This paper made an analysis of Huang Chunming’s representative work “Sayonara Zaijian,” by paying attention to the identity problem of the main character. The work, published in the early 1970s, is considered one of the most important achievements of Taiwan’s Nativist Literature. In particular, the work has been highly praised and shared by Taiwan’s readers and critics as it bitterly criticizes Taiwan’s society for still being colonized by Japan’s economic aggression and diplomatic pressure even after its liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
This paper pays attention to the existence of Mr. Huang, the narrator and main character in the work. As the narrator in the work, he constantly informs the reader about his personality. However, unlike his self-explanation, his actions in the work show him as a very vague identity. This paper tries to examine the stagnation and context of these discrepancies. First, the paper focuses on the travel route of the characters through Taiwan. And it looks at the ambiguous gender identity Mr. Huang reveals as he gets involved in prostitution tourism. As a result, the internal conflict of Mr. Huang is actually linked to his identity problems. His ambiguous identity problem is largely problematic in two respects: one is the problem of the nationality that he identifies with. And the other is, from the perspective gender, he gets identied with the Japanese tourists.