FANG SI-CHI'S FIRST LOVE PARADISE

“It turned out that most people lacked imagination for other people’s suffering.”

The corrosive, hidden effects of sexual violence are illustrated in this haunting account of the experiences of women and girls in contemporary Taiwan. Young adolescents and inseparable friends, Lui Yi-Ting and Fang Si-Chi, share a love of literature and head off together to live in Taipei to attend a competitive high school. There, Si-Chi reveals that she is the “girlfriend” of their middle-aged tutor, neighbor, and cram-school instructor, Teacher Lee. Despite Yi-Ting’s objections, Si-Chi continues her relationship with the reptilian teacher (unaware that she is just one in a line of girls the predator has groomed and seduced). Unable to disclose the nature of the troubling relationship to others, Si-Chi convinces herself that Teacher Lee is her first love, though the coercion, secrecy, and sexual violence begin to manifest themselves in troubling memory lapses. As Si-Chi begins a descent into an all-consuming mental illness, she maintains a friendship with a slightly older married woman from the apartment building that was her childhood home. Hsu Iwen, who gave up doctoral studies in literature upon her marriage, had been a companion and source of encouragement to the girls during their earlier school years. Despite her suspicions, Iwen—herself abused and beaten—is not able to convince Si-Chi to reveal her troubling truth. The selective blindness surrounding Si-Chi’s situation is echoed in the abysmal treatment of one of Teacher Lee’s previous victims, who launches a campaign to expose him online. Tang, who lyrically translated Lin’s only novel after the 26-year-old author died by suicide in 2017, credits the author with changing the voice of the #MeToo movement in Taiwan.

A harrowing account of a personal hell.