The Connection Land is a masterful work by the hand of the Taiwan Historical Novel Award-winning author, Chien Chen (錢真). With the story’s stage set in the author’s hometown of Jhushan in Taiwan’s landlocked, mountainous Nantou County, the book, written in mystical shades and tones, takes the threads of the story from the events of a fateful uprising during the Japanese Colonial Period called the “Tíng-nâ （頂林）Incident.” The “Tíng-nâ Incident,” also known as the “Lîm-kí-poo （林圮埔）Incident,” flared up in 1912 due to issues over land production rights for vast tracts of bamboo forests in Nantou, which led to a rebellious attack on a police precinct. Through Chien Chen’s literary acumen and finesse, we revisit modern-day issues of land ownership justice through the lens of this important resistance movement. At the same time, this novel highlights a time when Taiwanese were experiencing a change in rulers and the barging in and stationing of “civilized” society, forced to straddle back and forth between systems both old and new, uncertain of which path to take. Through a tranquil and relaxed writing style, Chien Chen guides the reader in search of the tumultuous tremors of the baptism of modernization experienced by Taiwanese, the complex relationships between “colonizer” and “colonized,” as well as the deep-rooted affinity people have towards the land. Why do people get along together? Why do they go their separate ways, resist, and perish? These are a few of the questions Chien Chen answers with a deftly exquisite pen, illustrating a period of seldom-known history, filled with both barbarity and warmth. The following is the plot synopsis:

A bamboo harvester by the name of Lâu Sù has removed himself far away from the turmoil and pressures of the outside world, living alone near the bamboo forests. On a winter day in 1909, he’s paid a visit by a close friend of many years—the divining and fortune-telling, curse and blessing revealing Lâu Khiân. Khiân tells Sù that he’s on the lam, being pursued by patrolmen from the Kiunn-á-liâu police precinct and pleads with Sù, hoping Sù will hide and protect him. At the time, the Japanese colonial administration of Taiwan, the Governor-General’s Office, places large tracts of the riverine land along the Tshing-tsuí Creek—an expansive and sprawling land of bamboo forests that used to be freely pioneered and opened up, governed by “connections of affinity” — under the control of government officials, listed the lands under the moniker of a “model bamboo forest.” The Governor-General then entrusts the management and operation of the land to the Mitsubishi Paper Company. This heavy-handed decision becomes an attack on the livelihood of local bamboo farmers and traditional craftsmen and papermakers. Our protagonists, Lâu Khiân and Lâu Sù are joined by a widow who believes in the divine aid and blessings of the Kuanyin Bodhisattva; a once-influential bamboo farmer who’s fallen on hard times; a youth with a keen interest in papermaking; a Taiwanese patrolman stationed at the Tíng-nâ Precinct; Japanese policemen and their family dependents, and others. The lives of these residents in this mountainous area interweave, creating connections or colliding in conflict. Ultimately, the built-up tension leads to the outbreak of a “rebellion.” Out of all the plaintiffs in the case, only one person was let go without charges. Following the event, the problems of the bamboo forests continued to fester and smolder unseen, eventually igniting Taiwan’s larger farmers’ movements of 1925.