Friday, September 03, 2010

Games Nationalists Play

Caught this giant grasshopper making off with a pearl of water from our yard.

The struggle over language in Taiwan continues. The KMT news org reported on it from a Chinese nationalist perspective:
The term “Guo Yu (National Language),” which is used in “language skill indicators” in elementary and junior high school textbooks, will be replaced by the term “Hua Yu Wen (ethnic Chinese language)” starting next year, causing a public controversy. Some scholars accused the government of following the former DPP government’s “de-sinicization” policy. 【Translator’s Note: Up to 2000, under the KMT administration, the terms Mandarin Chinese and National Language were used synonymously. However, the DPP administration (2000-2008) changed the definition of National Language to include Mandarin, Hoklo, Hakka, and 11 aboriginal dialects.】

The Office of the President yesterday expressed its position on the issue, saying, “The language used by nationals should be addressed as “Guo Yu (National Language)” and the term used in ‘language skill indicators’ in the textbooks should follow this principle for consistency. In response, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said that it would study the issue following the guidance of the Office of the President.
What struck me was the editor's note:
[Editor’s Note: Mandarin Chinese is National Language, which means the language of this nation. However, Mandarin Chinese is used by other nations, such as Singapore. Therefore, in those countries, Mandarin Chinese is not called National Language, but ethnic Chinese language, meaning language used by ethnic Chinese. The DPP government (2000-2008) downgraded Mandarin Chinese to just one of the 14 national languages of this country and tried to get everyone to call it “Hua Yu” (ethnic Chinese language), the language used by “ethnic Chinese” in this country. “Hua Yu” is a term commonly employed in other countries for the language used by ethnic Chinese residing in these countries; therefore, the term is not appropriate to be used in this country. In fact, Hoklo (Min-nan) and Hakka are different pronunciations of the same Chinese language, using the same characters (Kanji), not different languages.]
Hakka and Hoklo are not different languages from "ethnic Chinese language"? The KMT's Han chauvinism and assimilationist rhetoric really stand out. Note that this issue is so important that the President's office stepped in publicly to ensure that it was settled in the "right" way. Language is a key aspect of the creation of a KMT Nationalist Chinese identity for Taiwan.

ADDED: Had the DPP won in 2008, English would probably have been one of the official languages of Taiwan. ADDED: See comments below for good insights.

Meanwhile, down in Taichung -- political games as usual? A "bribery" probe of the DPP's Su Chia-chuan, the party's candidate for Taichung, stinks of political motivation, says the DPP:
“This issue doesn’t look like it has anything to do with bribery — yet they are [wasting] the resources of police and prosecutors,” DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, referring to the event in which Su, while meeting with the coach and players from Shi Yuan Senior High School hours before they left for the World Junior Baseball Championships in the US last month, gave the group a NT$20,000 donation and promised them a dinner when they came back.
As the article notes (1) there is an exception in the strict vote buying laws for politicians giving money to temples or other cultural events and entities and (2) oh yeah -- Su is not officially registered as a candidate yet, so he can give money to whomever he likes. Jason Hu, Su's KMT opponent for the mayor's job in Taichung, feted the team before in his role as mayor.

When Ma came to power there was a spate of "corruption" cases in which DPP officials appeared to be targeted. After international complaints the situation quieted down. Hopefully this thing against Su is an isolated case cause by a purely local complaint.

Take it as a backhanded compliment -- Su is becoming a quietly effective candidate. With the DPP currently doing well in 4 of the 5 municipalities up for election this November, the KMT is feeling the heat. Within the party there is quite a bit of disaffection with Ma's leadership, with the rightist President criticized for being weak, ineffective, and too close to/not close enough to China. Moreoever, his appointment King Pu-tsun as his hatchetman within the party has been unpopular. If the DPP wins big in November, it will be interesting to see how the KMT treats Ma.
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29 comments:

Tim Maddog said...

Regarding that "editor's note" you quoted:
- - -
Hoklo (Min-nan) and Hakka are different pronunciations of the same Chinese language, using the same characters (Kanji)"
- - -

"Editor's ignorant distortion" is more like it. And we just discussed the meaning of "Kanji" -- which is the Japanese pronunciation of "Hanzi" but used (mostly) when referring to Chinese characters used in the Japanese language. I thought the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hated everything Japanese. They're dumber than I thought!

Note also the editor's reduction of Taiwan's Aboriginal languages to "dialects." Superior asshole!

Anyway, "國語" is the term that's not appropriate for describing Mandarin in this country -- Taiwan. "國語" is not from this country, and that name doesn't tell us which country it is from.

On another subject, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) is way behind in polls, but I hope that Taichung voters wake the fuck up soon -- if only to get Jason Hu from playing dress-up on my teevee so often. ;-)

And anybody who can find a way to get Wu Dumb-yih's "brain" to function properly should win a Nobel Prize!

Tim Maddog

Anonymous said...

I'm part Pingpu and pissed. The majority of residents of Shiao Lin Village, buried in a mudslide in Morakot were Pingpu as well. If no one knew about Pingpu before Morakot sure. After 300 people get buried alive and everyone hears about them on national TV, this is inexcusable. This is just ridiculous.

阿牛 said...

The author's complaint isn't at all factually true.

1) Mandarin was in no way "downgraded" by the government; instead, the DPP government expanded the languages on the list of "national languages" to help elevate their prestige and preserve them. In fact, on these same grounds, Holo Taiwanese was *not* called Taiwanese in documents because there is more than one *Taiwanese* language, just as Taiwan has more than one national language.

2) "Huayu" does not have to be read as "ethnic Chinese language." An equally valid translation would be "Chinese." And for that matter, you can trace it to its origin, where "Hua" is short for Huaxia. That's about as Chinese of a term as you can get.

3) Obviously, there is no justification for suggesting Hoklo or Hakka are dialects of Mandarin or something; and notice how the author fails to address aboriginal languages with this argument.

SY said...

Michael wrote:
Hakka and Hoklo are not different languages from "ethnic Chinese language"? The KMT's Han chauvinism and assimilationist rhetoric really stand out.


Absolutely.

Concrete examples: "man" and "woman" are "tsapou" and "tsabou" in Holo, where "tsa" ("ta" in some dialects) means "person","pou" means "male" and "bou" means "female, wife".

Note that the word order in Holo is "Substantive + Adjective" as opposed to "Adjective + Substantive" in Chinese languages (e.g. Mandarin).

Other examples are: "Tikang" (boar) and "Tibu" (sow), "Kuekang" (rooster) and "Kuebu" (hen), "take" (mother-in-law), "taknua" (father-in-law), "hongthai" (typhoon), "langkheh" (guest), and terms for daytimes, etc.

In the above, "t" and "th" are the unaspired and aspired "t"; same for "k" and "kh".

As well, Holo is a tonal conjugative language, in which tonal conjugation plays a critical role in the syntax and semantics of the language. Chinese languages (e.g. Mandarin) use tones for lexical formations only.

Anonymous said...

I can justify the term Chinese for language just as Americans, Canadians and Australians speak English without having to BE English.

The problem is how Chinese nationalists seek to conflate it all into a their ethnic nationalism.

The strangest part is that Mandarin is a 20th century invention as a combination between Qing court language and several northern dialects for the purpose of exerting strong centralized control over areas of the former Qing empire and reining in other extant nationalisms within the former Qing.

Taiwan Echo said...

Michael: Meanwhile, down in Taichung -- political games as usual? A "bribery" probe of the DPP's Su Chia-chuan, the party's candidate for Taichung, stinks of political motivation

The investigation on Su is probably a desperate try of KMT to detour the spotlight away from the corruption-tainted Taipei government. KMT's Taipei mayor Hau lung-bin is now in an unstoppable downhill rush; Taipei's preparation of the upcoming Int'l Flora Expo is shown to overpay almost everything -- from the flowers to the watering system to the construction materials and is still exposing -- by a fold of 3 ~ 30 times to a company who KMT used to own, and is currently still the biggest stock holder. It's a money laundering in KMT style that KMT desperately wants to hide.

Anonymous said...

Must have been a slow news day. Talk about mountains out of molehills.

If the media and govt has time to waste to something as trivial as this, Taiwan must be in pretty good shape.

Michael Turton said...

Must have been a slow news day. Talk about mountains out of molehills.

Well, language is an important part of the long-term KMT colonization program, so it is important to keep track of its ins and outs.

M said...

The DPP's language policy was a mess.

English has no native speakers in Taiwan (with the exception of a few naturalized foreigners and returnee immigrants). It is spoken fluently by only a tiny proportion of the population. Most of the population speak virtually no English at all. It is mostly only used to speak to foreigners, and is hardly ever used in discourse between Taiwanese. Taiwan lacks teachers who can teach in English. The standard of English on government websites is often abysmal. How the hell is Taiwan in a position to make English an official language?

Joel H. Linton said...

Here's a post on the Taiwanese Identity blog about the so-called "dialects."

http://taiwan-id.blogspot.com/2008/07/dismissed-as-dialects.html

M said...

The position of Taiwanese is also interesting.

The KMT inadvertently created the basis for the emergence of a separate identity by denying that Minnan culture and language on Taiwan were "Chinese".
Now the promotion of the Taiwanese language is seen as “de-sinicization”, even though Taiwanese is a Sinitic language.

But at present, Mandarin Chinese is the only real "national language". It is spoken fluently by nearly everyone under 75 years of age. It is the only language of education and the dominant language of business. To upgrade Taiwanese to this status would take many years of effort, and I doubt there is the current political will (even on the green side)for this. Most parents are more concerned about promoting English.

The term "huayu" is also not ideal, because ethnically Chinese people speak all kinds of different dialects, and many speak no Mandarin at all. "Guoyu" more accurately captures the status of Mandarin as a national lingua franca in Taiwan, spoken by both Han and non-Han citizens.

Michael Turton said...

(m) I think you're thinking about "official" in the wrong way. As I understand it, currently contracts written in English are not enforceable in court (I may be wrong). If English were "official" that might not be the case. Official means having legal recognition, not necessarily "widely spoken"

Anonymous said...

M,

English is spoken as a native language by many Taiwanese who are the result of marriages between native English speakers and citizens of Taiwan. These people, like Michael's children, are in fact 100% native Taiwanese. I am shocked by the audacity in which you seek to discount these Taiwanese as "unauthentic" under your scheme. If it were a simple numbers game then many indigenous people's and their languages should be marginalized as well, seeing as their languages don't meet your standard for utility.

I would counter your claim that most Taiwanese don't speak any English as English is a required subject in school and English scores play a major part of the Joint College Entrance Exam. Most advanced degree programs make functional English proficiency a requirement seeing as the government, like many European governments, found teaching English was cheaper than translating course materials. Since English forms a major structural pillar of the education system and is required for social and academic mobility, then it should be made an official language to ensure equal access for all students.

Lastly, English is written and spoken in many different forms all over the world. The debate over ebonics elucidated this issue very clearly when it was recognized as an official language. If Taiwanese want to use English to create their own version, then so be it. They will use it as it suits them .

Anonymous said...

"As I understand it, currently contracts written in English are not enforceable in court (I may be wrong)."

If you're right about this, then judges will lobby against this very heavily (and the lawyers that think they'll be at a disadvantage).

M said...

Michael - Yes, you are right. Many languages that are not widely spoken become official languages. However, this is normally to give recognition to minority groups. It would be unusual to give official recognition to a foreign language that is not widely spoken.

As for current legal recognition of English,you often see the disclaimer on translated documents in Taiwan: "in case of discrepancy between the Chinese and English version, the Chinese version shall take precedence".
Does this not suggest that English contracts could be enforceable in some circumstances (for example when there is no Chinese version)?
Also not sure about this...

Anonymous said...

M:

You give quite a muddled picture of Taiwanese. Taiwanese is the dominant language of politics, of the most popular shows on television (Taiwanese soaps), and of the south and among some Aboriginal groups (Shiao Lin Cun spoke predominantly Taiwanese).

The KMT didn't call Taiwanese non-Sinitic. They called it bad: a low-class, uncultured, informal, unwritten language. They made people feel terrible about speaking it. Let me tell you, there is quite a backlash from it.

What happened isn't people merely trying to be non-Chinese (which isn't right either--it's defining themselves apart from China regardless of whether Taiwanese is a Sinitic/Chinese language or not). People took back ownership of their own identities and Taiwanese became how people would identify as a source of power if they were "low-class" or "uneducated" or "criminal" among many other complex reasons.

D said...

@Anon. 9:59 p.m.: Ebonics was recognized as an official language??

SY 3:28 a.m. gives some interesting examples. Can anyone provide me a link to more information along these lines?

M said...

English is spoken as a native language by many Taiwanese who are the result of marriages between native English speakers and citizens of Taiwan. These people, like Michael's children, are in fact 100% native Taiwanese. I am shocked by the audacity in which you seek to discount these Taiwanese as "unauthentic" under your scheme. If it were a simple numbers game then many indigenous people's and their languages should be marginalized as well, seeing as their languages don't meet your standard for utility.

I have already acknowledged that some Taiwanese are native speakers of English. I did not say they were "inauthentic" at all. Where did you get that idea from?
However, English is only one of many immigrant languages in Taiwan. It is spoken as a native language by fewer naturalized citizens (and their descendants) than other immigrant languages such as Vietnamese.
By your nonsensical argument, I am also marginalizing those languages or making their speakers "inauthentic" by refusing to award official status.


I would counter your claim that most Taiwanese don't speak any English as English is a required subject in school and English scores play a major part of the Joint College Entrance Exam.


The JCEE does not even test spoken English! And yes, a majority of Taiwanese speak little or no English (most of them have never even taken the JCEE).


Most advanced degree programs make functional English proficiency a requirement seeing as the government, like many European governments, found teaching English was cheaper than translating course materials.

Yes, obviously. This applies all over the world.
However, a lot of material is actually available in Chinese translation (in the social sciences at least), and students tend to rely on this whenever possible. Translation is done by publishers, not the government.

M said...

Since English forms a major structural pillar of the education system and is required for social and academic mobility, then it should be made an official language to ensure equal access for all students.

Making English an official language would not ensure equal access for all students. The education system simply does not have the resources or trained teachers to deliver this. English would still be more easily accessed by families who can afford to pay for extra private teaching.

Ensuring equal access to English would involve a significant investment of resources in education in poorer communities. I doubt there is the political will to do this. Whether English is an official language or not is irrelevant.
Without significant changes in education policy, making English an official language would be an empty gesture.

Lastly, English is written and spoken in many different forms all over the world. The debate over ebonics elucidated this issue very clearly when it was recognized as an official language. If Taiwanese want to use English to create their own version, then so be it. They will use it as it suits them .

English is spoken in many different forms. However, there is a standardized written form. Taiwan would be well advised to adopt this standardized written form to communicate effectively with the outside world.
"Interesting in Taiwan" will not do.

M said...

Michael, I think it is a stretch to say that Taiwanese is the dominant language of politics. In formal political settings, Mandarin is almost always used. The chair of the DPP does not even speak Taiwanese!

I agree with your comments about how the KMT treated Taiwanese. My point is that it was regarded as somehow outside "Chinese culture" and therefore inferior.
This is why promotion the Taiwanese language is now inaccurately referred to as "de-Sincization"

Michael Turton said...

Michael, I think it is a stretch

Me? I never said that.

M said...

Me? I never said that.

Ah! Sorry!
Comment directed to anon.

Anonymous said...

"Michael, I think it is a stretch to say that Taiwanese is the dominant language of politics. In formal political settings, Mandarin is almost always used. The chair of the DPP does not even speak Taiwanese!"

What do you define as formal? Wang Jyng Ping yelling "San du tong guo!". Cause other than that, they sure spout off plenty of Taiwanese in the Legislature. Taiwanese is the sales and deal-making language in many industries and Taiwanese in politics goes way beyond what you see on the surface.

The DPP Chair is Hakka (although she apparently doesn't speak that either) and in any case, does speak some Taiwanese and understands it. And you ignore the whole point of Tsai Ying-wen which is that she's counter-stereotypical! Whether the stereotypes are warranted or not, Blues have created this comical straw man of a DPP politician who speaks no English and spouts off gan, kaoyao, jibai every other word while chewing betel nut and responding to every KMT position with the accusation that you don't ai dai wan. The whole sophisticated city girl that got her PhD at a prestigious UK university and speaks poor Taiwanese is the whole appeal of Tsai Yingwen. But one exception doesn't make for a trend.

Let's put it this way. It would be very difficult for anyone other than Tsai Yingwen to survive in politics south of the Da-an district of Taipei City without speaking any Taiwanese.

Note that I'm not arguing that outside of these domains that Taiwanese is dominant or that it is dominant in any way overall, because it's not. Without a real policy to continue teaching kids Taiwanese, it is in real danger of becoming a cultural artifact. But even in it's precarious state, it's usage is necessary in quite a few contexts and you ignore that willfully to make a strained argument.

Anyways, my prediction--the large influx of students from China is going to increase the number of college students speaking Taiwanese.

Readin said...

"Without a real policy to continue teaching kids Taiwanese, it is in real danger of becoming a cultural artifact."

I often wonder about the benefit of teaching Taiwanese to kids. Most people in the world speak English, Chinese or Spanish. This is especially true of the educated people. Taiwan's future depends to a large extent on Taiwan's economy, an economy heavily dependent on foreign trade.

Other than as a prop for Taiwanese nationalism, what benefit does the Taiwanese language have for Taiwan?

Rather than trying to restore Taiwanese to its place as Taiwan's national language, I believe the Singaporean model of adopting English would be a preferable goal for Taiwanese freedom lovers. This approach would have several benefits.

1. It would be easier to gather support from the business community as the economic benefits would be obvious and undeniable.
2. It would promote an understanding of freedom and rule-of-law as Taiwanese people would have better access to both the documentation of freedom and the people who have the most eperience with it - the Anglosphere (Britain, Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand).
3. It would provide the Anglosphere, those countries most likely to want to support freedom in Taiwan, greater access to understanding Taiwan both through Taiwanese media and Taiwanese diplomacy.

A few years ago I saw a TV show on one of the channels our local cable company has for showing foreign programs. It was clearly an attempt by Taiwanese nationalists to hold English langauge discussions and let English speakers understand what's going on. But saidly the English spoken was so poor that I couldn't stand to watch it for more than a minute or two (and I have far more experience with Taiwanese who speak English poorly than the average American does).

Readin said...

Michael Turton makes a good point about understanding what it means to make a language "official". For example, I would like to see English made the "official" language of the United States. This is different from those Americans who seek "English-only". I would like to see American law say that services that must be provided must be provided in English, and that they need only be provided in English - so for example you could sue your local 911 service for not speaking English, but you couldn't sue them for not speaking Spanish, Lithuanian, or Hakka. That's not to say that some localities shouldn't provide services in additional languages. If you have a large Spanish speaking population then it if you can afford it you should provide those services in Spanish, but the Spanish should be an option for each locality, not a requirement.

Readin said...

Regarding arguments about he portion of the population that speak a given langauge, according to Wikipedia most immigrants to Taiwan are Vietnamese or Indonesian.

There are 130,000 Indonesians and 140,000 Ami. There are 90,000 and 90,000 Atayal. The total number of immigrants is around 400,000, about the same as the number of aborigines.

If aboriginal languages are to be official languages, why not Indonesian and Vietnamese?

M said...

The whole sophisticated city girl that got her PhD at a prestigious UK university and speaks poor Taiwanese is the whole appeal of Tsai Yingwen. But one exception doesn't make for a trend.

I don't know why you think Tsai Ying-wen is some kind of exception. There are plenty of people in the DPP who are sophisticated and got degrees at prestigious universities abroad.
The only difference is that she can't speak Taiwanese. I am not even sure how unique she is in this. Can other Hakka in the DPP like Luo Wen-jia speak much Taiwanese? When I went to his rally he spoke entirely in Mandarin, even though all the other speakers only used Taiwanese.
Seems like it is quite possible to get into a high position in the DPP with limited Taiwanese.

Strangely as the DPP slowly moves away from Taiwanese as a symbol of national identity, the KMT has been eager to use Taiwanese to show identification with Taiwan. Tsai's opponent, Chu Li-lun speaks fluent Taiwanese, despite being a mainlander. Ma often tries a few sentences of faltering Taiwanese, something I have never seen Tsai do. Wang Chin-chuan even brought up his ability to speak Taiwanese when asked why Taiwan had not entered the WHA under the name "Taiwan". Using Taiwanese is somehow supposed to show that the KMT is only acting in the interests of Taiwan.

mike said...

"I believe the Singaporean model of adopting English would be a preferable goal for Taiwanese freedom lovers."

The connection between the English language and freedom may be a valid one (I'm not entirely certain, but if I could bet on it I probably would), but I say those two emboldened words above do not belong in the same sentence.

Using the force of the State bureaucracy to coerce people into learning English contradicts the very purpose of doing so in the first place.

English is, much to the consternation of some French people, the lingua franca of trade, and I cannot see how any incentives other than those arising from trade would ever be worth a single honest dollar.

Johan said...

The designation of English as an official language for Taiwan, if this were feasible, would create two opportunities for Taiwan:

1. On the international level, a further distancing from China, where Mandarin is the sole official language. By changing the language that represents it internationally, Taiwan would be one step closer to justifying its right to becoming a sovereign state with an own voice in international organizations.

2. The marginalization of Mandarin usage in Taiwan. Once the prestige associated with Mandarin would be reduced, the possibility for the Taiwanese language to regain a better footing could be increased.

Previous proposals by the DPP to give English official status were politically motivated - full stop. They did not have the best interests of Taiwanese (young) people in mind.

I'm pro-DPP, but one cannot give its people a stronger sense of its own identity (and save the Taiwanese language) by resorting to such misleading tactics.