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Johnny Neihu's Mailbag

Saturday, Jan 20, 2007, Page 8

Brainwashing and caffeine

Dear Johnny,
I read with great interest your response to Arthur Waldron on "mainland China" still defining Taiwanese politics (Johnny Neihu's Mailbag, Dec. 23, page 8). I have been a student of Chinese and Taiwanese history for years and wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject. I found your response to be spot on.

However, I think one important point was overlooked. It is my belief that the "red-herring pro-China/anti-China opposition" has deeper ramifications than just differences of opinion.

One of the chief issues facing Taiwanese today is the lack of a Taiwanese national identity. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has waged a cultural war since the 1940s against any such concept, marginalizing Taiwanese thought and trying to assimilate them into "Chinese society."

I have many Taiwanese friends here in Seattle; we meet often over coffee and in our Taiwan clubs. I have asked them the question: "Are you Taiwanese or Chinese?" Often they will become completely confused and flummoxed.

They usually give me what I call the "shackled" response: "I am both Taiwanese and Chinese." This is a response resulting from years of brainwashing the KMT has waged against Taiwanese society.

You are correct in saying that there is no more effective way of essentializing Taiwanese than portraying them as one-issue voters, and this has been accomplished through cultural brainwashing such that some today are embarrassed to say they are Taiwanese.

Taiwanese will never have a chance of controlling their political and cultural future until they overcome this bias towards them as a society. If you look at the Chinese as an occupying entity who brutally ravaged the local population, then you begin to understand the difficulty facing the Taiwanese who desire to control their own fate. I have seen signs that this issue is beginning to reverse itself, but until then the KMT will maintain a stranglehold culturally and politically over their Taiwanese "subjects."
Sam Small

Johnny replies: Points taken, though I'm sure you would agree that Seattle's expatriate Taiwanese who join clubs and drink coffee may not be representative of Taiwanese at home or abroad. For example, you haven't accounted for the ethnic status of your Taiwanese friends. Dare I say a chunk of them are Mainlanders? It doesn't pigeon-hole people to say that an overwhelming proportion of Mainlanders vote for a party that wants Taiwan under the control of "China." This is mostly because Mainlanders have China in their immediate family histories, and "brainwashing" by the KMT does not account for this devotion. I put it to you that Mainlander offspring were and are much more influenced by their families than the former party-state.

In my experience overseas Taiwanese are rather clear about their distinctiveness. Maybe your friends have been drinking too much bad coffee and their brains are muddled. Or maybe they haven't been subjected to enough smug lectures by know-it-all Chinese youngsters who have the "Taiwan problem" all figured out. I hear there's a cabal of Taiwanese independence fanatics in Ohio; I bet they'd be willing to deprogram your friends -- and for free.

CBC fiddles as 101 burns

Dear Johnny,
You were bang on with your criticism of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC, "Get some hubbub in your hotpot," Jan. 6, page 8). To a Canadian living in Taiwan, the CBC's reportage of Taiwan and Asian affairs is grossly incompetent and embarrassing.

For example, New Years Eve coverage showed the fireworks over Taipei 101, but the video was labeled as coming from Hong Kong. This really pissed me off. The CBC, a public broadcaster, has faced funding cutbacks in recent times. This has increased the playing of cheap fiddle music and lazy journalism, both of which are bad to the ears.
Mike Parkes
Changhua

Johnny replies: Yet public broadcasters so often play a balancing role in terms of bringing quality to their markets (and training staff for commercial stations). Of course, this doesn't make them more knowledgeable on Taiwan. Send the CBC a scabrous e-mail, Mike, and remind 'em that the Hongkies have much better fireworks.
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