Looking back

At pedestrian crossings in and around Taipei, there are ‘Little Green Men’ to greet you. When the light is green, a little man starts walking, and above it a clock counts down the seconds you have to cross the road. Towards the last fie seconds, the man starts to hurry, and starts to run. Eventually, he comes to a stop and turns red. This is when people are supposed to stop too.

I was in central Taipei today. Needed to upgrade the laptop I took with me, and also pick up something for my parents. I took the MRT (metro), which goes straight to Taipei Main Station within 15minutes. The scenery was the same as I remembered it, same as in any great big city. People minding their own business, many grey sad-looking faces, as people rush in and out of the train. Announcements are made in three of the main languages of Taiwan, Mandarin Chinese (guo2 yu3 國語 ‘country language), Taiwanese (tai2 yu3台話 ‘Taiwan tongue), and Hakka (ke4 jia yu3客家話 ‘guest family tongue’). And for the foreigners, English too. Though small, the people and cultures of this country is a rare blend, and each ethnic and cultural group thrives alongside one another. Or at least, this is so now.

Once I upgraded the laptop, I had to go to a street famous for its ‘collecting gifts’. Stock owners can collect gifts from the companies. These gifts can range from more shares, to electric shavers, ovens, handbags and pens. Gift-giving is an integral part of the culture. And to attract customers, companies need to give attractive gifts. When I arrived, the whole street was lined with people queing to exchange vouchers for gifts.

In Taiwan, ownership of shares is one of the highest per capita in the world. New-found wealth in the heydays of the 1980s and 1990s when the economy grew at an average of 9% and the quite equal distribution of incomes meant that people had money to spare. And spare money was usually invested in the stock market. Anyone with a bank account to do this. All you have to do is go to one of the many securities exchange bureaus (證券交易所) around the island, and buy/sell whatever and however much you want. These bureaus are big air-conditioned offices, with rows and rows of monitors, tracking and analysing the movements all registered companies on the Taiwan Weighted Index (TAIEX). Daily transactions are usually hundreds of billions of Taiwan dollars (€1= NT$38 / US$1 =NT$34). There are also foreign investors pouring in as well. It’s big business here, and some do it as a full-time profession. Often, middle-aged people sit in the cool bureaus and doze off in front of the screens. By their expression, you can tell whether the stock market has been doing well that day. They may look old, but their minds are clear. They must be. Some people can win millions within hours. But, the risk is also loosing millions or more in the same period of time

After that I went to the part near by, and was drawn toward the National Taiwan Museum (臺灣博物館). I had read about the exhibition ‘Taiwan in Maps’ sometime before. It’s been years since I last came here. Last time, I remember an old, damp and run-down museum, and before it was called the ‘Provincial Museum of Taiwan’ (省立臺灣博物館).

The change of name is significant here, and follows the change of the political climate. Taiwan only became a democracy in 1986. For years, Taiwan was under the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石) after he fled to the island in 1949, together with his Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party國民黨). The arrival of the Chinese meant a 40 year Martial Law (戒嚴), a measure Chiang and his cronies imposed and labelled as the ‘Temporary Provisions of Effective During Period of National Mobilisation for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion’ (動員戡亂時期臨時條款). By ‘Communist Rebellion’, they meant the takeover of mainland China by Mao Zedong and the Communists. Chiang wanted to use Taiwan as a springboard to retake the Chinese Mainland, if need be with American support. To do this, the militarization of society and people was necessary, while absolute rule, the suspension of the democratic process and civil obedience was key. For decades, Taiwanese people and culture were repressed, and treated as second-class citizens in their own country by the Nationalist Chinese regime. The KMT hoped (and still hopes) to one day return to China, so its policies and propaganda was focused on fulfilling its ideology and ambitions. By the early 1990s, Martial Law was lifted. The government finally realised that it was impossible to ever ‘retake’ China, so liberalised and democratised. The first ever Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-Hui (李登輝) was appointed in 1992, re-elected in 1996. In 2000, for the first time ever, a peaceful transition of power took place as the long-time opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DDP, 民進黨) came to office, with President Chen Shui-Bian (陳水扁) at the helm. He was re-elected in 2004.

Ever since the DDP government took power, it has been insistent on reviving Taiwanese culture and identity. Indeed, most of its supporters are those who support an independent Taiwan. Through education, political, media, business reforms Taiwanese identity is reasserting itself and manifesting itself in all walks of life. Speaking Taiwanese, for a long time forbidden and liable to a fine, is now really ‘in’. it means more than a language, but has become associated with identifying with this island as your home and motherland. But then, as anywhere, identity and cultural politics is not without its dangers.

The exhibition at the museum was appropriate, in the sense that it was an attempt to rectify the past, and to be more assertive about being ‘Taiwanese’. What does it mean to be ‘Taiwanese’? Ironically, the display ‘Taiwan in Maps’ is called ‘Are you lost?’ (你迷路了嗎？) Maps can help you find the way. But the exhibition displays maps of the island from the early 16th Century, from the Manchu Dynasty, from the Japanese period, from the KMT dictatorship, to today. Tracing maps through time, I think the message is to be more at home.

It was fascinating to see. There were maps from when Europeans sailors first chartered the waters around here. Thanks to the Portuguese sailors, Taiwan was discovered by the 1550s, and named Ilha Formosa (Beautiful Island, 福爾摩沙). By the 1720s, Taiwan’s position has a trade post was enhanced. The Dutch had settled in Southern Formosa, near today’s Anping (安平), and built Fort Zeelandia, on a little sandbank the locals called Tayouan (台灣 ‘terrace bent’). This little sandbank was crooked, and much higher than the sea and land around it, hence the name; a name which would later become the island’s. The Spanish settled in the north, near today’s Tamshui (淡水), and built Fort Domingo (known as ‘Red Hair City’, after the foreigners who apparently were red-haired, 紅毛城). They interacted with the Formosan Aborigines, co-opted chiefs to exploit the land and labour. Sugar cane was imported to be locally cultivated, while deer skin of the Formosan Deer (梅花鹿 ‘plum blossom deer’, named after the unique patterns on the hide) was exported elsewhere. Slaves from the Southern China were imported to work for the European powers. Before Europeans arrived, the island was divided among 20 different tribes. Those who lived in the great plains of the west were known as the Pingpu (平浦) aborigines, totalling around 10 in total (eg. the Ketagalan, the Taokas, the Pazeh). Others lived in the mountains in the central (eg. the Bunun, the Atayal tribes), southern (eg. the Rukai, the Paiwan) and eastern parts (the Amis), some lived near rivers and lakes (the Sau), while yet others lived on islands in the Pacific (the Yami). Headhunting, voodoo magic, singing and prayers for rain and harvests echoed around the island. According to the BBC, some researchers have recently found evidence that Austro-Polynesians may have one time originated from Formosan aborigines.

At the height of the Manchu Dynasty, the territories of Formosa and the Pescadores (Fisherman’s Islands, today Penghu澎湖) were incorporated into the Chinese Empire in 1684. As an island separated from the Chinese mainland, the Manchus sent its ‘ruffians’ and other petty criminals to exile together with the ‘red savages’ (紅番) and pirates that already lived on Formosa. At the same time, Chinese from the Fukien (福建) migrated across the ‘ Black Water Canal’ (Formosa Strait, 黑水溝), in search of a more hospitable and fertile land. Hakka communities from central China also settled in Taiwan, to escape from prosecution and to found a land for themselves. So, Taiwanese people do have their roots and cultural links in China. But, intermarriages between ‘ruffians’, aborigines and migrant communities have blended to produce distinct cultural background, heritage and experience. Together, vibrant communities and road connecting the south and north had developed. Interesting, Taiwan first developed in the south, around the where the Dutch first settled, and spread northward, linking the settlements and harbours around where I live now.

The Opium War against the British (1860s), and Sino-French War (1870s) forcedly opened many ports to Europeans powers once more. Traders settled in and around the northern port of Tamshui and Keelung (雞籠 ‘Chicken cage’), and exploited Formosa’s geographic position at the cross-roads of the Asia-Pacific a stopover for journeys in all directions. By then, one of the first railway networks in Asia had been built, and an electricity and telegraph lines were laid down. The Americans, late in the colonial race, actually offered to buy Formosa.

The Japanese gained control of the islands in 1895, as a result of Sino-Japanese War. It became a colony for fifty years, and in those years industry flourished. Mining of the island’s gold, coal, copper, marble oil and natural gas began, while redwood, plums, mustard seeds (for wasabi), all sorts of teas and rice were exported back to Japan. At one time, Formosa produced 70% of the world’s camphor oil (樟腦油), necessary at the time for manufacturing explosives and ointments. As the first overseas possession of Japan, it wanted to use Formosa as a model for others to see that it was a ‘benign’ colonist. The Japanese laid down much of the modern infrastructure which would later form the foundations of the Taiwan ‘economic miracle’.

While I was walking around the museum, a group of school children were on a field trip. I looked at them and thought how so many things have changed in the past years. It would be unthinkable a decade or so ago to speak of wanting to know Taiwan, wanting to speak the language, to be identified as Taiwanese. My parents and many others grew up with KMT/Chinese indoctrination, lies and myths, with schoolbooks which taught about the history, people and geography of China, but nothing about Taiwan. Isn’t it strange to be living somewhere, but not know anything about your home? Now, there’s change, there’s progress. And it’s signs like this which show that there is hope.

Whether I am lost? I seem to have found my roots in the museum.