A Glance of Taiwan's Past

Adaptations of Taiwanese Culture
Alan T. Chen
陳清風

The ancient island of Taiwan was known to the West as “Ilha Formosa”, the Beautiful Island, a name given by Portuguese sailors in 1544. The Portuguese were just sailing through the Dark Current Course (黑水溝) of the Taiwan Straits (台灣海峽). They did not go ashore to find out what was on the Beautiful Island. They only had a glimpse of it with a monocular telescope, and they were astonished at the beauty of the western part of Taiwan.

The Portuguese brought back the news of their discovery to Europe. Hence, the name of Formosa appeared on the map of the world. The Portuguese, however, did not know that there were Austronesian Aborigines (南島語族原住民) living in Formosa for several thousand years or more since the Stone Age. According to an Australian anthropologist, professor Peter Bellwood, the characteristics of Austronesian Culture (南島語族文化), including languages, artifacts and rituals of the southern Pacific islanders and aborigines of New Zealand, can be traced back to their origin in aboriginal culture in Formosa. The Austronesian Culture was first implanted in Formosa hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the Austronesian Aboriginal Taiwanese are still living in Taiwan today.

The earliest immigrants to arrive in Taiwan were the Holo (和佬) and Hakka (客家) refugees from southern China in the 15th Century. These new settlers, with their Han culture (漢文化), first established themselves in the Pescadore Islands (澎湖群島) and then the main island of Taiwan, from the south to the north. The high seas surrounding Taiwan were ruled by pirates/traders from China and Japan. Occasionally, they would step ashore to seek supplies and resources from the island for short periods of time and then leave.

There was no government on Taiwan; all ethnic communities lived independently of one another, with the exception of an occasional cultural encounter. So it was until 1624, when the “Red-haired Barbarians,” the Dutch, invaded southern Taiwan and established a regime to colonize the island. The European style castles, Fort Zeelandia and Fort Provintia, were built by the Dutch to conduct and protect colonial trading in Taiwan. The major trading items were deer skins, camphor, sugar and tea.

There were ten distinct aboriginal tribes on the plains and the hills and nine more on mountain areas of the island. Most other people came to Taiwan as sojourners. The native people revolted several times against the Dutch with no success.

Meanwhile, the Spanish began its occupation of northern Taiwan in 1626 and built a fort called San Diego (三貂角). The Dutch, not wanting the Spanish aggressors as
rivals, eventually expelled the Spanish from northern Taiwan by force in 1642.

From the beginning of Taiwanese history in the 16th century until the end of Dutch rule in 1662, there were several cultures mingling on the island:
1. Austronesian aboriginal culture,
2. Chinese Holo and Hakka Han culture,
3. Japanese samurai culture, and
4. Dutch and Spanish European culture.

One of the most significant events regarding cultural progress during that period was led by a Dutch minister, Georgius Candidius, who taught Sinkan (新港) aborigines to write their spoken language by using Romanized letters. He also educated them and introduced to them a totally different culture, thus the birth of Sinkan culture (新港文化).

Taiwan remained an important international trading post during this period. The Dutch introduced Christianity and its related culture into Taiwan. On the other side of the Taiwan Straits, the political upheavals in China changed the history of Taiwan.

In 1626, the Manchus (滿州人) conquered China and established the Chin Dynasty (清朝). Koxinga (鄭成功), fighting on behalf of the remaining exiled Ming Dynasty (明朝) royals, defeated and expelled the Dutch from the island in 1658. Koxinga and two generations of his descendents ruled Taiwan for 25 years from the Provintia castle built by the Dutch. Koxinga brought with him the old Chinese culture to the island. However, Koxinga never achieved his aim of recovering China from the Chin Dynasty for the Ming Dynasty royals. China then prohibited for some two hundred years any sea traffic across the Taiwan Straits.

The Manchus eventually took control of Taiwan in 1684. In addition to the corrupt Chin Dynasty officials, Taiwanese society during this period was ruled and divided by different fighting clans. There were numerous uprisings against the Manchus, and classified conflicts (分類械鬥) often occurred among the people. The Chin Dynasty treated the Taiwanese as savage people (化外之民) and therefore ruled the island loosely. If there had not been any foreign powers (列強) from the West threatening the Manchus, Taiwan would not have become a province of China in 1884. But it was too little, too late for them to govern Taiwan effectively. In 1895, the Japanese defeated the Manchus and took over Taiwan. The Japanese colonial rule enabled Taiwanese to shakedown the old backward Chinese culture and propelled Taiwan into the modern world.

For fifty years, from 1895 to 1945, Taiwan was cut off completely from China. The Japanese brought tremendous modernization to the island. Although the Japanese colonial rule was at times cruel, the Taiwanese had become more self-confident under the influence of Japanese culture, which was more civilized, constructive and modernized than the old backward and corrupt Chinese culture.

When World War II ended in 1945, so also ended the Japanese rule on Taiwan. Although the Nationalist Chinese, also known as KMT (國民黨), took over Taiwan with the support of the United Nations, the international community left the status of Taiwan undetermined. This fact was clearly stated in the San Francisco Peace Treaty (舊金山和約) signed in 1951 between the Japanese and the allied forces, including China. The treaty took into consideration the desire of the people residing on the island.

Despite the thirty eight long years of martial law imposed by the ruling KMT, the massacre of the 228 Incident (二二八事件), the era of White Terror (白色恐怖) and the Formosan Incident (美麗島事件), the Taiwanese people transformed themselves into a prosperous society with a democratic way of life in the last decade of the 20th century. This was due mainly to the Taiwanese adaptations of their multicultural roots into their society during the past 400 years.

In conclusion, contemporary Taiwanese culture is democratic, flexible, and broad-minded, and has its roots in Austronesian culture, old Dutch and Spanish cultures, old Chinese culture, modern Japanese culture and, most recently, Western culture.

The new Chinese culture, after the takeover of China by Mao Tze Dong (毛澤東) in 1949, has no place in Taiwan, mainly because democratic Taiwan and Communist China are such different countries. The differences between Taiwanese and Chinese cultures today can be distinguished by linguistic aspects, religious beliefs, political systems, social structure, art forms, the characteristics of their peoples, etc.

Taiwanese culture in fact is relatively more intricate, because the people on Taiwan who conceived and developed the culture have over four hundred years of more sorrowful and less joyful history now behind them.