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How did imperial subjects cope with the aporias of legal and human rights as a modern legal system was forcibly implemented in colonial Taiwan? This article examines the toll of legal change on Taiwanese and their embryonic yet resolute resistance to the enactment of laws concerning the measurement system, the patent system, and the maintenance of public order, represented in Taiwanese fiction by Lai He, Yang Shouyu, and Rong Yingzhong. Wrestling with the imbroglio of legal rights and colonial coercion, they devised sociocultural mechanisms through which to extricate themselves from it. Furthermore, the article explores the ways in which Taiwanese creatively tapped into regional resources such as m ē tis or practical knowledge (James Scott), public opinion, and trust based on mutual recognition and eco-cultural awareness, irrespective of race and nationality, as they had to live with a relentless barrage of law enforcement and thought control. With a focus on the relationship between the implementation of law and temporality, this study shows how the colonized perform their agency with praxis in order to renounce the capitalist model of living for profits and self-interest; it thus presents a significant case study for contemplating the possibility of dismantling the imperial governance system from within. An in-depth analysis of an alternative mode of communal life and the counter-“othering” of Japanese by Taiwanese brings the nuanced but profound voice of the colonized back into the current discussions of colonial Taiwanese literature as well as of imperial formations (Ann Stoler), which have, by and large, centered on the politics of identity formation and neglected the agency of imperial subjects under colonial dominance.
