| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
After graduating from high school in 1956, Pai enrolled at National Cheng Kung UniversityNational Cheng Kung University ( Chinese: , pinyin: Guoli Chenggong Daxue), abbreviated as Cheng Da , is located in Tainan City, Taiwan. History Cheng Kung University was established in January 1931 as Tainan Technical College (in Chinese: ; in Japanese o as a hydraulic engineeringHydraulic engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water. This area of engineering is, of course, intimately related to the design of bridges, dams, channels, canals, and levees, an major. The following year, he passed the entrance examination for the foreign literature department of National Taiwan UniversityNational Taiwan University (NTU, , Tongyong Pinyin: GuL TiWan DSyue, Hanyu Pinyin: Gul tiwn dxue, Wade-Giles: Kuo2-li4 t'ai2-wan1 ta4-hseh2) is a university in Taiwan. The entrance examination score needed to enter NTU is typically the highest among unive and transferred there to study English literatureThe term English literature can mean: Literature from England written in the modern English language or its antecedents (such as Middle or Old English). The rest of this article discusses this category. Literature composed primarily in the English languag. In September 1958, after completing his freshman year of study, he published his first short story "Madame Ching" in the magazine Literature. Two years later, he collaborated with several NTU classmates to launch Modern Literature, in which many of his early works were published.
Pai went abroad in 1963 to study literary theory and creative writingCreative Writing Creative writing is a term used to distinguish certain types of writing from writing in general. The lack of specificity of the term is partly intentional, designed to make the process of writing accessible to everyone and to ensure that at the University of IowaThe University of Iowa is a university in Iowa City, Iowa. The university was founded in 1847 as the State University of Iowa only 59 days after Iowa became a state. In spite of its original name, it is not to be confused with Iowa State University. In 18. That same year, Pai's mother, the parent with whom Pai had the closest relationship, passed away, and it was this death to which Pai attributes the melancholy that pervades his work. After earning his M.A. from Iowa, he became a professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has resided in Santa Barbara ever since. Pai retired from UCSB in 1994.
Pai has been credited with sophisticated narratives that introduce controversial perspectives that are groundbreaking in Chinese literature. Pai's first novel, Crystal Boys (1983), tells the story of a group of homosexual youths living in 1960s Taipei largely from the viewpoint of a young, gay runaway who serves as its main protagonist. The novel's comparison of the dark corners of Taipei's New Park, the characters' main cruising area, with the cloistered society of Taiwan of that period proved quite unacceptable to Taipei's then KMT-dominated establishment, though Pai has generally remained a loyal KMT supporter.
Other famous works include: Fallen Immortals (1967); "Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream" (1968); Taipei People (1971); and "Lonely Seventeen" (1976).
Pai is one of the few Chinese that have come out to public. Pai has explained that he believed his father knew of his homosexuality and "never made it an issue," though it was never discussed.