EiT V2.0
 coming soon

Teacher Jobs in Taiwan 教學職缺 Teachers Available 外籍教師人才庫 Personals Buy/Sell/Trade Housing/Transport

Teaching in Taiwan Teacher Resources Lesson Plans Classroom Games English Reference

Living in Taiwan Getting Around Entertainment Taipei 101

Scooter Rental & Repair Services

Bike Farm Bravobar F.A.S.T Taichung F.A.S.T Tainan Truman

Link Directory

Fiaga's

page 1 │ page 2 │ page 3 │ page 4 │ page 5 │ page 6 │ page 7 │ page 8

Introduction

Over the past 25 years Taiwan, a nation well accustomed to social and political change, has been witness to the genesis of a new and vibrant language. A change not so much through the spoken word, but a change as seen in the language of food, cuisine and the nation’s daily food-habits. E.N Anderson, in his work, The Food of China noted, with some affection that, “the Chinese are united by an interest in and commitment to good cooking and good food.”

It is no coincidence that the people of Taiwan are now privy to some of the most dramatic changes in traditional food-ways that the world has seen to date. Dramatic not only in the experimentation with new foods and tastes, but with the speed with which such changes are occurring.

2.1  Taiwan’s history

In spite of the ubiquitous “Made in Taiwan” label, it would appear that those outside of South-east Asia might have a limited understanding of Taiwan’s past history. In order to better understand the significance of the changes in food-ways in Taiwan over the last 30 years, an overview

understanding of the past three hundred and fifty years of Taiwan’s development would appear to be an imperative.

2.1.1  Area map of South-East Asia: Taiwan

 
              23 30 N, 121 00E

                                                                                                                   
2.1.2 Chronology of historically significant periods in Taiwan’s past.

• 1544 Portuguese sighting of the “beautiful island” and the recording of the islands name as Ilha Formosa.
• 1582 Recording in European navigational charts of a Spanish shipwreck on the island of Formosa.

Dutch Period

• 1624 Commencement of Dutch occupation of Taiwan, they erected a fort on an islet close to what is now known as Tainan. The Dutch named the fort “Zeelandia” and colonized the south-western areas of Taiwan, effectively establishing the city of Tainan as the first capital of Taiwan.
• 1626 Spanish troops from the Philippines settled in the northern parts of Taiwan establishing a base at the mouth of the Tam Sui River by 1628.
• 1642 The Dutch expelled the Spanish from northern Taiwan.

Taywan (Manchu, Ming Dynasty era)

• 1661 Cheng Cheng-Kung a Manchu and Ming Dynasty loyalist invades Taiwan inflicting a heavy toll on the Dutch before defeating them his plan being to use the island as a base to overthrow the Ching Dynasty.

Manchu (Ching Dynasty era)

• 1683 Manchu, Ching dynasty loyalists lead a fighting force from the mainland, destroying the Kingdom of Taywan: the force was led by Ming Dynasty followers, annexing western Taiwan to the Chinese empire.
•  1884 French forces led by Admiral Coubert invaded northern Taiwan briefly occupying Keelung harbour and the Pescadores (a small group of islands to the north-west of Taiwan). Coubert’s vision was to transform the region into France’s Hong Kong. Although the sudden death of Coubert led to the retreat of the French in 1885.

Japanese Era

• 1895 Sino-Japanese war ends on April 17th,  Ito and Chang Li Hung sign the Shimoneski Treaty, following which China cedes Taiwan to Japan.
• 1895. 5. 25 Taiwanese officials establish the Republic of Formosa.
• 1895. 5. 29 Japanese imperial guard led by Prince Kitashirakawa and the Japanese Governor General and Japanese forces arrive on the island.    
• 1895. 10. 21 Japanese forces seize control of Tainan, the capital of the Republic.

Republic of Taiwan era

• 1945 The end of World War II. Chiang Kai-Shek ordered the take over of Taiwan. By April the following year 90% of the Japanese are expelled from Taiwan.                             
• 1947 Chinese rule ushers in wide spread corruption and chaos started in the north, but quickly spread island wide. Chiang Kai-Shek quells the uprising in Taiwan using mainland Chinese troops, leading to the now infamous 2/28 (Feb 28) massacre of thousands of innocent Taiwanese. The horror of this single event in recent history is still fresh in the minds of the local Taiwanese people.
• 1949 Chiang Kai-Shek is defeated by the Mao led communists on the mainland, fleeing with his one million strong following to Taiwan. He leads Taiwan in true dictatorial style up to his death in 1975, his son, Chiang Ching Guo succeeding his father.
• 1979 The Kaohsiung incident. December 10th provides the first public expression of the Taiwanese people’s dissatisfaction with the ruling Kuomintang party. The military reacts harshly and scores were injured. The event passes virtually unnoticed internationally, but is now recognized as a turning point in the island’s transition to democratic rule. Virtually every member of the now ruling DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) were involved on the night of Dec 10. The movement galvanizing Taiwanese communities at home and abroad.
• 1987 Chiang Ching Guo lifts the martial law imposed upon the Taiwanese people by Chiang Kai Shek.
• 1992 First democratic legislative elections.
• 1996 First Presidential elections turn out to be a landslide victory for Lee Teng-Hui and the ruling Kuomintang.
• 2000 Victory for the opposition party The DPP. Chen Shui Bian elected as president.
• 2004 Chen Shui Bian’s ruling DPP re-elected to represent the people of Taiwan.

Research relating to Taiwan’s history reveals a tumultuous past, it is therefore most appropriate that several sources be cited as references. The Reed Institute has proved to be an invaluable resource for the study of nineteenth-century travelogues, and to provide a series of memoirs from the investigative research of Missionaries, doctors and government officials sent from England to administrate in Hong Kong and navigate the surrounding areas.

2.2 Earliest inhabitants

The following information is a direct quote from an Australian cultural and business web site. The information contained therein was composed and published by the Government Information Office of Taiwan, also known in abbreviated form as, GIO.

“Taiwan’s first inhabitants left no written records of their origins. Anthropological evidence suggests that Taiwan’s indigenous people were proto-Malayans. Their vocabulary and grammar belong to the Malayan- Polynesian family of Indonesia and they once shared many Indonesian customs such as tattooing, using identical names for father and son, gerontocracy, head-hunting, spirit worship and indoor burials.

Over five hundred pre-historic sites in Taiwan, including many dwelling areas, tombs, shell mounds and megaliths have provided more and sometimes contradictory clues as to the origin of Taiwan’s aboriginal race. A majority of the pre-historic artefacts unearthed to this date (e.g., flat axes, red unglazed pottery, decorated bronze implements, megalithic structures and glass beads) indicate an Indonesian connection. Other items (e.g., painted red pottery, red glazed pottery, pottery tripods, stone halberds and arrow heads) however would suggest that Taiwan’s earliest settlers might have come from the Chinese Mainland.

Other questions remain unanswered. Were these pre-historic remains, left by the ancestors of today’s modern Taiwanese aborigine? The question is a complex one. Some anthropologists have suggested that the pre-historic cultural remains uncovered so far have no proven connection to contemporary indigenous cultures in Taiwan.” 

Although the true origins of the indigenous aborigines of Taiwan remains a mystery, what can be confirmed is that prior to the Portuguese discovery of the island in 1544, the Han people from the Chinese mainland and certain tribes of indigenous people were already well established on the island of Taiwan.

 
2.3 The Ethnic Mix

In the sixteenth century, Han people from China’s coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong began immigrating to Taiwan in large numbers. This group of early Han immigrants consisted mainly of Southern

Fujianese and Hakka, adding to the aboriginal population that had populated the island from earlier times.

Today these two groups represent 85 % of the population on the island of Taiwan, with the Fujianese outnumbering the Hakka by a ratio of three to one. When the Kuomintang government relocated to Taipei in 1949, a new influx of Han immigrants began to arrive in Taiwan.
 
The Han now form the single largest ethnic group in Taiwan, making up 98% of the country’s ethnic population. Today, Taiwan’s population of 22 million consists of the Han majority, Hakka minority and the Formosan aborigine tribes.
The aborigine tribes fall into two categories. (a) The “plains people” of whom there are nine tribes and (b) the “hill people” of which there are also nine tribes.

2.4 Early Foods of China

Anderson, (1988) opens the narrative in his book claiming that China’s geography must rate as, “one of the worlds most dramatic, from a height of 29,141 feet (7,815m) at the top of the world the relief drops to the depths of sub-aerial depressions at 900 feet below sea level, all the while showcasing a land of great contrast, from abundant tropical rainforests of the south, to the northern dust bowl of a bitterly cold Inner Mongolian desert.”

In the ancient world, Chinese nutritionists held high court in the Middle Kingdom, advising the sitting Emperor of the people’s dietary requirements. Their advice consequently shaped the structure of the people’s daily diet according to their belief that food characteristics (dry / moist, hot / cold) should mirror those of the body.

Over centuries, the Chinese have developed a complex and rather ancient science of nutrition. During the Chou dynasty the Emperor prescribed that nutritionists be attached to the court as part of the highest class of medical personnel. The nutritionist in turn introduced the Western dietary tradition of “dry/moist, hot/cold” that is now considered a nutritional culinary blueprint. Anderson also observed the relationship between food and health, and wrote, “When faced with poor health, diet is inevitably the said offender and the first to change.”

These observations clearly illustrate the relative centrality of thought    afforded to food in ancient Chinese culture. Unlike some of the western societies, which have allowed the rules of nutrition to slip and slide and have opted for a more gratifying diet regardless of nutritional warnings, the Chinese by and large, still appear to adhere to the gastronomic wisdom of their ancestors.

2.4.1 Agricultural China

It has been proposed that China can be separated into five large and distinct geographical realms;

North China: Includes the zone of dry farming, the Yellow river plains and surrounding hills.

Northeast China (Manchuria): Boasts sub-arctic forests with freezing cold winters, although the region is blessed with fertile river valleys.

Central Asian China (Inner Mongolia): The deserts and semi-deserts of Sinjiang province are vast wastelands with a climate too cold and dry for much besides nomadic herding and experimental irrigated farming.

South China (Covers the broad expanse of the whole southern region from the Yangtze southwards): This area enjoys the greater portion of China’s arable land with an accessible coast, making fish and seafood a significant portion of the diet, and with the hilly and mountainous terrain providing the people’s staple food, rice.

Tibet (includes areas of Szechuan and Yunan as well as the Tibet province): Anderson categorises this area to be one where, “the hopelessness of subsistence through arable land use is all too apparent, the area being that cold and dry that it is virtually uninhabitable.”

2.5 Regional Cuisines (China)
In classical terms one can easily classify China’s cuisines into one of four large culinary regions, geographically separated by the compass with the weight of big city names fortifying the points on the compass. Such a system of classification is explained in detail by Anderson, allows for the cuisine of Beijing (north), Guangzhou (south), Shanghai (east) and ChongQing (west).
For the purpose of this dissertation a simple classification of China’s most prominent regional cuisines will suffice.
 For a nation as complex as China, the aforementioned system of regional cuisine classification appears inadequate, Anderson suggests that although the separation of China’s regional cuisines by way of the compass has been satisfactory, a more accurate classification of regional fare could perhaps be achieved by separating north and south along the Yangtze River line. Anderson further proposes “the north’s culinary dialect is distinguished by its love of lamb, duck and milk, whilst the language of the south thrives on pork, dog and taro.” The onion, cabbage and radish appear to transcend the culinary borders of China, whilst in the south; inhabitants relish the sea, salt, sugar and oil with the puckering of vinegar-laced sauces. Anderson also proposes “the cuisines of the west, central and east, fall under the canopy of a southern trend.” It would thus appear that perhaps the most significant marker of culinary borders within mainland China falls within the realm of the dietary staple. Here the differences are clear and unmistakable; the people of the north are lovers of wheat and

mixed grains while those from the south prefer rice, however as Anderson points out, rice is now enjoyed throughout all of China.
Missing from the melting pot of China’s regional culinary favourites is that deriving from the all-important east, a sub-variety so subtle yet so dominant that it has been labelled by many as the cuisine of the Fujian region, it being afforded the title of a “regional culinary cuisine in its own right.” The cuisine of the Fujian coastal area (the east) is distinctive, it being separated from the rest of China’s cuisine by the skill of the knife and an infinite variety of soups and stews.