Happy Lunar New Year!! 恭賀新禧 祥龍獻瑞!!

Today is the last day of the year on the lunar calendar before the Lunar New Year 農曆新年, also known as the Spring Festival 春節. Across the globe, people of Asian ancestries celebrate or will be celebrating the forthcoming of a new year. Here we provide some ways we celebrate Lunar New Year in Taiwan.

On new year’s eve 除夕, people gather with their families (traditionally the paternal side) and have a big meal 團圓飯 or 年夜飯. It is traditional to include a whole fish as one of the dishes for the big meal in hope that every year there will be extra fortunes left for use in future years 年年有餘 (“to have extra 餘” is pronounced the same as “fish 魚” in Mandarin Chinese). When I was a child, my family always have the dinner homemade to be enjoyed with my father’s side of the family. Nowadays it is not uncommon for people to go to restaurants on new year’s eve and enjoy the meal with whichever side of the family. After the meal, the family sits and chats, watches some TV, plays board games etc. Many children look most forward to receiving red envelope 紅包 that has money 壓歲錢 inside from their parents and relatives (as you might have noticed, red is a color of auspiciousness). Many people don’t sleep until midnight 守歲 in hope for a year full of prosperity, fortune, and peace.

On new year’s day 大年初一, children can sleep in as it is a day on which all tools in the house get to rest (and also as a result of 守歲). On this day,  people open their front doors and greet each other for the new year 拜年. Many people also go to temples to pray for a safe, fortunate, and prosperous year. By tradition, people cannot cook fresh food but should eat the leftover from new year’s eve to symbolize the good fortune left from last year will be available this year. Not all people do this for health concerns.

On second day of new year 大年初二, married daughters visit their birth parents with their families 回娘家. Another big meal usually occurs on this day again on my mother’s side of the family.

On the following days, people visit relatives and friends while eating more delicious food, and the celebration continues on until the 15th day of the new year 元宵, on which many people celebrate by going to the Lantern Festival.

We wish everyone a wonderful Lunar New Year full of fortunes, prosperity, auspiciousness, luck, peace, and have an awesome year of the Dragon!!!

祝大家在新的一年裡，大吉大利、四季平安、五福臨門、心想事成、財源滾滾、年年有餘、福星高照、添福增壽、萬事如意、闔家平安、龍年行大運!!!!

Vi ønsker alle et godt kinesisk nyttår full av formuers, velstand, hell, fred, og ha et kjempeflott år av dragen!!!!

!!!!نتمنى للجميع رائع السنة الصينية الجديدة

Ma Ying-jeou wins second term as President of Taiwan

The results are in! The incumbent President and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 and his running mate Premier Wu Den-yih 吳敦義  has won the 2012 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election of Taiwan 中華民國總統副總統選舉. They received 51.6% (6,891,139 votes) of the ballots cast, winning over the 45.6% (6,093,578 votes) their opponents DPP Presidential Candidate Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 and DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan 蘇嘉全 received. PFP Founding Chairman James Soong Chu-yu 宋楚瑜 and his running mate National Taiwan University Professor Emeritus Lin Ruey-shiung 林瑞雄 received 2.8% (369,588 votes) of the ballots. A voter turnout of 74.38% was recorded (13,452,016 out of 18,086,455, 97,711 ballots were invalidate). President Ma and Vice President-elect Wu will be sworn in office on May 20, 2012 at the Presidential Building 總統府 in Taipei City 臺北市, Taiwan.

Taiwan Studies 台灣研究

Within the world of Oriental scholarship, Sinology and Asian Studies, the academic discipline of Taiwan Studies is fairly new. This is not because of neglect or limited attention that has been paid to the island as an object of social knowledge, but because of an ideological corpus that tied the study of Taiwan neatly into the world of Chinese culture and civilization. Said otherwise, until up into the 1980s – and for some even beyond right up to the present day – writing about Taiwan was not conceived as part of a project of local discovery. Instead, it was written to describe modern Chinese society.

With the end of martial law in 1987 and the beginning of democratization, the focus was lifted from Taiwan as an exclusively Han Chinese society. The origins of Taiwan Studies is best situated in a scholarship that begins with its frontier history during the Qing dynasty or even before. By the 1990s, Taiwan Studies as a distinct field had been born. A Taiwan historiography began to appear that emphasized an emerging importance of the Japanese colonial period. Today, scholars from all over the world are regularly involved in discussion of the series of historical events that gave birth to this unique society. A large enough body of research has become available to support a growing number of overviews and surveys with Taiwan as their central theme and now involves a wide range of academic disciplines. In addition to historically informed scholarship (Taiwan History), there is a growing understanding of Taiwanese identity and ethnicity that draws heavily from theoretical considerations. These works also include an increased understanding of the role of religion in contemporary Taiwan politics, gender issues and studies on the place of indigenous peoples in a contemporary Taiwan. Another trend that heavily influences contemporary Taiwan Studies is linked with the critical analysis of literature and its recent expansion into venues like cinema, documentary and drama. Finally, scholarly work on politics, law, cross-strait and international relations is indispensable to a proper understanding of contemporary Taiwan culture and society.

-from the European Association of Taiwan Studies

As such, here we compiled a list of academic institutions that either have research centers focusing on Taiwan, offer academic programs or courses about Taiwan, or have both. Institutions are listed by regions in the world. If you know of any programs or institutions with a focus in Taiwan Studies that’s not listed here, feel free to leave a comment and we will be happy to add it/them to the list.

International Events – Early 2012

Wondering what’s going on in Taiwan in early 2012? Below is a partial list:

Taipei International Book Exhibition 2012 第二十屆台北國際書展

Currently fourth largest in the world and the largest international book exhibition in Asia, the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) was established in 1987 and is to be held in the spring of every year. Taking place at all three exhibition halls of the Taipei World Trade Center 台北世界貿易中心, TIBE features book of all genera for all ages from Taiwan and all over the world. The Guest of Honor of the 2012 TIBE is yet to be announced. TIBE will start on February 1st, 2012 and ends on February 6th, 2012. (February 1st is professional only.)

Why don’t people of Taiwan identify with “China” NOW? — Trying to answer from Taiwan’s perspective. 為什麼台灣人”現在”不認同『中國』呢? —試圖以台灣的觀點回答。

This is an article written by a Taiwanese, targeted towards people of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 中華人民共和國 (please bear this in mind as you read through the article), and it strives to let everyone understand why we Taiwanese don’t identify with “Chinese” or don’t want to be associated with the Chinese identity. I thought the article, despite its daunting length, is fair in many perspectives, and is very helpful in explaining the relationship between Taiwan and China and how Taiwanese people feel about China, not just in the political context. So here I translated the Chinese version into English. If you find any mistakes, feel like some part could be translated better, or are confused about something, feel free to leave a comment. The original text in Chinese does not contain any external links, I added them here because not everyone is familiar with all the event and incidents mentioned in the article. View original Chinese text.

Just to clarify some of the abbreviations and terms used in this translation:

PRC = People’s Republic of China 中華人民共和國, Mainlanders = citizens of PRC

ROC = Republic of China 中華民國, people of Taiwan =  citizens of ROC

(For more information on the differences between PRC and ROC, please read Taiwan the Complicated.)

*****

Written by Keng-Wei Chang 張耕維   Edited by Ko-Ching Chiang 蔣可竟

“Why is it that whenever we are interacting with Taiwanese people, we always feel like they don’t think they are Chinese?”

“Why do Taiwanese people get angry when we say that they are also Chinese?”

“Why do Taiwanese people dislike China so much?”

These are probably the most common reactions mainland Chinese people have when they interact with someone from Taiwan, and they are always confused: why don’t Taiwanese think they are also Chinese? This is different from what they learned in school, where it is written in the textbooks that “we [Chinese] are connected to our Taiwanese brothers and sisters by blood.” Why is it that people of Taiwan don’t identify with “China” NOW, even though just two decades ago most Taiwanese still considered themselves to be Chinese?  This article will try to explain the reasons of the dramatic change occurred to the identity of Taiwanese people. However, it is important to recognize the important yet confusing concept of that this change in identity is not the same as supporting the so-called “Taiwan Independence“, they are two completely separate issues.

為什麼台灣人”現在”不認同『中國』呢? —試圖以台灣的觀點回答。Why don’t people of Taiwan identify with “China” NOW? — Trying to answer from Taiwan’s perspective

View English translation

作者為台灣人，轉貼論壇的文章。

文：張耕維 編輯：蔣可竟

『為什麼在跟台灣人交流時，總覺得他們不認為自己是中國人呢?』

『為什麼說台灣人也是中國人時，他們會生氣?』

『為什麼台灣人這麼不喜歡中國啊?』

    相信這是每位與台灣交流過的大陸人民對『大部分』台灣人的印象，並且深深感到怎麼台灣人不覺得自己是中國人呢?跟課本裡說的『我們與臺灣同胞血脈相連』大相逕庭。這之間的認知差異，為什麼”現在”大多數的台灣人不認同『中國』，即便原本二十年前大多數台灣人還是自認為是中國人，這之間變化的原因，本文將試著以多方角度解釋為何台灣人自我認同的發生劇烈變化。但我們要先認清楚一個相當重要但不好理解的概念，就是這種認同上的轉變不能與台獨劃上等號，這不是等價的。