This timeline traces the development of 神州詩社 Shenzhou Poetry Society, the major events of its core members, including 溫瑞安 Woon Swee Oan and 方娥真 Fang E-chen, their mentors, contemporaries, and close friends such as 金庸 Jin Yong, 朱西甯 Chu Hsi-ning, etc., alongside important historical and political events in the Sinophone world (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore).
Timeline
Table of Events
| Date | Event | Created by |
|---|---|---|
| May 20th 1949- July 14th 1987 | Martial Law EraThe martial law era in Taiwan lasted for 38 years from May 20th, 1949 to July 14th, 1987. The Kuomintang, or KMT, was the sole political party that ruled the country. Democracy was non-existent, and any publications or voices that were deemed harmful to the legitimacy of the KMT were oppressed. This was also right when the KMT retreated to Taiwan from the mainland struggling for power against the communist party led by Mao Zedong, so socialist, communist, Marxist, and leftist voices were not tolerated either. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| January 1st 1954 | The Birth of Woon Swee Oan溫瑞安 Woon Swee Oan was born in Bidor Town, Batang Padang District, Perak State, Malaya in 1954 to a Hakka family, whose ancestry could be traced to Mei County, Guangdong Province, China. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| May 10th 1954 | The Birth of Fang E-chen方娥真 Fang E-chen was born on May 10th, 1954 in Ipoh, Malaya, whose ancestry could be traced to Chaoyang Distriact, Duangdong Province, China. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| 1967 | 綠洲詩刊 Luzhou Poetry JournalAccording to the preface Woon wrote for the first issue of 天狼星詩刊 Sirius Poetry Journal, Woon and a few others had already been self-publishing a journal titled 綠洲 Luzhou since 1967, when they were only thirteen or fourteenth years old. It was initially hand-written, comprising both poems by the members as well as pomes by established poets who inspired them. By 1970, there were ten different hand-written journals of this kind, each of which belonged to one of the ten sub-societies that would later come together as the Sirius Poetry Society, officially launched as an organization in 1973. Starting from 1972, these journals became machine-printed. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| 1973 | The Launch of 天狼星詩社 Sirius Poetical SocietyWoon launched 天狼星詩社 Sirius Poetical Society when he was in Malaysia. It was composed of ten different sub-societies that were around years before 1975, including 「綠洲」、「綠野」、「綠流」、「綠原」、「綠園」、「綠叢」、「綠島」、「綠湖」、「綠田」、「綠風」 . The recurring color of green in the names of these sub-societies is due to Woon's commitment to martial art training and love for martial art literature by 金庸 Jin Yong and 古龍 Gu Long. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| 1973 | Woon Went to College in Taiwan for the First TimeAn avid reader of such authors as 金庸 Jin Yong and 余光中 Yu Guang-Zhong, Woon dreamed of visiting Taiwan and came to study in the Chinese studies program at the National Taiwan University. But he took an year of leave the next year, and would come back again in 1974 with Fang. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| 1974 | Fang and Woon Came to Study in TaiwanIn 1974, Woon and Fang came to Taiwan for college. Woon went back to continue his studies in the Chinese studies program at the National Taiwan University after taking an year of leave, while Fang attended the Chinese studies program at the National Taiwan Normal University, both in Taipei. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| August 4th 1975 | First Issue of 天狼星詩刊 Sirius Poetry JournalThe first issue of 天狼星詩刊 Sirius Poetry Journal was published on August 4th, 1975 in Taipei, Taiwan. The journal contains the official address of the Sirius Poetical Society in English: The Sirius Poetical Society, 20-B, Rainbow Park, Kampar, Perak, Malaysia, as well as their address in Taipei in Mandarin: 臺北市羅斯福路三段一四O巷十四弄三十號之四樓. The editors were 黃昏星 Huanghuen Xing and 周清嘯 Zhou Qing-Xiao. The name of the journal would change to 神州詩刊 Shenzhou Poetry Journal in 1977. This issue includes a manifesto-style preface that Woon wrote concerning the mission of modern Chinese poetry, or 真正的中國詩 the actual Chinese poetry, poems by the society's core members and some associated Taiwanese poets like 林煥彰 Lin Huan-Zhang, and a Mandarin translation of a section from French poet and essayist Georges Jean's La poésie : peuple et culture au seuil (1966) by 曾珠喜 Zeng Zhu-Xi, who also introduced and translated modern Belgium poetry in a contemporary literary journal in Taiwan, 龍族詩刊 Longzu Poetry Journal. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| January 1st 1979 | The Launch of 神州詩社 Shenzhou Poetical SocietyDue to different ideologies of Chineseness, culture, and politics, Woon, Fang, and some of their friends left Sirius Poetical Society to establish 神州詩社 Shenzhou Poetical Society. The society put a great emphasis on martial art training and 俠義精神 spirits of the Way. Its members avidly practiced martial art while exploring poetic styles between classics and modernism. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| January 1st 1977 | First Issue of 神州詩刊 Shenzhou Poetry JournalWoon and his fellow poets continued to publish poetry journals throughout the 70s, and for the issue on January 1st 1977 they changed the name of the journal from 天狼星 Sirius, the name they started using back in Malaysia, to 神州 Shenzhou, which literally means "the land of God," a euphemism for China. This was because Woon and his brother ended up parting from each other due to ideological conflicts, leading to Woon establishing 神州詩社 Shenzhou Poetical Society with his 黃昏星 Huang Huen-Xing、廖雁平 Liao Yan-Ping、周清嘯 Zhou Qing-Xiao and Fang. In the preface for this issue, Woon continued to discuss the problematic of the Western-Chinese, modern-classical bianries, theorizing a comparative literary framework that questioned those binaries and urged his contemporaries to write about 我們身邊的生活，我們每天所耳聞目見的，更迫切的問題 "our daily lives and the more urgent problems that we see and hear every day" (4). It is important to note that this issue was published through a commercial publisher 故鄉出版社 rather than self-published. This demonstrates the rapid growth in scale of the journal and the society, which was the main reason why the KMT government eventually worked to disintegrate them. |
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| July 1979 | Launch of 青年中國 Youth China JournalShenzhou Poetical Society launched 青年中國 Youth China Journal in July 1979. |
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| December 10th 1979 | 美麗島事件 Formosa IncidentOn December 10th, 1979, the members of the pro-democratization magazine Formosa Magazine held a demonstration commemmorating Human Rights Day in Kaohsiung, a city in the south of Taiwan. The KMT sent police and the military to contain the demonstration, causing direct conflicts between the two sides. Important leaders of the magazine were then arrested by the government using this incident as an excuse. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| September 25th 1980 | The KMT Arrested Woon and FangOn September 25th 1980, Woon and Fang, alongside a few other core members of the Sirius Poetical Society, were arrested by the KMT for reading 金庸 Jin Yong's works, which were banned in Taiwan at that time, holding leftist books and publications, and spreading 大中國思想 the ideology of the Great China. This incident was not covered by newspapers in Taiwan, but can be found in memoirs by their friends, such as 林煥彰 Lin Huan-Zhang and 黃昏星 Huanghuen Xing. |
Shao-Chi Ou |
| 1981 | Woon and Fang Left for Hong KongShortly after their arrest, Woon and Fang were sentenced to prison time but immediately sent back to Malaysia. At that time, the Malaysian government was anti-communist, so when these two were captured abroad for reading socialism, they also had no choice but to leave home again to somewhere else. They ended up in Hong Kong, taken in by their idol and later important mentor in popular martial art literature 金庸 Jin Yong, whom they met already when they were in Taiwan. |
Shao-Chi Ou |