대북 사람들(臺北人) 속의 상해인 ‘디아스포라’

Abstract

This article delves into the identity of Shanghai diaspora by reading Bai Xianyong's four short stories with Shanghai as sets: “The Eternal ‘Snow Beauty,’” “The Last Night of Madam Jin,” “Love's Lone Flower,” and “A Sky Full of Bright, Twinkling Stars.” In these short stories, characters are exiled from Shanghai to Taibei in the wake of the Cold War. The Taibei people imagine Shanghai as a figure of a dancing girl in which the vulgar capitalism represents the period. They try to permanently live in their previous glory by imagining a dancing girl who simultaneously is a witch in bad luck. As an alternative, they want to settle down in Taibei through the marriage with the native Taiwanese; they dream of a quasi-family through homosexual love. Yet, they regard aborigines as barbarous and mysterious because they came to Taiwan as conquerors. Therefore, their settlement cannot come true; their fate is to live in Taiwan as an eternal Shanghai people. In sum, Bai's short stories usher readers to a conclusion in that the Shanghai diaspora has no consciousness regarding history and time. Through describing the Taibei people, Bai indicates that the diaspora will give rise to catastrophic ending.