One of the most watched series on Netflix in Taiwan this year is a show called Port of Lies (八尺門的辯護人) and that’s unlikely to be an algorithmic quirk. The show hones in on an Indonesian migrant fisherman accused of murdering an indigenous Amis boat captain and his family, and it airs as Taiwan’s government is attempting to increase overall immigration figures in order to fight against a shrinking working-age population.
The obvious implication: it’s time to seriously discuss the plight of migrant workers in Taiwan.
Entering into that conversation now is writer-director Tseng Ying-ting’s (曾英庭) new film, The Abandoned (查無此心), which has just been released in cinemas across Taiwan. The film centers around a serial killer who’s murdering female migrant workers on their birthdays and handing the corpses back to their illegal employers. The killer knows the bodies won’t be turned over to the police, because the employers are acting illegally, too — and don’t care what happens to the people working for them. Like Port of Lies, it’s an overt critique of how migrant workers are treated — and its director is pretty clear about why this is.
“The reason why I wanted to touch on the migrant topic is because I am in awe of their bravery for moving to a foreign land, as a stranger, trying to achieve the goals they have set for themselves,” Tseng says, speaking in Chinese at the office of the production company behind the film. “But in the middle of achieving [these goals], they are forced to face many unjust and unfair things, their rights getting violated, and family regrets.”
The situation Tseng is referring to is that since Taiwan began opening up to migrant workers in the early 1990s in response to labor shortages, its economic growth has trended up, while its minimum wage has lagged behind and many migrant workers have been denied even that. At the same time, migrant workers are also legally separated from their families through difficulties in securing visas for holiday visits, and negative social attitudes toward them remain pervasive. All of these issues intersect directly with Tseng’s film’s plot.
“What I want to say is that time is moving forward [and] the migrants are probably still stuck with [negative] certain tags,” Tseng explains. “The stereotypes are hard to break because people have a certain type of laziness, and are afraid of understanding someone when that person seems unfamiliar and distant, so we are afraid of that. I hope in the future we can stop being afraid.”
The Abandoned essentially acts a rallying cry for these attitudes to improve now, rather than later. “I believe people will accept the migrants more and more in the future, we just need time. But we can’t just let time do the work. Us, the creators, everyone else, and the government will also have to put in the work,” Tseng says. And he doesn’t think he’s the only one thinking along these lines, either. We spoke before the release of Port of Lies, but its popularity aptly demonstrates his point that: “Not just myself, but many excellent young talents and my peers have been paying attention to the migrants, foreign brides, their children, and even the missing migrant workers.”
But why are Taiwanese film directors taking up the cause now? Tseng doesn’t speak for everyone else, but he says he isn’t writing about migrant workers because he’s seen them on the news. He’s writing about them because — like many in Taiwan — in the course of his day-to-day life he’s been confronted by the unfair realities of these people’s lives and it’s provoked compassion for them. In other words, the issue of their poor treatment has become unavoidable.
“I went to a university in Taoyuan, [and] the city is known for being a hub for migrant workers,” Tseng says, before admitting that he himself has gone on a bit of a journey of understanding. “In the beginning I was a little bit scared of them because I don’t understand their languages. But football helped to break down the barrier. We conversed through our bodies and the sport.” What did he learn? “I learned that they are just the same as us, very simple people, and although they speak very little Mandarin, they always try hard to talk to us, tell us what they feel, if they are happy or have run into unpleasant situations.”
The Abandoned reflects Tseng’s openness in film form, though he is careful throughout our interview not to overstate the ability of a single film to actually change what is a deep economic and social problem. ”I obviously don’t know how to solve this, so I just want to create a film about [these people], and slowly introduce the things they face to the audience and what we could do to help improve,” he says early on in our conversation. He also ultimately believes “a good story is the most important thing,” if there is any tension between prioritizing the issue and the entertainment value.
It’s quite good to hear that kind of honesty in a world where language around film’s impact is massively inflated. This film won’t suddenly change how migrant workers are treated in Taiwan all alone, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not useful. As a part of a broader cultural push, it’s not impossible to imagine political demands following on from here. Particularly if The Abandoned does as well as Port of Lies.
You can check out our review of the film here.
Image: The Abandoned
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