4 ms·

What are the elements of "Chinese culture" that persist in Taiwan and were eliminated in Mainland China?

by spoonjim 5y ago

ekianjo 5y ago
Not exactly sure but I would assume that any trace of religion was the first to go in Mao's revolution.
- platinumrad 5y ago
  If you're not exactly sure then is this exactly a productive comment?
  - rackjack 5y ago
    I think it was.
starfallg 5y ago
Almost everything, including the writing system. They even thought about romanisation, but instead just settled on butchering many of the complex characters without fully considering the historical, linguistic or aesthetic concerns.
- platinumrad 5y ago
  Even if you are a staunch traditionalist, "almost everything" is a massive exaggeration. The entire country still effectively shuts down for two weeks during the lunar new year. Sure this would be among the first things to go in an authoritarian state hell-bent on industrialization and yet it has persisted.
  - starfallg 5y ago
    Of course that's a figure of speech, but hey, ok. With regards to the lunar new year break, Communist regimes actually have lots of public holidays. That's straight from their ideology, so not sure why you think that authoritarianism must equal to oppressing worker rights or the labour movement. That's why there is a distinction between the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right.
    - platinumrad 5y ago
      "[They eliminated] Almost everything, including the writing system" does not sound like a figure of speech to me, but you do you I guess.
      - starfallg 5y ago
        Yeah, it's a figure of speech, specifically "puffery". It's not meant to be literal.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    During which time the family gets together to watch propaganda on CCTV. I wish I was joking but that's literally what almost every single family does. It's Chinese tradition in the name only. And that isn't to say that tradition doesn't still exist here and there. But it may not be as much as someone not familiar with Chinese history may assume. Btw even authoritarian subjects need days off or they would revolt sooner or later. So the assumption that this proofs Chinese tradition is alive doesn't follow. When the Christians completely annihilated European traditions they also kept the dates and a few of the customs of some of the pagan holidays. Like Easter eggs and Christmas trees. It actually helps destroy a culture faster, else there may be too much resistance.
    - platinumrad 5y ago
      There's a difference between days off and "half the country is boarding trains to some remote village so I guess the economy is just going to halt for a couple of weeks." And oh no, lots of people just sit around watching TV when they have to spend time with their folks. We must retvrn to tradition because family relations were 100% super functional and healthy back before modernity/communism/capitalism/your-favorite-boogieman ruined everything. > It actually helps destroy a culture faster, else there may be too much resistance. Ah, the classic "evidence against my point is actually evidence for my point."
- jabbany 5y ago
  > butchering many of the complex characters without fully considering the historical, linguistic or aesthetic concerns. There were committees of linguistic scholars that spent a ton of time on trying to reconcile the historical, linguistic and aesthetic concerns during the simplification effort. Is it perfect? No. But it was also not an impulse move either. Also one needs to consider the context of simplification --- the idea of simplification was quite a popular and progressive idea around that time in the entire area. It was widely believed that the complex Han characters were a big hurdle in improving literacy rates and bringing more opportunity to rural areas. Both Japan and Korea engaged in similar simplification or de-ideogram efforts to varying degrees of success.
schappim 5y ago
Some elements that come to mind: - Traditional Chinese characters used more often in Taiwan than Mainland China. - Yayue (3,000 years old Chinese court music). - Taiwanese recreation of Tang Dynasty dances. - In Taiwan poems are composed/written/recited in Hokkien, on the mainland it is done in Mandarin. - The preservation of uninterrupted institutional religion (eg Daoist priests) that was largely shutdown in China. - Taiwan's leader attending ceremonies at temples to mark the birthday of Confucius, something you wouldn't see Xi Jinping do. - Taiwan's ROC governmental organization was based on the Qing dynasty, so it has the traditional Inspection Ministry that accords with the old censorate. Edit: These are not hard and fast. One will always find examples on both sides of the ditch. They do though play into the narrative of Taiwan being a capsule for culture modified post cultural revolution. Let’s also remember that Taiwan is also heavily influenced from outside via democracy, Japan, and its own aboriginal culture.
- rackjack 5y ago
  This is interesting. It's a shame the grandparent is so binary, as if Chinese culture is a bacteria that can be purged and survive in pockets instead of something that ebbs and flows, as all cultures do.
  - Danieru 5y ago
    The cultural revolution was pretty close to purging as any culture gets. It was not a natural ebb and flow.
- jabbany 5y ago
  Some of these are not the best examples... - Character simplification: This was a part of a wider progressive movement in the Sinosphere in general. Traditional characters were seen back then as a hinderance to raising literacy rates. In fact, the mainland's stance here follows that of Korea (which completely got rid of Hanja) and Japan (which tried, and failed, to completely remove Kanji). This was not done because the traditional characters are "old-fashioned" but rather to get the vast rural population to be able to read. - Hokkien: This is a regional dialect imported from southern mainland China to Taiwan long before the civil war that split the two apart. After the war, regional dialects were suppressed _both_ in the mainland _and_ in Taiwan in favor of Mandarin (which is a northern dialect that was imported into Taiwan during the KMT retreat and rule). The suppression worked quite well in both places, where Mandarin has since displaced regional dialects for most matters of life. In recent years, Taiwan has made lots of efforts to bring back Hokkien to distinguish itself from the mainland, but this is actually a fairly recent development... - Ceremonies at temples: This fell out of favor mostly because Communist parties everywhere have been progressive for the most part of history and like most progressive parties everywhere tended to de-emphasize religion. While most past leaders of the CCP stuck with this, Xi has actually moved the CCP to become much more _conservative_ (reinstating a lot of religious/traditional holidays in place of western ones) so I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if at some point Xi did start to re-introduce Confucian ceremonies as a part of a revival of a more conservative form of nationalism.
jabbany 5y ago
- Much of the cultural damage came from the abolition of the "four olds", specifically a lot of old books, paintings, and art in general. - Additionally, many religious artifacts (statues, murals, temples) were affected (vandalized to completely destroyed). Most of these being classified as backwards superstition artifacts. - This also extended to banning of religious customs (holidays, festivals, practices) and modifying aspects of language (e.g. honorifics and Confucian terms were largely removed from the language, with many only living on today in Cantonese or other languages like Japanese or Korean). The actual impacts were a mixed bag though. A lot of the movement centered around destroying core parts of Chinese cultural heritage in favor of adopting progressive western ideas. Many irreplaceable historic artifacts and buildings were forever destroyed, leading to, ironically, a lot of the preserved stuff being what was plundered by the British or moved to Taiwan as part of the Nationalist retreat. On the other hand, the wholesale denouncing of traditional values in favor of progressivism also had positive aspects, like furthering gender equality (the abolition of many traditional sexist practices) and breaking down the traditional rigid structures of power in the family, giving more agency to younger generations (e.g. freedom of choosing marriage partners). Finally, one must also not forget that Taiwan also does not capture a particularly "pure" lineage of Chinese culture either. The long Japanese occupation (that only ended after WWII) also came with a concerted effort by the Japanese to assimilate Taiwan (such as forbidding education of the Chinese language). Compared to the occupation of the mainland which focused more on feeding the war effort, Taiwan was treated as a permanent possession which meant the assimilation efforts were much more thoroughly executed.

What are the elements of "Chinese culture" that persist in Taiwan and were eliminated in Mainland China?

ekianjo 5y ago

Not exactly sure but I would assume that any trace of religion was the first to go in Mao's revolution.

platinumrad 5y ago
If you're not exactly sure then is this exactly a productive comment?
- rackjack 5y ago
  I think it was.

starfallg 5y ago

Almost everything, including the writing system. They even thought about romanisation, but instead just settled on butchering many of the complex characters without fully considering the historical, linguistic or aesthetic concerns.

platinumrad 5y ago
Even if you are a staunch traditionalist, "almost everything" is a massive exaggeration. The entire country still effectively shuts down for two weeks during the lunar new year. Sure this would be among the first things to go in an authoritarian state hell-bent on industrialization and yet it has persisted.
- starfallg 5y ago
  Of course that's a figure of speech, but hey, ok. With regards to the lunar new year break, Communist regimes actually have lots of public holidays. That's straight from their ideology, so not sure why you think that authoritarianism must equal to oppressing worker rights or the labour movement. That's why there is a distinction between the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right.
  - platinumrad 5y ago
    "[They eliminated] Almost everything, including the writing system" does not sound like a figure of speech to me, but you do you I guess.
    - starfallg 5y ago
      Yeah, it's a figure of speech, specifically "puffery". It's not meant to be literal.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  During which time the family gets together to watch propaganda on CCTV. I wish I was joking but that's literally what almost every single family does. It's Chinese tradition in the name only. And that isn't to say that tradition doesn't still exist here and there. But it may not be as much as someone not familiar with Chinese history may assume. Btw even authoritarian subjects need days off or they would revolt sooner or later. So the assumption that this proofs Chinese tradition is alive doesn't follow. When the Christians completely annihilated European traditions they also kept the dates and a few of the customs of some of the pagan holidays. Like Easter eggs and Christmas trees. It actually helps destroy a culture faster, else there may be too much resistance.
  - platinumrad 5y ago
    There's a difference between days off and "half the country is boarding trains to some remote village so I guess the economy is just going to halt for a couple of weeks." And oh no, lots of people just sit around watching TV when they have to spend time with their folks. We must retvrn to tradition because family relations were 100% super functional and healthy back before modernity/communism/capitalism/your-favorite-boogieman ruined everything. > It actually helps destroy a culture faster, else there may be too much resistance. Ah, the classic "evidence against my point is actually evidence for my point."
jabbany 5y ago
> butchering many of the complex characters without fully considering the historical, linguistic or aesthetic concerns. There were committees of linguistic scholars that spent a ton of time on trying to reconcile the historical, linguistic and aesthetic concerns during the simplification effort. Is it perfect? No. But it was also not an impulse move either. Also one needs to consider the context of simplification --- the idea of simplification was quite a popular and progressive idea around that time in the entire area. It was widely believed that the complex Han characters were a big hurdle in improving literacy rates and bringing more opportunity to rural areas. Both Japan and Korea engaged in similar simplification or de-ideogram efforts to varying degrees of success.

schappim 5y ago

Some elements that come to mind: - Traditional Chinese characters used more often in Taiwan than Mainland China. - Yayue (3,000 years old Chinese court music). - Taiwanese recreation of Tang Dynasty dances. - In Taiwan poems are composed/written/recited in Hokkien, on the mainland it is done in Mandarin. - The preservation of uninterrupted institutional religion (eg Daoist priests) that was largely shutdown in China. - Taiwan's leader attending ceremonies at temples to mark the birthday of Confucius, something you wouldn't see Xi Jinping do. - Taiwan's ROC governmental organization was based on the Qing dynasty, so it has the traditional Inspection Ministry that accords with the old censorate. Edit: These are not hard and fast. One will always find examples on both sides of the ditch. They do though play into the narrative of Taiwan being a capsule for culture modified post cultural revolution. Let’s also remember that Taiwan is also heavily influenced from outside via democracy, Japan, and its own aboriginal culture.

rackjack 5y ago
This is interesting. It's a shame the grandparent is so binary, as if Chinese culture is a bacteria that can be purged and survive in pockets instead of something that ebbs and flows, as all cultures do.
- Danieru 5y ago
  The cultural revolution was pretty close to purging as any culture gets. It was not a natural ebb and flow.
jabbany 5y ago
Some of these are not the best examples... - Character simplification: This was a part of a wider progressive movement in the Sinosphere in general. Traditional characters were seen back then as a hinderance to raising literacy rates. In fact, the mainland's stance here follows that of Korea (which completely got rid of Hanja) and Japan (which tried, and failed, to completely remove Kanji). This was not done because the traditional characters are "old-fashioned" but rather to get the vast rural population to be able to read. - Hokkien: This is a regional dialect imported from southern mainland China to Taiwan long before the civil war that split the two apart. After the war, regional dialects were suppressed _both_ in the mainland _and_ in Taiwan in favor of Mandarin (which is a northern dialect that was imported into Taiwan during the KMT retreat and rule). The suppression worked quite well in both places, where Mandarin has since displaced regional dialects for most matters of life. In recent years, Taiwan has made lots of efforts to bring back Hokkien to distinguish itself from the mainland, but this is actually a fairly recent development... - Ceremonies at temples: This fell out of favor mostly because Communist parties everywhere have been progressive for the most part of history and like most progressive parties everywhere tended to de-emphasize religion. While most past leaders of the CCP stuck with this, Xi has actually moved the CCP to become much more _conservative_ (reinstating a lot of religious/traditional holidays in place of western ones) so I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if at some point Xi did start to re-introduce Confucian ceremonies as a part of a revival of a more conservative form of nationalism.

jabbany 5y ago

- Much of the cultural damage came from the abolition of the "four olds", specifically a lot of old books, paintings, and art in general. - Additionally, many religious artifacts (statues, murals, temples) were affected (vandalized to completely destroyed). Most of these being classified as backwards superstition artifacts. - This also extended to banning of religious customs (holidays, festivals, practices) and modifying aspects of language (e.g. honorifics and Confucian terms were largely removed from the language, with many only living on today in Cantonese or other languages like Japanese or Korean). The actual impacts were a mixed bag though. A lot of the movement centered around destroying core parts of Chinese cultural heritage in favor of adopting progressive western ideas. Many irreplaceable historic artifacts and buildings were forever destroyed, leading to, ironically, a lot of the preserved stuff being what was plundered by the British or moved to Taiwan as part of the Nationalist retreat. On the other hand, the wholesale denouncing of traditional values in favor of progressivism also had positive aspects, like furthering gender equality (the abolition of many traditional sexist practices) and breaking down the traditional rigid structures of power in the family, giving more agency to younger generations (e.g. freedom of choosing marriage partners). Finally, one must also not forget that Taiwan also does not capture a particularly "pure" lineage of Chinese culture either. The long Japanese occupation (that only ended after WWII) also came with a concerted effort by the Japanese to assimilate Taiwan (such as forbidding education of the Chinese language). Compared to the occupation of the mainland which focused more on feeding the war effort, Taiwan was treated as a permanent possession which meant the assimilation efforts were much more thoroughly executed.