Koh Choon Eiow’s Chronology on Death and Transculturation in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper examines how Koh Choon Eiow’s 高俊耀 Chronology on Death (Siwang jishi 死亡紀事, 2011) envisions new cultural subjects within the context of transculturation and the Taiwanese experience. Drawing on Mikhail Epstein’s concepts of transculturation and Roberto Esposito’s theories of immunity and community, it explores how the play addresses cultural identification among immigrants, linking existential precarity to the construction of individual subjectivity in Malaysian Chinese and Taiwanese contexts. The paper further analyzes the precarious bodies dramatized on stage to elucidate the turbulent volatility individuals encounter in cross-cultural experiences, as illustrated by Jeff Lewis’s notion of the “language wars” inherent in transculturation. By discussing the catchphrases “ghost island” and “a little certain happiness” that have shaped debates about Taiwan’s future over the past decade, the paper highlights the opportunities and risks for liberation faced by transcultural subjects, suggesting that the apparent dissolution of a fixed identity within a given cultural discourse may, in fact, signal the formation of new subjectivities within alternative political and embodied
frameworks.