Differences between Taiwanese Culture and Chinese Culture

Can anyone share what’s so unique about Taiwanese culture? From what I’ve seen, they celebrate all the major Chinese holidays. Most if not all their dishes can also be found in the Fujian province. Traditional Chinese? That’s used in Guangdong, Hong Kong and many places in Southeast Asia.

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Guangdong uses simplified characters.

Start a thread on that! This thread is about the Pelosi visit.

Guy

I should have qualified that more. They get a lot of content from neighboring Hong Kong.

Actually it’s kinda related. Many people on Twitter are saying that the unique Taiwanese culture must be protected from the CCP and yet none of them can say what exactly is unique about said culture. Heck most don’t even know what holidays the Taiwanese celebrate.

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Taiwan is a liberal democracy with a free press.

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That’s a political system. At one time, the Mainland wasn’t communist either. I am talking culture.

What’s is unique about Canadian culture? Same difference.

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I wasn’t asking about Canadian culture.

It’s all related.

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So . . . Beijing can invade?

This makes no sense.

Guy

They’re obviously going to be cut from the same cloth. Many Commonwealth Realms also celebrate many of the same holidays. Many commonwealth realms have large overlaps.

But there are nuanced differences.

Ultranationalism, for one, like violent nationalism or supremacism for one is not a thing here unlike China.

There is a culture here of speaking out.

Taiwan retains many of the little cultural things that China wiped out. Taiwanese are more religious than Chinese, whereas surviving temples from the cultural revolution are more tourist traps than actual places of worship.

I find Taiwanese are not as moneyhungry as they are in China. That can be both a good and bad thing.

There is lots,

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The modern culture, developments since 1945, are quite different. Acceptance of differences, womens liberation, liberal democracy kind of stuff.

There are also elements of traditional culture, like the temples and paper burning, that have largely been removed from the PRC but that we see a lot in the ROC

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And I’m telling you it’s the same thing. Holidays or festivals are not the main parts of culture, how you interact with others around you is. Taiwanese are more polite, courteous, shy and open-minded than Chinese. I can go on if you wish.

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Japanese influences too.

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Poutine, eh!

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I’d say earlier than that, at least since 1895, which was really the decisive political break, leading to an infusion of Japanese ideas, words, culture . . . not embraced by everyone, that’s for sure, but it’s here in a way that it’s not in China.

EDIT: Plus what @Marco said.

Guy

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That’s the Western point of view. I live here in one of the countries in South East Asia and I have to interact daily with the local Chinese population since they control a large portion of the economy. From what I’ve seen, they celebrate:

  1. Chinese New Year.
  2. Mid Autumn Festival.
  3. Tomb Sweeping Day.
    etc, etc.

Basically things that have survived how many thousand years of Chinese history. And I look at what the Taiwanese celebrate and they celebrate the same things too. This is not about whether the CCP has the right to invade Taiwan or not. I am genuinely interested in what makes the Taiwanese so different from the Mainlanders.

We’ve been telling you.

Guy

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The reason for his analogy using Canada as an example is that yes the cultures are similar, but not exactly the same due to the 100 years of separation. Many of the big things, like the way Canada and the UK and Australia work, are similar or the same.

It’s often the smaller more nuanced differences.

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