Taste of Apples

Taste of Apples is the name of an English language translation of collected short stories of the Taiwanese writer Huang Chunming. The translation is by Howard Goldblatt and was published in 2001 by Columbia University Press.

An earlier version of Goldblatt's translations was published by Indiana University under the title The Drowning of an Old Cat and Other Stories in 1980.

Huang Chunming's subject matter is the people of Taiwan.

One aspect of their lives that his stories treat is the way in which their lives contrast with Mainlanders and Mainland culture. An important theme is the influence of language (Taiwanese Hokkien vs. Mandarin Chinese) on keeping these two groups of people distinct.

A related theme is change and the impact of modernity. Huang Chunming wrote in the introduction to the English translation, "In the sixties and seventies, when the modern world began making inroads into the out-of-the-way town of Lanyang, where I was born, the conflicts between the new and the old created a rich source of powerful and dramatic material. Whenever my antennae detected the new dramas being played out in my hometown, the desire to write about them raged inside me."

Huang Chunming's characters are native Taiwanese fishermen and villagers, and often have Taiwan's trademark "Ah" prefix on their names. His stories are full of neighborhood temples and folk religion observances, banyan trees, bonito fish, sparrows and sweet potatoes, and the blazing tropical sun is a prop in nearly every story. His characters often exhibit strong and even mystical attachment to their natural surroundings, including explicit expressions of fengshui ideas.

This story provides a glimpse into the nuanced interactions between a grandfather from a Taiwan mountain village and his teenage grandson, who is coming of age and gaining experience of the larger world.

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