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Nylon Cheng Liberty Memorial Museum Audio Guide 2.Who is Nylon Cheng?
【 Who is Nylon Cheng?】
Nylon Cheng described his life quite clearly in his self-introduction. His life was about realizing his ideas, and what he cared about was always the sufferings of the Taiwanese society.
Nylon Cheng was born in 1947, the year of the 228 Massacre, which began on February 28 and ultimately saw the deaths of tens of thousands in Taiwan.
After World War II, as Japan ended its 50-year colonization of Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Party, losing its civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communist party, retreated to Taiwan and set up its government here. The Nationalist Party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, is also known as the Kuomintang or the KMT. In 1948, the KMT instituted martial law, dictatorship, and a police state across Taiwan. Martial law would last for 38 years, the longest in modern world history at the time.
It was under this repressive regime that Nylon was brought up. But through reading and independent thinking, Nylon developed a set of beliefs that was vastly different from the regime. He attended the top university in Taiwan, National Taiwan University, but was ultimately denied a diploma because he refused to take the required class “The Philosophy of Sun Yat-sen”. Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese revolutionary who helped overthrow the imperial court of China’s Qing Dynasty in 1911, and is still celebrated by the KMT as the founding father of modern China.
After Nylon completed his military service, he worked in sales before becoming the democracy activist he's remembered as today. Nylon was inflamed by the Formosa Incident of 1979, when prominent dissidents and thought leaders were sentenced to 10 or more years in jail by the military court; and by the brutal triple-murder of 林義雄Lin Yi-hsiung’s family in 1980. Nylon began to write in pro-democracy magazines that loudly opposed the KMT’s one-party rule. Nylon later founded his own publication - the Freedom Era Weekly- a magazine aimed to exercise freedom of speech and the pursuit of truth.
During his time, he also organized multiple social movements.
In the 1980s, despite Taiwan’s booming economy, it still lacked democracy. Citizens were jailed, or sentenced to death, for saying the wrong things. Nylon was always challenging the red lines. He dared say things others dared not say, and do things others dared not do. He knew that the only way to make progress was to constantly push against the red lines.
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By 鄭南榕基金會
【 Who is Nylon Cheng?】
Nylon Cheng described his life quite clearly in his self-introduction. His life was about realizing his ideas, and what he cared about was always the sufferings of the Taiwanese society.
Nylon Cheng was born in 1947, the year of the 228 Massacre, which began on February 28 and ultimately saw the deaths of tens of thousands in Taiwan.
After World War II, as Japan ended its 50-year colonization of Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Party, losing its civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communist party, retreated to Taiwan and set up its government here. The Nationalist Party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, is also known as the Kuomintang or the KMT. In 1948, the KMT instituted martial law, dictatorship, and a police state across Taiwan. Martial law would last for 38 years, the longest in modern world history at the time.
It was under this repressive regime that Nylon was brought up. But through reading and independent thinking, Nylon developed a set of beliefs that was vastly different from the regime. He attended the top university in Taiwan, National Taiwan University, but was ultimately denied a diploma because he refused to take the required class “The Philosophy of Sun Yat-sen”. Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese revolutionary who helped overthrow the imperial court of China’s Qing Dynasty in 1911, and is still celebrated by the KMT as the founding father of modern China.
After Nylon completed his military service, he worked in sales before becoming the democracy activist he's remembered as today. Nylon was inflamed by the Formosa Incident of 1979, when prominent dissidents and thought leaders were sentenced to 10 or more years in jail by the military court; and by the brutal triple-murder of 林義雄Lin Yi-hsiung’s family in 1980. Nylon began to write in pro-democracy magazines that loudly opposed the KMT’s one-party rule. Nylon later founded his own publication - the Freedom Era Weekly- a magazine aimed to exercise freedom of speech and the pursuit of truth.
During his time, he also organized multiple social movements.
In the 1980s, despite Taiwan’s booming economy, it still lacked democracy. Citizens were jailed, or sentenced to death, for saying the wrong things. Nylon was always challenging the red lines. He dared say things others dared not say, and do things others dared not do. He knew that the only way to make progress was to constantly push against the red lines.
--
Hosting provided by SoundOn