Hotel Saltwater (鹽水大飯店) is not a place to relax and unwind; it got its name because its residents’ meals consisted merely of rice and a bowl of salt water.

Political activists during the White Terror era often spent time in the notorious military lockup in Kaohsiung, where they were subject to harsh conditions and torture. Among them was farmer’s rights champion Tai Chen-yao (戴振耀), who is the inspiration behind the protagonist of the new television series Hotel Saltwater, premiering tonight on Public Television Service’s Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) channel.

The series follows the endeavors and relationships of young democracy activists in Kaohsiung during the 1970s. The dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) pushback against authoritarian rule was gaining momentum fast at that time, leading to the first large-scale civil disturbances in decades such as the Zhongli Incident (中壢事件) of 1977 and Formosa Incident (美麗島事件) of 1979.

The show’s co-director Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂) drew much inspiration from Tai, who was involved with the dangwai during the 1970 and became a key figure in the farmer’s rights movement of the late 1980s. He later served as legislator and deputy minister of agriculture.

Cheng says in a Liberty Times article (sister paper of the Taipei Times) that Tai “often joked that he didn’t have much of an education, and he was a romantic idealist whose knowledge came from the earth ... He cared about the underprivileged in society such as farmers and laborers.”

Tai’s early life is detailed in a book, also called Hotel Saltwater, published a month after his death in November 2017.

YOUNG DISSIDENT

Tai was born in Baishu Village (白樹村) in Kaohsiung’s Ciaotou District on April 2, 1948. Shortly after his first birthday, martial law was declared and would last for 38 years — the longest in history at that time.

Tai often heard his grandfather talking about the misconduct of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) soldiers toward the villagers when they first arrived. His grandfather hated the Japanese and, like most Taiwanese, welcomed KMT rule at first — only to be gravely disappointed.

The first post-war chief of Ciaotou District then was independent politician Yu Teng-fa (余登發), and Tai admired Yu’s tenacity in opposing the KMT under unfavorable circumstances, including widespread vote buying and rigging, finally being elected Kaohsiung County Magistrate in 1960.

Having grown up speaking Taiwanese, the first time Tai heard Mandarin was when he entered elementary school. There was still some leeway to use his native tongue at first, but in third grade, schools began punishing students for speaking anything other than Mandarin and instructed them to report each other. This greatly affected Tai and, decades later, he became the first legislator to insist on speaking only in Taiwanese in the legislature, annoying the the-premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), who couldn’t understand the language.

Tai’s father was an avid reader of illegal dangwai publications, which he hid in piles of wood outside the kitchen. Tai began leafing through them at a young age, and although he didn’t fully understand the contents, he found the exploits of the opposition politicians much more interesting than his textbooks.

One time, a 12-year-old Tai heard elders heatedly discussing politics and he blurted out, “Of course we need to form our own political party!” The adults admonished him: “What does a little brat know. Don’t you know that doing so will land you in jail?”

RESISTING AUTHORITY

During his military service on Penghu in 1969, Tai was almost jailed. Taiwan was holding legislative elections for the first time in two decades, and Tai decided to hand out pamphlets for independent candidate “Big Cannon” Kuo Kuo-chi (郭國基) while in uniform. Within five minutes he was taken away by the military. Fortunately his superior officer did not report this indiscretion to the authorities, letting him off with the punishment of two weeks confinement.

Tai married after his military service and began working at Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC). He continued to support the dangwai movement from the sidelines, but in 1978 he ran for Ciaotou Township representative as the only independent candidate. His KMT superiors at work pressured him to pull out of the race and even offered him a large sum of cash to do so. But he refused — and won. His involvement in the opposition grew from there, and he participated in a pro-democracy rally organized by Formosa Magazine on Human Rights Day in 1979, which ended in clashes with the police.

The KMT began hunting down dangwai figures after the incident. Tai went into hiding, but a month later he was caught when he snuck back home to see his wife and children. He was charged with sedition and thrown in Hotel Saltwater, where he was interrogated and eventually put on trial in Taipei. He received a three year sentence.

FARMERS CLASSROOM

In jail, Tai promised Formosa Magazine editor-in-chief Chi Wan-sheng (紀萬生) that he would continue organized resistance after his release. Tai set up a “farmers classroom” in a warehouse on a guava orchard in his hometown and began recruiting young farmers who were brave and had a strong sense of justice. The group fought against the systematic exploitation of farmers, industrial pollution of farmland and the government’s willingness to sacrifice farmers rights during international trade negotiations.

Despite constant police surveillance and interference, the effort grew and they won many victories, including pressuring the CPC to compensate fishermen in Gangshan (岡山) for ruining the local habitat with their liquified gas plant. They participated in almost all of the major democracy protests in the early 1980s, and were a major force in the May 20, 1988 farmer’s rights protests in Taipei, which led to what is arguably the largest clash between civilians and police since 1947.

After martial law was lifted in 1987, Tai turned to politics once more and in 1989 he claimed Taiwan’s first “farmer legislator” seat. He was the first legislator to conduct all his questioning in Taiwanese, much to the chagrin of then-premier Hau. Despite Hau’s repeated objections, the situation was eventually resolved with vice-premier Shi Chi-yang (施啟揚) translating. During Tai’s tenure as legislator, he continued to fight for farmer’s rights, including pushing forward the Provisional Act Governing the Welfare Allowance for Elderly Farmers in 1992.

Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan’s history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that either have anniversaries this week or are tied to current events.

Han Cheung

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