I’m still trying to find more information about this. But someone told me that Taiwan was one of the first places to successfully fight of western colonist during the colonial time period. Is this true, and does anyone have any more information about this.
Zheng Zhenggong aka Koxinga driving off the Dutch colonists in Taiwan around 1640 or so? I’m not sure that I’d reall consider that to be an example of Taiwan fighting off Western colonists though as Koxinga and his army came from China and were escaping the Manchu conquest. Koxinga and his troops had virtually no connection to Taiwan before beating the Dutch (although, supposedly some Han Chinese were working as laborers for the Dutch in Taiwan and they joined Koxinga’s attack). Maybe one could say “Taiwan was one of the first places in Asia where the Western colonialists were driven off . . .”
On the issue of fighting off colonialists, the China Post also had an editorial recently celebrating Taiwanese resistance against Japan and in support of the short lived 1895 Republic. While I think the editorial dramatizes the situation bit, I support the intent to emphasize Taiwanese resistance.
m.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/201 … ma-was.htm
[quote]One hundred and twenty years ago today, Admiral Sukenori Kabayama inaugurated his government of Taiwan amid festivities in Taipei. Japan’s first governor-general of Taiwan was confident that the organized defense of the new colony would soon subside after Tang Jingsong, president of the Republic of Taiwan, had fled Taipei with his family for Fuzhou in mainland China 12 days before and the main body of the Japanese invasion army was in the capital city ready to march southward to pacify the island. Kabayama used Tang’s yamen (administrative office) as the office of the governor-general.
Kabayama was wrong. Taiwan’s war of independence went on. [/quote]
Well, the aboriginals didn’t have much luck fighting off all those Chinese.
It depends what you mean by “fight off”. There are dozens of countries all around the world that think they’re under the boot, even though the colonists are long gone. Taiwan’s achievement, it seems to me, was to recognise that the colonists had gone. They then took what they left behind, and made something useful of it. Eventually. Obviously, having a giant peanut for a president hampered that process for a while.
As opposed to sitting around with a hangdog expression, saying: look at the mess our country is in! It’s all your fault!
I mean, realistically, the Japanese (and the Americans 
) just sort of … strolled away. Nothing to see here. Move along. It wasn’t me. They weren’t driven out by (Taiwanese) force.
What’s the definition of the “start of western colonialism”? Without that it’s hard to say who’s first
Does it count when the people of Elmina attacked Diogo de Azambuja’s people for tearing down their homes and destroying their holy rock to build a Portuguese fort? That was in 1482.
Does it count as fight off when the Ciguayos people of Samaná Peninsula shot arrows at Columbus and stabbed two of his men? As a result Columbus named that place The Bay of Arrows. That was in 1493.
Does it count when Calicut mobs attacked the Portuguese factory, killing more than 53 Portuguese in the Calicut Massacre? That was in 1500.
Does it count as fight off when Datu Lapu-Lapu of Cebu’s Mactan island killed Magellan? That was in 1521.
According to the exhibit in the National Taiwan Museum I visited yesterday, there didn’t seem to be any fighting at all. It all seemed to all be down to “relocation” and the like.
According to the exhibit in the National Taiwan Museum I visited yesterday, there didn’t seem to be any fighting at all. It all seemed to all be down to “relocation” and the like.
[/quote]
The Cherokees got relocated too.
It’s a law of human society: People who wear feathers and paint and loincloths and who paddle canoes around will always get a raw deal.
Key word there is “got”–such terminology was not in evidence.
Those photos are incredible–as ridiculous as anything I’ve seen in the recent curriculum debacle. 
As Emma Teng has pointed out, it’s hard to be postcolonial when you can’t acknowledge the colonial part.
Guy
Remember the Clovis culture. And when will the Neanderthals ever see justice?
What are you talking about? In response to Tempo Gain’s astonishing post, I commented on the state of contemporary Taiwan as it is visible in an exhibit being shown now. Hint: contemporary means, like, today. You know, like, now.
Guy
The aborigines of Taiwan have yet to fight off any of its colonizers.