A translated review of TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE by Yang Shuang-Zi (2026), translated by Lin King
Winning the 2026 Booker Prize for Translated Literature sparks many a review, some of which focus on the clever linguistic translation conceits of Yang’s novel itself, quite apart from the fact that King’s translation from Mandarin into English is part and parcel of the award itself. Many volumes have been dedicated to translation studies, some based on fundamental issues to do with the diversity of languages, e.g. whether or not language shapes our world view as variously debated according to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Radically deluded proponents declare that it is impossible to learn to speak a ‘foreign’ languages to the standard native speakers do, and consequently also maintain that it is impossible to ‘translate’ from one language to another approaching equivalence. Research in second language acquisition and bilingualism (and multilingualism) has shown quite convincingly that this is not so, i.e. it is our world view that influences language, and further that - at least according to biolinguistics – different languages differ only in surface features, what with a language faculty in our brains being common to all humans. Advances in AI translation machines seem to also lean towards the latter language thesis, even if the methodology of statistical matching seems counter to human creativity, especially if one proposes that translating a novel is not so much a technical issue but an art form that almost equals the original.
As a linguist and occasional translator leaning towards the biolinguistics model, I was of course interested in reading Yang’s Taiwan Travelogue in English. Added to that are several other aspects: I have lived, worked and travelled in Taiwan as an English and German speaking academic – with an interest in the Aborigine languages of Taiwan but with no facility in any of the Chinese dialects or languages. Our son is married to a Taiwanese, and he is bilingual between English and Mandarin, currently working as a linguistics professor at a university in mainland China. We have also family connections in Japan where we visited some years ago. On this blog I also wrote ‘an urgent review of The Struggle for Taiwan: a History by Sulmaan Wasif Khan (2024)’. It includes the historical period of Japanese occupation of Taiwan, as situated in Yang’s novel. As the occasional reviewer of books, one is of course also interested in what other reviewers have to say about one’s current reading material, if only to check if one’s own take corresponds to theirs – as often enough it doesn’t. As such I came across a review by a German writer in an obscure literary magazine I subscribe to, and to my surprise they got it, having transgressed all the linguistic boundaries, fictional and real, between Japanese, Mandarin, English and finally German. The author only wants to be identified as Dr K. My translation and annotations of his review from German into English are my endeavours alone, hence any mistranslations are my responsibility alone as well. If one wants to point out the historical connections between German and English (Anglo-Saxon), one may as well point out the history of Japanese as connected to Chinese. Maybe there is a translation lesson in that alone, especially in the face of the aforementioned Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Let us assume, writes Dr K., that I picked up this novel without knowing much about Taiwan’s history apart from what one learns by way of academic general knowledge of having been there a few times, and of course the contemporary discourse about the struggle of Taiwan facing the mainland China claim that Taiwan is part of China, like it or not. Let us also assume that, at first, I did not read the blurb at the back cover that says ‘Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 …’. On opening the front cover, we get two short bios about Yang Shuang-zi the writer and Lin King the translator. On a second look it occurs to me that Yang Shuang-zi is written with diacritics as Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, which as far as I know indicate the vowel tones. Similarly, the tone diacritics for Taipei and Taichung are supplied. OK, very good. But what about the names provided for King’s bio, i.e. Yu Pei -Yun and Zhou Jian-Xin for whom King has also provided translations. Shouldn’t it read Yóu Pèi-yún? Sorry for being pedantic. Of course, the writer may prefer their name spelled without tone indication. Well, we know how confusing this all can be when you throw in simplified Chinese as well. And sorry for breaking my rule of not looking at the back of the book but I cannot help but to point out King’s rationale in her Translators notes:
… I decided to keep accents and tones … These may seem visually cumbersome to an English reader, but as a user of these three languages, I always find it frustrating when accents and tones are omitted in romanisation, which often means that a reader who knows the original language can’t determine how to pronounce the words (p. 292).
Fair enough (technically the phrase ‘accents and tones’ seems confusing because tones are indicated by diacritics that include ‘accents’ for languages like French – but never mind, we get the drift). But mind you nevertheless, here I am, a German-English reader who cannot read either Mandarin or Japanese character script, so I pronounce, if I have to, Taipei more or less according to German-English pronunciation rules (or I might look up a dictionary for approximate native pronunciation so as not to offend the locals). Since King is fluent in all three languages, isn’t she unlikely to read Mandarin and Japanese in Romanised versions (and there are a few)? As a linguist and bit of a translator myself I find these minutiae very interesting, but I doubt that the vast majority of English readers would care one way or the other how to Romanize a particular name. Anyway, what is in a name – as the saying goes? For some people it means a lot, so here is yet another twist even before we get to the narrative proper. The dedication page informs us that:
This book is dedicated to Yang Jo-hui, the younger of the twin sisters known jointly as Yang Shuang-zi (note that I have discarded the diacritics as I will do so for the rest of this review).
So, the author is one of the ‘Yang twins’ (‘shuang-zi’ meaning twins), why? Again, we have to jump ship and learn the reason, or do we? In the admittedly fictional (at least partially) afterword entitled ‘Translator’s note to Taiwan Travelogue, New Mandarin Chinese Edition 2020’ we learn:
Very special thanks go to my late older sister, the Jo-tzu half of the name “Shuang-zi”. I, the Jo-hui half of the “Shuang-zi”, may have held the pen that translated the book, but it is in fact a product of our shared work (p. 289).
Wow! So, the book is dedicated to Jo-hui, the ‘younger’ sister who takes on the name Shuang-zi? Sounds bizarre. Intended? A translation mistake? It is rather poignant and tragic when one reads elsewhere that her ‘late elder sister, Jo-hui’ died of breast cancer in 2015. Is this a door to psychoanalysis or just a mix-up of names? But let’s move on lest I be accused of being evidence for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in that only Germans (especially in English translation) can understand Germans.
So, next we get a nice map of 1938 Taiwan, followed by the contents that promise an Introduction by someone called Hiyoshi Sagako, followed by twelve chapters, each named after a culinary delight, finished off with an afterword, an editor’s note and three translator’s notes. Sounds like an entrée, a 12-dish banquet with many supplementary desserts.
The entrée, it turns out, is the tale of a “Japanese scholar” who locates the lost first Mandarin translation and the original Japanese version for the benefit of Yang’s new translation enterprise. Really? The tale veers off into a short discourse on the vicissitudes of ethnicity arising from colonialism, i.e. Hiyoshi Sagaku describing herself as “wansheng” (Japanese people born in Taiwan), situating them in a hierarchy between first (Mainland Japanese) and second class (Taiwanese) ethnicities. Given that Japanese colonialism was relatively short-lived in Taiwan – as opposed, to say, enduring European colonialism in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand – one can understand the dilemmas posed. In other relatively short-lived colonial contexts, like, say, Kenya, many Europeans (like my wife and her parents) born in Kenya were nevertheless driven out of their ‘homeland’ due to being associated (sometimes falsely) with colonial crimes committed by armed forces that were simply withdrawn after independence. Strangely though, this “wansheng” issue does not feature much in the novel itself. The introduction then tells us about the genesis of the tale as a ‘real’ historical account with all protagonists having lived real lives. In conclusion, there is an explanation as to how the 12th chapter was added in a subsequent edition, perhaps as a sort of apology by Ms. Aoyama to Ms. Wang, and in the hope Ms. Wang would read it and accept it, and furthermore agree to a reunion after all. Of course, nothing of the sort happened – I mean the ‘reunion’ but also, since everybody knows by now, the whole account, it being a pure fiction, but so cleverly done that when the ‘novel’ first appeared in Taiwan, some readers believed the conceit, occasioning subsequent editions to tone down the title of the ‘novel’ to simply Taiwan Travelogue. However, the last sentence of this ‘introduction’ seems to give away the whole plot idea, namely the appeal to the reader to ‘remain cognizant of Aoyama Chizuko’s status as one of the colonizers within the story’. So, since this whole story is written from the point of view – first person – of Aoyama Chizuko, are we to expect a tale of fascist Japanese colonial brutality? Obviously not since the novel is also sold as a love story between Ms Aoyama and her Taiwanese interpreter Ms Wang. Would an anti-fascist Japanese visitor to Taiwan during this time be accorded the same ‘status’? OK understood, anti-fascist Japanese were all in prison or worse, executed. But are there still shades of grey?
In chapter ‘one’ we learn that Ms Aoyama is a young and successful writer whose novel has been made into an even more successful film in Japan, and since she has always been hankering to visit Taiwan, she wrangles a Japanese government assignment that allows her to travel in Taiwan for a whole year, with the assignment to publish Taiwanese travel stories in Japan, with the unspoken expectation that she thereby supports the Japanese Southern Expansion Doctrine, which she does not. A Faustian deal with the devil? Compare this with fascist Germany where many an unsuspecting artist was lured into the net of fascist propaganda, even if they rejected the very idea. Note the movie Mephisto (based on the book by Klaus Mann) that plays out this scenario for the then famous German actor Gustaf Gründgens, with Gõring as his protégé, but Gründgens also using his position to save a few of his Jewish fellow artists. Nothing of the sort plays out in Yang’s Taiwan Travelogue. There are no references to the politics of the day, only hints of the Japanization (kominka 1937 – 1945) drive as partially impersonated by Ms Aoyama’s first (and last) interpreter/assistant Mishima who works for the Taiwan Governor General in Taichung.
And then there is the young and beautiful Taiwanese superwoman Ms Wang, forthwith known as Chi-chan (term of endearment).
Chi-chan as the Taiwanese woman who deputises for most of the novel for Mishima as interpreter/assistant/cook and love interest is a now retired teacher of Japanese due to her getting married ‘next year’. As a paragon of anti-colonial sentiment, one would have thought that featuring the young and beautiful Chi-chan as a Japanese language teacher in Taiwan would be bit of a contradiction. Being a walking encyclopaedia on everything known to mankind, to suit the narrative, Chi-chan must of course also be an expert on Japan and particularly Japanese food, apart from being a supreme scholar on everything Taiwanese, and of course Taiwanese food. As a novelist with a certain obsession for travel and food it is little wonder that Yang fashions her main protagonists, Aoyama-san and Chi-chan, as female gods that transcend politics while all the while reminding us that the divisive politics of colonialism prevent the match made in culinary heavens. Yang, in an interview, quips that there were two consequences for her 4-year research period for writing the novel, namely her savings were depleted for the travel and second that she gained a lot of weight.
As I translate this review my wife is watching Australian Master Chef, an endless series of culinary delights (with many an Asian dish) and the occasional disasters that condemn the competitors to the hell of dingy restaurant kitchens, condemned to study expensive cookbooks while washing dishes. I am not a proponent of Warhol’s dictum that it all comes out as the same (shit) but nor am I a proponent of 5-star Michelin cuisine that pretends to turn cooking into an artform of divine proportions. I do appreciate good food and a glass of good wine, but I cannot really appreciate Yang’s 12 dishes (and many more in between) that are described in great detail down to ‘pickled sea cucumber intestines’. Still the reviewer who shares my sentiments in this case did munch-read his way through every meal that Aoyama-san and Chi-chan devoured.
Dr K. does allude – with his German obsession to psychoanalyse everything – to the well-known connection between food and sex, wondering if all that banqueting is a clever device for not mentioning sex even once, although hanging in the air like some delicious scent exuded by Chi-chan’s cute dimples that catch Aoyama-san’s eye at every opportunity, and with hints like ‘I filled her cup … she filled mine’. Some reviewers have noted that Yang is married to a female partner – same-sex marriage being legal in progressive Taiwan – thus being a champion of LBGTQ politics in Taiwan, and that this is somehow reflected in her novel like a LBGTQ manifesto. There may be some point to this as in the novel Aoyama-san is rather outspoken in her condemnation of Chi-chan’s marriage prospects, having to submit to some ‘bastard’ male’s desire for male descendants to keep the family fortunes afloat. Her invitation to Chi-chan to elope with her to Japan and follow her destiny as a translator – and they might as well get married – is definitely not like beating around the bush. On the other hand, were this anti-patriarchy sentiment subject to critique, as Chi-chan seems offended by the very proposal, and seemingly in acceptance of the traditional role of a Taiwanese woman’s child-bearing housewife duties while still in command of her intellectual pursuits, we might accept this as a valid interpretation, were it not for Yang’s personal adherence to the contrary. Dr K. alludes to logical inconsistencies in this matter – and there are others – in Yang’s narrative. Even so, we might laud Yang for her honesty in that life is not always a logical progression from A to B – in fact far from it if we look at history as a never-ending series of illogical acts perpetrated by insane emperors and other self-proclaimed leaders of nations (in fact so much so that history as such has come to a grinding end, at least according to the Japanese-American scholar Fukuyama).
The official line, seemingly taken in the narrative, and in many reviewers’ interpretations, is that the reason for Chi-chan’s rejection of Aoyama’s advances is Aoyama’s colonial attitude, however benign, in that Aoyama-san offers Chi-chan ‘protection’ which Chi-chan never asked for, i.e. Aoyama-san oversteps her humanity by way of belonging to the colonialists which makes her offer of ‘protection’ a questionable gesture. Dr K. here also questions the logic of this argument, which seems rather convoluted, especially as the book is praised by many as a ‘post-colonial’ masterpiece. Since the argument is reinforced in the narrative by the strange story of the two students in the high school they visit, i.e. the petite ‘island’ student who is friends with the Japanese counterpart, seemingly (playfully) rejecting the ‘protection’ afforded to her by the Japanese student. It seems odd that in human relations at that level there is cognisance of the political context, i.e. the colonial power imbalance that in real life is enforced by brutal police and army oppression. Yang never alludes to the many resistance movements in Taiwan against the Japanese occupation (some call it Japanese ‘rule’ to downplay the impact) that resulted in shocking massacres perpetrated by the Japanese enforcers. That two girls in high school, seemingly being good friends, one a Japanese, the other a Taiwanese, are subject to such brutal ‘power imbalances’ seems somewhat far-fetched. It does not seem to work as a metaphor for the relationship between Aoyama-san and Chi-chan simply because human relationships can be exempt from political context, however much one denies it. There are examples, however rare, of genuine friendships between people from Gaza and Israel as much as there were human bonds between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans in Nazi Germany. Such relationships are of course getting ever more dangerous, especially if linked to political resistance, and the more paranoid the fascist-colonial powers get. Given that Yang does not refer to the prevailing political-colonial context of actual oppression by the Japanese forces, we can assume that either there were spaces for friendships and liaisons between occupier and occupied, especially if the former denounced in mind or deed their role in it. Yang could have also included a story about the “wansheng” (Japanese people born in Taiwan) who are sandwiched between the two opposing ethnicities, to exemplify the complexities of a colonial situation.
To apportion collective guilt, as Yang seems to do, in the end, just reinforces the primitive racism whereby all Germans, for example, are Nazis, Huns and Krauts, all French are Frogs, all Japanese are Japs and Slants, and so on.
Dr K. gets even more confused when trying to interpret Mishima’s – the seemingly Taiwanese loyal employee of the Colonial Government – tirade against Aoyama’s ‘intellectual arrogance’. Dr K. writes: I suppose there is nothing wrong with a novelist giving her otherwise likeable main character the occasional cold shoulder, but there should be some logic to it. Mishima’s contention that Aoyama elevates personal preferences to that of an overarching political context whereby the Japanese Empire adds value to a local product, e.g. elevating the taste of Taiwanese pineapple juice by way of Japanese production technology. This sounds a bit like the silly adage that since Hitler built the first Autobahn (motorway), he couldn’t have been all evil. Aoyama’s preference for the Taiwanese railways – no doubt improved by Japanese engineering expertise – can also be a two-sided sword: the quaint beauty of an old Taiwanese railway bridge gets demolished to make way for a new and better Japanese-built version. One can still hear older folks in Taiwan praising the Japanese efforts to improve their infrastructure. I suppose it can be quite grating when such positives are pointed out by a member of the Empire. Mishima’s other missive is that Aoyama perceives the beauty and flavours of Taiwan not for their own sake but as exotica – of course it can be annoying when, as a native person, one is looked upon by the tourist like a beautiful exotic animal. Indeed, modern tourism is premised on that ruse, i.e. the locals have to dress up in traditional costume to provide photo opportunities for the tourists. But I wouldn’t paint Aoyama into that corner.
The main point of the narrative seems to me to be to travel the length (if not breadth) of Taiwan and sample the culinary delights on offer. In between Aoyama-san and Chi-chan spend time in the river cottage In Taichung, having animated conversations. Since much of the narrative is consumed by their dialogue, interspersed with cute interjections like ‘is that so?’ or ‘oh dear, oh dear’ or even ‘aigh’, one wonders how much of the original Mandarin discourse structure is maintained (Hemingway in his For Whom the Bell Tolls, much of the dialogue is an implied direct translation from Spanish). That Aoyama-san and Chi-chan call each other by their names, rather than - in English – referring to each other and themselves by personal pronouns, may well be a Taiwanese-Mandarin characteristic. Here King, the translator might have enlightened us further.
Equally we would have liked more historical information about the differences between the Taiwanese Hoklo and Hakka peoples and their respective Chinese dialects. As far as I know the Hakka are from a later migration to Taiwan, finding most of the fertile coastal agricultural lands occupied by the earlier Hoklo migrations, hence having to find land inland, in the more mountainous regions, less amenable to agriculture (the whole situation may be much more complex). The culinary differences alone are of course very interesting but equally interesting would have been an elaboration of cultural and linguistic differences and/or similarities. Both ethnicities could also have been more embedded in the Aborigine cultures and languages, especially in treating the latter often as second- or third-class citizens. Only via recent interest in the origins of the Polynesian languages has there been the realisation that the Taiwan native tribes and their languages have a striking similarity with Polynesian languages like NZ Māori, i.e. Taiwanese aborigine tribes now being considered as the originators of the Polynesian diaspora that stretches over vast oceans and time, paying testament to their ancient navigational and seafaring skills that are unrivalled elsewhere in the world.
Maybe this ancient travel bug has infected the (Chinese) Taiwanese as well, hence Yang’s voyage, following the old travel advice of ‘don’t travel abroad until you’ve seen your home country’. Taiwan may not be the biggest island in the world, but it is big enough to straddle a few of climate zones, i.e. as an AI inquiry says:
Taiwan's climate ranges from tropical in the south to subtropical in the north, while its towering central mountains introduce temperate and alpine climates. Influenced heavily by the Tropic of Cancer, monsoons, and the warm Kuroshio ocean current, the island features high humidity and year-round warmth, with dramatic microclimates driven by its rugged topography.
Yang is obviously enchanted by her island and hopefully, through her novel, engenders a literary tourism trail that follows her exploits in the novel. Having traversed Taiwan myself, says Dr K., I can attest to the charms of the countryside as much as the cityscapes. From Taipei 101 to Kaohsiung’s 85 Sky Tower, Taiwan’s high-tech economy is on show, as much as bullet trains that take you along the east and west coasts. To imagine such journeys in 1938 is of course a triumph of imagination in Yang’s novel, no doubt assisted by assiduous historical research. Best appreciated by a Taiwanese traveller like Yang, it is a case of falling in love with one’s hometown. Personally, I have never experienced such a sentiment for my home country and hometown, says Dr K. Travel broadens the mind, they say, hence travelling in one’s own home turf might seem less exciting, but when the pair of Aoyama-san and Chi-Chan travel, always starting out in Taichung, the reader can enjoy the sights as much as they do, not to speak of the culinary delights on every street corner.
Indeed, the idea (foreign to Western foodies) that street vendors and street food stalls can provide tasty morsels that equal those from 5-star Michelin restaurants, is a phenomenon seemingly particular to Asian cuisine. However, since not all food stalls are created equal one must have insider knowledge where and when a particularly delicious dish is being served, as Chi-chan exemplifies in her outings with Aoyama-san. I have experienced this myself when employed by a Chinese company in Malaysia whose wealthy owners went to great lengths to impress me with their expertise to get the finest dishes served in the most improbable locations, like the world’s very best shark-fin soup served up in a dingy restaurant in Malacca, not much bigger than a food stall, and apparently patronised by connoisseurs from as far as Taiwan. Given the added medicinal values placed on particular foods, it is imperative that the dish is prepared in secret ways that have been handed down by generations, gaining a reputation that spreads far and wide. Some of these ‘medicinal’ values can seem a bit suspect such as the supposed aphrodisiac qualities of shark-fin soup. To Yang’s credit such food aspects are never mentioned in her wide range of delicacies. Yang did also well to situate her novel (and food) in the 1930s so as to avoid the contemporary US fast food culture that has gripped Taiwan in the most unfortunate way.
So, what does Dr K. say for his final verdict? Once you have ploughed through the many afterwords and translator notes you have almost forgotten the novel you have just read. Too many cooks spoil the broth, as they say. Yang should have left it with the cute ending in chapter 12:
Chi-chan and I shared one bowl of fruit and jelly ice. It was very sweet. It was very delicious.
A great finale that distils the narrative: a sweet love story and delicious food. The reader, nevertheless, is left with a bitter-sweet feeling of whether or not this novel lives up to the claim of being a ‘post-colonial’ treatise, since the politics of the era is largely left out, tampering just around the edges as if the brutal Japanese occupation (or call it ‘rule’ if you must) of Taiwan was a non-event. Where are the many resistance movements that challenged the occupation? What about the collaboration between mainland China and Taiwan in these matters? It would be disingenuous to claim that Yang’s novel somehow is a manifesto for Taiwanese independence, equating possible reunification with mainland China under the CCP with the Japanese occupation. Such simplistic notions are not the stuff of a beautiful love story, however much unrequited it may be. Hence let’s keep it at this romantic level of ‘let’s make love (and food), not war’ and enjoy the ride through beautiful Taiwan.
Translator’s note: I couldn’t have said it better myself. Nothing got lost in translation.
