13 Facts About Pai Hsien-yung

Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai is a Taiwanese writer who has been described as a "melancholy pioneer".

Pai Hsien-yung was born in Guilin, Guangxi at the cusp of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Pai Hsien-yung lived with his family in Chongqing, Shanghai, and Nanjing before moving to the British-controlled Hong Kong in 1948 as CPC forces turned the tide of the Chinese Civil War.

Pai Hsien-yung studied in La Salle College, a Hong Kong Catholic boys' high school, until he left for Taiwan with his family.

In 1956, Pai Hsien-yung enrolled at National Cheng Kung University as a hydraulic engineering major because he wanted to participate in the Three Gorges Dam Project.

Pai Hsien-yung was known to frequent the Cafe Astoria in Taipei.

Pai Hsien-yung went to the US in 1963 to study literary theory and creative writing at the University of Iowa in the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Pai Hsien-yung's most famous work of fiction, Taipei People, is a seminal work of Chinese modernism that mixes both literary Chinese and experimental modernist techniques.

In terms of his choice of themes, Pai Hsien-yung's work is far ahead of its time.

The novel's comparison of the dark corners of Taipei's New Park, the characters' main cruising area, with the cloistered society of Taiwan of that period proved quite unacceptable to Taipei's then KMT-dominated establishment, though Pai Hsien-yung has generally remained a loyal KMT supporter.

In recent years, Pai Hsien-yung has gained some acclaim in Mainland Chinese literary circles.

Pai Hsien-yung has held various lectures at Beijing Normal University, among others.

Pai Hsien-yung was born Muslim, attended missionary Catholic schools and embraced Buddhist meditation practices in the United States.