There’s affirmative action for aboriginals in the school systems. Aboriginals get an extra 30points on their high school entrance and university entrance exams. Other Taiwanese students are REALLY pissed about it… after going to Taidong for just a week, I think they deserve it. They really do need it in most cases… home environment less conducive to studying, no extra classes, lack of good schools in mostly aboriginal areas… they start out at the bottom, educationally speaking, so they need the extra marks to get up there.
Except for the occasional massacre, sure.[/quote]
Sure. But the general context of the discussion brought up the comparison between Australian and Taiwan aborigines. Chalk and Cheese. Let me correct myself: The aborigines here were treated relatively well by the colonial regime as long as they cooperated.
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Charlie Phillips”]
Chalk and cheese I reckon. The aborigines here were treated quite well by the Japanese colonial regime and the KMT so there’s not a lot of sorry business like the stolen generations. The aborigines here maintained their strong community structure and have transfered this into government and politics.
Disparities in income and quality of life are not as great either. Reporters can always find some poor little aborigine boy with only one pair of shoes and no hot water in the house, but most Indigenous Taiwanese I know have tertiary educations and middle-class jobs. [/quote]
This is patent nonsense.[/quote]
I agree. And furthermore, the vast majority of aborigines I’ve met who don’t fill this subjective structure, hunt and grow their own food, make their own wine and hard liquor, and have little need for cash or the trappings of industrial life.
Except for the occasional massacre, sure.[/quote]
Sure. But the general context of the discussion brought up the comparison between Australian and Taiwan aborigines. Chalk and Cheese. Let me correct myself: The aborigines here were treated relatively well by the colonial regime as long as they cooperated.[/quote]
And the ones that didn’t were viciously beaten, tortured, murdered, driven into caves, gassed, made to murder their own brethren. If your definition of being “treated quite well” is being forced out of your ancestral home, given a new name and identity by the ruling government, having your language and traditions wiped out in the name of assimilation, treated as a third class citizen (aboriginal children had to attend “Schools for Young Savages”, which, in areas that had not yet surrendered to the Japanese completely, were manned entirely by police officers. One can only imaging the kindness and compassion these savages received), forced into military service for a nation not their own, all while terrified into compliance by the bodily harm that the ruling government will inflict upon them and their families if they dared to show any defiance against their superior rulers.
Yeah. Maybe you just don’t understand Taiwanese culture.
Except for the occasional massacre, sure.[/quote]
Sure. But the general context of the discussion brought up the comparison between Australian and Taiwan aborigines. Chalk and Cheese. Let me correct myself: The aborigines here were treated relatively well by the colonial regime as long as they cooperated.[/quote]
And the ones that didn’t were viciously beaten, tortured, murdered, driven into caves, gassed, made to murder their own brethren. If your definition of being “treated quite well” is being forced out of your ancestral home, given a new name and identity by the ruling government, having your language and traditions wiped out in the name of assimilation, treated as a third class citizen (aboriginal children had to attend “Schools for Young Savages”, which, in areas that had not yet surrendered to the Japanese completely, were manned entirely by police officers. One can only imaging the kindness and compassion these savages received), forced into military service for a nation not their own, all while terrified into compliance by the bodily harm that the ruling government will inflict upon them and their families if they dared to show any defiance against their superior rulers.
Yeah. Maybe you just don’t understand Taiwanese culture.[/quote]
Wow. Come to think of it, this sounds like Taiwan from 1949-1990. I’m talking about the indigenous people, not the natives. The question is ‘Do Taiwan’s aboriginals experience discrimination?’ Not ‘did they’.
Wow. Come to think of it, this sounds like Taiwan from 1949-1990. I’m talking about the indigenous people, not the natives. The question is ‘Do Taiwan’s aboriginals experience discrimination?’ Not ‘did they’.[/quote]
WTF? You were the one that brought up how the aboriginals [color=#FF0000]were[/color] treated well by previous colonial regimes. Unless I’m mistaken and Taiwan is still a Japanese colony.
The aboriginals in Taiwan have always been the lowest on the food chain, being assraped by anyone and everyone who comes along. The Dutch cheated, burnt, and pillaged their villages, Han Chinese chased them into the mountains and stole their land, Japanese murdered and terrorized them.
Just because a group of people have been so oppressed, maltreated, and forcefully assimilated over the centuries that their voice has been virtually smothered in Taiwanese society so you don’t know about their history and don’t notice their plight does not mean everything is and has always been fine and dandy.
There’s discrimination against aboriginals in Taiwan, everywhere, in almost every person. Some is malicious, some is not.
There’s affirmative action in place with the extra percentage of points granted to school children for having whatever dismal percentage of aboriginal blood and learning an aboriginal language. (Any. Doesn’t necessarily have to be the ancestral language of the applicant, but they must pass a certification test in order to get a higher percentage of points. 35% for those who speak any aboriginal language versus 25% for kids who don’t know an aboriginal language. If you happen to belong to a tribe whose language is not on the test, tough luck. Learn another tribe’s language if you want that extra credit. Why not? All those mountain people are the same anyway, right?) There are positions saved for aboriginals in political positions. They count towards minority slots that have to be hired in businesses of a certain scale.
'Older people tend to believe in more negative stereotypes about aboriginals being lazy, untrustworthy, violent, barbaric alcoholics. This stereotype tends to apply mostly to aboriginal men. They have a hard time finding work if they are dark-skinned and different looking, so social discrimination basically forces many of them into unstable, low-paying blue collar/laborer/service industry jobs. If they are lighter skinned, it doesn’t matter so much since it’s harder to tell them apart from those who are not aboriginal. In the past, if they can get away with it, many have hidden aboriginal heritage to avoid such discrimination and different treatment. The Taiwanese word huan-ah 番仔 (savage) is a derogatory term still commonly used to refer to aboriginals. This term applies to all the darker-skinned, less civilized (in Taiwanese eyes) people of the world. Bone-through-the-nose Africans, Filipinos, any kind of aboriginal, etc. People who are not as sophisticated and cultured as the paler skinned folk of the north. I’m not sure how anyone can feel that there is no widespread discrimination against Taiwanese aborigines when they are still referred to as “savages” all the time.
Younger people in the city, with not much exposure to aborigines, may think that they’re kind of cool and exotic. That they’re prettier because they have more pronounced facial features, that all of them sing really well.
If they live in a community where aborigines are common though, their parents/grandparents usually brainwash them with a “us and those dirty aborigines” mentality. The “my mommy said I can’t play with you or sleepover because you’re a savage” thing happens.
Ultimately though, I doubt the discrimination will continue for much longer. Most younger aborigines are moving to urban areas for work and intermarrying even more with non-aborigines. In a few more generations, there will probably be no discernible physical difference between Han Taiwanese and aborigines. They don’t really have that “must marry within my ethnic group” mentality anymore. As it is, many people who claim aboriginal heritage and privileges nowadays are actually mostly Taiwanese. (1/8 aboriginal, 1/4, etc.)
Future progression should be similar to the discrimination that Irish people experienced in the US. While it was a real thing in the past, as they intermarried more and assimilated into the general population, real discrimination faded into halfhearted, silly stereotypes (Irish people are all hotheaded and talk with funny accents)
Part of the reason this discrimination does not seem as serious as what happens in Australia and other places is probably because it is Asian on Asian (like the discrimination against Irish in the US was white on white). Assimilation is much easier when intermarriage produces children who can pass for either ethnic group in society. Where a child with only 1/4 aboriginal heritage can pass for Han in many instances.
Things will also get more interesting in 20 years, as more children of Southeast Asian mothers/Taiwanese fathers grow up. Will they be give a distinctly separate stereotype by the Han Taiwanese? Or just lumped together under the general “savages” category?
*Great link for the “Most Taiwanese are actually aborigines viewpoint” - That “Han Taiwanese” are more similar, genetically, to aborigines than Mainland Chinese: Nǐ wǒ dōu shì yuánzhùmín.
I don’t know if my school is a good school or a bad school in the scheme of Taiwanese schools. However, even if it is a bad school, I’m not entirely sure if that’s the system’s fault. They did have trouble filling a couple of posts here, but that’s probably because most people don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. Also, I know for sure that at least a quarter of the teachers here self-identify as aboriginal, so to some extent, there must be an onus on them to instill aboriginal pride and demand higher academic standards of aboriginal kids. I don’t know if the teachers here work any more or less than other teachers, but there is a certain level of aboriginal pride here. One kid (who is also really good at English, incidentally) recently won a prize in an aboriginal language speech contest. At the end of school assembly that we have each day, he got up and recited his speech in front of the whole school. My supervisor (one of the English teachers here), who is from Taipei and whose family are waishengren is always raving about this kid. So what about the non-aboriginal kids sitting next to the aboriginal kids in classes at my school? Presumably such kids receive the same good or bad education that this school offers. If we assume for a second that this school isn’t great, then such kids don’t get the benefit of having access to an elite school in Taipei, yet they also don’t get the bonus marks some of their classmates may. They’re the kids who really get shafted here.
Also, for what it’s worth, the kids at my school finish classes at 5:00pm and there are extra-curricular activities here. Also, many a time I have gone to Taidong City and gone past one particular rural high school (senior, I think) and seen the kids still in class at 7:00pm or later.
lupillus: Haha. I just noticed your signature with a line from me (not original, unfortunately).
Great post, Lupillus. :bravo:
My son is 1/4 Bunun Aboriginal (his mother is 1/2 and his grandmother is fully Bunun). He’s 1/4 ethnic “Han”-Taiwanese, and 1/2 white (Saffa and who knows what % non-white/African). But I try to teach him to be proud of his entire heritage and I fully support his claim to being part Bunun. Just because he’s “only” 1/4 Bunun doesn’t make him any less indigenous. I’d hate for him to be like the other 99% of the population who are too ashamed of their past and their heritage to even admit that they have Aboriginal ancestry, despite genetic and historical evidence to support it. I’d rather he just grow up proud to be Taiwanese and ALL that entails, including and especially his Aboriginal heritage.
As you say, children like him and the tens of thousands of Taiwanese children born of “foreign” mothers are going to change the demographic face of this country in generations to come. People who are bigoted towards Aboriginals or children with mothers from SE Asia/the Philippines are going to have to change their outlook on these matters, because soon come shortly they are going to find themselves very much in the minority. 
Of course they do. One would be an absolute idiot to think that the Han Chinese and their successive generations would accord the Taiwan native inhabitants the same rights to personal and business success that they allow to the Chinese invaders/immigrants to the island.
Fortunately the native Taiwanese people are rising above this discrimination and moving into a place of status and achievement they have been denied for so many years.
In the arts, in the sciences and in the positions of significance in the general population here on the island, the true natives of Taiwan are truly realizing the birthright that is their own.
Please don’t take CP seriously on this topic.
Fark me go and learn how the KMT slaughtered all the tribal leaders as they had been educated by the Japanese colonialists and therefor were considered not to be chinese enough.
I basically live amongst aboriginals (bunun and Amis) since 2 years. My experience, probably anecdotal but still, is that a significant number of them aren’t reliable, are somewhat immature, have that entitlement mentality and are lacking dignity and self-respect. On the contrary the successful one are those who don’t waste their time whinning about how crappy their life is…they just work hard, they refuse to be daunted by adversities, they don’t make excuses, and guess what they and their children actually succeed.
I believe that “entitlement mentality” and that habit of making excuses were ingrained in some of them by those christian missionaries…you know that “You’re poor aborigines, you need to be saved! Fortunately Jesus and we are here to save you…”
This being said I truly love aborigines and respect them. Generally speaking I believe they seem to be far less greedy than your average chinese, I also feel them more honest. Also from the moment they accept you, they’ll protect you as if you were one of them.
Interesting, Franck - from your grammar, I think you might be Taiwanese (feel free to flame me if you’re not). I tend to feel that Han Taiwanese often have an entitlement mentality and lack both dignity and self-respect; many people feel that Taiwanese are more immature than Westerners (I think this is balanced across the board though, as there are many different types of maturity). As for reliable - Taiwanese people are very good at meeting deadlines and keeping their word, but quality is often lacking. So again, one type of reliability for another.
You’ve probably never thought of Taiwanese people this way, I’ll bet. How about we do a swap? You give examples as to why you find Aboriginals to be XYZ and I’ll explain why I find Taiwanese to be XYZ.
As an aside, does anyone know any details of the missionaries in Taiwanese Aboriginal Communities?
I think aborigines have a better welfare system now than many other poor groups in Taiwan. There is a lot of resentment among regular Taiwanese regarding the bonus points, I have to say I can see their point in some way as there are huge numbers of poor families in Taiwan with no help at all. If you are struggling and then some assimilated partial aboriginal people can claim priviledges it is not really fair is it.
As for aborigines suffering discrimination, yes they were and they were abused etc but Taiwan’s history is brutal and complex. There were full on battles between Taiwanese-Taiwanese, Taiwanese-Hakka, Taiwanese-Japanese, Japanese-Aborigines, Dutch-Aborigines etc. It was a lawless place. The aborigines often gave as good as they got.
I believe my wife’s family who are Hakka may have some female aborigine ancestors as they are from mountainous areas of Miaoli but it is a bit unclear, when I went to aborigine villages they often think she is one of them and some of the guys gave me a dirty look!
In elementary schools in Finland moving is considered a “good thing” (TM?) - it appears that children who move more are generally healthier and more balanced.
The majority of school systems in the “developed” world emphasizes sitting, but that does not mean it is good - it just fits in with industrial or military concepts of education (both based on denial of what is natural in order to mold people into machine cogs). 
Among my Japanese acquaintances in Hualien there are women married to Taiwanese men and men married to Taiwanese women, and in two cases i know for sure that the women are considered aboriginal (i’ve heard it in their own words as well as from others). From what i’ve learned, today’s reality shows some “discrimination” and some “affirmative action” at work, and among those who are officially classified as aboriginals there are both people with a victim mentality and people who work hard and are successful (both by their own and by society’s standards).
But what does “aboriginal” mean in Taiwan? The dominance of Min’nan-derived language/culture may make people think they are basically ethnic Han, but i don’t buy that: for hundreds of years men from Fujian and other places on the mainland have been moving to this island - but their descendants surely did not originate from wives made from those men’s ribs or children who emerged fully developed from those men’s foreheads. So i think it is safe to bet that 本省人are on average 50% aboriginal, and since the vast majority of 外省人were also men, surely many of their descendants must be ethnically mixed, as well.
To the men who make up the vast majority of Forumosa users: try to look at history from a woman’s perspective once and you might see how the official myth of 台湾人 = 漢人evaporates before your eyes. So what does “aboriginal” mean in Taiwan? Surely, it can only be a cultural classification, not an ethnic classification…
(As an aside, it is interesting that Wikipedia has only Japanese and Chinese pages on the topic of 本省人 and 外省人 but none in English - i don’t know what terms one would use in English).
Maybe you’d both be right.
That’s because it would largely be a non-sensical issue in English speaking countries. In countries other than the UK, the societies have been built by very recent immigration (though there’s been plenty of that in the UK also) and essentially all non-Aboriginal people’s ancestors were immigrants (though obviously, if we go back far enough even the Aborigines’ ancestors were immigrants also). It’s kind of a strange concept to have 本省人 and 外省人 in the West unless you’re a complete yokel.
The other day I was discussing with my wife how Taiwan will change in the future as increasingly large numbers of children won’t even be 50% Han, including our own. The notion of what it is to be Taiwanese will have to change as the current (Hancentric) definition will become more and more absurd. In rural Taidong, where I live, I actually wonder if the next generation will be even much more than about 25% Han. So many kids here look far more Aboriginal than Han, and there are so many women from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations here. My wife agreed that our children would indeed be Taiwanese, but it was literally the first time she had ever really thought about “being Taiwanese” in these terms (i.e. Cultural/national rather than racial). That’s from someone who is fairly open. I still hear all sorts of odd things from my inlaws and they’re not particularly parochial. It will change though.
As for the UK, which I only mentioned in passing above, there’s a really weird phenomenon where if your ancestors are English and you want to proclaim your Englishness, especially if you display a St George Cross anywhere, you’re automatically assumed to be a shaven-headed, BNP racist who reads (and I use that term loosely) The Sun. On the other hand, Jamaican flags are displayed with outward pride and no one had better dare to suggest that such a person might be a drug dealing good for nothing, unaware of three to seven illegitimate children to five different mothers. England must be just about the only country in the world where the people the nation is named after are in the majority yet stereotype their own patriotism so negatively. Quite bizarre, really.
Yes, bizarre, but not unique I think. We, ze Germans, are (outside of soccer world cup events) exactly like this - even much more so I am afraid. And before I read your post I thought WE were uniquely bizarre in this respect. Not trying to display Schadenfreude here, but I am kinda relieved to hear this about England. Cheers 
On the topic of Aboriginals and discrimination in TW: My TWese friends (apart from one Ami mostly a mix of 本省人 and 外省人 in their early twenties) for sure heard about those stereotypes, but generally seem to know that its just that - stereotypes. As far as I found out so far they don’t have any first hand negative experiences or strong enough indoctrination by parents / school / society that would make them care about these stereotypes much. They seem to care about the differences between 本省人 and 外省人 just as little as they seem to care about people being or not being aboriginal. Also if any stereotypes are ever talked about (actually so far only after I asked about stuff like that), then its mostly the positive ones. For their parents it is probably quite different, with strong stereotyping present. I would hope once this younger generation is “in power”, a lot of current issues with discrimination will gradually fade. That is, if the “sample” that I know is any similar to the general population of that age.
The question about how many aboriginals were in their ancestry would be interesting to find out though, thanks for the idea!
Try these pages for example
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waishengren