Devon Smith

T05303111
Prompt 1

On my first trip to Asia, I found myself in China. Although my ultimate destination was the small
island country that is Taiwan, because I had so many friends from the mainland, I decided to
spend some time traveling there. In fact, when I was deciding where to study abroad, I could
choose between Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. My final decision came down to China or Taiwan.
At that time, I didn’t have a true understanding of either place, so I made my decision based on
what I heard about each place. For Americans, we see China as a socially backwards totalitarian
country and most don’t even know about Taiwan. So, most of what I heard came from my friends
who were from the area. My Taiwanese friends enthusiastically told me how great Taiwan was and
that the people there are really friendly. In contrast, my Chinese friends would ask me why would I
want to go there instead of the mainland, the better part of China. For them, Taiwan is China and
the Taiwanese were just brainwashed by the Japanese to believe that they are different from and
better than mainland Chinese people. In the same way, it seems that many of my Chinese friends
also thought that the people of Hong Kong simply think they’re better than mainlanders and have
just forgotten their roots. Before I came to Taiwan, hearing comments like this didn’t particularly
bother me, but after living in Taiwan and learning about Taiwanese society and history it really
upsets me. It’s comes off as disrespectful to minimise the plight of the Taiwanese people and
identity to that extent. A particularly pivotal moment in the development of the Taiwanese identity in
my opinion, and the opinion of many is the 228 incident, and the period of martial law following it.
This is the phenomena in Taiwanese history that I’d like to talk about.

When discussing the collective Taiwanese identity, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when to start. But
from my perspective I believe it starts somewhere around the time that the Qing dynasty first
officially claimed Taiwan as one of it’s territories. At this time however, although the Chinese had
claimed Taiwan as being apart of China, for all practical purposes Taiwan was ignored by the
government in Beijing. But, at that time there was an influx of mainland Chinese to the island. In
this way, Chinese cultures and languages got mixed around with the Taiwanese who had already
been living there. Not long after that, the Japanese occupation of Taiwan began. Taiwanese were
forced out of their homes, beaten and even murdered during this time period. The Japanese forced
the Taiwanese people to learn Japanese at school and speak Japanese or face being punished.
The Taiwanese were considered to be second class citizens to people of Japanese blood. This
caused a general hatred for the Japanese military and government amongst Taiwanese people.
But in this matter, the Taiwanese had no choice, there were of course resistance against the
Japanese government, but for the most part these attempts were unsuccessful. It wasn't until a
couple of decades later that the Taiwanese could feel a break from their oppression. It was only
until the Japanese government surrendered in the world war that Taiwan was officially free from the
Japanese oppression. For that brief moment, the Taiwanese could feel that their struggle was over.
The entity that many had considered their homeland had came back to free them from oppression
and bring prosperity to the island. Unfortunately, that was a dream that would not be realized. Soon
after the KMT government came to Taiwan, the oppression was again relentless. Taxes on goods
went up, unemployment was running rampant, and bribery was an everyday thing. The incident
that ended up blowing the lid off of a boiling pot was the 228 incident. A peddler got caught illegally
selling cigarettes, after the cops apprehended them, chaos ensued. A small confrontation with the
police ended with a dead Taiwanese in the streets. After this news caught on, riots broke out all
over Taiwan. It was the last straw for the Taiwanese, they were through with the regime changes
that in no way benefitted them. I believe that this incident is fundamental in the development of the
Taiwanese identity. It marked a dramatic shift in mainstream opinion about the mainland Chinese.
Prior to the 228 incident. Although there were some negative feelings towards the mainland for the
abandonment of Taiwan and subsequent overtaking of the island by the Japanese, there was a
lingering feeling of connectedness. But after the 228 incident, it seems that any remnants of a
healthy ties with the Chinese had been cut. The KMT government called martial law and kept the
Taiwanese under harsh conditions for more that forty years after. They manipulated the social
structure of Taiwan, the linguistic diversity of Taiwan was drastically reduced, the indigenous
people, the only people who can technically call themselves Taiwanese were even marginalized
and treated as second class citizens. As a person who is African American, I feel that I can
somehow understand the feelings of the Taiwanese people.

African Americans, were brought to America as slaves. We were intentionally ripped of our
language and culture. The slave masters dehumanised the slaves and created a mentality of
inferiority that still exists to this day. The impacts of that era didn’t end when slavery was ended,
the dehumanisation remained in our society, and the economical and societal standing of black
people is still very low due to those times. Yet, if black people are to voice any of their concerns
with our current status, we are told that we are just being trouble makers and that we should move
on and forget what happened in the past. Now, we are all equal and we are all American, and
share the same language. Yet, throughout the majority of our history and interaction with our
oppressors, we were told again and again that we were not the same. So for us it’s hard to be
patriotic and forgive the transgressions of the past when it is swept under the rug. I feel that in this
way it’s hard for me to feel that I can identify myself as an American. On paper we are told to
identify as American, but within the context of our society it is hard for me to say that this is how I
identify. But in contrary to the Taiwanese people, my people don’t have a land of which we can
claim, so the situation is drastically different. But nonetheless I feel that the yearning for recognised
independence that is a popular discussion in the Taiwanese socio-political sphere resonates with
me. In terms of Taiwanese cinema, the film that best describes and puts what I’m saying into
pictures on a screen is the highly acclaimed film, “A City of Sadness”.

A City of Sadness is a landmark film released at the end of the martial law period in Taiwan. It is
often considered as being the most influential film in Taiwanese cinema. It also often noted as the
first film to deal with the sensitive topic of the 228 incident, as well as the reign of white terror in
Taiwan. To my dismay, I found that the film doesn’t discuss the events leading up to, nor the events
after the 228 incident discretely. Instead, the film functions as a time transcending lens through
which the audience can view the daily life of local taiwanese from the aftermath of the Japanese
occupation through the period martial law. I personally felt that the film’s plot line was at times very
difficult to follow. But by the end, the story comes into full circle, with many scenes highlighting the
kind of difficult situations the Taiwanese felt due to the governmental pressure of the times. The
first thing that stood out to me, was that the film was filmed entirely in Taiwanese. I think that was a
very important choice for the director to make. It shows the estrangement of the local taiwanese
from the mainlanders who came back to reclaim the island. There is a scene in which the eldest
brother Wang Heung is trying to negotiate a bribe with officials in order to have the middle brother,
Wang-Leung, released. There were two translators necessary in order to communicate. This kind
of demonstrated the cultural limbo that Taiwan was in at the time. Another important scene in my
opinion dealt with the relationship between the local taiwanese and the mainlanders who came and
basically manipulated them. The middle brother Wang Leung was lured in by the shanghai
mobsters and they convinced him to illegal contraband from the mainland into Taiwan. They in
some way convinced him that he was apart of the group but, he eventually got caught up in a
scandal and was sent to jail. After being released from jail, he was beaten by some officials and
ended up permanently brain damaged. It is revealed later that one of the Shanghainese mobsters
may have been involved in his mistreatment. It highlights just how much the Taiwanese could not
feel at ease when dealing with the mainlanders. I feel that this movie really in puts into visual form
the effects of the 228 incident, and the regime switches on the Taiwanese people. These regime
changes and drastic government oppression in my opinion is what has really shaped the
Taiwanese identity. Taiwanese are not Chinese, they are not Japanese, they are simply,
Taiwanese.