Taiwan in Time: 'Namo Police Great Bodhisattva' - Taipei Times

• By Han Cheung / Contributing Reporter

July 13 to July 19

"Police Bodhisattva" sits in the lotus position on a cloud, holding a sword in one hand and prayer beads in the other. Six additional hands behind him perform the main duties of Japanese-era law enforcement: maintaining left-hand traffic, ideological policing, arresting criminals, rescue and relief, livelihood assistance for Indigenous people and epidemic prevention.

This image, with the words "Namo Police Great Bodhisattva" (南無警察大菩薩) above it, appeared on a promotional poster at the Taihoku Prefecture Police Public Health Exhibition in November 1925. It was just one of 1,249 posters displayed at the event, but it appears to have been the most memorable and remains a subject of discussion today. The poster is currently featured at the Tainan Art Museum's "Investigation Chronicles: The Police Expo" (搜查記：警察異能館) exhibition, which opened on June 30.

Photo courtesy of Tainan Art Museum

So why was a police officer portrayed as a deity? During the colonial era, they were the day-to-day symbols of state authority in Taiwan, tasked with maintaining order and enforcing the law, writes Chiang Yu-lin (江玉林) in a study on the poster published in the Chengchi Law Review (政大法學評論). According to Chiang, Japanese-era police were deeply enmeshed in everyday life, and that their duties extended far beyond the six functions listed on the poster.

Chiang writes that the poster "sought to emphasize the police's miraculous power to save all sentient beings from suffering and hardship. Whether addressing people's material or social needs, or providing moral and ideological guidance, there was virtually nothing beyond the scope of police control."

However, many Taiwanese then found the poster ironic, as they felt they were living under a police state rife with abuses of power. On Dec. 6, 1925, the Taiwan Minpao (台灣民報) criticized the exhibition as a missed opportunity for the public and the police to better understand each other and develop mutual respect. Instead, it said, most displayed posters seemed to reinforce the divide between the public and the police.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

"I don't think I gained anything from the exhibition. Instead I began to feel resentment toward police," writes Chang Wo-chun (張我軍) in a later article. "I was troubled by the contradictions. At the beginning, they emphasized that 'police are not frightening,' but later portrayed them as omnipotent. Can a country really be run just by police? Rather than touting them as omnipotent, why not delegate some responsibilities to other agencies?"

The same Dec. 6 edition also contained a report about an officer beating and kicking a Tainan man just because his bicycle light was turned off.

'POLICE STATE'

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

"Taiwan is a police state," the Taiwan Minpao wrote in 1926. "Does everyone not understand that Taiwan has become a place where police run rampant? The abusive police officers who came to Taiwan completely disregard the dignity of the people."

Sources show that during Japanese rule, Taiwan had an average of one police officer for every 547 residents, compared with one for every 1,228 residents in Japan. People often referred to police as "taijin" (大人), a honorific used for officials. But privately, it's said that some called them "dogs" or "four-legged ones."

The police were supported by the "baojia" system, which organized residents into neighborhood units responsible for mutual surveillance, reporting and assisting authorities in maintaining order.

Photo courtesy of Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taichung City Government

Of course, not all police were bad. Seijiro Morikawa, who served in today's Dongshi Township (東石) in Chiayi County, was beloved by locals and even worshipped as a deity after he died.

The colonial government started recruiting police officers from Japan shortly after it established rule in Taipei in June 1895. Anti-Japanese resistance was continuing across the island, but the government also knew that they could not keep resorting to military suppression, writes Kuo Ting-yu (郭婷玉) in Daily life and surveillance: The Japanese police and Taiwanese society in the early 1910s (日常與監控：1910 年代前期日籍警察與臺灣地方社會).

However, few capable officers were willing to migrate to Taiwan, which was seen as a "land of pestilence." A total of 759 signed up for the job, arriving in September and October 1895. Unfamiliar with local customs and languages, they often relied on educated locals to carry out their duties.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The baojia system began in 1898 and soon spread to the entire colony. Later reforms further strengthened police authority by placing police officials in key administrative roles, and creating a system where police became deeply involved in local governance. For example, before 1920, senior police officials were appointed as subprefecture heads.

Police positions for Taiwanese were limited until 1920, when they were allowed to take exams to become patrol officers. Author Wu Cho-liu (吳濁流) wrote in his memoir that these officers were often even more hated and seen as collaborators with colonial rule — particularly those who abused their authority over the people.

PROBLEM WITH DEIFICATION

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Police Public Health exhibition was a grand affair, running from Nov. 21 to Nov. 25, 1925 in Taipei. The first hall at the former Qing Dynasty administrative office focused on traffic, firefighting, electric and gas safety, crime prevention, ideological policing, general police affairs, weights and measures, child welfare and entertainment.

The second, at Huashan Elementary School (樺山小學) spotlighted Indigenous affairs and waterworks. And the third at the bacteria inspection station highlighted public health issues.

It wasn't just the bodhisattva poster that bothered some Taiwanese; the Taiwan Minpao also cited one where Taiwanese were depicted as children, and another one showing the people as praying mantises, having no chance against police swords.

On the penultimate day of the exhibit, the government mouthpiece Taiwan Daily News ran a piece on the obligation of citizens to cooperate with police, reiterating that the police exist to maintain security, promote public welfare and that they are deeply connected to everyday life because they remove obstacles to social progress and safety. People should support police work "rather than misunderstand or oppose it," the article stated.

To this, the Taiwan Minpao rebuked, "The rights and obligations of citizens must go hand in hand; it is absolutely not the case that obligations should always come first. Taiwanese have fulfilled their obligations to a degree no less than people in Japan, yet whenever they assert their rights, they are viewed by some unreasonable people as making inappropriate demands."

Chiang writes that while the ideal of "making citizens more like police and making police more like citizens" worked in Japan, it became distorted in Taiwan due to the unequal relationship between the colonizers and the colonized.

Instead of becoming "more like citizens," police in Taiwan were transformed into figures of guidance and salvation, even being deified as a bodhisattva, as seen in the poster.

Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan's history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that either have anniversaries this week or are tied to current events.