• 2024-07-03

Renowned Taiwan historian and professor emeritus from Northwestern University, Dr. Ta-Jan Hsu has lived for many years in Chicago, Illinois. Still, his heart remains in Taiwan. He hopes that donating his research materials he spent a lifetime acquiring to the National Central Library can benefit younger scholars in Taiwan and be used as an important knowledge resource for scholarly research. In November 2023, the National Central Library was contacted by Chung-hsin Chen, the assistant to the Vice-Chair of the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies about this possibility. Former Director-General Shu-hsien Tseng initiated contact with Dr. Hsu and stated that NCL would be honored to archive his collection. That December, Dr. Hsu consented to donate his personal collection of books and materials to NCL. 

In March 2024, NCL Director-General Han-Ching Wang attended the Association for Asian Studies’ annual conference in Seattle. On March 15, she traveled to Chicago to thank Dr. Hsu personally for donating his personal collection and to assure him that NCL will take good care of these books and make them available to younger scholars in Taiwan. During their discussion, mention was made of part of an essay that Dr. Hsu had once written: “If you face south, your hometown is in the south. But don’t wish to return there because you carry your hometown on your shoulders. You take it with you in your wanderings. Head north. What is in the north? You don’t know. Ask the wind. The wind doesn’t know either. But if you go there, you’ll know.” This passage brought back strong memories of nostalgia for Tainan. A close reading of his prose reveals a motif of the importance of one’s hometown. His writings often reveal a longing for his hometown of Tainan. His literary style is laced with poetic and romantic sentiments that are easy to feel, evoking emotions in those who read it to remember their own hometown.