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A story about dreams and disappointments, choices and the inability to choose, and the arrival of "us," strangers in a foreign land.
This is the story of several Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan. Unique, unrepeatable, and defying simplification and categorization, we were fortunate to be there, accompanying them closely, and we could only record it honestly. Gu Yuling's book, "The Other," attempts to faithfully present and record the stories of several Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan. Author Gu Yuling, a longtime participant in the labor movement, amassed over fifteen years of close observation and involvement in the lives of laborers and migrant workers. This is her first written account.
The appearance of this book opens another window for readers who are "us", allowing them to further see those migrant workers who actually enter and exit the same spaces as us, but are ignored and treated unequally. They also see how their desire to become part of "us" is repeatedly frustrated. The author also repeatedly highlights the irrationality of society's artificial boundaries between "us" and "them", giving "us" the opportunity to think and reflect, and attempts to invite readers to enter "them", just like looking in the mirror, to see ourselves and ourselves in others.
Furthermore, from the perspective of literary tradition, in contrast to the mainstream writing style of local authors, which is always eager to highlight their own differences from the group, this book reveals a particularly valuable quality, namely, what critic Tang Nuo points out, "the reduction of the writer's self." When the self becomes smaller, it can accommodate more people, more stories, and more thoughtful thinking.
This unique perspective, coupled with the author's rich material and background accumulated before writing, and his restrained storytelling skills that avoid falling into tragic accusations, makes the lives of individual migrant workers vividly appear between the lines, creating the uniqueness of this book. It also won the honor of being awarded the "Literary Annual Grant" of the 9th Taipei Literature Award.
Born in Chiayi City in 1967, Gu Yuling moved to Taipei at the age of 18, where she has lived ever since. Inspired by left-wing thought and nurtured by Taiwan's social movements before and after the lifting of martial law, she devoted herself full-time to the labor movement after graduating from Fu Jen Catholic University's English Department. Currently serving as the president of the Taiwan International Labor Association, she is a graduate of the Graduate Institute of Social and Cultural Studies at National Chiao Tung University. She has won the first prize in the China Times Literary Awards for Reporting, the Jury Award at the Huai En Literary Awards, and the Taipei Literary Annual Grant.
Taiwan International Labor Association (TIWA) Website: www.tiwa.org.tw Email: [email protected]

2008-10-15

印刻

344

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