Ideas and Insistences

Yang Kui's was born in the lower rank of the society. He was influenced deeply by the colonization of Japan in his early years, including an revolution against Japan rulers and his pursuit of education in Japan. He even joined a series of peasant movements afterwards. These were all why Yang Kui's writing all focused on the caring for the weak and fighting against the bully.

What Yang Kui wanted to fight against was not only the imperialism to weak or small nations. Yang kui also described the anger of people who had been exploited in detail. Within the book “The Newsy,” he clearly pointed out the problem was about the uneven social classes instead of different nationalities.

After Taiwan returned to China, the tension between Taiwanese people and the KMT government was rising. Finally the 228 Incident broke out in 1947, when thousands of people of two sides were killed. Yang Kui then drafted the “Peace Declaration” on April,6,1948. In the work, he asked the government to release the political criminals and two sides should stop killing each other. However, KMT arrested him and put him behind the bars for 12 years in Green Island Jail.

Yang Kui devoted his life to combining literature and social activities. He hated the ruling of bossy authorities. He called himself “humanitarian socialist.” He kept fighting the inequity throughout his life. He was caught for eleven times during the Japanese occupation. He was put into jail again for over ten year afterward. However, he never intended to give up. His attitude was like a rose never squashed. His spirit is to stay with us forever even he has left us for 30 years.