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A daily article on global humanities and geography
Earth Knowledge Bureau – Taiwan's Chinese
NO.467 - Chinese in Taiwan
Author: Meow of Changbai Mountain
Draft: Sun Lu / Proofreader: Cat Stu / Editor: Cotton
Because the islands are separated from the mainland by water, they are often able to maintain considerable independence and maintain their own cultural and ethnic characteristics. But with the explosion of populations on the continent or the improvement of technology, landing on islands and migrating is an inevitable trend. So it's not uncommon to see some island nations/island regions in the world with layers of population history like mille-feuilles.
Like Sri Lanka?
Like these islands, Treasure Island Taiwan is also a region with a fairly complex demographic composition. Taiwan's ethnic groups can be divided into indigenous people, Minnan people, Hakka and people from other provinces, each with a settlement and economic culture, which constitutes Taiwan's rich and colorful society.
In today's article, we will follow the context of time and understand the people on the island of Taiwan.
Aboriginal
In the past fifty years on the Bohai Coast, Shengfan has gradually become a familiar fan. Nude fell to the feet of the bun, passing on the royal boy and girl body.
— Wu Tinghua's "Miscellaneous Poems of sheli"
This is a poem describing the life of taiwanese aborigines during the Qing Dynasty, in which "Shengfan" and "Cooked Fan" are the names for the aborigines at that time. The reason for the distinction between raw and cooked is that at that time, the Han people called the indigenous people who were close to them "cooked fan", and those who were estranged and did not communicate were called "raw fan".
Indigenous public opinion refers to people who have settled in Taiwan before the arrival of the Han People, and refers to not a single ethnic composition, but is divided into several small ethnic groups and tribes. In the "Records of Dongfan" written by the Ming Dynasty scholar Chen Di, the aborigines are referred to as "Dongfan". Ancient Chinese officials and civilians did not classify them according to anthropological knowledge, and this situation continued consistently into the Japanese colonial period.
Depicted by Dutch colonists in the 17th century
The earliest known aboriginal images
Image source: National Taiwan Museum website
During the Japanese colonial period, in order to make it easier for the colonial government to rule Taiwan, it conducted systematic research on the indigenous people. There are many methods of classification, among which the "4 groups, 8 ethnic groups and 11 parts" system proposed by the Japanese anthropologist Inō Yoshitsuki in 1898 is the most important, laying the foundation for indigenous research. Later, the Republic of China government withdrew from Taiwan, and also undertook the research of this period to further classify the indigenous people.
Taiwanese Aborigines, photographed during the Japanese colonial period
Image source: People's Daily News
Roughly speaking, Taiwan's indigenous people are divided into two categories, the Gaosha (or Gaoshan) who live in the alpine mountains and the Pingpu who live in the flat land, and these two categories have spawned many sub-ethnic groups. The Alpine clan has Ami, Paiwan, Taiya, etc.; the Pingpu tribe has the Karmalan, Syraya group and so on.
Today, most of them live in the mountains of the central region or in the east near the sea, which is isolated from the world compared to the bustling north-central part of Taiwan.
Before the arrival of the Han Chinese, the island's indigenous people had settled on the island for nearly 8,000 years, but had little contact with the outside world, maintaining the most primitive way of life like maori and Indians.
Taiwan's complex mountainous terrain has tempered these people's mountain forest adaptability. Most of them live by hunting in the mountains and can shuttle through the alpine forests of Taiwan, so most of them have great strength and run very fast, and they are rare sports talents. So much so that for some time afterwards, the Taiwan authorities selected athletes from among the aborigines.
Yang Chuanguang
Yang Chuanguang (1933-2007), an ethnic Taiwanese Ami, was a silver medalist in the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, the first Olympic medal in Chinese Taipei, and once broke the world record
The unique culture they possess and the culture of the civilized world are presented in very different ways, such as tattoos, that is, tattoos on the face, marking adulthood and achievement, which are a sign of a family; there are some customs that look barbaric, such as grass, that is, head hunting, cutting off the heads of enemies and holding a celebration ceremony.
Indigenous people wearing ethnic costumes and tattoos
Image source: Taiwan Aboriginal Digital Museum
For both Han and Japanese, this kind of folklore is a ritualized act that goes beyond the experience of life, and it is difficult to fully accept it, both psychologically and morally. Therefore, during the Japanese colonial period, the Japanese Governor's Office proposed a ban on some indigenous customs, especially folk customs such as Izumi, which is based on killing.
Out of the grass for the Japanese to see
The movie "Sidekbar" clearly depicts the state of aboriginal life and the relationship with the Han and Japanese people, and interested friends can watch it
"Sidekbarre"
Alin, Zhang Zhenyue, Luo Zhixiang, and Xiao Jingteng are all indigenous peoples of Taiwan
People from this province
Taiwan is part of Fujian Province, half zhangzhou and half spring. Half of the Cantonese live. - "The Lamentation of Watanabe"
This is a poem describing the hard work of han Chinese who came to Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty. In just three sentences, the two ethnic groups that immigrated to Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty are told : Minnan-speaking Minnan from Zhangzhou/Quanzhou and Hakka-speaking Hakka from Guangdong. The two are combined and collectively referred to as the people of this province.
But they were not the first Han Chinese to go to the island, in fact, the Han people have a long history of reclaiming Taiwan, as early as the Dutch colonial period, there were Han Chinese settlement. Dutch colonists hired them to serve themselves, but excessive oppression led to a rebellion by Guo Huai in 1652. The Han uprising was eventually brutally suppressed and ended in failure.
Portrait of Zheng Chenggong
Zheng Chenggong's father, Zheng Zhilong, was a native of Nan'an, Quanzhou, Fujian Province
Image source: National Taiwan Museum
Later, Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan, popularized education for the people, and actively promoted Confucianism. The Zheng regime established Taiwan's first Confucius Temple in the capital City of Chengtianfu (present-day Tainan), and children who reached the age of eight were required to enroll in school to study the history of Han Chinese literature, which was a great contribution to the opening of the Taiwanese people's wisdom.
In addition, because the productivity of the island was still not high at that time, the Zheng group was stationed and actively cultivated grain, such as Zuoying, Xinying, Qianzhen and many other place names came from this way.
Tainan Confucius Temple, the first Confucius Temple in Taiwan
Image source: Tainan Municipal Government Tourism Bureau
However, by this time, only a small number of Han Chinese were active in Taiwan, after all, the entire population of Taiwan in the 1680s was only 200,000. Cheng's development of Taiwan was limited to a little southwest. The Han controlled areas similar to today's Tainan, and a large number of emigrations began in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.
Zheng Chenggong's regime actually ruled the region
It can be known that the exploration of Taiwan at that time was still in its infancy
Taiwan gradually became rich under the reclamation of advanced agricultural techniques of the Han Chinese, which also led to more coastal Minnan and Hakka people migrating to Taiwan. In just 200 years from the end of the 17th century to the defeat of the Qing government and the cession of Taiwan, Taiwan's population rose from 200,000 to nearly 3 million.
The exploding population forced the Han to leave their familiar hometown in Tainan and gradually move north, bypassing the central mountains and further south, taking two hundred years to make a trip around the island. The trip wasn't just a trip, but a seismic shift for Taiwan. The most important thing is to complete the self-sufficiency of agriculture, which can also be exported, of which camphor, sugar and tea are well-known in the world.
1685, 1734, 1875 Administrative Division of Taiwan
We can see the process of our ancestors' exploration of Taiwan
The people of this province brought Hokkien dialect and Hakka dialect to The island of Taiwan, and many place names are named by Fujian people, revealing a strong Hokkien flavor. They copied everything about their hometown on this land: for example, the Han chinese believed in Taoism or Buddhism, so there were more than 10,000 Buddhist temples all over Taiwan; the hometown cuisine of the Fujian people was also brought here, such as marinated meat rice, chicken rice, oyster fried...
The famous Beigang Chaotian Temple, the famous Mazu Temple
Provincials
Here! You said that Futian Village is shuiwei again
The dirt of the homeland is within reach
But what I caught back was still a cold mist
— Love, "Border Looking"
This is the tragedy of the times, when millions of people came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek with the mood of "one year of preparation, two years of counter-offensive, three years of sweeping, and five years of success", but they were ridiculed by the years and became orphans who could not return to their hometown. This group of people is called provincials.
I don't know when I'll be able to go home
Compared with the relatively single Fujian ethnic group belonging to the Fujian people in this province, the source of people from other provinces is much more complicated. They come from all over The World in China, and their professions are varied, including soldiers, civil servants, teachers, scholars, and so on. The arrival of this group of people has created many social problems for Taiwan to be solved.
Poster of the Taiwanese drama "The Story of Time"
It tells the story of the village in the 60s and is the epitome of Taiwan's village culture
At that time, there were 2 million people from other provinces in Taiwan, but only 6 million people in this province at that time, and 1/4 of the island's population was foreign. Housing is the primary issue, and for this reason the Taiwan authorities have built many houses, among which the "dependent villages" built by the military are the most distinctive. This kind of residential area is based on the characteristics of the military, occupation, etc., so that soldiers and their families are grouped together in a certain range.
A lot of important infrastructure in Taiwan
All depend on the efforts of these soldiers
Because of the harsh living conditions in the early days, the neighbors supported each other to tide over the difficulties, so the village has a strong centripetal force, and over time, a distinctive "village culture" has been formed. For veterans, the village is not only a residence, but also the spiritual dependence of the veterans who have been wandering in Taiwan for decades, the village is their everything, and the village is their home.
Sisi South Village, Taiwan's first dependent village
Image source: Taiwan's "Ministry of Culture" Taiwan In-depth Tour website
According to statistics, there are about 886 dependent villages in Taiwan at the most, and they are distributed in various cities in Taiwan. But now, because of the old houses, urban construction and other issues, the village has been slowly demolished, and the culture of the village has slowly disappeared. At present, only a part of the village is preserved as a cultural heritage, documenting that time.
Qingshui Village Cultural Camp
Image source: Taichung Tourism Network
Another problem that foreigners bring to Taiwan is the issue of cultural integration and language exchange.
Before 1945, because of the Japanese colonial relationship, the official language of Taiwan was Japanese, and the folk generally spoke Hokkien (known as Taiwanese by Taiwanese), Hakka or Aboriginal languages. Provincials speak the dialects of the provinces. So much so that the people of this province and the people of other provinces, and even those from other provinces, cannot communicate well. Therefore, it is very important to promote Chinese.
After 1949, the Taiwan authorities decided to popularize Chinese throughout Taiwan. In the following decades, school classes were Chinese and Taiwanese was banned. The use of Taiwanese was also banned in the broadcast of movies and television dramas and official occasions (some changes have been made to protect the Hokkien language, etc.). Under this kind of education, Chinese gradually replaced Hokkien as the mainstream language of society and family.
Chinese daily and Chinese weekly magazines used to promote Chinese
The kanji is next to it with Taiwanese phonetic symbols
But even with Chinese environment and being able to communicate with locals, veterans still miss their hometown day and night, and they also miss the food of their hometown.
Based on the taste of their hometown in their memories, the veterans improved their work and created a new Taiwanese specialty. Representative noodles such as Taiwanese beef noodles are modified by Sichuan veterans based on the Chengdu snack "small bowl of red soup beef". Then there is the well-known Yonghe soybean milk, which was founded by people from other provinces in North China and then spread throughout Taiwan. Others include pasta that the Minnan Hakka people don't often eat, including dumpling buns, which are now also popular in Taiwan.
Taiwanese beef noodles
But with the passage of time, the provincial people on the island of Taiwan who miss their hometown are gradually aging or even passing away. Their influence on Taiwanese society by their nostalgia for their homeland on the mainland is also gradually declining. However, their wish is also the wish of all Chinese, and people are deeply looking forward to the peaceful reunification of the two sides of the strait at an early date and moving toward tomorrow together.
END