From: lulu@ucrengr.ucr.edu (david lu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan
Subject: Re: Question about TI
Date: 2 Sep 92 19:55:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: galaxy.22146
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <1992Sep2.012328.7757@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> pchang@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Pei-Yuan Chang) writes:
>
> Hi, I am not asking for arguments, I really have a question for friends
>discussing TI.  Please e-mail me if you would like to share your thoughts with 
>me.  (Please don't persuade me to support anything, no matter TI or the KMT, 
>it's not my purpose).
>
> OK, let me get this straight: I wrote a long paper this qaurter about TW
>arousing discussions on TI in the class.  I'm just curious about the following
>statement in the whole TI idea: why "mainlanders" should be kicked out of the
>island after TI?

That, I think, is the main fault of some TIers.  They will not gain
political support by excluding groups.  As a political movement, they
should try to include as many supporters as possible.  Saying that
they will kick mainlanders out of Taiwan only weakens their position.
TI will gain a lot more support if they are willing to forget the
KMT political repressions of many years ago, and concentrate on
building a future Taiwan *with* the mainlander.  As long as TIers
view mainlanders as outsiders, the mainlanders will be weary of
supporting them.

Personally, I think that as long as you like to live in Taiwan, you
should be considered Taiwanese.  Too many people emphasize on the
difference between "Chinese" and "Taiwanese."  I don't see why the
two has to be mutually exclusive.  After all, Taiwanese is a subset
of Chinese.  It's kind of like Californians are a subset of Americans.

Hmmm.  Kind of makes you wonder what would happen if CA decides to
declare independence from the USA.  :)

>Some of my friends said that it's only a kind of political appealing.  Well, I
>am not so optimistic.  Both of my parents are "mainlanders", coming to TW
>around 1949, so I am surely a "pure mainlander".  Am I?  I was born in TW and
>had lived there for over 20 years.  Shouldn't I be a Taiwanese?  I love TW and
>have no feeling for the Mainland China, so how can I be regarded as a
>mainlander (or ex-provine)?

I don't see why you (or anyone else) cannot be classified as both
Chinese *and* Taiwanese.  Again, the two should not be mutually
exclusive.

Well, my father is a mainlander and my mother is Taiwanese.  What
does that make me?  In any case, it is not *my* fault who my parents
are, so I don't see why I should be judged by them.

> The only thing makes me so "different" is my "terrible" pronunciation of
>Tiawanese (however, I can speak fluent Taiwanese while saying dirty words,ha!)
>and the time my parents came to TW,which was 200 years late than the ancestors
>of those so-called "pure Taiwanese".

Language barriers are a major cause of misunderstanding.  But given
that there are so many different Chinese dialects, I can't imagine
any well-educated person to discriminate based on someone's inability
to speak a particular tongue.  "Pure Taiwanese" should be honored that
you learned to speak their dialect.  I'm always impressed when an
American friend speaks a word or two of Chinese at me, even though
their pronounciation is just terrible.  Similarly, my Mexican friends
like it when I say something in Spanish, though I'm sure I sounded as
bad as their Chinese.

I think you'll find that most people in Taiwan now don't care much
about a person's ability to speak Taiwanese.  There are always those
who will publicly denounce a person based on his or her language for
political purposes, but as the population in Taiwan becomes more and
more educated, they will learn to recognize such tactics and disregard
them as nonsense.

> I just got the following feelings: some TI supporters think that ex-province
>people equal to the KMT.  Oh, my god!  Kill me please!

Again, the TIers will gain much more support if they are willing to
forget about the "crimes" of KMT, and concentrate about being a
political party for Taiwan's advancement.  TI will never take off
as long as they view KMT as "the enemy."

> I am not coming for arguments.  No personal attacks, thanks!

Same here.

>--Christine

				- David

-- 
---==lulu@ucrengr==---  just another overworked graduate student.
David T Lu, Amateur Thinker: lulu@ucrengr.ucr.edu, {ucsd, uci}!ucrengr!lulu
"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle."
					- Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker's
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan