Han Taiwanese

Definition

There is no simple uniform definition of Han Taiwanese, which are estimated to comprise 95 to 98 percent of the Taiwanese population. To determine if a Taiwanese is Han, common criteria include immigration background (from continental East Asia), using a Han language as the mother tongue, and observance of traditional Han festivals. Sometimes a negative definition is employed, where Hans are those who are not certain non-Han people

Taiwanese Hans can be classified according to the times of migration or places of origin. They include the Taiwanese Minnan and Hakka people that arrived in Taiwan before World War II and the post-World War II Han immigrants. From the view that Taiwan is one of the "provinces" of Republic of China, the former, along with the Austronesians, are sometimes called benshengren (Mandarin: 本省人, literally "people of this province"), while the latter, along with the contemporaneous non-Han immigrants, are called waishengren (Mandarin: 外省人, literally "people from other provinces"). These two terms and distinctions are now less important due to intermarriages between different sub-populations of Taiwan and the rise of the Taiwanese identity. In addition, there are Han Taiwanese that do not fall into the above categories, including the Puxian-speaking Hans in Wuqiu Island, Kinmen County, the Mindong-speaking in Matzu, and various recent Han immigrants from China (forming part of the so-called "New Immigrants" (Mandarin: 新住民)).

Immigration history and demographics

There were two major waves of Han immigration: from the Ching Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and from the then Republic of China's continental territory, which is now ruled by China, after World War II (1945-1949).

The 1926 census counted 3,116,400 and 586,300 Hans originating from the Hok-kien and Kwang-tung provinces of Ching Empire or Ming Empire (roughly now Fujian and Guangdong of China, respectively).

Recent history

Around 800,000 people from Mainland China to Taiwan after retrocession from 1945 to 1949: the vast majority were Han.

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a small amount of mainland Chinese immigration into Taiwan. This population is distinct from waishengren. These immigrants are predominantly female and are often colloquially known as dàlù mèi (大陸妹), which means "mainland girls" (literally: mainland sister). These consist of two categories: female brides of businessmen who work in the mainland; and women who have married rural Taiwanese, mainly through a marriage broker. Around 20% or 34,000 of the Vietnamese people in Taiwan are of Chinese descent.

Conflicts

There were violent ethnic conflicts (termed "分類械鬥" in government documents of the Ching Empire), which played a major role in determining the distribution of different groups of Han peoples in Taiwan. Most conflicts were between people of Chang-chow and Chin-chew origins ("漳泉械鬥", Chang-Chin conflicts) and between people of Hok-kien and Kwangtung (mostly Hakka) origins ("閩粵械鬥" [Min-Yue conflicts] or "閩客械鬥" [Min-Hakka conflicts]).

Trying to be a mediator, Ten Long-sek (鄭用錫, 10 June 1788 – 21 March 1858), the first Taiwanese to achieve the highest degree, Doctor (Mandarin: 進士), in the imperial examination of the Ching Empire, wrote an article On Reconciliation (勸和論). Similar literary works on conflicts between different ethnic subgroups include Hái-Im Poems (海音詩) by Lâu Ka-Bôo (劉家謀, 1814-1853) and To the Min and Yue people (諭閩粵民人) by Nâ Tíng-Guân (藍鼎元, 19 September 1680 - 1 August 1733).

Cultural assimilation

In some regions. where the majority of the population speak another language, the minority group sometimes adopted the more dominant language and lost their original language. They are called "minnanized" Hakka people (福佬客) or "hakkanized" Minnan people (客福佬).

Hans with different surnames

There were also conflicts between people with different surnames, such as those between different clans in Yilan. While Hans in some other places were prohibited from marrying others with the same surname, Hans in Yilan were discouraged from marrying others with a different surname.

Republic of China

Unlike pre-World War II,Han immigrants were mostly of Hok-kien and Kwangtung origins, post-World War II Hans came from all over the region now ruled by China. Their different languages, habits, ideologies and relationships with the Republic of China government sometimes led to conflicts between these two groups.

Interactions with non-Han inhabitants

In Taiwan, the Hans came into contact with the Austronesians, Dutch, Spanish and Japanese.

Hans and Austronesians

The Amis term for Hans is payrag.

According to the historian Melissa J. Brown, within the Taiwanese Minnan (Hoklo) community itself, differences in culture indicate the degree to which mixture with Austronesians took place, with most pure Hoklo Han in Northern Taiwan having almost no Austronesian admixture, which is limited to Hoklo Han in Southern Taiwan. Plains aborigines who were mixed and assimilated into the Hoklo Han population at different stages were differentiated between "short-route" and "long-route". The ethnic identity of assimilated Plains aboriginals in the immediate vicinity of Tainan was still known since a Taiwanese girl from an old elite Hoklo family was warned by her mother to stay away from them. The insulting name "fan" was used against plains aborigines by the Taiwanese, and the Hoklo Taiwanese speech was forced upon Aborigines like the Pazeh people. Hoklo Taiwanese has repalced Pazeh and driven it to near extinction. Aboriginal status has been requested by plains aboriginals.

Genetic relationships

Part of the maximum-likelihood tree of 75 Asian populations:

Alcohol metabolism

In Taiwan, the prevalence of alcohol dependence among Hans is 10 times lower than that of Austronesians, which is related to genetic, physical, psychological, social, environmental, and cultural factors.

Languages

The languages used by Han Taiwanese include Mandarin (entire country), Minnan (Taiwan proper and Kinmen), Hakka (Taiwan proper), Mindong (Matzu), Puxian (Wuqiu Island, Kinmen), and other Han languages spoken by some post-World War II immigrants or immigrants from China since the 1990s. The writing systems used include Han characters, Han phonetic notations such as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols for Mandarin and Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols for Minnan and Hakka, and the Latin alphabet for various romanization systems, including Tongyong Pinyin, Wade–Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II for Mandarin, POJ and Taiwanese Minnan Romanization System for Minnan, and Hakka Romanization System for Hakka.

Significant numbers of Puxian Min, Fuzhounese, and Teochew speakers came to Taiwan proper, but they were eventually assimilated into the Hokkien (Minnan) speaking population.

Linguistic Diversity

The Taiwanese linguist Uijin Ang divided Taiwan (excluding Kinmen and Matsu) into 7 linguistic regions, including one Austronesian, five Han and one mixed.

Influence of Non-Han Languages

Ever since the arrival of Han immigrants in Taiwan, their languages have undergone changes through interactions with other Han or non-Han languages. For example, one unit of land area used in Taiwanese Minnan is Kah (甲; 0.9699 acre), which comes from the Dutch word for "field", akker (akker > 阿甲 > 甲).

Religions

The most popular religions of Han Taiwanese are Taoism and Buddhism. With 11,796 temples (78.4% Taoist; 19.6% Buddhist), Taiwan is the country with the highest density of temples in the world.

Han surnames in Taiwan

In traditional Han society, children inherit the surname of the father. Population analyses of Han Taiwanese based on the short tandem repeat sequences on the Y chromosome, which is specific to males, shows high haplotype diversity in most surname groups. Except for rare ones, the origins of Han surnames in Taiwan are pretty heterogeneous.

Han surnames used by Austronesian Taiwanese

The naming customs of the Austronesian people in Taiwan have been greatly endangered by the dominant Han culture under the rule of Ching and Republic of China or Japanese culture during the Japanization period. Austronesians were often forced to have surnames in Han characters that, depending on the policies then, may or may not be related to their original surnames.

Villages

Confucian temples formed an important part of the life of early Han immigrants. Famous temples include Taiwan Confucian Temple and Taipei Confucius Temple.

Written Records/Literature

One of the earliest written records of Taiwanese Hakka is A Tragic Ballad about Hakka Sailing to Taiwan (渡台悲歌), a work written in the Raoping dialect about the life and struggle of Hakka immigrants to Taiwan under the Ching rule.

Folk literature: Tales and Legends

One of the best known Han folktales in Taiwan is the Grandaunt Tiger.

Architecture

Different groups of Han immigrants differ in their styles of architecture. Through time, the Han Taiwanese buildings diverged and have become quite distinct from the Han Chinese ones. Many traditional houses have been designated national monuments by the Taiwanese government, such as the Lin Family Mansion and Garden and the House of Ten Long-Sek

Handicrafts

Hakka Taiwanese have long traditions of indigo dyeing.

The Yilan International Children's Folklore and Folkgame Festival exhibits collections of traditional Han Taiwanese toys.