With the recent change of Chunghwa Post Co to Taiwan Post Co, a very interesting topic has re-emerged on the issue of group identity in Taiwan -- namely, should the people living here, along with the nation's institutions, be identified as Chinese or Taiwanese?
On the one hand, we have a political party that seeks to follow a project rooted in recent historical memory, a Republican Chinese one. On the other hand, we have a party that promotes a pro-Taiwan nation-state.
Political parties tell us that these are our options: Either you are Taiwanese and prefer public institution names reflecting that reality (eg, Taiwan Post) or you are Chinese and thus, your preference is for Chunghwa Post.
This idea that Taiwan's identity is either one or the other is too simplistic, only benefiting political agendas. Put another away, ethnographic work suggests that identity in Taiwan is a marriage of cultures, ways and beliefs that forged a very complex group identity. This is even more acute among the younger generation.
Interviews with the young Chinese-Taiwanese generation, brought up from post 1949 Chinese families, do not, in general, share a common bond, mode of thinking or value-set with their mainland counterparts. Young Chinese-Taiwanese who visit China can confirm this.
Interviews with young Taiwanese, whose families have lived in Taiwan for much longer, reveal that they do not see themselves differently than young Chinese-Taiwanese. In general, both groups have a common aspirations, value-set and belief structure that stems from their shared experience of living and growing up entirely in Taiwan. The young generation does not have the host-home syndrome that older generations experienced -- which is reflected by both parties' constant positioning in the political process.
For the young generation, the shared experiences of being born, educated and living in Taiwan shapes their understanding of their world. It is what shapes their common group identity.
When interviewing older versus young generations about the potential for shifting institutional names from Chunghwa to Taiwan, the young generation more readily accepts this change. They do so, however, not because they prefer being Taiwanese to being Chinese, but simply because they see themselves as distinct, unique and different from this simplistic comparison.
Reza Hasmath is based at the University of Cambridge. He is a visiting scholar at Academia Sinica.
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has its chairperson election tomorrow. Although the party has long positioned itself as “China friendly,” the election is overshadowed by “an overwhelming wave of Chinese intervention.” The six candidates vying for the chair are former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), former lawmaker Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文), Legislator Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強), Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), former National Assembly representative Tsai Chih-hong (蔡志弘) and former Changhua County comissioner Zhuo Bo-yuan (卓伯源). While Cheng and Hau are front-runners in different surveys, Hau has complained of an online defamation campaign against him coming from accounts with foreign IP addresses,
When Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced the implementation of a new “quiet carriage” policy across all train cars on Sept. 22, I — a classroom teacher who frequently takes the high-speed rail — was filled with anticipation. The days of passengers videoconferencing as if there were no one else on the train, playing videos at full volume or speaking loudly without regard for others finally seemed numbered. However, this battle for silence was lost after less than one month. Faced with emotional guilt from infants and anxious parents, THSRC caved and retreated. However, official high-speed rail data have long
RSS