Simon Scott Taiwan’s Mainlanders: A Diasporic Identity in Construction
Diaspora is a relatively new concept to the study of Taiwan; but is nonetheless a useful conceptual tool in understanding shifting ethnic relations during the island nation’s tumultuous and yet unfinished process of decolonization. Taiwanese political discourse of the past two decades has constructed Taiwanese society as comprised of four ethnic groups. These are the indigenous peoples of Austronesian descent (approximately 2% of the population), whose presence on Taiwan dates back over 6000 years; the Hoklo (72%), whose paternal ancestors started arriving from Fujian Province of China during Dutch occupation of part of Taiwan in the 1600s; the Hakka (13%) whose ancestors came from Guangdong Province mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and finally the Mainlanders (13%), who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek after the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Mainlanders, the group under discussion in this article, are called waishengren in Chinese or goa-seng-lang in Taiwanese, both meaning “people from outside the province.” This ethnic identity, determined by an imaginary province of origin that some individuals had never even seen, was even a legal category on official documents until 1992. The process by which waishengren and their Other (benshengren or “people of the province”) became social categories of ethnicity demonstrate clearly how legal categories metamorphose into ethnic categories in ways unimagined by their creators. As Taiwanese nationalism gains ascendancy over Chinese nationalism in Taiwanese society, Mainlanders are increasingly adopting a diasporic identity as Chinese in Taiwan.
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek_Memorial_Hall
Diaspora is a relatively new concept to the study of Taiwan; but is nonetheless a useful conceptual tool in understanding shifting ethnic relations during the island nation’s tumultuous and yet unfinished process of decolonization. Taiwanese political discourse of the past two decades has constructed Taiwanese society as comprised of four ethnic groups. These are the indigenous peoples of Austronesian descent (approximately 2% of the population), whose presence on Taiwan dates back over 6000 years; the Hoklo (72%), whose paternal ancestors started arriving from Fujian Province of China during Dutch occupation of part of Taiwan in the 1600s; the Hakka (13%) whose ancestors came from Guangdong Province mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and finally the Mainlanders (13%), who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek after the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Mainlanders, the group under discussion in this article, are called waishengren in Chinese or goa-seng-lang in Taiwanese, both meaning “people from outside the province.” This ethnic identity, determined by an imaginary province of origin that some individuals had never even seen, was even a legal category on official documents until 1992. The process by which waishengren and their Other (benshengren or “people of the province”) became social categories of ethnicity demonstrate clearly how legal categories metamorphose into ethnic categories in ways unimagined by their creators. As Taiwanese nationalism gains ascendancy over Chinese nationalism in Taiwanese society, Mainlanders are increasingly adopting a diasporic identity as Chinese in Taiwan.
Diaspora is a relatively new concept to the study of Taiwan; but is nonetheless a useful conceptual tool in understanding shifting ethnic relations during the island nation’s tumultuous and yet unfinished process of decolonization. Taiwanese political discourse of the past two decades has constructed Taiwanese society as comprised of four ethnic groups. These are the indigenous peoples of Austronesian descent (approximately 2% of the population), whose presence on Taiwan dates back over 6000 years; the Hoklo (72%), whose paternal ancestors started arriving from Fujian Province of China during Dutch occupation of part of Taiwan in the 1600s; the Hakka (13%) whose ancestors came from Guangdong Province mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and finally the Mainlanders (13%), who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek after the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Mainlanders, the group under discussion in this article, are called waishengren in Chinese or goa-seng-lang in Taiwanese, both meaning “people from outside the province.” This ethnic identity, determined by an imaginary province of origin that some individuals had never even seen, was even a legal category on official documents until 1992. The process by which waishengren and their Other (benshengren or “people of the province”) became social categories of ethnicity demonstrate clearly how legal categories metamorphose into ethnic categories in ways unimagined by their creators. As Taiwanese nationalism gains ascendancy over Chinese nationalism in Taiwanese society, Mainlanders are increasingly adopting a diasporic identity as Chinese in Taiwan.
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek_Memorial_Hall
Diaspora is a relatively new concept to the study of Taiwan; but is nonetheless a useful conceptual tool in understanding shifting ethnic relations during the island nation’s tumultuous and yet unfinished process of decolonization. Taiwanese political discourse of the past two decades has constructed Taiwanese society as comprised of four ethnic groups. These are the indigenous peoples of Austronesian descent (approximately 2% of the population), whose presence on Taiwan dates back over 6000 years; the Hoklo (72%), whose paternal ancestors started arriving from Fujian Province of China during Dutch occupation of part of Taiwan in the 1600s; the Hakka (13%) whose ancestors came from Guangdong Province mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and finally the Mainlanders (13%), who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek after the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Mainlanders, the group under discussion in this article, are called waishengren in Chinese or goa-seng-lang in Taiwanese, both meaning “people from outside the province.” This ethnic identity, determined by an imaginary province of origin that some individuals had never even seen, was even a legal category on official documents until 1992. The process by which waishengren and their Other (benshengren or “people of the province”) became social categories of ethnicity demonstrate clearly how legal categories metamorphose into ethnic categories in ways unimagined by their creators. As Taiwanese nationalism gains ascendancy over Chinese nationalism in Taiwanese society, Mainlanders are increasingly adopting a diasporic identity as Chinese in Taiwan.