Why not?! You said perfectly:
that’s the whole basis for some Taiwanese to claim these associations to Tang China. And it’s not so much the ancestry that is important, but the sheen of association with the ancient and great.
Interesting comparison. The Tang thread may be a thin one, but most British as it turns out are more Celt than Anglo-Saxon, according to DNA. Tang is a dynasty, not a nation/ethnic group, by the way.
Ha, yeah, maybe the English example wasn’t a good one. But if I’ve got the geography and history right, isn’t the Taiwanese claim to Tang heritage more akin to the British claim to Trojan heritage? Several historical levels removed, and with no clear historical record of population movements at the time.
I remember the Cultural Revolution. I was a kid in the US and a news talk radio/shortwave radio addict. Taiwan was called Free China and China was called “Red China.”
Taiwan became the repository of Chinese culture and traditional beliefs.
Are more Pre Celt I believe.
Or at least they are the descendants of the early people who migrated who later were culturally influenced/colonised by the Celts. It gets complicated fast.
Yeah, it seems like people are really, really unsure just who the Celts actually were, and how much it was a cultural bunch of practices vs a tribe / genetically linked group - never mind the earlier groups.
Yep. Well, good luck everyone trying to figure out how some Taiwanese think they are more Chinese than the Chinese 
Not to drag things off topic, but much of what we think of as ‘Cetic’ in Ireland or Britain， the ancient monuments such as Newgrange and Stonehenge, the Dolmens, were not Celtic at all. They were built by a pre Celtic civilisation that likely worshipped the Sun and we don’t even know the name of that civilisation nor their language.
Taiwan = China Lite
All that great traditional taste without that heavy oppressed feeling.
It’s interesting how different forumosans have different takes on this history.
Based on your forumosan profile, you’ve been in Taiwan since the 1980s. Many of us—certainly not all!—arrived later in the democratic period and developed quite a different understanding of this place than the dictatorship-era sinocentric kool-aid fed to folks here after 1945.
Come join us in the present. You might like it! : D
Guy
You are not the Guy I was thinking of then, LOL. Are you trying to set up an “us” and “you” here? “Come join us in the present…” Yeah, right.
I believe they’re known as “the Chavs”.
This is the oldest Part of Kaoshiung, you still find off the small alleyways, homes 100+ years old. This link, temple is 350+ years of history (it’s under renovation now, not sure this good or bad)… This area is full tourist now days but most just go there eat and the beach, and do not the history here.
Nah I think Taiwan’s just Taiwan. We got a little bit of chinese, little bit of Japanese, bit of aboriginals, bit of Southeast Asian in our flavor, but were Taiwanese. The only reason that makes us more Chinese than Chinese is because Chinese is way off Chinese. They don’t have religions, they make up simplified Chinese characters, they are communists, etc. they’re Unchinese in so many kinds of ways.
Hong Kong is more Chinese than Chinese, japan is more Chinese than Chinese. Hell anywhere could be more Chinese than Chinese.
But Taiwan is just Taiwan.
So Chinese people aren’t allowed to change or they become ‘Unchinese’? I suppose English people have to go to the local Anglican church in the centre of the village, doff their caps and tug their forelocks to the squire…
Well if this goes on for another 1 or 2 hundred years I guess they could be the new definition of Chinese. But now you can still hear grandmas grandpas talking about what it was like before the PRC. The word Chinese is confusing. You talking about the traditional culture or the new order established in China? ‘Cause there’s no much chinese culture left there. That’s why they call it cultural revolution. If you are familiar with the part of the history then you’d know that they’re far far far away from the “Chinese” image we have. The problem I have with them is that they talk about the traditional Chinese culture like they own it, when there’s actually nothing traditional about it in PRC.
The PRC talks about a lot of things like they “own” them—Taiwan not excluded.
Guy
Perhaps I should emphasize on how heartbreaking it is to watch them distroy the culture and history. Perhaps it’s a bit more difficult for you to imagine since we don’t share the same culture here. Taiwan and Hong Kong is the last place using traditional Chinese. Scholars were killed during the revolution. Education was replaced by brainwashing. Temples torn down and books banned. Historical relics preserved in bad condition. And the twisted historical facts. Some of this also happens in Taiwan. All heartbreaking. When they put people in re-educational camps they don’t just intrude human rights they also killed the culture. Nothing unapproved by CCP is left, not the minority’s culture not even han culture. The concept of Han Chinese is also confusing. There’s more than one aspect when it comes to the word Chinese. But there’s only one left now. It’s called obedience.
I don’t know where you’re from, but let’s take USA for an example. How would you feel if the federal government decided that all Americans should speak only English, no more going to church, and minorities should be re-educated to “respect” the English speaking American. And then they tell the world that this is the American way. Wouldn’t that break your heart? Doesn’t sound so american anymore I guess hum?
It has been argued that Canada is in some ways more British than Britain, these days. Example: nudity taboo (e.g. at the beach) – Britons have been influenced by mainland Europeans ergo they don’t give a toss anymore. I haven’t done enough research myself to verify this, but it sounds about right.
Another one that I just checked: although it was an Englishman who popularized circumcision in the Anglosphere, the UK now has a lower prevalence of it than Canada (where, as expected, Quebec has a lower prevalence than most of the rest of the country) and Australia.
And then there are all the ex-colonies where homosexual acts are or were until very recently illegal (because London made them so), despite decriminalization in Britain some 50 years ago.
That analogy is flawed. Many “traditionalist” Americans would be overjoyed to hear that the English language and certain cultural practices (like Xmas trees) are finally going to be protected from attrition by immigration and the Progressive Agenda™.
As for religion, you call it “no more going to church”, but the focal points of religious conflict in China are not mainstream (majority) places of worship, so in the American context it would be “no more going to mosque/temple” (and a ban on Scientology and what not), which would still not reflect the complexity of the situation in China, as instead of an outright ban on any official religion, they have myriad regional/local microbans instead (no beards, no public praying, no children in mosques and so on).
As for the majority religion, there are restrictions in both countries, and of course people who value freedom of religion would tend to prefer the level of freedom in the US, but mainstream religion is very far from banned in China.
(See above.)
they make up simplified Chinese characters,
Most simplified characters were already in use before Mao. The “next level” simplified characters in the 1970’s didn’t catch on, thankfully.
they are communists, etc.
Yes, well, the KMT created a Leninist system with Chinese characteristics, and despite becoming genuinely multi-party, it still exists. 
Hong Kong is more Chinese than Chinese,
We all know HK uses traditional characters (though we may sometimes forget about the ones that were invented in the 1960’s) and a higher degree of freedom of religion, but other than that, how is it supposed to be true? (As opposed to, say, HK is more British than Britain…)
japan is more Chinese than Chinese.
True story: a Chinese person started wearing traditional (Song?) clothing in public and was saddened to be asked by people on the street, why are you wearing Japanese clothes? 
So she talked to some (Chinese) TV producer, and they made a documentary about it (on CCTV). The point being, yes ignorance of history/culture is very much a thing, but it’s not all black and white.
So, anywhere that uses traditional characters is super-Chinese, but in 中華民國109年 Taiwan is super-non-Chinese. Have I got that right? 
One thing both sides are missing is that the China you are talking about died decades ago. It just doesn’t exist. America today is not America 70 years ago. “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. Those words are direct quotes from a governor in the 60’s. Today we have legalized gay marriage and “they” is singular. The US today has little to do with the US back then.
My point being not all aspects of life survive the test of time. Taiwan is only more China than China if you want to see Chinese religion and that’s about it. Everything else has completely changed.