Like Keith Chen, the main character in your novel “Ghost Town,” you moved from the Taiwanese city of Yongjing to Berlin. How biographical is the story?
The book is loosely based on my family history. Like Keith, I grew up in a loud and chaotic environment. He has five sisters. I have seven and one brother. Why so many? My parents really wanted sons, so they kept trying. Carrying on the family name was even more important in Taiwan’s patriarchal system of the eighties than it is today. But in a way, as a homosexual boy, I was also the eighth unwanted daughter.
In the West, Taiwan is considered as Asia’s prime example for same-sex marriage and homosexual rights. In “Ghost Town”, however, homosexual Keith is bullied and tortured to the extreme.
The development of an open Taiwan is still quite new. In our country, martial law ruled for a long time. My teachers explained that all gay men had AIDS and would burn in hell. It was enough to have long hair to be taken away because that was considered unmanly. It was terror. The openness you speak of applies mostly to Taipei today. In rural areas, you are still partly vulnerable if you are different. But my book also deals with the situation of women in this patriarchal system. They, too, had to adapt to this world. For many young Taiwanese today, this is unimaginable.
Taiwan is currently very much in the geopolitical spotlight. Would you also describe yourself as a political writer?
As a Taiwanese writer, it is almost impossible to not be political. We are a politicized society because of the threat posed by China. My book is about fear and about terror, so it is also a reflection of this life situation. China has spread fear and intimidation for decades. In 2027, the People’s Liberation Army celebrates its 100th anniversary. Emperor Xi wants to take back the missing part of his kingdom by then, so the theory goes. I fear for my family. Fortunately, we have the Taiwan Strait, a rough stretch of water. This will make it harder for China to invade, as it was for Russia in Ukraine, for example.
Has the increased political attention also had an impact on the perception of Taiwanese literature?
Many publishers who were not interested in my book before are now knocking on my door. This is especially true in the United States, but so far not in Germany. On the German book market, there are virtually no writers from Taiwan apart from small niche publishers. In the last ten years, only about five Taiwanese bestsellers have been translated into German. And they have barely sold at all. But at least more people know Taiwan here today. On previous reading trips, some could not even tell Taiwan and Thailand apart.
The book is partly set in Germany. You have been living in Berlin since 2004. What fascinates you about the German capital?
At first it was a coincidence: A friend gave me a CD by a group called Rosenstolz. I loved the mood and the singer’s voice. I looked up where the band was from. And that’s how I ended up in Berlin, at first just for a stay, that was in 1998. I went to a play at the Volksbuehne not long after I arrived. The people on stage were naked and screaming at each other. I instantly fell in love with this city. The art community is fantastic. You can be whoever you want. In my first year in Germany, a man just stripped naked in the subway on a hot day. Nobody paid him any attention. And even better, his dog was wearing a T-shirt. For writers, things like that are great.
In your novel, Germany is described as a cold, but also liberating place. What is the impression of Germany the Taiwanese people have today?
Many Taiwanese love Germany. They believe everything that is “Made in Germany” is good. They think Germans are effective, precise. When my sisters visited Germany, they were surprised that the train was three hours late, the toilets were broken, and they couldn’t reserve their seats after a train breakdown. But Germany is my second home. It is where I live and where I write. And the distance from Taiwan helps, too.
What major differences did you notice?
For example, my book is about the boundaries between the spiritual world and the human world. In Taiwan, we celebrate Qingming, the festival of the dead. We believe that the gates of hell are wide open during this time. There are so many taboos during these days, rules about what you can and can’t do. The spirits are everywhere in Taiwan. They are in the trees and the rivers. Ghost stories are everywhere. You don’t have that here in Germany. But Germany is a place where the past haunts the living.
You also worked in Germany as a translator and even as an actor. What were your experiences?
Among other things, I played a Chinese businessman in the film “Global Player” by Hannes Stoehr. I was on “Verstehen Sie Spaß?” and in an episode of “Jerks” with Christian Ulmen and Fahri Yardim, where I played a Tibetan monk. I studied theater and always wanted to give a career as an actor a try. But as an Asian in Germany, you mainly get cliché-laden roles without emotional depth. I went to auditions where they wanted to put a Vietnamese peasant hat on me. I was supposed to speak with an “Asian” accent. One time they even wanted me to do a backflip, and were surprised that as an Asian I didn’t have such martial arts skills. From an artistic point of view, none of this was really satisfying.
Kevin Chen 陳思宏 was born in 1976 in Yongjing, Taiwan. He wrote several books and essays, one of which can be found in a Taiwanese fifth-grade textbook. He has lived in Berlin since 2004, where he also worked as a translator and actor, among other things. “Ghost Town” is his first novel to be translated into English. The New York Times recommended the book in its Watch List for Fall 2022.
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