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A Study of The Development of Taiwanese consciousness:
with a Focus on Linguistic and Historical Destination.
When two groups of people meet, group names will be coined
to differentiate members in we-group and they-group, no matter
the extent of distinction. For the ethnocentric Han-Chinese,
all other people in the world are Fans (literally meaning
barbarians in Mandarin). So when the Hans first migrated to
Taiwan, the aborigines were classified into two broad types of
Hoans (Hoklo Taiwanese equivalent of Fans): (1) Pepo-hoans,
meaning barbarians of the plain (or Sek-hoans, meaning cooked or
civilized barbarians); and (2) Ch'i-hoans, meaning raw barbarians.
Not surprisingly, the Dutchmen, who ruled Taiwan from 1624 to
1642, as well as all other westerners whom the Han settlers had
encountered, were termed Angmo-hoans, meaning red-haired barbarians.
Even among members of we-group, further differentiation is
by no means impossible. During the earlier days of settlement in
Taiwan, two major groups among the Han-Chinese mutually distin-
guished each other, the Hoklos and the Hakkas, owning to unintel-
ligible languages and customary differences (Lamley, 1981). The
Hoklo woman, for example, wrapped their feet, while the Hakka one
did not. The Hoklos from the Hokkien (in Hoklo, or Fukien in
Mandarin) province migrated to Taiwan earlier and occupied fertile
plains, while the Hakkas from the Canton (Kwangtung in Mandarin)
province took hills. They called each other Kheh-lang (literally
meaning guest resident in Hoklo) and Hok-lo-jeen (in Hakka, hence
Hoklo). Their mutual differentiation must have dated back to
their earlier contact with each other in Hokkien before the bulk
of the Hakkas migrated to Canton finally.
During the Japanese colonization, all residents in Taiwan
were legally subjects of the Japanese Emperor. However, to retain
their prestige, the Japanese colonists labelled themselves
Inlanders and termed the natives Islander (or Hontojin in
Japanese). At times, the colonist tagged the latter Chiang-go-lo,
meaning Chinese slave. This term suggested that to be qualified
as subjects of the Japanese Emperor, the Taiwanese needed to be
re-educated. Therefore, when the Japanese teacher disciplined the
Taiwanese pupils or when the Japanese policeman punished the
Taiwanese lawbreaker, "dammed Chiang-go-lo" would often be heard.
To counter the derogatory term, the Taiwanese natives called
the Japanese See-ca-ar (in Hoklo) in private, literally meaning
the four-legged and signifying dog. A similar name San-ca-ar was
used to name those Taiwanese who cooperated with the Japanese.
However, the Japanese discriminatory policy was not without merit,
in the sense that it consolidated the natives into one group and
fostered their common identity, among other things.
After Taiwan was given up by the Japanese to the Nationalist
government after World War II, the colonist positions were taken
over by the new administrators from mainland China. A similar
dichotomy of group differentiation was inevitably created. While
the newcomers called themselves Wai-sheng-jen (people from other
provinces), Ta-lu-jen (Mainlanders), or Nei-lu-jen (Inlanders),
they labelled the natives Tai-wan-jen (Taiwanese) or Pen-sheng-
jen (people of the native province, that is, Taiwan) in Mandarin.
Similarly, they were called by the natives as Gwa-shien-langs (in
Hoklo, or Gai-sho-jin in Japanese, similarly denoting people from
other provinces), or Ar-suan (Inlanders). As the relationship
between the two groups deteriorated day by day, the natives began
naming the newcomers Gwa-shien-de, meaning pigs from other
provinces in Hoklo, or the Hakka equivalent Tong-sun-tso. As
young native draftees had first contact with the Mainlanders, an
identical contrast was perceived: the Taiwanese file called
themselves in private Han-zee-ar (in Hoklo, meaning Sweet-potato
people, as the shape of Taiwan looks like a sweet potato); their
Mainlander rank were named Lau-o-ar (meaning Old-Taro), for which
the origin is untraceable.
Over the years, as animosity between the two groups is
fading, those term carrying derogatory meaning are becoming
obsolete. Now only three terms endure in everyday life: the Main-
landers tend to use Tai-wan-jen and its equivalent Pen-sheng-jen
interchangeably in Mandarin; and the Taiwanese are used to call
the former Gwa-shien-lang in Hoklo (or Gi-shin-jin in Hakka)
exclusively. The persistence shows that both Mainlanders and
Taiwanese have taken the group demarcation for granted. It is
natural to hear a Hoklo Taiwanese saying "lan Dai-wan-lang, "
meaning "we Taiwanese." It is also common to hear a Mainlander
saying "wo-men Wei-sheng-jen," meaning "we Mainlanders."
Therefore, these two terms Taiwanese and Mainlander have become
representations of two ethnic groups rather than the original
meanings that suggest peoples from different provinces.
Meanwhile, new terms, Ming-nan-jen and Ho-luo-jen were
invented by the Nationalist authority for the Hoklos in order to
play down the latter's Taiwanese nativeness. Ming-nan-jen stands
for people residing in the southern part of the Hokkien province,
where Min is a simplified equivalence to Hokkien, and Nan means
south. This term is not accepted by the Hoklos, however, since
they may be "from" Ming-nan originally but are by no means
residing "in" Ming-nan. Ho-luo is said to be a region near the
Yellow River and is created by the authority to suggest the
origin of the Hoklos in northern China. The ancestors of the
Hoklos may indeed have migrated from northern China millennium
ago, but the Hoklos trace their origin to Ming-nan at most.
In fact, this strategy is only a play of the gap between
spoken and written Chinese characters. A close examination of
the similarity between Ho-luo and Hoklo in pronunciation dis-
closes that the former is molded after the latter. In other
words, the KMT attempts to find a written character (Ho-luo)
which takes the similar pronunciation of Hoklo in Mandarin and
then assigns it a new historical meaning to attain its political
end. As we have noticed earlier, the term Hoklo is used by the
Hakkas to call those people they found in Hokkien, meaning "those
guys in Hokkien." No more than that. Therefore, neither terms
is accepted by the Hoklos.
In this study, to avoid ambiguity and for the sake of
expedience, we follow the academic use in English literature the
dichotomy of Mainlander and Taiwanese. Hence, Taiwanese will
include both the Hoklos and Hakkas, and also connote the languages
used by them, Hoklo and Hakka. This differentiation can not be
exaggerated since both the contemporary Hoklos and Hakkas tend
to deem themselves as Taiwanese in the first place. Therefore,
Hoklo-Taiwanese and Hakka-Taiwanese will be more appropriate
though cumbersome.
LANGUAGE AS INSTRUMENT OF GROUP SOLIDARITY
Language has long been an important instrument of ethnic
solidarity during the colonial rule, especially since the arrival
of the Mainlanders in 1945. During the Feb. 28 Uprising in 1947
(Chen, 1988), the Taiwanese would stop any stranger and ask him
to speak Hoklo. As he may have been a Hakka-Taiwanese, a second
test would follow if he failed: he would consequently be required
to speak Japanese and to sing the national anthem of Japan, as
few Mainlanders were able to speak fluent Japanese. Therefore,
the basic criterion of being a Taiwanese was speaking either
Hoklo or Hakka, with Japanese as an auxiliary surrogate.
In the eyes of the colonists, a critical condition to be
eligible for the subject of the Emperor was proficiency in
Japanese. So the Taiwanese students were forced to learn
Japanese in school and were punished for speaking Hoklo or Hakka
particularly during the heyday of Japanization immediately
before World War II. Therefore it may seem absurd that a language
of the former colonist was adopted as symbol of ethnicity. As
English is the common language for the diverse colonized Indians
and for the divergent groups in Nigeria, Japanese provided the
Hoklos and Hakkas, and even the aborigines, the first common
spoken language.
Elder Taiwanese elites would communicate with each other
in Japanese as an gesture of protesting the Nationalist rule, as
the latter resented anything Japanese so much. Even some
Taiwanese who were never enrolled in Japanese school also
endeavor to speak corrupt Japanese with the same reason.
Paradoxically, it is the determination of the Nationalists
to eradicate the native languages that have contributed to the
affection of their mother tongues among the Taiwanese. During
the 50 years of Japanese rule, both Hoklo and Hakka persisted in
Taiwanese-owned schools, and Han-wen (Han language or literature)
was taught in public school until 1930s. Consequently, Taiwanese
languages never really died out in that period. As we have
noticed in the last paper, the Nationalists have made efforts to
wipe out Taiwanese languages (Chiung, 1996; Cohen, 1986; Lin Jin-
hui, 1983). Furthermore, corrupt Mandarin spoken by the Taiwanese
is ridiculed as "Taiwan Kuo-yu." With the same intention, the
Taiwanese on TV are invariably portrayed as those who speak
clumsy Taiwan Guo-yu. This only creates resentment, if not
hatred, among the natives.
For the younger generation now, their mother tongues become
everyday-life languages, as they do not have any formal course to
learn them. For those who are better educated, they may be fluent
in Mandarin, but are awkward in either Hoklo or Hakka. This
phenomenon is especially remarkable in Taipei, the capital. There
are even some Taiwanese who perceived that speaking "right"
Mandarin is the "only" way for upward mobility and therefore
consciously adopt exclusive Mandarin at home, in the hope that
their children's pronunciation will not be marred by their mother
tongues.
However, there is growing awareness among the young
Taiwanese collage graduates who insist on speaking Hoklo or Hakka
only (Chiung, 1996), even though we suspect how authentic their
Hoklo or Hakka is. At least, they believe they are speaking
their mother tongues. This is partly due to their reaction to
the agony they had gone through when they were punished for speak
"dialects" in the primary school and high schools, and partly due
to the growing alarm that their languages and related culture will
become extinct soon.
For the Taiwanese masses, Hoklo and Hakka are the main
medias of communication since they never care to seek a job in
governmental institutions. The prevalence of Hoklo and Hakka is
especially noticeable during the election campaign, when Hoklo
and Hakka are necessary to attract Taiwanese majority voters.
Even candidates nominated by the KMT are at times obliged to
follow the same fashion to seek extra votes than those "appro-
priated" to them by the party. Recently, we witnessed the demand
by the audience in political gatherings that the speaker use
Taiwanese. At one occasion, when one speaker refused to comply
their demand and kept on adopting Mandarin, he was furiously
interrupted by the audience, who shouting that "we don't under-
stand that language," even though they indeed did.
THE LANGUAGES HOKLO AND HAKKA USED IN TAIWAN
If Hoklo and Hakka used in Taiwan are merely two of the
numerous dialects of Chinese linguistically, how can they be
utilized as the main instrument of ethnic solidarity? We argue
that the term "dialect" blurs the exact extent of the whole
picture and is somewhat misleading, since dialect may only
suggest differences in pronunciation and tone for the same word.
However, the discrepancies between them and Mandarin are shown
not only in different pronunciations and tones but also in
variant grammar and dissimilar words for the same concept.
The most readily recognizable differences between
Taiwanese and Mandarin are found in pronunciation and tone. As
Mandarin is based on the dialect of Peking, Mongolian and Manchu
influence is unavoidable because of geographical proximity and
the status of Peking as the imperial capital historically. In
contrast, both spoken Hoklo and Hakka are archaic versions of
Chinese preserved by refugees from the north when they migrated
southward. Both languages also retain more tones than Mandarin
does: the former have eight tones and the latter four tones.
Consequently, literary scholars find that it is easier to read
ancient Tang poems in Hoklo or Hakka. In fact, Chinese scripts
were not only shared by all Chinese but were also by Japanese,
Korean, and Vietnamese in Confucian Asia before they discarded
Chinese scripts for nationalist reason. For instance, the
characters for Kim Dae-jung are read "Gim Die-deung" in Hoklo-
Taiwanese. Sometimes, we may find that the Japanese or Korean
pronunciation for the same Chinese character is closer to Hoklo
or Hakka than to Mandarin, as the Chinese language they borrowed
form China is the old version.
Different pronunciations developed for the same character
are less serious in terms of intelligibility. The more grave
barriers are divergent meanings created for the same word and
dissimilar word orders resulting from divergent development of
grammar. Therefore, while Taiwanese literature may touch the
heart of Taiwanese readers and rally their group identity, it
may look odd to any Mainlander reader, event though he recognizes
every character used.
The most severe impediment arises from the fact that there
are no suitable characters for some spoken Taiwanese (Chiung,
1996: Lin, 1996). A feature of Hoklo-Taiwanese is that there are
two different languages for literary and colloquial uses. For
example, human being is called "jin" in literary Hoklo and "lang"
in colloquial use. Usually, there is no proper character for the
colloquial word, or the use was lost somehow. It is suggested
that colloquial Hoklo may be borrowed from natives in Hokkien
when Chinese moved southward. When the Hoklos and Hakkas immi-
grated to Taiwan, they also borrowed terms from each other and
from the aborigines. This explains why there is no character for
some spoken words and why Hoklo and Hakka in Taiwan are different
those in China and Southeast Asia.
Judging from the above analyses of differences between
Taiwanese and Mandarin, we find that it is proper to call Hoklo
and Hakka used in Taiwan as Taiwanese but not those used in China
or Southeast Asia, and that his type of linguistic differences
may not be appreciated by the term dialect assigned. It further
explains why Hoklo or Hakka-Taiwanese may have served as an
crucial instrument of ethnic solidarity.
HOKLOS AND HAKKAS AMONG THE MAINLANDERS AND IN CHINA
There are some Hoklos and Hakkas who share similar languages
with the native Hoklo or Hakka-Taiwanese but deem themselves, and
are taken by the Taiwanese, as Mainlanders. To differentiate
these Hoklo or Hakka-Mainlanders, the names Hok-kien-lang and
Gen-dang-lang are assigned to them by the natives in Hoklo. Most
of them were recruited by the Nationalist government after World
War II to run Taiwan and were staffed mainly in such governmental
institutions as police stations, the railway bureau, and the
telecommunication bureau. As they filled out the positions left
over by the Japanese as other Mainlanders did, they retained the
image of Japanese colonists and therefore were equally detested
by the native Taiwanese.
During the Feb. 28 Uprising, a few of these marginal
elements in the society failed to escape the retaliation by the
natives. As we have pointed out earlier, people were asked to
speak Japanese in order to differentiate whether they were Hoklo
or Hakka-Taiwanese or Hoklos or Hakka-Mainlanders. Suffered
from such experience, they may have found that it was safer to
ally themselves with the Mainlanders and therefore preferred
Mandarin only.
But there are also some Hoklos or Hakkas who escaped to
Taiwan by themselves before the communists took over China and
assimilated and inter-married with the natives. In their
identification cards, they may still be legally registered as
Mainlanders, but they and their descendants are no less
Taiwanese than those who have lived there for centuries. Chiang
Peng-jien, former chairman of the opposition Democratic Progress
Party, for instance, is formally registered as a Hoklo-Mainlander.
Not only he deems himself a Taiwanese, but also nobody would
suspect his Taiwanese identity. This demonstrates that language
as an objective criterion of ethnicity is not without aberration.
As for those Hoklos and Hakkas in southern China now, it
is doubtful that Taiwanese should have any bond with them at all,
as they have been separated since 1895. In addition, they do
not share any destiny with the Taiwanese in the process of
reclamation and the struggle with a series of aliens rulers in
Taiwan. Therefore, it is nonsense to ask for a Pan-Hoklo or Pan-
Hakka movement as suggested by some.
COMMON HISTORICAL EXPERIENCES PRIOR TO 1945
The major demarcation between the Mainlanders and Taiwanese
is actually not based on linguistic difference but on their
attachment to the island. The Taiwanese identity was developed
in the process of reclamation of the frontier land and in the
common experience of subordination to discrimination imposed by
subsequent waves of alien rulers.
The Mainlanders tend to treat Taiwan as their temporary
residence, particularly during the reign of Chiang Kei-shek, who
insisted the paranoiac myth of retaking mainland China. Conse-
quently, the possibility of identifying themselves with the island
was impeded by the mentality of being provisional residents. For
rich Mainlanders, the prospect of a communist take-over of Taiwan
has prompted them to send their descendants overseas, mainly in
the United States, which was blamed as "toothbrushism" (Clough,
1978: 144). Their fear is aggravated by the anticipation of a
Taiwanese revolution and hence the ensuing retaliation by the
Taiwanese. If we analyze the ethnic composition of students in
the United States from Taiwan, we would find that Mainlander
students are over-represented. If we ascertain those who stay
there, the percentage of Mainlander students will be still higher.
For the Taiwanese, on the contrary, the island is their
homeland. Most of the ancestors of the Taiwanese were either
pirates or refugees from Hokkien or Canton. They fought with the
aborigines, settled their home there, and resisted against waves
of alien invaders (Shih Min; 1980). If they were forced back to
mainland China, they could not find any near relatives to turn to.
Gue woo-sing, a deceased prominent Taiwanese leader exiling
himself in the United States, was once asked his loyalty to China
since he had spent some years in China when Taiwan was occupied
by Japan. He replied firmly: "I was born in Taiwan, grew up
there, and fought there. This island is my only spiritual
attachment." (Seventieth Monthly, Nov. 1982: 70)
Historically, the relationship between Taiwan and China was
developed later than that between Tibet, Korea, or Vietnam and
China, probably because of natural separation. In reality,
Taiwanese did not become a Chinese province until 1871. Although
both Nationalist and Communist Chinese claim that Taiwan has
been a sacred part of China historically, it was indeed the
Dutchmen who first laid claim to the island in 1624. As the
Chinese Ming Dynasty was besieged by Japanese and domestic
pirates, it deemed the island as source of troubles. Therefore,
when Dutch requested ports for trade, the Ming authority turned
it down and asked them to occupy Taiwan instead. Koxinga (or
Cheng Ch'eng-kung), Ming loyalist, expelled the Dutchmen in 1662
and occupied Taiwan as a military base to fight against the
Tartar Manchus, who overthrew the Ming Dynasty and established
the Ch'ing Dynasty.
When Koxinga's grandson surrendered to the Manchus in 1683,
the latter almost gave up the island as they equally deemed it
difficult to extend its authority there. A Manchu emperor once
stated that Taiwan had never been the territory of China. The
Manchus made every effort to prohibit migration to Taiwan but
without success, as population pressure grew seriously in nearby
Hokkien and Canton. It was actually during the 200 years of
Manchu rule (1683-1895) that migration to Taiwan increased
drastically. These ancestors of contemporary Taiwanese ran the
risk of death penalty by violating prohibition and endured
hardship sailing in troubled Straits of Taiwan. If they ever
succeeded in landing at Taiwan, they still had to face attack
from those head-hunting aborigines. These experiences made them
inseparable from the island.
Indeed, the history of Taiwan has been marked by the
opposition to alien rulers. The Taiwanese first rebelled against
the Dutch colonists and were subsequently massacred mercilessly.
For the Manchu overlords, Taiwan had been nothing but a troubled
spot with countless rebellions, and they never succeeded in
pacifying the island. Hence there was a famous saying about
Taiwan: "A small revolt in three years; a major uprising in five
years." When foreign wreck ships were constantly attacked by the
islanders (including the Han settlers and the aborigines), the
Ch'ing government simply expressed that those islanders were
"Hua-wai-chih-min," that is, people beyond civilization, and
therefore allowed the foreigners to punish its own subjects.
Even when the Ch'ing Dynasty decided to give up Taiwan to Japan,
it cautioned its enemy against those "rebellious" islanders.
When the Ch'ing representative arrived at Taiwan in 1895 to hand
over the sovereignty to Japan, he dared not go ashore for fear
of assassination by the Taiwanese. The ceremony was instead done
on a ship offshore.
Even when the Taiwanese were subjugated, they never gave up
their antagonism to the Manchu rule symbolically. For instance,
when most Chinese yielded to the Manchu order to shave their hair
and grow pig-tail, the Taiwanese did the same to keep their lives
but wore turbans to cover the disgrace (Pichering, 1898: 43).
Some burial service also showed anti-Manchu sentiment (Wong, 1987:
75). However, armed revolts against the Manchus never succeeded
because of lack of island-wide coordination and the strategy of
divide-and-rule exercised by the Manchus. By now, we find that
both historical and emotional connections between Taiwan and
China was slim.
It was actually the Japanese colonization that helped to
unify Hoklos and Hakkas and created a sense of common destiny.
When news arrived at Taiwan that the Manchus had given up the
island to Japan, the islanders pleaded in vain to the Ch'ing
Dynasty not to forsake Taiwan. A Republic of Taiwan was
established in 1895 to seek possible western assistance in
repelling the Japanese (Lamley, 1970; Ng, 1993). Both the Hoklo
and Hakka gentry joined in the resistance to Japanese aggressors.
Perhaps because "republic" was so noble an idea to the islanders
or because it was treasonous to declare a government other than
the imperial one, the short-lived republic did not gain popular
support. With its leaders fleeing to mainland China, the
republic collapsed. Nevertheless, scatter armed resistance
lasted for twenty years and kept the Japanese busy pacifying
nationalist "banditry."
Since 1920s, recognizing the futility of armed resistance,
Taiwanese nationalists took a new form of resistance by engaging
in political and cultural activities. Inspired by Japanese
liberals, Taiwanese first sought equal treatment within the Japan
Empire. After World War I, the ideal of national self- determi-
nation, the Irish independence movement, and the "March First
Incident" in Korea encouraged the Taiwanese to seek home rule and
autonomy. Political and cultural organizations were organized by
Taiwanese students in Japan to promote the idea of democracy and
to preserve Taiwanese culture (Lien, 1988; Tsai, et al., 1971).
Young Taiwanese, published in 1920 and prohibited at home, was
attempted to awaken the Taiwanese to seek self-determination
(Chung, 1982: 446). Returnees back from Japan hold a series of
island-wide cultural lectures, in defiance of Japanese coercion,
to promote Taiwanese nationalist consciousness (Chung, 1982: 459).
These activities were finally cracked down by the Japanese
military government in 1937 when they were prepared to wage a war
with China. The major contribution of these movements was the
further consolidation of a new identity between Hoklo and Hakka-
Taiwanese, in addition to the introduction of modern democratic
ideals.
TAIWANESE IDENTITY UNDER THE NATIONALIST RULE
After Taiwan was returned to China in 1945, the Taiwanese
did not ask for self-determination but favorably welcomed the
arrival of their Chinese brethren. However, in less than two
years, the Taiwanese revolted against those who they greeted not
long ago. The 1947 uprising and the following massacre crystal-
lized the Taiwanese identity. Why did armed resistance that had
disappeared thirty years before during the Japanese colonial rule
burst out against blood-brothers in such a short period? The
official explanation was the instigation of Chinese communists.
Given the fact that communist activities were cracked down
harshly and the separation between Taiwanese and Chinese
communists, this explanation is unconvincing. We argue that
political, economic, cultural, and psychological factors all had
a part in contributing to the explosion of Taiwanese resentment.
Political discrimination was the fundamental ground for
Taiwanese indignation. During the Japanese rule, Taiwanese were
never allowed to take any important position in all fields.
When the Japanese left, the natives expected they would be
elevated to the vacancies left over by the colonists. To their
disappointment, these offices were filled out by the new arriving
Mainlanders, who also appointed their own relatives in their
offices, regardless how competent they were. The only Taiwanese
trusted were the so-called Pua-suans, those who stayed in main-
land China during the Japanese rule and hence had contact with
the KMT before. As the name given to them suggests, they were
half-Mainlander and half-Taiwanese. If we remember how those
Taiwanese cooperators were termed by their people, we may infer
that they were similarly not treated by their fellow native
Taiwanese as Taiwanese. Therefore, the liberation from the
motherland only introduced new colonists. Hence the popular
saying: "The dogs [Japanese] have gone but the pigs [Mainlanders]
have come." (Bate, 1952: 47) The political bitterness of the
Taiwanese can also be found by their demand in the uprising:
"Officialdom by the Taiwanese, army by the Taiwanese, and
authority by the Taiwanese."
Economic extraction was another major factor underlying
the island-wide rebellion (Lee, 1993). As the bread basket of
the Japanese Empire, Taiwan had never been wary of food supplies
even during the war. However, when the Nationalists took over,
rice and sugar were shipped to China. For the first time Taiwan
faced the first food shortage in its history. Furthermore, the
plants established by the Japanese were not restored after the
war. Instead, the Mainlanders not only sold out raw materials,
but also sold out equipments to China. Dissatisfaction of
unemployed labors added one dimension to the resentment.
Cultural differences also played an important role in the
development of mutual distrust. After fifty years of Japanese
colonization, the Taiwanese must have gained certain Japanese
cultural characteristics unintentionally or intentionally,
ranging from custom, housing, food, clothing, to language. And
they joined the Japanese imperial armed forces proudly. Li
Yuan-che, a Taiwanese-American who received the Nobel Prize in
1986, recalled that he had never realized he was a Chinese when
Taiwan was returned to China. Some intellectuals who went back
to China during Japanese rule dared not to reveal their
Taiwanese identity and faked that they were Hokkiens or Cantonese
for fear of being suspected as Japanese spies (Wu Juo-liou, 1977).
It was therefore not surprising that Mainlanders tended to
treated Taiwanese as Japanese subjects and distrusted them. This
was confirmed by such expression that "Taiwanese brains have been
poisoned by the Japanese and therefore need to be re-educated."
The Taiwanese were equally disappointed at their Mainlander
brothers. For them, the Japanese may be the colonists, but they
at least provided law and order for the society. They were hurt
by the Mainlanders' arrogant insult daily. Additionally, they
could not understand why the compatriots from the mother-land
were so ignorant of modern life in Taiwan. Consequently, they
could not help but to compare the Mainlanders with the Japanese.
The general feeling was that they preferred to be treated as
third-class citizens by the colonist than as the second- class
citizens by their own brothers. The psychological disillusion
was thus another factor underlying the Feb. 28 Uprising.
The ensuing retaliatory massacre aggravated the alienation
between Mainlanders and Taiwanese and helped to strengthen the
Taiwanese consciousness. Taiwanese doubted: "How can they claim
that we are compatriots and yet massacred our fathers and
brothers so brutally?" A girl, whose physician father was taken
away by the Mainlander soldiers, and who was born after her
father's execution, was named Guo Shen-hua, meaning "defeating
the Chinese."
Another indication of ethnic animosity is the prohibition
by the Taiwanese parents to let their descendants to marry the
Mainlanders. There was a saying: "I rather cut my daughter into
pieces than to let her marry a Mainlander." As most Mainlanders
were single males, they had no choice but to find a Taiwanese
mate. Though inter-marriage was getting more, it was mostly
between a male Mainlander and a female Taiwanese, who were
usually from a poor rural family or the aborigines. This asym-
metrical inter-marriage is still an indicator of ethnic
demarcation.
One final area of ethnic mutual distrust is found in
business (Shih, 1994b; Cole, 1967). As politics and military
are the privilege of the Mainlanders, the Taiwanese have to find
other way out. Business happens to be the only field where the
Nationalists may not exert tight control, especially in inter-
national business. For fear of penetration and a potential
takeover by the Mainlanders, Taiwanese-owned firms are usually
reluctant to hire the Mainlanders. Usually they will not overtly
specify that they do not want Mainlanders. Instead, they require
that potential job candidates should be able to speak Taiwanese
(i.e., Hoklo, which is the prevailing business language). Since
most Mainlanders are either unwilling to learn Taiwanese or lack
opportunity to learn it due to residential segregation, the
condition almost excludes them from entering Taiwanese firms
except they open up their own. Therefore, vocational segregation
creates the illusion that Mainlanders are discriminated against
by the Taiwanese.
COMPARISON WITH OVERSEAS CHINESE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
There are a sizable number of overseas Chinese (Hua-giau)
in Southeast Asia. Most of them are of Hokkien or Canton origin,
such as Hokkien, Hakka (or Keh), Cantonese, and Teochiu. As
those who had sailed to Taiwan, those who chose to immigrate to
Southeast Asia must have been driven overseas by population
pressure and famine domestically. As the term "giau" suggests,
they may still deem themselves as temporary residents in those
host countries. On the contrary, the process of naturalization
among the Taiwanese has long completed even before Japan took
over the island. Why, then, have they not developed the same
native identity as the their counterpart in Taiwan have?
Like all overseas Chinese, earlier Taiwanese immigrants
were single females and went to Taiwan for fortune. As soon as
their pockets were full of coins, they would pack up and go back
to the mainland gloriously. When rich Taiwanese gentlemen died,
their corpses were sent back to China for interment. Some would
send representatives back home annually to pay homage to their
ancestors entombed there. For the masses these practices were
too expensive. Later immigrants therefore carried the ancestor
tablet with them to Taiwan. This demonstrates their determi-
nation to reside in Taiwan permanently (Ch'en, 1987; Meskill,
1979). As MacKay (1895: 101) noticed, among the three-million
Chinese (Hoklos and Hakkas) residing in Taiwan then, only between
10 to 12 thousands sailed across the Taiwan Strait annually from
Amoy in Hokkien to be engaged in the tea industrial.
We posit that the major factor leading to different natu-
ralization processes for the Taiwanese and overseas Chinese is
that the former are majority in Taiwan and the latter are
minority in their respective host countries, such as Malaysia or
Indonesia. The Taiwanese had succeeded in absorbing the abori-
gines in plains no later than the 19th century. In addition,
racial and cultural similarities among Hoklo and Hakka immigrants
in Taiwan made it relatively easy for them to mend their
linguistic differences. On the contrary, overseas Chinese, while
failing to assimilate the natives because of their status of
minority, resist integration with natives, either owing to racial
prejudice, Chinese cultural chauvinism, or, in the case of
Malaysia, on religious ground.
Different historical experiences also have crucial impacts.
As we have observed, the history of Taiwan has been marked by
resistance against alien rulers, from Dutch, Japan, to the
Nationalist government. These common experiences have assisted
the Taiwanese to forsake their ethnic differences and to crys-
talize a new national identity gradually. In the case of
overseas Chinese, on the other hand, their main struggle is with
the natives rather than with alien colonists. It is therefore
easy for the colonist to exercise the policy of divide-and-rule
between them and the natives, which may partially explain
xenophobia against them in Southeast Asia.
The last factor is the pattern of economy. As the majority
of the settlers in Taiwan were peasants engaged in reclamation of
frontier lands (Jian, 1995), their attachment to the land must
have been stronger than businessmen or gentlemen's. On the
contrary, overseas Chinese would be engaged in business whenever
possible. If local political situations were unfavorable to them,
they may have chosen other host countries. As a Chinese proverb
goes,"a smart rabbit has three nests." Identity with the host
land will be hard to arise from this type of refugee mentality.
Since Hoklo or Hakka-Taiwanese share similar language with
their counterpart in Southeast Asia, it is proposed whether they
are able to develop any common identity merely by common cultural
heritage. Recently, some Singapore soldiers, being trained by
the Nationalists, had a serious dispute with a Taiwanese shop-
owner. Although speaking Hokkien, they were treated as aliens
rather than compatriots (Centre Daily News, 19 June 1987). It
again shows that speaking the same language does not by itself
constitute a sufficient condition for sharing the same identity.
Another case is President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines,
whose great grandfather was a Chinese. It is doubted whether
she still possesses any slight Chinese loyalty.
POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF CHINESE NATIONALISM
It may be argued that Taiwanese nationalism during the
Japanese colonization was but a chain of the Chinese nationalist
movement. However, it may also be debated that Taiwanese
nationalism was developed during the process of anti-alien
resistance since the 17th century. We will elaborate why the
latter interpretation is more plausible.
It is right that the Taiwanese owe much to Chinese, or more
appropriate, Han culture. Therefore, Han culture was used as the
symbolic weapon to rally nationalist support in order to counter
alien Dutch, Manchu, and Japanese culture. But when the Main-
landers moved in Taiwan, Han culture was no longer enough to
oppose the brother culture. Therefore, other factors, such as
language and history, real or putative, helped to mould Han
culture in Taiwan into a new Taiwanese culture. The revival of
Taiwanese folk literature (Lin, 1996; Song, 1985), for instance,
is basically a movement to translate spoken Taiwanese into
written form in the hope of consolidating Taiwanese consciousness
against Chinese one.
Appealing to Han culture to contend against the alien
rulers is one thing. To infer that the Taiwanese hoped to return
to Chinese rule is quite another thing. When the Taiwanese were
betrayed by the Ch'ing Dynasty, they pleaded for help from the
motherland but in vain, which led to the development of a con-
sciousness of orphanage. They called themselves "orphans of
Asia" (Wu Juo-liou, 1966). Their armed resistance was independent
of anti-Japanese nationalism in China, which did not arise until
the 1930s.
Modern Chinese nationalism agitated by Sun Yat-sen was
originally anti-Manchu xenophobia (Laitinen, 1990), which lagged
behind Taiwanese nationalism. When the Taiwanese sought aid from
their motherland, there was no Chinese nationalism yet they could
turn to. Shortly after the Republic of China was established,
China was engulfed in civil wars. Lin Hsien-t'ang, the most
prominent Taiwanese leader during the Japanese rule, managed to
meet advisers to Sun and to Yuan Shih-k'ai, leaders of the two
separate national governments in China then. He was advised to
imitate the Irish home rule movement and to develop their own
nationalism.
It turned out that Taiwanese nationalism gained more inspi-
ration from the Korean independent movement, Woodrow Wilson's
doctrine of self-determination, and the Irish home rule movement
than from China nationalism. Though there were some belonging
to the "Father Land Faction" hoped that a strong China would
eventually come to their rescue, China's impacts were limited
because of geographical separation, Japanese tight censorship,
and China's apathy (Chen, 1972: 496). Therefore, Chen finds
that Chinese influence on Taiwanese nationalist movement was
"negligible," and that Japanese liberal impacts were surprisingly
more crucial.
When Chinese nationalism finally arose against Japanese
invasion in the 1930s, Taiwan was already closely tied with the
Japanese Empire economically. The Taiwanese enjoyed Japanese
prestige and fought hand in hand with the Japanese in China and
Southeast Asia. Not only Chinese nationalism failed to aid
Taiwanese nationalism, it was poured in some anti-Taiwanese
sentiment also.
CHINESE OFFICIAL POSITIONS
Chinese official positions on the issue of Taiwanese
identity has been full of emotional and political exhortation,
which is difficult to follow with logic. We manage to sort out
the following seemingly plausible arguments for discussion.
Both Nationalist and Communist Chinese insist that
Taiwanese are Chinese by resorting to racial, cultural,
historical, and geological evidences. Their attitude is based
on the traditional notion of Ta-yi-t'ung (grand unification)
propagated by the imperial rulers. Culturally and racially,
the Taiwanese are definitely Chinese, or more properly Hans.
Beyond this, we doubt there is any other significance. Being
Taiwanese is not mutually exclusive with being Chinese.
Therefore, it is not necessary that the Taiwanese have to have
any loyalty with any new regimes in China, either Nationalist
or Communist one. As the case of Singapore has illustrated,
people sharing the same cultural heritage do not have to accept
the same political entity.
Another argument is that the Taiwanese are but one group of
the grand China nation (Chung-hua-ming-chu), which includes all
nationalities in China: Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Muslim, and
Tibetan. After Republican China was established, Sun revised
his Han-centered posture and coined the new term to woo those
minorities in order to keep the territory intact. Therefore,
the term, implicitly acknowledging the existence of various
minorities, is only an ideal not reality. Judging from the way
the Nationalists treated the Taiwanese, we doubted they deemed
the Taiwanese no less Japanese than Chinese. In addition, Hsiao
and Sullivan (1979) give evidence that the Communists had classi-
fied the Taiwanese as a separate minority group in the past. To
include the Taiwanese as one of those minority, thus, only
confirms the existence of a Taiwanese identity.
A third argument is that the term Taiwanese is used to call
residents in Taiwan as Ohioans is used to term residents in Ohio.
Therefore, the "so-called" Taiwanese identity is at best a mani-
festation of regionalism. We caution that analogy is not always
valid as most Chinese believe is. What holds in the United States
may provide some insights for the case of Taiwan but may not
universally prevail. Therefore, the Ohioans may deem that it does
not make any difference whether they live in Ohio, Iowa, or Idaho.
But for the Taiwanese, any province in China will be as foreign as
any state in United States is. Further, dismissing any ethnic
awareness as regionalism does not eliminate its existence. What-
ever terms invented to call this phenomenon, localism, regionalism,
communalism, tribalism, or primordialism, the objective existence
of a group identity and the subjective perception of the group
members can not be dismissed.
The last argument states that since there have been inten-
sive inter-marriage between the Mainlanders and the Taiwanese, the
differentiation is futile. We believe the degree of integration
should be substantiated by reliable census data rather than wish-
ful thinking. As any countries troubled by serious ethnic con-
flicts do, the Nationalist government tries to avoid any open
discussion of ethnic relationship. Accordingly, census data do
not contain ethnic composition, much less the degree of inter-
group marriage. One source is the survey on voting behavior un-
dertaken by Wei (1985), which shows that "more than 55 percent of
the voters have relatives married into other provincial groups."
This high figure should be deflated by the fact that the Main-
landers are generally more politically mobilized. Further, we
suspect what his definition of relative is since the term is used
very vaguely in everyday life (Wang, 1993). Thirdly, "inter-
provincial" marriage is not equivalent to "inter-ethnic" marriage.
A close examination of Wei's another article (1986) shows the
same measure decreases to 41.4 percent and that most of these
inter-marriages are actually among the Mainlanders themselves.
CONCLUSIONS
Our first conclusion is that a Taiwanese consciousness has
originally evolved based on linguistic differences. But a more
fundamental factor was the discriminatory policies of the
Japanese and the Nationalist rule. A comparison with the case
of those Hoklo or Hakka-Mainlanders demonstrates that linguistic
similarity is not necessarily a viable condition for group soli-
darity. A comparison with overseas Chinese shows us that the
attachment with the land is a crucial condition in developing
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