黎明列車：曾貴海詩集(英語版)The Dawn Train：Collected Poems of Tseng Kuei-hai

Preface

Taiwanese Hakka Literature Paves the Way for the World to Get to Know Taiwan

Hakka literature is the jewel of Taiwanese literature and the most resilient and beautiful business card of Taiwan!

To fully appreciate the diversity of Taiwanese literature and gain a comprehensive understanding of Taiwan's historical development, one must read Hakka literature. Generation after generation of Hakka writers have created works in various forms such as prose, novels, poems, songs, and literary criticism. This rich and moving literature reflects the outlook on nature and life in Hakka culture, and also records and passes down the history of ethnic groups and society. Hakka literature is, without a doubt, the jewel of Taiwanese literature and the most resilient and splendid business card of Taiwan!

In order to facilitate global acquaintance with Taiwan and its Hakka literature, the Hakka Affairs Council has since 2018 translated many classic works of Hakka literature into multiple languages including English, Japanese, Spanish, and Czech, to interact with readers around the world. The publication of the English and Spanish translations of The Dawn Train: Collected Poems of Tseng Kuei-hai features a reorganized and carefully curated selection of 132 poems by Dr. Tseng Kuei-hai to engage in a dialogue with the world, once again writing a new page in the Hakka Affairs Council's promotion of Hakka literature overseas and the Hakka Renaissance.

As one of Taiwan's most representative contemporary poets, Tseng Kuei-hai is also a doctor and social activist. Within his abundant creative energy, he integrates the rationality and sensibility of a doctor with the spirit of innovation and humanistic critique. In 2022, Tseng Kuei-hai was awarded the 15th International Poetry Award at Ecuador's XV Festival de Poesía de Guayaquil Ileana Espinel Cedeño, becoming the first Asian poet to receive this award, which is of great significance.

Tseng Kuei-hai, who grew up in a Hakka village, discovered in his thirties that he has Hakka, Pingpu, and Hoklo ancestry. His crossethnic life experience is not only about his bloodline, but also about his actions in caring for humanity across fields such as medicine, literature, environmental ecology, educational reform, democratic movements, and other civic movements. "Healing the sick, healing people, healing society", Tseng is a practitioner of "the superior doctor heals the nation", and a model of Hakka participation in civil society.

As a Hakka writer, Tseng Kuei-hai not only writes in Chinese and his mother tongue, Hakka, but also in Holo. His focus encompasses the indigenous tribes of Taiwan, transcending ethnic groups through writing. Tseng Kuei-hai uses his pen as a poet to convey his care for the natural environment and the land, and his reflections and criticism of ethnic history, colonization, and authoritarian rule make his works particularly vivid historical records, with a high degree of global relevance. In the current pursuit of global sustainability and regional peace and development, we believe that the works gathered in The Dawn Train: Collected Poems of Tseng Kuei-hai will resonate with English and Spanish readers around the world, and enhance interest in understanding Taiwan, which holds a unique position in regional politics.

Yiong Con-ziin
Minister of Hakka Affairs Council

Preface

The Dawn Train by Tseng Kuei-hai

I read The Dawn Train by the great poet Tseng Kuei-hai and delved into a very personal and authentic world. A poetic universe that is revealed in his verses but that stirs me inside as both a reader of poetry and a poet. Tseng Kuei-hai is a goldsmith poet, a meticulous poet, a doctor poet who is a beholder of life. He does not need many verses to give you the gifts of bread, as Neruda would say. For instance, in his poem "I Am a Poet", he tells us:

I have written no small number of poems,but I don't delude myself into thinking anyone wants to buy my anthology of poems.

It's worth less than a lunch.

It can't be exchanged for a concert ticket.

Sometimes, in a low voice, I try to ask you:

Do you truly like poetry?

When some people find out that I'm a poet,they usually exclaim: "Wow!"
"Great!" "How admirable!"
Inside, I feel a little awkward.
Secretly, I tell poetry that this is true,that poetry has not yet disappeared from this world.

The small congregation of the poet friends called upon,sit together in the dark night of the open country,contemplating the flickering light of the fireflies.

Poetry spreads twinkling brilliance around.
Solitude embraces us in silence.

What is poetry? It's a mystery
Why write poetry? It's a mystery.
What to write? It's also a mystery.
To spend a lifetime writing poetry without stopping must be the most difficult mystery to solve.

The poet questions and wonders about his condition as a poet.
He extensively questions his condition as a writer and tells us the following in the poem "Written Language":

Looking and looking, writing and writing,
words and phrases leap into sight unexpectedly.
They hide or look back constantly,fleeing towards freedom.
They turn into fragments in the luciferin glow of an entire field,melting away in the flicker.
Sparks, mountains, winds, forests, rivers and waves provoke hidden memories and dreams; head-on, sideways, shadow and reflection stealthily slide back to the poet's hand and brush,gliding together.

This book is full of precious gems, full of fruits that have ripened at just the right time. As the poet Gonzalo Rojas would say: "Poets happen all of a sudden". And here we have a case: Tseng Kuei-hai.
A poet who enlightens us and teaches us about "The New City of
Tomorrow" we will never know:
Give back the ocean to the citizens.
Breaking the shackles of dock and port,return to that forgotten home:to listen to the confidences of the waves,to sail the blue sea with the seabirds.

Give back the blue color of the sky to the citizens,let the sun illuminate the face of the city,let the clean air fill people's lungs with oxygen.

Give back the mountains to the citizens.
Let us walk into the arms of Mother Earth,
let the ecological islets in the city be filled with the choruses of nature.

Give back the rivers to the citizens.
Let the waters we yearn for day and night flow through the city of tomorrow,
conveying the love songs of the people.

Give back the streets to the citizens everywhere.
So that the city stops being a birdcage.
Flowing traffic linking beautiful streets.
People walking towards spaces full of aesthetics.

Let us plant trees together.
Let us plant trees of hope.
Let us plant trees blooming full of love.
Let large blossoming trees envelop the city, transforming it into a new homeland of verdure.
In conclusion, there is much to discover and enjoy about this poet born in his beautiful Taiwan. I read his work with joy, affection, and admiration from my distant Guayaquil. I will continue to read his works, always.

Augusto Rodríguez
President of the Guayaquil International Poetry Festival