What do different decades mean to you, and to the Taiwanese?

Discussion Open Forum
1

I’ve been watching “Beefcake - a very British sex symbol” from UKnova. Essentially a lament of the decline of the traditional beer drinking, shagging, non-grooming man, as symbolised by 1970s TV shows, movies and icons such as The Sweeny, The Professionals, Get Carter, George Best etc. It got me to thinking about what decades mean to us and what they mean to the Taiwanese.

If you say '60s to me, lots of images spring to mind, with some underlying themes - though if you can remember the '60s, you weren’t there (I wasn’t). Likewise the '70s, '80s and '90s mean something to me, on social, cultural, political and economic levels. Incidentally, during the '90s, I had a pretty good feeling of what they were meant to be about (someone said in 1990 that the 60s were a dry run for the 90s and in some ways you can see the link - including a cycle going on 50s/80s, 60s/90s). Having spent the majority of the 2000s away from home, I have no idea what they are meant to be about.

So, I’m curious what these decades, or corresponding ROC decades, mean to Taiwanese people. I’ve talked to my girlfriend about it, without getting too much of an impression.

Is the compartmentalisation of history, culture etc into decades a peculiarly western thing? We have years, decades, centuries and millennia dating from Christ - while the Chinese have used their dynasties including the current ROC dynasty. For the whole of the 20th Century I can conjure an image for each decade (the '40s distinctively being in two halves). I have a very broad image of the 19th and 18th centuries, getting vaguer as you go back further.

Of course, all these generalisations (decades, centuries, nationalities) are just ways of simplifying the world to make it comprehensible. But does anyone have any insight into how the Taiwanese view recent time periods, or indeed what the 2000s are meant to be about?

2

Interesting question. I wonder if these perceptions would be tied to political events and developments?

3

Mine certainly do have a political connection. The 80s were Thatcher and Reagan, monetarism, shitting on miners, selling the family silver, 3 million on the dole, CND, Greenham Common etc. But they were also shoulder pads, big hair, dayglo socks (briefly), electro music, new romantics, ZX Spectrum and BBC-B micro computers and the rest.

So, do the Taiwanese think in a similar way?

On a wider note, what do decades mean to you?

4

Unfortunatelymost people’s view on any particular decade is based mostly on popculture. One must get some reading done to really find out what was going on.

The 1970s in American pop culture was the “sexual revolution” and big drugs and jam bands. Politically ts was a wasteland. Economically, it was a good time to be in commodities, not stocks. It was the decade of terrorism and skyjackings.

The 1980s was Reagan, Stephen King books and movies, MTV, the break out of the stock market, computers, strengthening of the military, drugs wars, cold war and the power of Japan.

I used to look through old Life magazines and read about what was “happening” in the 60s and 70s and 80s. Later, reading political and economic books, I found that the popculture was just a way of avoiding what was really going on.

Two things never changed much: Israel and the PLO, and the Grateful Dead’s nonstop trip.

5

Born in '74 so don’t really remember that. Life was different; my family were poorer yet richer, but this was an attitude as much as anything. I lived in a 5 bedroomed house in the best part of town, yet I wore second hand clothes, reused everything. Nowadays, the younger generations of my family would have to win a lottery or rob a bank to get a house like that; it is simply not available to average people who work hard because of house prices having risen so much in the past few decades. On the other hand, other stuff has become cheaper and cheaper. British people have 2 or more TV sets, more than one pair of shoes, foreign travel. Perceived wealth has risen enormously, but the security of owning a well built home in a safe neighbourhood has disappeared for non-professional Brits. Just my impression and totally debatable, of course.

Political events that left an impression on my (northern English) childhood were the Falklands war and the miner’s strike. Neither directly affected my family, but I remember ‘family discussions’ about them, radio and newspaper coverage.

During the '90s, I was aged 16-26; the personal being more important to my adolescent soul than the political. Celebrity deaths; Kurt, Diana. Living in France and Thailand.

I’d love to hear how people in Taiwan who grew up during all of the political changes in Taiwan perceived those changes as children.

6

I mentioned the oil shock to my girlfriend as one of the defining moments of the 70s - which obviously had implications for pop culture too, through politics and economics. She hadn’t heard of it, though I can’t be sure whether she would know what I was talking about if I explained eloquently in Chinese, using whatever name they have for it.

So I wondered, is this something you would expect any educated Brit or American to know about? I think I was vaguely aware of it aged 10ish, but I always was a bit odd. Is there any more reason a westerner should know about it than a Taiwanese? And what equivalent world shaking events in the Chinese universe are (or were) we ignorant of. Of course we’ve all heard of Chiang Kai Shek etc now we live in Taiwan, but how strange would it seem to a Taiwanese that most people of our (30 something) generation are probably barely aware of CKS, if at all?

You couldn’t really judge a Taiwanese for being ignorant of how or when Margaret Thatcher rose to power. It’s irrelevant to their life. Likewise, you couldn’t judge a remote Amazonian nomad for being unaware of George Bush. But is it surprising that an educated Taiwanese hasn’t heard of something like the oil crisis?