Almost all Taiwanese have aboriginal genome in their genetic make up. Hence most Taiwanese are not 100% ethnic HAN and therefore differ from their mainland China cousins.
Physically its hard to tell the regular Taiwanese apart from the aboriginal Taiwanese in many cases. Only when they speak can some be given away by an accent.
That’s because it would largely be a non-sensical issue in English speaking countries.[/quote]
Not sure whether that is a good explanation. 
Let me put it this way: the fact that this distinction is not applied (not needed) in English speaking countries does not mean the Taiwanese situation is of no interest to people who read languages other than Japanese and Chinese. Many languages have, for example, words for plants and animals that do not naturally exist in the countries where those languages are spoken…
With that development, what is left of discrimination will possibly disappear quite naturally and in the near future… 
That is most promising - the world does not need any more “ethnic” strife…
honestly most of the time i can’t tell the difference between aboriginals and filipino workers. they speak mandarin equally as weird. ive learned to just try speaking taiyu to them, if they can speak taiyu back, aboriginal. if not, then i just speak english to the filipino.
also, not sure on the validity of this, my half ami half han…girlfriend of friend of another friend told me that aboriginals have their aboriginal status directly on their shenfenzheng, whether it’s by the letter at the front of the number or something i have no idea. she told me that when she was born, her parents made sure her shenfenzheng was under her dad and not her mom so it wouldn’t say aboriginal on it and she wouldnt be ‘discriminated against’
about the discrimination thing, i’ve noticed personally among my friends that they are more amazed when an aboriginal speaks proper mandarin than a foreigner. i think that says something.
mike029: To be honest, it sounds bad, but it’s actually like that in many cases. Plenty of the kids at my junior high school cannot write very simple characters such as pao bu (run). My Chinese is shit, but I’ve picked plenty of them up on using the wrong characters. I was pretty incredulous at first, but that’s how it is in plenty of cases. Just the other day, a kid couldn’t get the huo (fire) in dragon fruit right, which blew my mind because surely that’s pretty obvious. I wrote the character for him and all the kids were like, “What the fuck?” Indeed! Tons of my students can’t identify anywhere other than Yilan, Hualian, Taidong and Pingdong Counties on a map of Taiwan. There is very little you can take for granted in terms of what they know or don’t know. Generally, though not always, the more Han kids are certainly better at English, if not other subjects. I don’t think it’s a racial thing but a class/wealth/education thing.
A LOT of Taiwanese kids can’t identify where Taipei is on a map, don’t hold that bit against them!
Which school were you teaching at? I did a volunteer week running English fun-classes last summer at Taidong Yinv; they were some pretty smart girls.
I think part of the reason Han kids are better at school is because their parents value education more (or do the psychotic over-valuing classes that a lot of parents do here). They go to cram school and have a quiet environment at home to study in; from what I’ve heard very few Aboriginals in smaller cities attend cram schools and only slightly more have a good study environment at home.
tsu: Two schools in Taidong County. There are some smart kids here, and some of them have skills in other ways. For instance, some are a lot more sporty than the average Taiwanese kid, and some know a lot about horticulture and agriculture, fixing mechanical things, and various other things that are helpful when living on a farm. The townies tend to be the ones lacking any real skills or knowledge.
I agree with your assessment of why the Han tend to be more educationally successful here. The educational system here is really focussed on those kids who can sit down in rows and shut up, which is kind of the wrong approach with a lot of these kids.
We don’t have any cram schools in my town, though if I remember correctly (since I actually live in a village, not even the town, so I don’t see it that often), there is a cream school. Hehe.
Eeehm, I’m not really sure where you exactly got that. The Japanese had a genuine interest in incorporating Taiwan in the Japanese Empire and they invested a lot in things like infrastructure and education. On the other hand, they regularly sent military expeditions in the mountains to deal with aboriginal violence, especially before 1910-1920. It’s probably good to know that violence from the aboriginal side was very often provoked by Chinese entrepreneurs going into the mountains to get out as much camphor wood as they could, mainly for the Japanese market. Eventually, most ‘high-mountain savages’ were forced to come down and live in lowland villages, so that they were more easy to control and their land in the mountains could be used for commercial exploitation. The Japanese definitely considered the aborigines to be second-class citizens and ruled over them with an iron hand/fist.
The KMT was mainly interested in creating a culturally unified Taiwan, so they actively repressed all signs of aboriginal culture. If you spoke an aboriginal language (or Taiwanese, for that matter) in public, you could expect a fine, a good beating, or something worse. Aborigines were considered barely human and confined to reservations. Officially, this was done to protect them from land grabs by Chinese and Taiwanese, but it also meant their access to job markets, education, healthcare was all much more restricted than that of the general population. Quite a bit of land has still ended up in Chinese hands through corruption.
Aboriginal rights in Taiwan only started off seriously in the second half of 1980s, mainly through the influence of local churches and some political activists at National Taiwan University. In recent years, the situation has improved markedly, and there is now a lot of genuine interest in aboriginal culture, but that doesn’t mean that prejudice and racism has disappeared.
When I told people some years ago that I was doing research on aboriginal culture and lived in an aboriginal village, these are some of the answers I got:
And that’s from people with a university degree…
R
I think that’s a great way to ruin your chances with a girl.
“My what nice big round eyes you have. How beautiful! You must have a little bit of Shan Di blood…”
I said that once to a teacher I had a crush on. hahaha…
Very different to the US where anyone with 1/16th Irish blood will tell you they are Irish, the LaMotta surname notwithstanding…
When I see scenes like this from NZ, I often wonder if this kind of pride in aboriginal culture in Taiwan is possible. It’s not totally absent in Taiwan, but it’s nothing like this.
I like this comment:
“Imagine your a foreign exchange student and this is your first day in there.”
I too wonder avout this all the time. Having basically one Māori language helps.
We need to get tribal leadership the authority to distribute resources and collect land usage fees on their traditional territories.
I think the All Blacks (and the haka they do pre-game) are definitely also a factor. There are aboriginal sports stars in Taiwan, but of course nothing like the All Blacks. Maybe if Taiwan gets an aboriginal Olympic athlete who dominates a sport for a decade and who is proud of his/her aboriginal heritage, then maybe something a tiny bit like the All Blacks phenomenon will happen here.
Forward looking Indigenous people in Taiwan are not waiting for an Olympic athlete; they are writing songs, making films, writing books.
One example is this emerging Atayal filmmaker, with a nice report about her award-winning microfilm “Not Your Tropical Girl” posted today at Focus Taiwan:
Guy
Well, apparently it translates to “hello, good day, how are you” so they should feel right at home.
Yes there is discrimination here with the usual expected stereotypes…
More here in the south and east, just like you have more prejudice in northern Canada or outback Australia simply because there’s more contact between settler/descendants and natives. Local majorities, who are generally less privileged than people in the big cities, resent attempts to mitigate aboriginal conditions (affirmative action in schooling, benefits restricted to natives) at what they see as their expense.
Both here and China the government is trying to stop any sort of discrimination and also grants them special rights (such as having a gun for hunting, bonus point for test scores, etc.).
This isn’t something governments in the west tries to do with their indigenous population. In fact for a long time the policy of the USA is to exterminate those “savages” and systematic genocide.
I don’t know if this is something the government of Taiwan or China has done in the past towards them.
China is involved in genocide right now.
Guy
That part is true, but how is Taiwan or China doing or have done any better?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the current total population of Native Americans in the United States is 6.79 million, which is about 2.09% of the entire population.
Here in Taiwan, the Indigenous population is less than 600,000, which makes up 2.5% of the entire population.
I’d say both places have done equally bad. Let’s not forget Han immigrants used to cannibalize the Indigenous population because they believe it would cure malaria.
Huh the US Government grants Indians their own Territory and reservations in the US some areas comprise a good % of that state and the right to make profits from Gambling and operating Casinos. They can also make their own laws that govern the Territories and Policing forces. There are tons of federal grant scholarships for Indians in the US. Colleges and Universities usually also give them preferential acceptance. Taiwanese Aboriginals are fighting for this but can only dream to be treated as well as the US its not comparable. In fact thats the Taiwanese Aboriginals MAIN argument with the Taiwan Govt, they want to be treated equally as well as the US Govt treats their Natives. But Taiwan aint having it. Lets not go into how China treats their aboriginals or non Han minorities cause its not as good as Taiwan and in a different ball park to the US.
“Because tribes possess tribal sovereignty, even though it is limited, laws on tribal lands vary from those of the surrounding area.[6] These laws can permit legal casinos on reservations, for example, which attract tourists. The tribal council, not the local government or the United States federal government, often has jurisdiction over reservations.”
Having said that yes both Govts treated them poorly but Taiwan and China pales in comparison to what the US has given so far. I think the issue is the US is more self reflective and talks about its faults more whereas the real issues in China or Taiwan is hidden and not blasted in News media, TV shows or Movies. Nor is much of it taught in their history books. In US history entire chapters are devoted to how the native Americans were treated unfairly and had land stolen or given diseases by the white man. In Taiwan or China is it in their Jr High and HS history books the racism, discrimination, and land grabbing caused by the White man white skinned Han Chinese? Doubt it.
You’re comparing Indian Treatment of the 19th century US Govt with 21st century China/Taiwan. You’d probably be appalled at Native treatment in 19th century China and Taiwan, its just as bad or worse than the US but people dont know since Taiwan and China are not going to be making movies and TV shows about it and the average Han Chinese in Taiwan or China is not going to care to change it
Taiwan and Chinas treatment of Natives is roughly 40 yrs behind the US currently is roughly parallel to the US in the 1980s. China is at least a full decade behind Taiwan in this. Chinas definition of treating Aboriginals well is putting on some Dance and Comedy shows with traditional costumes to entertain the Han Chinese tourists who visit Zhangjiajie or some ethnic village. I dont think the CCP s going to be giving up land to Aboriginals for them to make their own laws.