With its democratic transformation, Taiwan has confronted many aspects of its authoritarian past through a range of media: scholarly research, transitional justice, popular culture, education, literature, film, social activism, etc. One medium that is aimed at the general public of all ages and educational background is museums. Under Martial Law, the major museum was the Palace Museum that served the regime’s purpose of identifying Taiwan, which had experienced 50 years as a Japanese colony, as an integral member of Chinese civilization. There are now several museums that address Taiwan’s own history, including different aspects of life under Martial Law, 1949-1987. These include The 2-28 Memorial Museum, the National Museum of Taiwan History, the Jing-mei White Terror Memorial Park, and the Green Island White Terror Memorial Park. One might also include the Two Chiangs Culture Park, which evokes the ubiquity of statues of the two Chiangs throughout the island. This paper grows out of the 2011 EATS Annual Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, when I visited museums that presented that country’s history and experience with dictatorships of the right and left in a direct and honest way. I subsequently made a point of visiting comparable museums throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to understand ways in which different newly democratic countries addressed the tragic elements of their past. This paper offers a tour of such museums in Taiwan and CEE to explore how negative memories are constructed and presented to contemporary viewers.

Tsai Ming-liang's queer Teddy-award winning film Days (2020) features his male muse Lee Kang-sheng’s intimate encounter with Non (Anong Houngheuangsy), a Laotian migrant male sex worker masseur in Bangkok. Days depicts a liminal, queer, cross-class, inter-Asian, intergenerational and commercial sexual relationship between Lee and Anong. When the film finally screened in Taiwan in 2023, it was accompanied by a solo exhibition at the Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE): Tsai Ming-liang's Days. Taking up all three floors of the small on-campus with Tsai’s paintings, works on paper, old chairs and luggage, music boxes, and video installations, plus several public programs, Tsai Ming-liang’s Days can be considered a careful staging of queer public and private intimacy, domesticity, and care. The public programming included a cooking demonstration “Tsai and Anong’s Delectable Relationship” where they made Malaysian and Lao food for the public—Anong made the green papaya salad he is shown preparing in Days, which Tsai had found so beautiful and felt compelled to record on video, and ended by singing a Lao song—plus another music listening session where Tsai played his favorite old Mandarin songs from classic films that he is known for incorporating into his own films. In this presentation, I follow Song Hwee Lim's call for a geopolitical approach to transnational cinema and connections between Taiwan, Malaysia, Laos, and Thailand, plus Helen Hok-Sze Leung's call for "queer regionalism," in analyzing Tsai's alignment with Anong as both "Nanyang ren" (people of the South Seas/Southeast Asia) now living in Taiwan.

Taiwanese ballads are a genre of popular literature sung in Taiwanese Southern Min and written in Sinitic characters. It mainly served the functions of folk entertainment and education. Being widespread popular literature that was easy to understand by ordinary people, Taiwanese ballads play an essential role in information delivery to the masses, simultaneously shaping their collective memory. They provide valuable information about the narrative of WW II circulating in the general public, which may not be displayed in the official narratives of the Japanese and the Nationalist government, their historical records, and their supported literature.

During the early post-war period of the 1950s, Taiwanese literature was predominantly nostalgic (huaixiang 懷鄉) and anti-communist (fangong 反共). While the topic of WWII was addressed, the plight of Taiwanese soldiers under Japanese command was not a focal point. In contrast, the Taiwanese ballad 'New Song about the Lost War in the Shōwa era' from June 1959, stands out for its portrayal of the traumatic memories of Taiwanese Imperial Japan Servicemen in Southeast Asia, offering a unique perspective on the war.

This paper aims to present how traumatic memories of the war are retold and how collective memory and identity are shaped. It will analyze the narratives told using digital tools for text mining and discuss them by applying collective memory theories. In addition, it will also compare the different war images and narratives presented in this ballad and other WWII-related ballads right after the war.

In 2019, Taiwan’s Guoguang Opera Company collaborated with Singapore’s Siong Leng Musical Association to create Phaedra, an experimental opera combining elements of Peking opera, Nanguan music, and contemporary dance. Drawing inspiration from Greek mythology and the classic play Phaedra by 17th-century French playwright Jean Racine, this production contrasting the vocal styles of Peking opera and Nanguan to explore the internal conflicts and outward expressions of female characters confronting personal desires and political power.

The performance breaks traditional norms, such as having a single actor for each role; instead, Peking opera and Nanguan performers share the portrayal of the queen, while the Peking opera actor also takes on the role of a lady-in-waiting. Only female characters are given voice in this production, and the overlapping and divided roles create a multi-layered, paradoxical expression of female psychological states.

This experimental drama also reflects Taiwan and Singapore’s collaborative exploration of new contemporary forms for traditional arts. Notably, it adapts a classical Western subject for reinterpretation. In Asian arts, Western texts are often used as tools for innovation, with “Western elements” viewed as markers of modernization. Interestingly, this production draws from some of the West’s most ancient themes.

This paper examines not only the collaborative artistic forms and thematic content in this Asian cross-border production but also observes the paradox within the creative consciousness of Asian countries. While borrowing Western cultural references, these artists seek to transcend such frameworks and reveal their distinct cultural identities.

As the Chinese government continues to recognize the power of popular music (Brady 2006; Montgomery 2009), its censorship practices significantly impact Taiwan’s music industry. Taiwanese musicians face challenges like official bans, public backlash, and financial losses. Chinese authorities, along with labels, promoters, and agencies, regulate content these measures. In this environment, corporate and self-censorship also emerge as responses to perceived risks and fears (Mullin 2023; Richburg 2023; The Economic Times 2021; Lin, Chen & Chen 2019; Guy 2017; De Kloet 2010). Such responses including revising the lyrics while obtaining the approval to release music in China, and avoiding posting any political statements online.

While authoritarian states increasingly expand their control over democracies by co-opting institutions worldwide (Repucci and Slipowitz 2022), China’s transnational influence reaches beyond Taiwan, affecting other creative industries as well, evidenced by the 2017 Korean restriction order (Muhammad and Valeriano 2024). Using new censorship theory (Bunn 2015) and James Clifford’s “routes” (1997) as a framework, this paper explores how Taiwanese musicians navigate censorship through three “routes”: silencing, immobilizing, and proclaiming. Rather than seeing censorship as solely a top-down government tactic, this research shows how multiple stakeholders influence public dialogue on culture and commerce.

Based on 30 in-depth interviews with musicians and industry professionals, this paper argues that the experiences of Taiwanese musicians highlight the pervasive nature of a kind of censorship that requires more scholarly attention, which transcends borders and intertwines with commercial interests and nationalist narratives. It shapes public discourse and reinforces nationalist ideologies through these routes.