Chung Li-ho (Chinese: 鍾理和 (pinyin Zhong Lihe), Hakka transliteration: Chûng Lî-fò or Tsûng Li-fô) December 15, 1915 – August 4, 1960, was a writer from Taiwan famous mainly for fiction. He was a Liudui Hakka (Chinese: 六堆客家人), born in Gaoshu Township, Pingtung in 1915, who moved with his parents to a newly purchased fruit and coffee plantation in Meinong in around 1932. Eloping with a woman because their same-surname relationship was taboo in their community, he resided in Japanese-occupied China – Shenyang and Beijing – between 1938 and 1946. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 44 in Meinong whilst revising his last and possibly finest work, a novella entitled "Rain" (Chinese: 雨).

Legacy

There is a Chung Li-ho Museum, located in Meinong, Kaohsiung is dedicated to Chung. His life has been dramatized as China, My Native Land, a 1980 film directed by Li Hsing, featuring theme and other songs by Teresa Teng. Chung's eldest son, Chung Tieh-min[zh], was an award-winning writer of fiction and prose. The asteroid 237187 Zhonglihe, discovered by Xiangyao Hsiao and Ye Quan-Zhi at Lulin Observatory in 2008, was named in his memory. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 12 October 2011 (M.P.C. 76677).

See also

T. M. McClellan, “Home and the Land: the “native” fiction of Zhong Lihe”, Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese, 9.2 (December 2009): 154-182.

Zhong Lihe, From the Old Country: stories and sketches of China and Taiwan, Edited and translated by T. M. McClellan, Columbia University Press, 2014.

Zhong Tiemin 鍾鐵民 ed., Exploring a Literary Landscape: the Zhong Lihe Memorial Institute and its Environs 探訪鍾理和紀念館暨文學地景, Gaoxiong: Chunhui, 2010. ISBN 986632711-6 (bilingual volume, 99 pp., full Chinese text with English tr. by Tommy McClellan).

Lin Sheng Xiang 林生祥, 《大地書房：山歌、文學、鍾理和》 The Land is my Study: music inspired by the literature of Zhong Lihe, trees music and art + The Zhong Lihe Trust for Culture and Education, 2010 (Music album CD; insert lyrics and notes tr. Dr Tommy McClellan).

External links

  • Media related to Chung Li-ho at Wikimedia Commons
  • - a website and database built by the Taiwan government (in Chinese)