This is an interesting post there’s a lot going on in this post but it’s way off topic.
I wouldnt put too much store in Europeans casual observations of people back then.
What you could do are genetic studies on remains of people from hundreds of years ago.
Even then genetics just say they share ancestors but culturally not very useful to understand what was going on.
Pingpu tribes assimilation and how much they contribute to modern day taiwan…its a good topic for another thread.
Actually Taiwanese history is well documented. It’s just that most people are not aware of Manchurian Imperial census records actually exist. The Manchurian kept a good record of what happened in their domains. If there’s famine or pandemic that caused a decline of population, you would read about it. Heck, even criminal cases like murders (in Manchurian Taiwan, yes) were in the Emperor’s daily brief.
There’s no reason to assume the Manchurian 200 years ago had any ulterior motive to falsify their official documents in preparation for a Han-Centric view that was to come in 20th century.
Instead, most people rely on anecdotes that they have this one ancestor from Fujian how many generations ago…And from that an impression is created that ALL Taiwanese-Taiwanese must be originally from Fujian. The Manchurian Emperor would disagree with this theory. He specifically forbid human trafficking to Taiwan and he made it a crime punishable by death. It would be a fantasy to create a story of hundreds of thousands of no-good Fujianese made their way to Taiwan and outbred his Formosan subjects in 40 years. That’s utter absurdity that goes against the verifiable records of His Majesty.
Back to the OP, I’m a Uni teacher in Taiwan. Lately I’ve been getting more offers than usual from shady, questionably named “institutions” from the mainland (I think they find me through my LinkedIn). Now I’m not saying I’m important enough to poach, but it is a weird flood of crappy offers.
It’s possible that these institutions are actually looking for people to work for them. It’s also possible that this is part of some coordinated United Front tactics.
I attended a conference in Taipei a while ago at a prestigious institution where a “scholar” (I use quotation marks deliberately) from Beijing spent a time at the banquet afterwards whispering in my ear that they would like to invite me to China, and that they would have lots of tours, and banquets, and many other things for me. I smiled and thanked him for his kindness.
I should add that this attempts to gain access to and/or influence on academics in Taiwan have been going on for some time. I am far from alone among academics in Taiwan in receiving these sorts of “charm” (I again use quotation marks here) offers. Some of my Taiwan colleagues are quite happy to attend “conferences” in the PRC in which there is negligible academic activity but plenty of banquets, tours, etc.–everything paid by the PRC hosts.
Alas, nobody has shown any such interest in me! I wonder what they’re looking for. Certain fields? (But which ones?) Publications? Being well networked with other scholars? Political reliability / bribability / blackmailability? Taiwan ties?
my ignorance? whats your problem? give me some pictures of these aboriginals that look exactly like chinese from fujian. lets have a look at your evidence.
for what you are saying to be true you couldn’t include descendants of fujian settlers. which would mean the vast majority of (chinese looking) aboriginals(who you are saying makes up most taiwanese) completely adopted chinese culture, chinese food, started constructing chinese temples and houses everywhere that looked exactly like they did across the strait even though they had never even been there. ok then.
That Yushan project is a testament of how remarkably retarded the government is.
The media loves getting all hyperbolic about how the university professors are all leaving for China, the truth is, according to official statistics, about 0.3% of the working professors quit and go overseas to work every year. The mobility rate is extremely low and this Cum Fujian thing is not gonna be enough to flip that.
The real problem of the higher education is that there are not enough openings for young scholars seeking jobs. The teacher-student ratio is much higher than it was in the 90s. The old ones in the inner circle are sucking up all the resources, receive millions (or more) for their projects. There are even some sort of special ones that get paid more than 500,000 per month, which is already more than the American ones. Whereas the young ones who recently got their PhDs can barely get a job, or they can only be adjunct lecturers and get paid nothing. The only reason why many young scholars are getting a job in China is because of this, not because Chinese unis pay particularly well, because they don’t.
Here are some articles regarding the issue:
There’s even a graph for uni profs’ salary around the world. According to it the professors’ salaries in Taiwan are more in line with France and Japan: