Showing posts with label 5000_years_of_culture_i_can_never_understand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5000_years_of_culture_i_can_never_understand. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Talking about Taiwan's 'Chinese identity' begs the question

unnamed-1


Interesting editorial piece in the Hong Kong Free Press, actually from 2017, but I've just come across it today. In it, Hong Kong resident Charlotte Chang eloquently describes her feelings of identifying on a deep level as Chinese, which she says is made difficult by China's attempts at intertwining Chinese cultural and ethnic identity with political identity:


Like them, I feel overwhelmingly defined by Chinese culture and history. But this pride is apparently not enough, compared with what the mainland expects from me as a new member of its monolithic nation state. Now that Hong Kong is a part of the People’s Republic, “patriotism” should be felt for China as nation and political unit; a love of China as heritage is not enough....

As it stands now, the narrow definition of “Chinese-ness” we are asked to internalize leaves no room for a differentiation between culture and politics. Reconciling this conflict—if it is at all possible—will continue to weigh on my conception of what it means to be Chinese and a Hong Kong citizen in the years to come.


This also has relevance to Taiwan. What strikes me about this is how, in a world where one can identify culturally or ethnically as Chinese without necessarily identifying with the PRC or desiring to be a part of China as a single political entity, it would be easier for Hong Kongers (and Taiwanese) who wish to do so. In Taiwan especially, they could say "I am Chinese" without the attendant political baggage that China now insists that must entail.

Few could argue with a more open, inclusive, downright liberal definition that one can affix to being Chinese. In Taiwan, it would allow those who don't want to let go of the cultural and literary traditions they value, which nevertheless come from China, to keep them without feeling pressure to desire Chinese citizenship. It would allow more breathing room for discussions on how and when Chinese and Taiwanese history have intersected, and allow for less defensiveness in discussions of uniquely Taiwanese history and culture. It allows Hong Kongers to talk about sovereignty without feeling as though they have to deny that they are Chinese (which is precisely why the PRC feels such an open definition cannot be allowed). It just gives people more options - it allows people to relate to being Chinese in a similar way to how I relate to being Armenian: there is a wealth of cultural heritage and history there, but I feel no pressure to desire citizenship in Armenia.

This is apparent in the way she relates to Taiwan, which most would appreciate:


When I visit, I can get around by speaking a language related to my native tongue, explore a history that I have a firm basis in understanding yet am not completely well-versed in, and eat food that tastes familiar yet differs from my everyday diet. In short, I can appreciate my affiliation with Taiwanese people and engage with them from a common cultural reference point while respecting our distance as separate political entities.


Yes! See how easy and drama-free this could all be, if not for the meddling of the People's Republic of China?

The PRC cannot permit this, because it suits their agenda to force Hong Kongers - and, in their mind, Taiwanese - to choose. It makes identifying as 'Chinese' a fraught business. If/when Taiwanese (and Hong Kongers) get fed up and say "fine, if being 'Chinese' means we must be a part of 'China', then I guess we aren't Chinese", they are called culture traitors or race traitors by the Chinese troll mob. Some might feel internal conflict, not wanting to give up a desired Chinese identity for political reasons. This also happens when Taiwanese who have never really felt Chinese to begin with say the same thing.

Nevertheless, I have an issue with the way Chang throws Chineseness on Taiwan, as though she gets to decide how Taiwan identifies:


Perhaps this explains why Taiwan is now so popular as a travel destination for Hong Kong visitors: as a Chinese society [emphasis mine], it does not pressure us to feel a political affinity for it, yet still offers a wealth of culturally intimate experiences.

She assumes, because Taiwan shares many cultural facets with China, most Taiwanese have ancestry in China (among other places), and their history has intersected at times, that Taiwanese de facto identify as Chinese, just as she does. This is implicit in her presumption that Taiwan is a "Chinese" society.

Frankly, I have no real problem with this particular piece or its author - generally, I like it (well, her historical claims about Chinese civilization are deeply questionable, but...whatever). But I hear this assumption about Taiwan parroted often, and it's time to challenge it.

In modern liberal thought, it is taken as a given that people can choose to identify how they like - and only the people involved can decide that. Nobody can force an identity on anybody else.

Well, the same is true for Taiwan. Only Taiwanese can decide, collectively, that they are Chinese. It cannot be decided by people in another country, no matter how similar they are ethnically or culturally (which is not as much as you'd think). It cannot be decided by a Hong Konger because "the food is familiar". It can only be decided by them.

Nobody else can force it on them. Not with appeals to ethnicity (which is a human construct - genetic markers are a real thing, but "ethnicity" is a combination of chosen identity, genetics and family history/culture that doesn't reside in our DNA), not with appeals to history (Taiwan has not been Chinese for the vast majority of its history), and not with appeals to culture (which is, again, a construct. Culture and borders often don't align and it has as much to do with identity as it does internal thinking). The only way in which any person can have an identity - whether that's Taiwanese, Chinese, American, Armenian, whatever - is if they choose it.

If, under a politically open construct, many Taiwanese decide they are Chinese, obviously they have that right. But if they don't - and I know many Taiwanese who don't, never have and never will, no matter how open the definition is - nobody can or should change that. How other people feel doesn't matter.

This is what irks me about the whole "you don't understand the relationship between Taiwan and China because you don't understand what it means to be Chinese!" line of thinking (which is not what Chang was doing in her generally good piece, I just hear it a lot). The rationalization for this is that 'being Chinese' is different, in terms of identity, from other sorts of identity (like, say, how I can identify as both Armenian and American, as well as someone whose home is Taiwan) - usually with the idea that it has some sort of stronger pull or that there are distinct ethnic or cultural boundaries to 'being Chinese' that cannot be violated. This of course is not true - not only are millions of PRC citizens 'not Chinese' under this definition, but a large chunk of Vietnam is Chinese - it's all a construct, created for political gain.

But that begs the question - forget the shaky rationale behind the assumption that 'being Chinese' is somehow different from being anything else. It's wrong, but that's not the point. The point is, when you apply it to Taiwan, you are begging the question. You are assuming from the outset that Taiwan is Chinese, and therefore all of these assumptions and suppositions you have about 'being Chinese' therefore must apply to Taiwan, and therefore one cannot argue that Taiwan is not Chinese, because of 'what it means to be Chinese', but you are the one who decided Taiwan was Chinese in the first place.

In this scenario, you are still deciding someone else's identity for them so that you can push your assumptions about that identity on them.

The reasoning is so circular, it literally hurts my head.

Why so many Westerners, in particular, buy this line of reasoning is beyond me, but I think it stems from a well-meaning, but in this particular case misguided, desire to seem respectful of other cultures. When of course it just means agreeing with Chinese political propaganda and not being respectful at all of Taiwanese culture and identity. When it comes from people who do identify as Chinese, it reeks of trying to force an identity on another group, just because you want them to be a certain way - without caring whether or not they agree. This may be well-meaning (I know a wonderful Chinese person who had to be convinced, after many conversations, that nobody but the Taiwanese can decide what the Taiwanese are) or it may be politically motivated - the only real difference is that the former group can often be convinced.

Or, in a sentence: if Taiwanese decide they are not Chinese - and generally, most identify as Taiwanese - then "what it means to be Chinese" is not relevant to Taiwan,  because Taiwan isn't Chinese.

Even if Taiwanese decide they are Chinese, they still get to define what that means to them. No outside entity can force their own definitions on Taiwan. 

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

My deepest apologies to the People's Republic of China and their 5,000 years of culture

Update:

I may make fun of the Chinese government, and it is certainly well-deserved, but I am really very sorry to hear about the bus fire that killed at least 26 in Taiwan including 24 Chinese. It's important to remember that as much as we may make fun of public discourse or terrible leaders, that it is never okay to make light of real, individual human lives. I really am saddened by this, and extend condolences to the families affected. 


In solidarity with the artists and entertainers who have been forced recently to apologize to the People's Republic of China for being so, so wrong and unforgivably arrogant as to have views that differ from those that the Chinese government and its phalanx of paid Internet trolls, I would like to express my most sincere and heartfelt apologies to the People's Republic of China and their eminently competent, reasonable leaders. This includes the Chinese people of Chinese Taipei, Chinese South China Sea and the Chinese Moon which has been Chinese since antiquity.

fuckyouchina
Photo created by me, originally posted here (you can go ahead and like it if you want, but don't feel obligated)

I have many things to apologize for. For example, I am deeply sorry that I live in a society that treats women better than your society does, and one in which laws regarding women's rights are superior. For example:

I must also apologize for the embarrassing situation in which, on a daily basis, I breathe cleaner air than 1.7 billion Chinese people. A big nose foreigner such as myself has no right to breathe healthier air than the great and superior Chinese race of China, a country where everyone is exactly the same race (Chinese) with no deviations.

I apologize that I only speak one dialect of the Chinese language, and have only basic proficiency in another. I understand that there are many dialects to this one singular language and it is my weaker, less intelligent, nearly ape-like foreign monster brain that has made it impossible for me to also comprehend the entirety of the Chinese language, including Cantonese, Shanghainese, Sichuanese, Uighur, Tibetan, Miao and Dong. If I were Chinese with a superior intellect I would be able to instantly understand all of these languages as they are closely related, mutually intelligible and in fact inseparable under the rubric of "the Chinese language". I am a lazy and incompetent student as I have only learned the Mandarin aspect of the Chinese language, and I deeply regret that my scholarship is lacking.

I am deeply remorseful for living in a free society in which I can express my views freely in written and spoken form, criticize political leaders, participate in protests if I so choose and generally enjoy the protections of basic human rights and the rule of law. I am very sorry, furthermore, that I prefer living such a materialistic Western running dog lifestyle to...not doing that.

I am very sorry that, while that gaggle of pre-intermediate buttclowns in the Communist Party of China talks of China's progress in gender equality, that marital rape is illegal in Taiwan but is not considered 'rape' in China. My most heartfelt apologies for finding this utterly barbaric and unacceptable.

I am also sorry that I have not sufficiently supported Chinese efforts to reclaim its ancestral territory in Canada, the North Pole, the Solar System and the Andromeda Galaxy. I understand that these are sacred and inalienable parts of China since antiquity and reflect with perfect accuracy the historical borders of China during its earliest dynasties before the Big Bang.

I realize that my Western capitalist dissolute ways and immoral, irrational viewpoints are unacceptable to the fragile, sensitive hearts of the People's Republic of China - hearts which beat as one with national pride and glory - and I would like to express my most considerate and long-meditated-upon contrition for immorally and irrationally daring to criticize the united wishes of over one billion superior Chinese with my illogical, China-hating ways. I fully accept that I can never understand China's 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000000,00,000,0,0,0,,,,000000,0 years of culture nor can anyone who was not born of the superior Chinese race, which is Han Chinese, but also everyone else in China, although they are inferior to the Han as well as superior to everyone else because they are inalienably Chinese.

Finally, I would like to apologize for the fact that 習近平的菊花茶 is so bitter, but Chinese must drink it every day.

* * *

On a serious note, I had started a post in which I wrote about how China's motivations for aggressiveness in the South China Sea didn't worry me, and the actual apologies issues by many Taiwanese pop stars didn't either (the smartest comment regarding that was made by Lin Fei-fan recently, whose post you can read here - the gist as my crappy Chinese understands it is that we shouldn't blame individual artists who feel forced for economic reasons or by their agencies and promoters to apologize for having done nothing wrong, but rather to change the way we support the arts in Taiwan so that such artists can find a local base and local support, in terms of popularity and financing).

What worries me is that China is frighteningly successful at slowly building - training, even - a sense of blind nationalist fervor. An entire army, one billion or so strong (or close enough to seem like it), of trolls both self-aware and not-, of useful idiots and of economic intimidation that is scarily good at humiliating and subjugating anyone and everyone they wish to. This, I was (and am) afraid is a far more terrifying prospect than missiles and soldiers. Those are not only unlikely to be deployed in the near term, but easily make China look like the aggressor internationally. Far more horrifying is this sort of thing, where you can't quite pin it definitively on the Chinese government doucheparrots, but you know they're involved in it somehow. You can't quite get the egg to stick to their face as they humiliate your stars internationally and make you look weak. It might not bring nations to their knees but it is fantastically undercutting and detrimental to national morale.

It is especially frightening in a world where Taiwan rarely makes international news for anything other than business, or if it does it's relegated to a side note in a story that uses China as its lede. How can you fight back when nobody is listening to you?

I feel slightly differently now. With this simple contest, which has made global headlines in multiple languages (well, at least Chinese and English) and shown the world that Taiwanese can and will fight back and they will do so with two of the most potent weapons known to public discourse - satire and sarcasm - well, that gives me some hope. Far from being 'childish' or 'meaningless', there is a reason why humor is so strictly policed by authoritarian regimes. In political rhetoric, it is approaching a nuclear option. This entire contest is a brilliant show of social media savvy - if you grab international headlines, you are pretty damn savvy - as well as the sharp level of satire and sarcasm that Taiwanese regularly employ.

Missiles and soldiers? Scary. But the death of intelligent discourse? Way scarier. As long as you keep talking about things, as long as you keep exchanging ideas and progressing in understanding of issues through rhetoric and discussion, as long as you don't stop fighting and don't shut your mouth, a light is left on somewhere even in the darkest times. When that light is quashed by a billion angry trolls so you can't hear other free-minded people above the static and din, you've got far bigger problems than you might think.

Side note: if you are one of those idiot Westerners who think 'Asians don't understand sarcasm', you are simply wrong and this proves you wrong. You may now go back to drinking beer in your dank expat cave and generally ceasing to comment on things you don't understand because you don't have local friends. BYE).

If Taiwan can keep this up - fighting attempted humiliation with biting wit - they'll have half a chance in the media battle for the attention of the world. And China will be exactly what it deserves: well and truly fucked.

Update #2: I'm moving the text from here to a new post as it will likely get lost amid all of my sincere apologies to the fragile hearts and minds of the leaders of the People's Republic of China and their Internet troll army.