Taiwan in Time: Feb. 8 to Feb. 14
If the Japanese hadn’t lost World War II, it is likely that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) surname would be Aoyama. And former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) would still be officially known as Iwasato Masao.
Photo courtesy of Wikicommons
Historian Shih-shan Henry Tsai (蔡石山) writes in his book, Lee Teng-hui and Taiwan’s Quest for Identity, that Lee’s father was the first one in the family to “Japanize” his name to Iwasato Tatsuo when he served as a policeman.
After the Japanese colonial government announced their policy to allow and encourage Taiwanese to Japanize their names on Feb. 11, 1940 — which was the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of Japan — Lee and his older brother had their names changed too.
“Like other Taiwanese fathers who desired to improve their family’s social and economic conditions, [Lee] decided to take Japanese names for his entire family,” Tsai writes.
This name-change policy was part of the government’s push to Japanize their colonial subjects, a direct result of the country’s imperialist policy that came to a head with its invasion of China in 1937. The goal was to eradicate Taiwanese of their identity and transform them into full Japanese citizens, who, by extension, would be willing to die for the Japanese emperor in battle (about 30,000 Taiwanese died as Japanese soldiers during World War II).
While the name change was optional and was limited to families that were already speaking Japanese and deemed to be proper “imperial subjects,” other changes were mandatory such as the regulation of local performance arts such as puppetry, banning the teaching of Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) in schools, forced conversion to Shintoism and worship and the abolishment of Chinese-language newspapers.
Historian Ho Feng-chiao (何鳳嬌) writes in an Academia Historica study that some Japanese living in Taiwan opposed the move as it would diminish their superior status and make it harder to distinguish the two groups, and as a result the name change became a policy of “encouragement” only.
Ho writes that people could pretty much choose their own new surname, but four types of surnames were banned: those relating to the Japanese imperial house, any belonging to famous Japanese historic figures, those referring to the original surname’s place of origin in China and “other improper names.”
There were a number of ways to adopt a surname, including breaking up the original surname’s Chinese character into two parts and adopting a Japanese pronunciation, using new Japanese characters to approximate the original surname’s Chinese pronunciation or adopting certain features of their environment such as rice fields, rivers and bridges.
Tsai explains how Lee became Iwasato in his book. Iwa in Japanese means rock, which Tsai says refers to the rocky terrain of Sanjhih (三芝), where the Lee clan resided. Sato is pronounced “li” in Chinese, so in a way the Lees still retained a trace of their original name.
Taiwanese were not enthusiastic about the policy, and despite numerous government incentives, by the end of 1941 only about 1 percent of the population made the change. Many who did were either prominent citizens or those who worked closely with the Japanese or in a Japanese institution, such as public servants and teachers. Like Lee’s father, many also hoped that the name change would provide better educational opportunities for their children.
By the end of 1943, only two percent had followed suit. As a result, the aforementioned restrictions were loosened in 1944, which is when Ko’s grandfather changed his name to Aoyama.
Ho writes that once the Japanese surrendered, many Taiwanese reverted to their old names even before the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) arrived to install an official reversal policy.
However, an unexpected result arose. Since all Japanese public and private property were to be confiscated by the new government, officials often couldn’t tell whether the property belonged to an actual Japanese or a Taiwanese using a Japanese name, leading to many land disputes in the early days of KMT rule.
Oct. 18 to Oct.24 To chief engineer Kinsuke Hasegawa, the completion of the Taiwan Railway Hotel was just as important as the launch of Taiwan’s first north-south railroad. Many guests — most notably Japan’s Prince Kotohito — would be coming to Taiwan for the Western Trunk Line’s inauguration ceremony on Oct 24, 1908, and it was imperative to host them at the extremely lavish new establishment. Hasegawa personally presided over its construction for the final months, which carried on day and night with over 1,200 workers toiling in shifts. They just made it — four days before the official ceremony. Designed
Yuguang Island (魚光島) is a rarity among islets. It wasn’t formed by volcanic action, by the natural accumulation of sediment or by humans dumping rocks. Like Kaohsiung’s Cijin (旗津), it was a peninsula until the authorities decided, for the sake of economic development, to sever it from “mainland” Taiwan. Back in the 17th century, at least 11 barrier islands made of mud and grit flushed out from inland Taiwan dotted the coast near Tainan. Likening them to humpbacked sea creatures, early Han settlers dubbed them kunshen (鯤鯓), and numbered them from north to south. Due to the huge amount of sediment washed
It’s not even a road yet. At the moment it is merely a hint of upturned sod off Highway 11. When I visited last week the digger was sitting there unattended for the holiday. And yet, there it was, terrifying. On the site plan the locals obtained, the road goes down to the south end of Taitung County’s Shanyuan (杉原) Beach. That beach now hosts the infamous Miramar hotel, built on land taken from aborigines by the government in 1987 and handed over to a developer to build a hotel in 2004 as a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project. The hotel became the
Hong Kong dissident artist Kacey Wong (黃國才) bounces around his spacious studio like a kid in a playground. First to a towering cardboard robot, Attack of the Red Giant, which he pulled through the streets during Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement protests in 2014. Then on to the face drawing box used to draw the portraits of protestors the same year. And finally landing on the llama on wheels, created in 2011 after the arrest of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未). “It says fuck you, but in a cute way,” Wong said, referring to his satirical artwork, born from the political unrest in
RSS