This paper is inspired by the power of folk beliefs and ecological con-cerns in the works of a young Taiwanese writer Wu Mingyi and by the notion of "mythic modernity" posited by Ping-hui Liao. Both rites of nature and occult practices of folk beliefs are aligned with the mythic and the native and set opposed to colonial modernity in Wu's works. At the same time, one can also see that Wu's very conception of Taiwanese nature writing shows ambiva-lence toward both the mythic and the modern, and that such ambivalence prevails in his short stories. This leads me to consider Ping-hui Liao's idea of "mythic modernity." Liao develops this idea from his reading of Walter Benjamin's theory and the history of colonial modernity in Taiwan. Although the very term "mythic modernity" is problematic, some of Liao's insights in his theorizing nevertheless shed new light on our interpretation of the mythic in relation to colonial modernity in Taiwan. Walter Benjamin's theory of mimesis and language proves to be especially helpful in bringing out the sig-nificance and power of the mythic in Wu's short stories. Since he is viewed as one of the greatest theorists of modernity, Benjamin's interest in the mythic is often ignored; as a result, re-reading his theory of mimesis and language may help explore this eclipsed aspect of Benjamin's oeuvre. This paper intends to discuss the ambivalence toward the mythic and the modern in Wu's three short stories "Huyet (Tiger God), "Cesuo de gushi" (A Tale of Men's Room), and "Fuyanren" (A Man with Compound Eyes) and look into the way it is tied to Wu's magic, nativist, and ecological vision. It is my argument that the ambivalence toward the mythic and the modern in Wu's short stories con-stitutes a rethinking of Taiwan native resistance to colonial modernity, and that in engaging a dialogue between Benjamin's theory and Wu's stories one can see that such ambivalence toward the mythic and the modern is in Benjamin as well.