Sat, Aug 20, 2005 page8

• Editorial: `Hen Tai' is a badge of pride

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  Local language activists Thursday protested against what they called the "defamatory implications" of the expression hen Tai (很台, "you are very Tai [Taiwanese]"). Their bone of contention was that Tai in this context is associated with being low-class, unsophisticated and something of a bumpkin. On this point, the activists themselves are somewhat behind the times. Already, as was reported in this newspaper some weeks ago, "roots" oriented figures in the arts, such as Wu Bai, have been subverting the term, claiming that hen Tai is a badge of authenticity that any Taiwanese should wear with pride.

  Their attitude is reminiscent of that prevailing in Australia in the 1970s, a country that was finding its own sense of identity after genuflecting towards Britain during the interminable Menzies premiership. This was the era of the "colonial cringe," a feeling of self-doubt in the face of the perceived greater sophistication of the "mother" country. What happened in the 1970s and 1980s was a reorientation of priorities among Australians in which distance from the mother country became regarded as an asset. Australia was far less class-bound than Britain; a place where, as the Australian critic Clive James said, you could make a point in an argument with equal force by quoting Plato or pissing on the floor. The "colonial cringe" was the product of a bitter history of discrimination going back to Australia's days as a penal colony and being taken for granted. But Australians used the stigma that went with being a "colonial" to redefine what being an Australian was all about; to create a new criteria of authenticity.

  Something of the same is happening here in Taiwan. The problem is that the 1970s Australians could see no virtue in being a "colonial" in the eyes of a mother country that had shrunk from being the world's greatest empire to an IMF basketcase. Here in Taiwan, the inculcation of pride in a distinct Taiwanese heritage has to run in the face of a rising China to which so many opportunists want to tether their own balloons.

  There is also a bitter history behind the hen Tai epithet. This is not just the events of 1947, nor the White Terror (which also affected Mainlanders). Part of that history is shown by the work of the economist Luo Ming-ching (駱明慶) who examined census data from the Martial Law era when enrollment to universities was tightly controlled, to discover that in that period Mainlanders were three times more likely to be admitted to universities than Taiwanese; generations of Taiwanese were deliberately denied educational opportunities by the Mainlander ascendancy. And it is a well-known fact that the Mainlanders, having a lockhold on the civil service, kept it almost entirely in their own hands -- even now Taiwanese are greatly under-represented. Most of the population has been discriminated against in education, and denied the kind of work that would allow them to enjoy the "sophisticated" and "cultured" life of the metropolis. The phrase hen Tai really means something like "kicked around by foreigners -- Chinese -- and denied education and other opportunities for self-betterment."

  Any time the phrase is used it should draw attention to iniquities for which no government has provided redress. Hen Tai should be a call to arms. Imagine an Englishman calling an Irishman "very Irish" with a patronizing sneer. Of course there's nothing wrong with being called Irish, but there is by a certain type of Englishman, who'd probably be punched in the mouth. If only more Taiwanese could respond so robustly.
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