Organizer: Sylvia Li-chun Lin, University of California, Berkeley
Chair: James Stanlaw, Illinois State University
Discussant: Shu-mei Shih, University of California, Los Angeles
On July 15, 1987, the Nationalist government in Taiwan lifted the martial law that was first imposed in 1947, thus ending forty years of totalitarian rule and suppression of dissent. The relaxation of censorship released an unprecedented discursive energy in Taiwan that greatly impacted the interpretation of the linguistic situation, cultural heritage, and political history. Not only was the political goal of recovering Mainland China abandoned, but the notion of Taiwanese-ness and Chinese-ness was questioned, explored and reinvented. The political implication of the lifting of martial law has been well documented and examined by scholars in Taiwan and the United States. However, cultural productions following the lifting of martial law have yet to be explored. Moreover, amid this resurgence of Taiwanese consciousness, the status of the Yuanzhuming (Aboriginals) has largely been ignored. Therefore, the issues of Taiwanese identity need to be readdressed from different, multiple perspectives.
Focusing on different media, this panel engages scholars from Taiwan and the United States to investigate the politics and problems of identity representation in post-martial law Taiwan. On the one hand, scholars on this panel question the over-emphasized cultural and political ties between Taiwan and Mainland China, a byproduct of the martial-law era. On the other hand, panelists also expose an increasing degree of Taiwanese speakers' domination over other ethnic and linguistic groups; they identify counter-hegemonic endeavors made by scholars, musicians, filmmakers and writers to search for a multicultural Taiwan. Hsien-hao Sebastian Liao investigates the identity crisis of the second-generation Mainland (wai-sheng) writers and their strategies to resolve the dilemma of double identity. Sylvia Li-chun Lin studies two Taiwanese musical groups' tactics of representing multilingual Taiwan. Wenchi Lin focuses on the cinematic representation and questioning of images of China. Last, Yu-chun Ku's paper on the Ah-mei Aboriginal breaks new ground in Taiwan's identity discourse by bringing minority voices into the discourse of what it means to be Taiwanese in this multilingual and multicultural society. Scholars on this panel hope their research will make contributions not only to the understanding of post-martial law Taiwan in particular but also to the study of multicultural and multilingual societies in general.
The China That Is No Longer China: The Dilemma of the Second Generation of Wai-sheng
Writers in Taiwan
Hsien-hao Sebastian Liao, National Taiwan University
The mainlanders who immigrated to Taiwan around the year 1949 and their descendants have often been referred to by Taiwanese locals as "non-Taiwanese" or wai-sheng, meaning, among other things, they "come" from other provinces. In recent years, as the Taiwan independence movement gains momentum, however, wai-sheng has gradually taken on the meaning of being "Chinese," as opposed to being Taiwanese, in the eyes of pro-independence Taiwanese. The identity confusion in Taiwan has had a long history. But the Taiwan independence movement, which began as an anti-colonialist discourse aimed at reconstructing a Taiwanese identity, has aggravated this confusion as it gradually takes on a hegemony-minded neo-colonialist dimension, one which coercively re-maps Taiwan into two ideological territories: on the one hand, those who support or are sympathetic toward Taiwan independence; on the other, those who are suspicious of this movement because of, among others, its exclusionist rhetoric. Drawn often, though not always, between Taiwanese locals and the wai-sheng, this imaginary boundary has greatly distressed the latter, especially its Taiwan-born generation.
To cope with this identity crisis, writers who belong to the second generation of the wai-sheng, and who more often than not consider themselves "Taiwanese," develop different strategies in their works. This paper intends to examine these strategies with a view toward seeing how they reflect an urgent crisis for Taiwan, and to look beyond this crisis for a blueprint, if possible, for re-integration. Five writers are chosen for our discussion. They respectively represent five typical attitudes toward this issue: an active identification with the history of Taiwan, the advocating of a multiculturalist conception of identity, the deconstructing of the Han chauvinist conception of identity, the ridiculing of all talk of identity, and an elusive play with identity. What underlies all these strategies, however, is a sense of alienation, which measures the profundity of this crisis and at the same time also serves as a new starting point for thinking about the issue of being "Taiwanese," as well as "Chinese."
Toward a New Identity: Nativism and Popular Music in Post-Martial Law Taiwan
Sylvia Li-chun Lin, University of California, Berkeley
This paper investigates Taiwan's search for a new cultural identity in the post-martial law era and the tactics of identity representation in popular music. I will study the various ways of searching for identity employed by two Taiwanese musical groups-Blacklist Studio and the New Formosa Entertainment Troupe-and their critique of the discourse of identity circulated in Taiwan after the lifting of martial law. I will also discuss some of the problems that arise from their tactics of identity representation.
One of most conspicuous facets derived from changes in the political environment is the development of "new Taiwanese music." Musical groups such as Blacklist Studio mix several languages-Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, and English-to portray multilingual Taiwan as the new native Taiwanese consciousness while criticizing the political and social situations in Taiwan. The New Formosa Entertainment Troupe challenges the hegemonic status of Mandarin Chinese (guo yu, national language) by referring to it as Bejinghua (the "Beijing dialect"). New Formosa also incorporates musical traditions and languages from different cultural groups in Taiwan-Southern Min, Hakka, Mainland Chinese, and the Yuanzhumin (the Taiwanese Aboriginals).
While looking for ways to better represent a new Taiwanese identity, both groups also implicitly and explicitly criticize the Taiwanese intellectuals' narcissist indulgence in Taiwan's discursive search for identity. For instance, Blacklist Studio highlights the existence of the Taiwanese Aboriginals as a way to return to "simple" and "essential" Taiwanese-ness. However, their attempt can be described as "naiveté" at best, or outright romanticizing appropriation at worst, which clearly underscores the complexity of identity politics in Taiwan.
The Sign of "China" in Taiwanese Historical Films of the Post-Martial
Law Era
Wen-chi Lin, National Central University, Taiwan
Nation is a system of signs whose signifieds have to be constantly supplemented by pedagogical and cultural discourses. Taiwan's "Chinese" identity is similarly constructed through a sign-system full of contradictions. In the past this system was sustained successfully owing to the workings of the KMT's (the Nationalist Party) powerful state apparatuses. Taiwan cinema has played an important role in perpetuating this sign-system (e.g., the military films and "healthily realistic films"). Hou Hsiao-hsien's A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1985) is perhaps the first to ostensibly question this system through its depiction of the "homeland" as forever lost. The lift of martial law in 1987 significantly accelerated what Gayatri Spivak calls "a functional change of sign system" in Taiwan. Signs used to signify Taiwan's essential Chineseness, such as Mandarin, Confucianism, Chinese food, Chinese Kong-fu, and arts, begin to appear either as part of "Taiwaneseness" or become anachronistic.
Sheng-chuan Lai's second film, Fei Xia Ah Da (1994) is a very good example to illustrate this change of sign-system. The film depicts a young man's obsession with Qing-gong, a form of Chinese martial arts. Although the young man in the end does fly into the dirty sky of Taipei, his Qing-gong is still depicted as a naive and unpractical dream. My paper intends to argue that as a national allegory, the film makes fun of Taiwan's insistence on its Chinese identity.
The Ah-mei: A Challenge to "Taiwanese" Identity
Yu-chun Ku, Dong Hwa University, Taiwan
In the rhetoric of Mainland Chinese/local Taiwanese discourse of identity, a forgotten voice is that of the so-called Taiwan "aboriginals." Numbering more than 300,000 people, in eight "tribes," these original inhabitants of the island have always been relegated to second class status. In this paper I will describe some of my work in the past year with the Ah-mei group in a government-sponsored community development project. I will propose a model of how local cultural identity might be maintained and supported while realistically being involved with mainstream society.
Scholars, government workers, and even aboriginal people themselves, often believe that there are only two choices open to marginal cultures when faced with an ever-encroaching dominant culture. One choice is complete social assimilation. Advocates of this position often point to the poor living conditions, and the great number of single-parent aboriginal families, to show that their traditional cultural ways are no longer viable in the modern economy of the Taiwan "miracle." Others support complete rejection of mainstream ways, even going so far as to advocate the creation and adoption of indigenous writing systems to maintain Ah-mei cultural heritage and control of the transmission of their own cultural "product." I argue that neither extreme position will offer benefits to anyone. I suggest that the government, the mainstream citizens, and the aboriginals all cooperate to keep critical aspects of the local culture alive at all costs, while not making unrealistic expectations of keeping a "pristine" untouched society. The challenge that such a proposal makes is that now the discussion of what it means to be a Taiwanese becomes much more complicated, with at least three voices contending to be heard.