Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Taiwanese

There's another group of Chinese people that I hate about as much as the CCP. These are the people that do not consider themselves Chinese but rather Taiwanese. I received a forwarded email that included a PDF from TACL (Taiwanese American Citizens League). I've never heard of this group before... but it looks like an advocacy group of the DPP. For the 2010 US Census, they want people to check the "Other Asian" box and write in "Taiwanese" instead of checking the "Chinese" box above.



I hate this type of useless BS political theater. Does it make one bit of difference if you put down "Taiwanese" instead of Chinese? Is the PRC-ROC issue going to be solved if you check a stupid box on the US Census form? Let's be clear, this Chinese-Taiwanese distinction is purely political. Almost all these "Taiwanese" people are ethnically identical to the ~1 billion Han people in Mainland China and across the world. When I hear "Taiwanese," I think of the original/aboriginal inhabitants on Formosa Island, not the Hokkien/Hakka speaking immigrants from southern China.

Actually, I don't care if they want to identify themselves as Taiwanese, Cantonese, Sichuanese, or Shanghainese. It's the denial of their Chinese ancestry/history that pisses me off. Other than politics, are they any different from their relatives in southern China? Especially offensive to me are the radical Taiwan Independence people that want to exclude "non-Taiwanese" people from Taiwan. Effectively, that would leave people like my dad "homeless" since he arrived in Taiwan after 1945; he can't go "back" to China since our family fought the Communists. Luckily we have citizenship in Canada and the US but this would impact a lot of people that kept the CCP away from Taiwan for the past 60 years (with help from the US).

Even though I was born in Taiwan, I'm checking the "Chinese" box on the Census form.

2 comments:

hogsman said...

i'm planning on responding as "chinese-arkansan"

Unknown said...

I agree. Also:

I understand the green Taiwan sovereignty movement but is it really a legit separate ethnicity if you're not an aborigine? Do Singaporean people put down Singaporean and NOT Chinese?

A girl in the vid said she was half Taiwanese half Cantonese... are we saying now that one can put down "Cantonese" as an Other Asian to be counted?

Maybe I should put down "Shanghainese?"

What if you want to identify as both, can you check both boxes Chinese and Taiwanese? Why does one only have to identify as Taiwanese?

I can believe in being Taiwanese as a nationality (i.e. Taiwan independence), but not as an ethnicity unless you were a native aboriginal with no ties to people who came over from China.

I mean even Caucasian Americans who's ancestors fought the British to become Americans don't say their ethnicity is American.

WTH, the lady says "next time you're on the street, ask, you look Taiwanese" How can you look Taiwanese anymore than you can look Chinese or Cantonese?