Chinese Name: 杜潘芳格
Born:  March 9, 1927
Died: March 10, 2016
Birthplace: Hsinchu County (Northern Taiwan)

Du Pan Fang-ge was a poet who expressed the political oppression and social identity conflicts as a Hakka people under Japanese colonial rule through literary works written in Japanese, Mandarin, and Hakka language. Having overcome language barriers in writing, she had established a rational and sophisticated writing style for Taiwan’s female poets.  Du was garnered the Hakka Contribution Award in 2007 for her significant role in the development of poetry in Taiwan.

Born to a prestigious Hakka family in Xinpu Township, Du had observed the difficulties and dilemma of Taiwanese people from her father who was oppressed by the colonial Japanese government at the workplace. While studying in the Japanese elementary school in Taiwan, Du also experienced bullying by her Japanese peers. Her experienced in childhood had shaped her understanding of the colonial society and influenced her writing later on.  

Upon entering the National Hsinchu Girls’ Senior High School, Du started to write poetry, novel, and prose in Japanese as a way to escape the reality. Through poetry, Du expressed the agony of the Taiwan society as well as personal tragedy which she had undergone as a writer of the “Generation of Cross-language.” 

Later Du attended the two-year senior girls’ high school in Taipei where she was taught to be an obedient housewife and learned traditional female skills such as sewing and flower arranging. The “traditional virtues” she received in the school conflicted with her self-identity as a female poet, and forced her to focus on family life before continuing writing poems.  

After the retrocession of Taiwan in 1945, Du started learning Chinese and returned to the poetry scene in Taiwan by joining the Li Poetry Society (笠詩社) in 1965. Encouraged by the society members such as novelist Cheng Ching-wen (鄭清文), Du began to publish poems in Chinese.

From the 1980s, Du had also actively engaged in writing poems in Hakka language to promote nativism. She believed that poetry is formed by one’s feeling and knowledge toward the natural order and reality, thus, her writing style focused on the inner thoughts and feeling instead of form and technique to present her ideas and imagination about the world deftly.

For instance, she often conveyed her thoughts about national identity as well as resistance to the Japanese government through female imagery such as earrings, lipsticks, and dresses in poems. Meanwhile, she also expressed her love toward the land of Taiwan through using imagery of natural landscapes, scene of everyday life, and Taiwanese people in her works.

From Japanese, Chinese to Hakka language, Du had constantly explored and contemplated on the relationship between the meaning of her life and culture. Her poetry had helped raise awareness of Hakka identity as well as enriched the Hakka literature.


Du Pan Fang-ge (seventh from the left, front row) pictured with recipients of the Hakka Contribution Award in 2007.