Fu-Jun Ko

Self identification has always been circulating around my practice. And being as a part of war machine, it triggers my urge to tell the story to the world. We do not choose where we were born, but rather the circumstances define what we will be in the future.

In order to entitle an individual with an identification, a piece of physical document will be handled. Soldier carries dog-tag along side with him during the battlefield, citizen has an ID badge to define his or her status within society. It represents one's race, nationality, political orientation and much more. We take for granted that at the present day, our status are built on endless encounters from the past, from our ancestors.

During the times at a the RCA, a lot of conversations sparked amongst me and others. It felt like a journey of ongoing events, but told with stories from the past. The duality of worlds happening at the very moment created gaps between each-other. And those gaps gave meaning and motivations to tell the story that happened to me.

Conscription, also known as the draft. It's a service which the government or a regime conduct a mandatory enlistment of people in military.

Such forms of military personnel recruitments can date back to antiquity, and in many countries it's still an ongoing phenomena in the present day.

Conscriptions are known for its controversial reasons. The forceful embodiment of national duty surpass an individual's will of believe, religion, political orientations and more.

In the 21st century, the path on forming military of full volunteer soldiers has been adopted for many nations. However, circumstances may not always be in favours for those nations which still faces hostilities.

With the influence of British anti-conscription norms that emerged from the English Civil War, many former British colonies does not have mandatory conscriptions. Although abandoning conscription has been implemented, many countries still holds the power to resume conscription during the time of crisis.

Banzai charge derived from the Japanese battle cry "Tennōheika Banzai"(天皇陛下万歳, "Long live the Emperor"), referring to the charging wave attacks by the Japanese infantry units equipped with bayonets or explosives.

With radical changes under the Meiji Restoration, aiming to reform Japanese society, the militarist proposed the concept of bringing back Bushido to the modern troops. Bushido refers to the loyalty and honor a samurai will devote to their master in the Sengoku period, ultimately performs suicide ritual by slicing their own stomach open with great humiliation.

By introducing such loyalty concept to the masses, it assures the obedience of people to the emperor, and establish sense of masculinity and faithfulness amongst people to the future of Japan.

The Sengoku period is the era of constant civil war in Japan between clans, warlords and families around 1500 to 1600.

The suicide of famous Saigo Takamori samurai during the Meiji restoration also lead to the spread of idealizations of not bowing down to the enemies, as death is the most honorable act one can perform before their last breath.

In World War II, as Taiwan being part of Japan, the Empire of Japan started recruiting combats and non-combat units, ranging from sailor, soldiers, logistics personnel etc. The term "Taiwanese Imperial Japan Serviceman"(台湾人日本兵) was used to refer any Taiwanese who served in the Japanese Army or Navy.

With the statistics provided from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, a total number of 207,183 Taiwanese served in the Imperial Japan's military during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II period. 30,304 were declared killed or missing in action.

The Empire of Japan began recruiting Taiwanese soldiers in the fall of 1937. Previously, the Taiwanese were banned from recruiting with the reasons of "impure race" and "inferior class".

As the relation between China and Japan intensifies, there was a need of translators for military operations in China. Many Taiwanese volunteers were being trained in Mandarin, Cantonese and Inland Min languages, and served as translators in the Imperial Japanese Army.

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏 Dai Tōa Kyōeiken), aka the GEACPS, was a concept which the Empire of Japan propagated to the colonized populations across Asia from 1931 to 1945.

The initial concept was an ambitious ideology to unite all Asians and liberate us from the rule of western and European colonizer. Such concept was further on packaged to ensure the legitimacy of the Japanese Empire expansion. The fact many parts of Asia were under ruling of the western colonizer, proves to Japan's militarists, that those lands contained abundant supplies of natural resources, which will be beneficial for the expansion of the Empire, thus lead to the Japanese nationalists using it as a solution to gather resources which would be used for the modernization of the society and growth of the military. Through out the war time, such ideologies were aggressively promoted with slogans on newspapers and propaganda prints, persuading the concept of unifying races and peace keeping.

The Republic of China(Taiwan) introduced conscription in 1951 for all male in Taiwan after ceding the mainland.

The Taiwanese government has plans on abandoning full scale conscription, but with threats and tensions from the mainland, it is necessary to retain numbers in active military personnel. Roadmaps has been proposed by the Taiwanese government, on establishing an all volunteer military. It has been very difficult as the numbers of volunteers does not match up with the actual needs. And abandoning conscription has always been a controversial topic within the Taiwanese society.

Even if the policy of building a full volunteer military troop remains unchanged, every male who is physically fit will still be conscripted for a four-month military training. The reason so is to ensure the numbers of reservers, and the understanding of military warfare skillsets amongst non-volunteers, making mandatory conscription still active in the year of 2021.

In order to entitle an individual with an identification, a piece of physical documents will be handled. Solider carries dog-tag along side with him during the battlefield, citizens has an ID badges to define his or her status within the society. It represents one's race, nationality, political orientation and much more.

With that in mind, a physical entity that embodies the journey becomes what I've been experimenting. At the end, a unique format has been created.

The publication aims to analogies the worlds of duality. Spreads with visuals allows you to combine both parts, forming a story which spams across all four quadrants.

The format in which a visual is divided into two parts, forces the audience to engage with the book, and to combine those two in order to form a larger picture. If not, it will be disruptive and confusing. Such process recreates the mindsets and forceful engagement of how we participates in heated politics without our own choice.