Talk:Taiwanese aborigines

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[edit] "cooked" and "raw"

The title should be Indigenous Taiwanese because it is closer to meaning of 原住民! Those people that votes for KMT are traitors to Indigenous people of Taiwan! Most of these leaders only care for bribe for their own short-term gain! They'll all moved out Taiwan in KMT-style when their pockets are filled! Give NO respect to these types of people in Taiwan!!

PS. Only retarded KMT and CCP Chinese would debate over Cooked and Raw HORSE SHIT while spreading of their lies about any groups of Taiwanese people in Taiwan!

Iron_Jackal_TW

熟番 and 生番 should not be "literally" translated into "cooked-" or "raw-". although one of the meanings of 熟 and 生 are such, people who speak and read Chinese know by context which meaning is implied, and would not cognitively think "cooked" or "raw" when used in the above manner. an example in English is the word "live" - which can be pronounced in two different ways with different meanings (i.e., "to be alive" or "in person"), depending on context.

You are entirely correct. Maybe the terms "assimilated" and "unassimilated" would come close enough. The basic idea is that one group is familiar with and to the Chinese, and one group is not accustomed to contact. One might also use the terms "enculturated" and "unenculturated." A better translation would avoid the idea (which "assimilated" and "enculturated" imply) that these groups have entirely come over to a Chinese way of doing things. Instead, they are capable of interacting with the Chinese group in an effective way. They may not have entirely the same values or the same worldview, but they at least know each others values, mores, ways of communicating things that go beyond what would be present in a word-for-word translation. P0M 00:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

2 March 2007 - I've come back and realized someone decided to change the translations for the words 熟番 and 生番 back to "cooked" and "raw". Who keeps doing this? They obviously have no understanding of Written Chinese, and how a character can have multiple meanings depending on context. It's as if someone just looked up the characters in the dictionary and simply chose the first definitions listed.

You Are Not Correct: The terms "cooked barbarian" 熟番 and "raw" 生番 are consistent with the terms used in official documents of the Qing era on Taiwan and reflect contemporary Qing cosmologies, therefore it should remain in place. These are also the terms used in academia to discuss the perceptions of the indigenous people of Qing era Taiwan and should not be confused with the pioneering work of Claude Levi-Strauss "The Raw and the Cooked". The use of "Raw and Cooked" has been used by most English language scholarship on the subject and thus maintains continuity with the referenced material. For those interested in Taiwan research, the terminology "raw and cooked" will be familiar and common. For those people who are beginning their research into Taiwan, these terms will become familiar and common.

Why the capital letters?
The terms used in Chinese are the terms used in Chinese. Nobody doubts that. What is your evidence to establish that specifically these terms have anything to do with "contemporary Qing cosmologies"? Where is a volume and page number citation to show that even one reputable and published scholar says that these terms represent the perceptions of the indigenous people of Taiwan? You mean that these aborigines regarded themselves, literally, as "raw" and "cooked"? How about some volume and page citations to show which reputable scholars are using "raw" and "cooked" so that the rest of us can judge the use of these terms in context.
Your assumption that "these terms will become familiar and common" to the readers of this article is ungrounded. P0M 05:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place for original research. As you can see... the article uses quotations to put emphasis on the terminology of the era and not the contemporary meanings of the individual characters. See the sources section if you would like more information on Qing era terminology. If you cannot provide a proper source for your changes, then leave it. Furthermore, I would encourage you to register with Wikipedia before making such a strong assertion for change. It makes it easier for all of us to work together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maowang (talk • contribs) 3 March 2007

also btw, "familiar and unfamiliar" for "熟 and 生" are not just "contemporary" meanings, as far as I know. Qing era Chinese, whether literary or vernacular, already possessed these meanings. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.91.18.100 (talk) 23:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC).
I agree with Maowang (who forgot to sign his post above...). There is a significant body of scholarly support for the translations as originally given, including Shepherd (whose book I happen to have at hand) and others. Setting aside this body of work would appear dangerously similar to an attempt to bleach the past (i.e., POV-pushing). --Ling.Nut 01:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

- Then the problem is the original "scholars" (Shepherd, Levi-Straus et al). They obviously translated the terms with a cursory understanding of Chinese writing, at best. If you want to keep those terms translated so sloppily as such, then I suggest you first translate them correctly for the Wikipedia article, and then make a parenthetical note that earlier research used inaccurate translations, and provide them for the sake of reference. There is no "bleaching of the past". The original Han Chinese who wrote in reference to these tribes never thought of them conceptually as either "raw" or "cooked", but as "unassimilated" or "assimilated". It just so happens that the characters 熟 and 生 can represent more than one meaning.

I can not find a single author who uses you terminology, furthermore, I can't find a single source in Chinese that disputes the original translation. In fact, one book uses English Raw and Cooked to augment the Chinese. Simply put, the Qing era literati used these vivid terms "Cooked" and "Raw" to express the amount of "化 hua" peripheral peoples demonstrated. This terminology was used for peripheral peoples on the fringe of the empire. see Frank Dikotter: A Discourse of Race in Modern China.

You can find similar support for continuing to use these terms in Melissa Brown's Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan, Stevan Harrell's Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers, Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China, Pamela Crossley's A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology and Susan Blum and Lionel Jensen's China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom.

- Well, obviously you possess the scholarship on the article's main subject, I have no dispute with you there, I don't think. But just because you cannot find a Chinese language source that has disputed the "established" translation does not prove its correctness. Even many native Chinese speakers don't mind these quaint little mis-translations, since it affirms for them the impression given to non-Chinese that it is somehow an esoteric language with "mystical" properties, hard to decipher, and thus worthy of self-praise for having surmounted the challenge of learning it. Please find me a source in Chinese that definitively shows that 熟 and 生 in this specific instance are somehow meant to convey the sense of "cooked vs. raw" in the culinary sense and NOT "familiar vs. unfamiliar"/"assimilated vs. unassimilated" in the cultural sense. You do that for me, and maybe I'll drop this argument. Otherwise I see no reason to continue to use incorrect terminology other than for the sake of doing research with pre-existing sources. Why should Wikipedia perpetuate a mistake, just because everyone else so far has done the same?

Look at 陳秋坤 著 ；清代台灣土著地權 or 洪麗完 著；台灣中部平埔族

After discussing this with a colleague, it would be fair to say that it is possible the meaning may have been "familiar" or "unfamiliar", or "cultured" and "uncultured" or a variety of similar meanings, but the terminology of the day was "raw" and "cooked". This is all detailed in the body of the existing text posted on Wikipedia.

ok, although it's just a google search, chinese webpages and essays which reference those works you just cited seem to simply use the terms 生番 and 熟番 without alluding to the culinary sense of the words 生 and 熟. which, as your colleague said, means that the context in this case indeed is probably "familiar/unfamiliar", "cultured/uncultured". as for "terminology of the day", again, from what i can gather on google of chinese language articles/pages which explain or quote the Qing era classifications, none of them seem to indicate the culinary senses of the words. what this indicates to me, again, is that it is the English language "terminology of the day" which has been incorrect all along in using "raw" and "cooked".
if anything, i suggest a change to what i argue is the "correct" english translations (albeit with indication that the extant english language material on the subject continues to use the "wrong" ones, for the sake of reference), because "raw" and "cooked" gives the false impression that the Qing era literati were cruder and more insulting in their ethnocentrism than they really were. (which may indeed be the case in other instances or overall, but not in this specific coining of these terminologies.)24.91.18.100 01:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
btw, i don't know how this discussion topic got moved to the top. i didn't do that intentionally. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.91.18.100 (talk) 22:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC).
I moved this thread to the top... or more accurately, I archived all the old stuff before it. I might move some other old stuff that is currently below this as well, but I'm feeling kinda lazy...
Wikipedia is not about truth! Wikipedia is about verifiability. The burden of proof is very definitely on those who want to "correct" the mistranslation. Find a good verifiable secondary source for your assertion. Then come back. otherwise, this would be considered original research. [Speaking of which, if you can get your assertion published in a refereed journal, that would definitely be a verifiable source...). --Ling.Nut 00:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me attempt an example:

During much of the Cold War, many people in United States, including government officials, referred to people with Marxist leaning ideologies as being shades of "Red". By using terms like "Red China" or "The Reds", people with opposing ideologies sought to lump those "others" together in a definitive category. They did not mean those people were actually "red" or "pink", but they sought to imply those people held views that were sympathetic to Marxist ideology. So if I were to write: --During the Cold War, American officials often referred to the people of The People's Republic of China as "Red Chinese" (Communist Chinese) due to their adherence to Mao Zidong's Marxist based doctrine...-- That would be wrong because "Red" is a color and Chinese are not actually red...that would be silly...what American officials really meant by the word was "Chinese who believe in Communist Ideology"? Is this a correct reading of the argument?Maowang 07:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

this example would only be valid if the common translation back into chinese was 红中国(人), and if it wasn't also commonly accepted in both english and chinese that the word "red" in certain modern contexts can also mean "communist", "socialist" or "leftist" (depending on how pejorative the label is intended to be) in addition to the color itself. in english, the words "raw" and "cooked" do not have the secondary meanings of "unfamiliar/unassimilated" or "familiar/assimilated". thus it is a mistranslation, and should be labeled as such. - 71.232.100.151 01:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Try this one: Groups of people identified as 漢人"Han People" based on similar patterns and practice of Confucian culturism, referred to China as 中國(The Middle Kingdom). This would be wrong because prior to the Republican era, China was conceived by Han people as simply being "central".

I think the problem may be that we are dealing with a language based on pictograms and translating it into a phonetic alphabet. 生 in essence means "Raw, Uncooked" As a pictogram, that may also imply other meanings, just like in English "Raw" can mean "unrefined, bare, vivid, basic", regardless.. it still gets back to the base meaning of "uncooked".

As Qing rule expanded over wider groups of people, writers and gazetteers refined their descriptions from reflecting the Aborigines degree of acculturation, to a system designed to indicate which groups had submitted to Qing rule and which groups were still hostile. Qing literati used the term “raw barbarian 生番” to define those people who had not submitted to Qing rule, and “cooked barbarian 熟番” for those who had pledged their allegiance through their payment of a head tax.

The existing verbiage works well for the pictogram as it conveys the meaning of a picture... which is worth a thousand words.

As you can see, the passage you are having difficulty with explains the meaning of the terms quite clearly as the "degree of acculturation" while using quotes to demonstrate the essential meaning of the characters. "Man, Taiwan is filled with all kinds of those raw types." Which means... Those guys on Taiwan are very unlike us. So if there is any question as to the intent of the Qing literati it is made clear in the paragraph.

So, unless you can provide a source that conclusively contradicts the provided sources I think this matter can rest. If you would like to contact the authors of those materials for further questions contact me on my talk page.Maowang 14:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC) 洋鬼子 (Ocean Ghost)


Regardless, you still have not provided any authoritative source to contradict the extensive list of materials compiled by the contributors of this page. We will follow their lead and use the literal meaning of the characters. In a space like wikipedia I suggest you act a little more mature and read the Wiki guidelines.

Answer: The issue comes down to the belief in China in Yin and Yang as a form of environmental determinism, which sought to denigrate the "other" into a form of subhuman. It was believed Yin and Yang were the primogenial (MEANING???) forces of all living creatures. Yin was negative, female, cold, dark... Yang was male, hot, positive and related to heaven. Yin was north and Yang was south. Humans were the result of a balance between both forces. Fur covered and feather covered creatures were associated with the Yang. Fish, shelled creatures and reptiles were Yin. The Chinese believed their world consisted of five colors of soil, which had an impact on the humans and animals of each region in a superior/inferior dichotomy. It was believed the quality of the local earth fluid could explain the physical differences in human populations (i.e. dark soil=black people). Many of the theories involving geomancy and physical/psychological composition emerged during the Tang Dynasty as Han people encountered growing numbers of "barbarians". One Tang era literati explains the differences between Han and "barbarians" as being related to the "barbarians" living in a less favorable environment. They lacked the spiritual guidance of the sages, who had been nurtured on Han soil under the guide of heaven. Some of the "barbarians" ate their food uncooked. Food was a social signifier to differentiate different ethnic groups. Culinary tradition marked social, class and cultural identity. Based on a person's behavior at a meal, their degree of cultural alienation was exposed. In most civilizations the distinction was between raw and cooked food, with fire being the transformative power and a symbol of culture. Han cosmologies included "Sheng Fan" and "Shu Fan",as we have been discussing above. The consumption of raw food was regarded as a sign of savagery that negatively affected the psychological composition of the "barbarian". A good example may be the Li of Hainan island, who were divided into "raw" and "cooked" groups by Han officials, based on the "ability" of the Li to enjoy the refined lifestyle of Han civilization as opposed to life in the hills where they would reside on raw meat and worms, far from the humanizing center. There are even reports from Guangdong of officials keeping African slaves who were reported to have a negative reaction to cooked food, thus blocking their "advancement" to becoming human. The relationship between cultural beliefs and written language is essential to understanding the meanings of the words discussed above. See: Forke, A. 1925. The World of Conception of the Chinese. McMullen, D. 1987. Views of the State in Du You. Dikotter, F. 1992. The Discourse of Race in Modern China.(pp.8-9) Case Closed!Maowang 23:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

fine, i have moved the hopefully more civil conversation to your talk page, so that it will not further clog this page at least for the time being. 71.232.100.151 03:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


BTW. I have never met any officials or literati from the Qing Dynasty, so I can not be sure who is or is not guilty of ethnocentricism. But, research materials have conclusively shown a definite negative bias by Han people toward non-Han. In Qing era cosmologies, the Emperor was the cultural center and the further from the center the less culture could be found. Simply put, China was not viewed as a nation or an empire, but as "central". Those people who did not practice Han Hua, were not considered "ren" (humans/people).It would be reasonable to believe the Qing literati would consider ping pu people as less than human. Look at classical Chinese depictions of Europeans. Tell me those are not degrading and ethnocentric. Read the Dikotter Book and Emma Jin Hui Teng's Taiwan's Imagined Geography for more info.Maowang 07:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

please also re-read my comment on Qing and Han Chinese ethnocentrism. i fully acknowledge that the chinese, even to the present day, exhibit such chauvinism. and certainly even if we translate 生 and 熟 as "unfamiliar/unassimilated" and "familiar/assimilated", there obviously remains a sino-centric point of view inherent in using such terminology. and i never denied that imperial era chinese, the literati in particular, actually thought of non-Han "barbarians" as sub-human. they probably did more often than not. all i am trying to say is that in this particular instance of coining this set of terminology, they likely were not thinking in their minds, "raw" and "cooked" in the culinary sense and thus rendering the tribes into mere "things" to be treated in the same way as pieces of food. this is not to say that they didn't perhaps relish in the coincidence (many literate chinese love wordplay and homonym puns, after all). - 71.232.100.151 01:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello everyone!
There seems to be a lively debate going on here, and of course that is a good thing. But it seems we are veering in the direction of trying to establish Truth. Perhaps a bit counterintuitively, Truth is not the gold-plate standard for Wikipedia's articles. Instead it is Verifiablity. If you or I believe that we have a more accurate reading of the facts, that is OK. However, the place to publish such observations is in a journal, NOT in Wikipedia. That is because "more accurate reading" is synonymous with "original research." Wikipedia is simply not the appropriate or correct forum for original ideas, original interpretations, or original research! In other words, it simply does not matter who is right and who is wrong; it only matters whether you have sources to back up your assertions! Again, that may seem counterintuitive, but there it is. There really is no room for debate here; whoever has the sources to back up what they say, wins. That is the case whether or not the sources are accurate, in my opinion or yours. Truth is not the gold standard; verifiability is. So that is all there is to that. --Ling.Nut 22:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Patrick,

Thanks for your interest in this topic, we are happy to welcome any contributions you think you can make to bettering this article. In regards to the use of "Raw" and "Cooked", we have settled on the terminology provided by our references and discussed in bold above. We feel this is the most verifiable definition and any inference behind the terminology is included in the paragraph (and the bulk of the article in general). I understand the difficulty in translating between Mandarin and English, it comes down to the sources and the terms used. Furthermore, seeing as this article has achieved GA status, I think we would like to make sure that we can discuss changes in the discussion section to maintain a GA status article. Thanks again for your interest. Maowang 15:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Nobody owns articles, and nothing is ever so good that it cannot be improved. The late Liang Shi-qiu was regarded as the dean of Chinese-English lexicography, and his New Practical Chinese English Dictionary has been taken as the core of a successor dictionary that is also highly regarded. He defines shu2 Miao2 as Miao people "who have been assimilated to the Han ways of life," and shu2 fan1 as "assimilated border tribes." He is a scholar who knows how to use one language to accurately convey what is meant in another language. P0M 05:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I can tell you have personal feelings on this issue. However, this is not an issue over WP:OWN, it's a question of WP:OR. If you can't bring a cite to back up what you say — with full info regarding page numbers, volumes, publishers, etc. — then your assertions are WP:OR. The def you provided sounds exactly like the text in the article. Why is it it any different? --Ling.Nut 11:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
The entry you seek a "cite" for is, # 3243 in the above-mentioned dictionary (published by the Far East Book Company, Taipei, Taiwan. That's on page 659. P0M 00:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The current use of Raw/Cooked in this article can be supported my several of our listed sources. Furthermore, Norma Diamond supplies a very detailed explanation in "Defining the Miao: Ming, Qing and Contemporary Views" in ed. Stevan Harrell's Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (pp.92-110). Diamond shows that at any given time, not all people within the Confucian cultural center were considered equally capable of being "civilized". Diamond demonstrates how the Raw/Cooked binary was used to distinguish whether they were cultured enough to receive moral guidance and later civilization or whether they were fit for nothing more than being controlled and illustrated. Mayfair Yang, in "The Gift Economy and State Power in China": Comparative Studies in Society and History (pp.40-41) demonstrates a non-Levi Straussesque view of the use of Raw/Cooked in other relationships besides designations for peripheral people as in familiar and unfamiliar (strangers and people you know and can trust) Frank Dikotter supplies the source on pages 8-9 of The Discourse of Race in Modern China. John Shepherd, Emma Teng, Ronald Knapp, Melissa Brown, Patricia Ebrey all use the same conventions.

This has been the subject of lengthy discussion and research. I have been associated with this page since 2003, and I take every section of this article very seriously. I have made sure to research this topic and others with depth and care. I have continued to ensure the most verifiable, accurate and accredited sources are being used to support the body of information therein. Thanks for your concern.Maowang 14:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above has some problems. When one writes books and articles for the general reader, one would be well advised to keep in mind that the writing should be appropriate to the preparation of the average well-informed reader. That standard can mean avoiding imprecise formulations (not to mention errors) even if they are used by professionals writing for each other.
The terms 生 and 熟 both have considerable histories. They both carry basic meanings and extended meanings. When they are brought over into English, it is important to remember that the readers who speaks and reads only English will bring only their associations with the English words used to their understanding of the English language article.
The basic, earliest meaning of 生 is indicated in its structure. It is a depiction of some kind of vegetation sprouting from the ground. (See 高數藩, 形音義綜合大字典, . 1050. (正中書局, 台北, 1984.) It very early on came to refer to animal birth as well as vegetative reproduction.
The Kang-xi Dictionary gives several early meanings, as well as later extended meanings. (康熙字典,午集上, 二十二頁.) One relevant to this topic is that it is defined as 性 and explained as the original condition of something before it is affected by outside influences. Another relevant entry is "不熟".
This same dictionary gives definitions of 熟. Not only does it mean "cooked," another, extended, meaning is to thoroughly process. (See 巳集中, 十二頁.)
The early A Chinese-English Dictionary by Herbert Giles, defines 生 as "To bear; to bring forth; to produce; to beget. To be born ...;to be alive; living; life. Raw, fresh, barbarous, unfamiliar, unacquainted with..." (Shanghai, 892, p. 1199)
The same dictionary, entry (10049 and) 10051 for 熟 gives "ripe, cooked, mature, Well acquainted with..." p. 1243. It appears in compounds where it is translated as "preserved," "prepared," "wrought" (iron), etc.
To "assimilate" something is to transform one thing into something at least somewhat different for the purpose of incorporating it. In terms of what happens to assimilate immigrants or other populations into some other population, some degree of processing (educating) is done so as to make the members of the group fit in well enough to their new country so that they can function well enough to get on. That word is then a pretty good translation for what happens when aboriginal Taiwanese are enculturated by Han Chinese well enough that the two groups can get along with each other.
In English, we use one term that I think is instructive. We speak of "rawhide" to mean the untanned hide of some animal as it is used for producing certain artifacts. But to speak of tanned leather as "cooked" leather would create entirely the wrong understanding in the mind of the reader. Only in times of starvation is shoe leather or other such products cooked, and then the objective is to provide something that can be eaten.
It is at least as uninstructive and counterproductive to speak of 熟 aborigines as "cooked aborigines," as it would be to speak of tanned animal hides as "cooked hides." Who would translate 很熟的朋友 as "well-cooked friends"? I have no idea of what impression terms like "raw barbarians" and "cooked barbarians" create in the context of a professional journal or book produced for communications among the cognoscenti of the field, but even if such picturesque translations are accepted in some professional writings, perhaps for the utility they provide of helping scholars recall the original Chinese terms, that does not mean that such prior specialist use overrides the basic considerations of good technical writing for the non-expert.
It is clear from the basic and extended meanings of the Chinese terms involved that in the context of this article meanings associated with food processing are inappropriate. The extended meanings of 熟 and 生 are being used in the Chinese context, and appropriate English terms to match those extended meanings ought to be used. P0M 00:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

have the same dictionary, different printing, and it gives several similar definitions 熟= ripe/cooked/well acquainted/Well versed etc... I have Longman's, I have Generations Chinese-English Dictionary, I have the Continentals...these are all great dictionaries...all similar meanings.

For this topic, contemporary dictionary definitions for general, multiple use, can not compare with terms selected for the context of this particular area of study or scholarship. The dictionaries do not have definitions for peripheral people, nor do they get into the depth of how and why it was applied to non-Han peoples. We must also not attempt to impart contemporary meanings on terms that were coined 400 years ago. The current use in this article is even chosen by Pan Ying-hai in his English language, doctoral dissertation from the University of Oregon regarding acculturation. Pan is the descendant of plains aborigines. Although dictionaries are a wonderful source for general information, they may be unable to satisfy the specific needs of this topic. The terms should be used in concord with materials that directly deal with this particular topic.Maowang 01:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Patrick,

Please read these posts carefully I have included several authors and page numbers thus far.

  • (ed) Stevan Harrell.1995. Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (pp.19-20;146;246;323)
  • Teng, Emma J.2004.Taiwan's Imagined Geography:Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683-1895.(pp.122-123;128-129;131-138;197-198;217-222)
  • Shepherd, John Robert.1993.Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier 1600-1800.(pp.7;109;260-275;332-344;372-378)
  • (ed) Brown, Melissa J.1996.Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan.pp.37-50)
  • Dikotter, Frank.1992.The Discourse of Race in Modern China (pp.8-10)
  • Brown, Melissa J.2004.Is Taiwan Chinese?:The Impact of Culture, Power and Migration on Changing Identities. (pp.8-10)
  • Yang, Mayfair.1989. The Gift Economy and State Power in China: Comparative Studies in Society and History (pp.40-41)
  • Diamond, Norma.1995.Defining the Miao: Ming, Qing and Contemporary Views, in ed. Stevan Harrell's Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (pp.92-110)

Melissa Brown is an associate professor in Anthropology at Stanford University

Stevan Harrell is the Head of the Anthropology Dept. at the University of Washington, former head of Humanities for the University of Washington and Curator of the East Asian Exhibits at the Burke Museum.

John Shepherd is a tenured professor at the University of Virginia

Frank Dikotter Professor in the Department of History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Emma Teng is an associate professor of China Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I hope this will help satisfy your uneasiness regarding these terms.Maowang 08:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

lol, so i come back to look at this page, and i guess i can now find comfort in the fact that i'm not the only one who feels the "translations" used in the article are problematic. lingnut mentioned that someone could simply publish something in some peer-reviewed journal/periodical and thus we can cite it. so... i kindly propose that maybe someone with some clout in this field of study (perhaps even our beloved and esteemed expert, mr. maowang) could write a little something regarding this issue in some relevant journal. then we can finally settle this blasted issue of requiring "verifiability" blah blah blah blah.
anyway, to restate the thrust of my argument, even after considering maowang's cited sources, i shall quote from the comment i posted on maowang's talk page back in 14 march, 2007 (section titled "insults, tone of voice, etc"):
you also argued earlier about how even the english word "raw" has other tangentially related meanings such as "unrefined, bare, etc". but the same cannot be said about "cooked". the only other meaning for "cooked" in english might be the slang usage "his goose is cooked", as in "he is doomed". by translating 熟 as "cooked" in english, this precludes ascribing to the original 熟 any other meaning than the culinary one.
so, while i can agree that the most recent source you cited might begin to shed some light on the possible merit of your position, it remains contingent on the fact that the original chinese 熟 and 生 can have these double meanings. to which i might say "fine, so maybe the Qing era classification might have alluded to the pure culinary senses of the words as well," but they obviously also intended to convey the meanings "familiar/assimilated" vs "unfamiliar/unassimilated". (and my argument has been that this was primarily what they meant to convey, even if the other "essential" meanings of the original characters were also meant to be alluded to.) however, in the english translations of "raw" and "cooked", only "raw" has the potential to allude to the quasi-suitable secondary meanings. thus again, it is the english translations which are problematic.
therefore an english-only reader of the article will come across the terms "raw" and "cooked", and thus think that the chinese were just obstinately ethnocentric overlords willing to just classify non-han tribes in the same vein as things and objects. that they were or were not this chauvinistic is not the issue (and i would agree that they were indeed quite chauvinistically ethnocentric). but by simply translating the terms as "raw" and "cooked", one loses the more "nuanced", shall we say, ethnocentrism of the chinese literati from that period, because an english reader of the article will assume that only the culinary senses of the word were intended.
71.192.247.11 04:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I think I would sooner be well cooked with 71.192.247.11 than with the king of cats with whom I am rather raw and likely to stay uncooked.
Some one of our esteemed experts claimed the implicit support of the husband of one of my teachers back in Taiwan in the 60s with whom I am rather well cooked. Perhaps I could write to him and see what his take is on this subject. I did mention this problem on the list-serv for the Chinese Language Teachers Association. We are all well cooked together, a veritable Mulligan stew of several years in the pot, and nobody came to the defense of calling aborigines raw. One of the oldest and most venerable of these well cooked individuals was even a bit indignant about it.
The trouble is that standards among dissertation advisers and book publishers have apparently slipped, so we are stuck with published texts by some percentage of the total community who writes on such things that use the cutesy terms "raw" and "cooked" in a way that would probably attract the negative attention of Edward Said. Orientals are so weird that they refer to aboriginal peoples as either raw or cooked, no? How truly titillating such linguistic excrescences can be.
I think, to be a bit more serious, that the standard being used here is equivalent to the "ten billion flies cannot be wrong" theory. The fact is that the best writers may not use these terms in an unguarded way, but they may be in the minority. P0M 05:23, 8 May

2007 (UTC)


Patrick,

Since you are devoting a lot of time to this subject, why don't you read some of the books? Actually, our friend Edward Said is right in the middle of this... it is not that the scholars thought "Orientals are weird"..., but as colonialists themselves, Han thought the Aborigines were "so raw or even slightly cooked...but never human". Ok! Blame the entire academic community for dropping the ball...but this is where it now stands and I do not want to use this as a space to conduct original research. Maybe if you would like to publish your findings in an academic journal or book on this very subject, you would be more than welcome to change what you want.218.170.112.104 00:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)Maowang 00:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you putting quotation marks around those words to claim that you are giving an actual quotation? What is the book you are citing? What are the qualifications of the translator. P0M 03:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok! Besides substituting the wording (which I oppose), what would placate you? The section describes the meaning of the definitions is similar terms to what you suggest, it is sourced by good references. I have contacted the authors to get their input on your objections. Would you accept notes in the bottom of the page?

P.S. The quotations are mine, but paraphrasing Emma Teng (Who is Han) in Taiwan's Imagined Geography. I would rather take several references in direct relation to the subject than a Miriam-Webster style definition from a dictionary. When you checked the provided sources, what did they say? Run a search on Amazon. Google the terms in relation to Aborigines and see what you get. Check JSTOR. I see nothign but support for the current terms.

I'm sorry, but the terms "raw" and "cooked" give a misleading impression to the English speaker. When I was bold and changed this terminology in the article, I was accused of "original research". Anyone who knows a modicum of Chinese is aware that the sheng / shu opposition covers a broader range of ground in that language than just "raw" and "cooked".
If the unnatural and counterintuitive "raw" vs "cooked" terminology is to be used in the article, a proper explanation of the linguistic background should be given. Just dishing up "raw" and "cooked" without giving idea why the Chinese would use such outlandish terminology is misleading to readers. We OWE it to visitors to demystify this usage. This is NOT original research.
Anyway, I've found a source that doesn't use "raw and cooked" and submit it to the guardians of this page for their consideration:
The inhabitants of Hainan may be divided into three classes, the Chinese immigrants, the civilized aborigines or Shu-li and the wild aborigines or Sheng-li.
This is from the 1911 encyclopedia at [1].
Someone at a very early stage obviously didn't feel the need to indulge in the practice of using a literal translation based on culinary terminology.
Bathrobe (talk) 23:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Naming Protocol

The last contributor made a point I have been thinking about for a while. Capitals or non. I think we should follow the conventions of J. Shepherd and Melissa Brown an use capitals for Aborigine as an ethnic group in the same manner as Mainlander, Taiwanese. Hakka etc... This avoids the drawbacks of colonized terms of "other" and presents them as equals wit hthe other ethnic groups. Maowang 04:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Aborigines should be in Caps.Maowang 01:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Then the page should be moved to Taiwanese Aborigines for consistency. -- JHunterJ 11:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

It was reverted by LionheartX. I don't know which to use, and I don't especially support either one, but I think this issue should be solved as soon as possible. I don't want WikiProject Taiwanese A(a)borigines to change name constantly.--Jerry 18:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming and Identity

One definite thing, one tentative thing:

Definite: This section should have something about the law that was passed relatively recently to permit use of Aboriginal names on official documents..... if that is already mentioned in the Modern section, I suppose we should move it...

tentative: Should this section be called "Personal names and Identity" instead of "Naming and Identity"?

--Ling.Nut 14:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a source:

Copyright 2005 Central News Agency Central News Agency - Taiwan
November 09, 2005, Wednesday
LENGTH: 335 words
HEADLINE: DPP ENCOURAGES ABORIGINES TO ADOPT TRADITIONAL NAMES
BYLINE: By Y.F. Low
DATELINE: Taipei, Nov. 9

BODY: The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) launched a petition Wednesday to support the country's aborigines re-adopting their traditional names when they renew their identification cards at the end of this year.

According to a documentary released by the party's ethnic affairs department, although aborigines are now allowed to use their traditional names following a 1995 amendment to the Personal Names Act, only 890 out of the total of 460,000 aborigines in Taiwan have done so because of the past stigma attached to the names and the complicated formalities involved.

Of the 890 aborigines who have opted to adopt their traditional names, 65 have since changed their names back to ones of Han Chinese origin, the film shows.

DPP Secretary-General Lee Yi-yang pointed out that Taiwan's indigenous people were forced to adopt Japanese names during Japanese colonial rule and were then compelled to use Han names after Taiwan was handed over to the Kuomintang-ruled Republic of China government.

Lee urged those aborigines who have not adopted their traditional names for fear they will be discriminated against to "shout their names out aloud, " because, he said, the DPP respects Taiwan's identity.

Addressing the issue, Interior Minister Su Jia-Chyuan said that when the new identification cards are issued, the government will set up special counters for aborigines to make it simple and convenient for them to adopt their traditional names.

Su noted that the name column of the new identification cards will have enough room for up to 15 Chinese characters or 20 Roman letters, which he said will make it easier for aboriginal people to use their traditional names on their new ID cards.

Council of Indigenous Peoples Chairman Walis Pelin said the council will consider holding a name-restoring ceremony in aboriginal villages in the future to encourage more people to follow suit.

--Ling.Nut 14:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geography

In many ways, the Gaoshan (mountain tribes) people have fared considerably better than their Pin-pu counterparts living on the plains. The Pin-pu increasingly encountered “... land-hungry immigrants from China’s southeast coast” (Shepherd, 1993:8). They clashed with Han settlers over possession of western plains lands that are easier to access and more amenable to agricultural development than the mountainous areas of the central-east.

On the other hand, the relative inaccessibility of the mountains (and the plains to their east) afforded far greater protection for the Gaoshan tribes. The mountains not only provided them with physical security, but also reduced the contact and intermarriage between these groups. These conditions have been conducive to their continued linguistic and cultural existence. However, the mountains have not provided the Gaoshan tribes with an impermeable buffer against social and linguistic pressure. Currently the threats to the survival of their languages and cultures are principally socioeconomic, but historically the most important of these were forced relocation, linguistic imperialism, and violent repression. --Ling.Nut 00:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

That looks ok. Emma Teng discusses traditional Han taboos against entering the mountain regions and Taiwan's imagined geography that helped keep Han from encroachment. The Hakka intentionally entered the foothills as it resembled the mountainous regions of the Fujianese highlands where they traditionally planted fruit orchards. I modified a little of the opening to accomodate geography as well

OK, but I'm just not sure we made it painfully plain that the western plains were simply more geographically vulnerable to land-grabs, mass immigration resulting in mass-inter-marriage, etc. :-) the mountains and eastern plains were simply less accessible --Ling.Nut 01:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Right! Go agead and put it in if you think there needs to be more on geography. I may insert a small paragraph on conversion to Christianity and the revival of indigenous beliefs... maybe with the Taiwan Presbyterian thing. What do you think?Maowang 01:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA (3rd nom) On Hold

Wow! This article looks GREAT and is nearly ready for featured status. I am prepared to promote it to GA status pending the following relatively minor fixes:

    • Image:Rukai chief.jpg is using a deprecated (i.e. no longer used) image tag. I will accept the PD claim based on good faith, but the tag needs to be updated.
    • Image:Atayal.jpg has the same issue

Other than that, the article is fantastic, and should pass GA status easily. Then feel free to nominate it at WP:FAC. When the changes are made, drop a note by my talk page, and I will promote the article. Good job! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

The images are from 1896. I put PD-old on them; I believe that's the correct one... Thanks! --Ling.Nut 20:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA (3rd nom) PASSED

All fixes made. Congrats! Consider looking at WP:WIAFA to see about bringing this article up for nomination as a featured candidate at WP:FAC --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this article thus far in nurturing it along to GA status. Special thanks to Ling.nut for all the helpful contributions, editing, perspective, criticism and hard work. Also thanks to Jayron32 for taking the time to review such a long and heavy topic.

We have tried our best to tread lightly and evenly in discussing this topic as it involves some very sensitive issues and we understand there are many issues this article alone can not cover. If you have found this page useful or think it is wanting in any category, I would encourage you to leave a message in the feedback section or here in the discussion page, so that any issues can be addressed and dealt with in a manner which maintains the integrity of this article.

Thanks again!

Maowang 11:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

So I added a...significant...section on religion. It probably needs to be said as it is a significant facotor... I'm concerned with the length. Maowang 07:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Looks OK. :-) --Ling.Nut 19:25, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compulsory relocation

In the case of the Gaoshan of Taiwan, the influence of forced relocation under the Japanese and Kuomintang was profound. As Hsu (1991:25) noted, mass re-locations forced by the Japanese in the 1920s and 1930s created substantial social disruption and fragmentation among indigenous villagers. Thorne (1997:159) noted the relocation of no less than 72 villages between 1945 and 1964. An example can be found in the Nanwang Puyuma, who “...were forcibly resettled to the community’s present site by Japanese authorities in 1929” (Huteson 2004:9). The Japanese were not alone in this practice, as the Kuomintang (KMT) rule under Chiang Kai-Shek also forced some aboriginal groups to relocate:

"As Formosa became the ROC's fortress, much of the rugged highlands was designated for military use only, and the autochthonous Formosans living in those areas were forced from their homes" (DeChicchis, 1995)

Although the Gaoshan were spared in large part from the centuries of military conquests and subsequent linguistic and cultural assimilation, their forced relocation during two regimes in the latter half of the twentieth century did much to scatter the nucleus of speakers of these languages.

  • DeChicchis, J. (1995). The politics of language names in Taiwan. Studies in Language and Culture, 21: 69-86.
  • Hsu, Mutsu. (1991) Culture Self, and Adaptation: the Psychological Anthropology of Two Malayo-Polynesian Groups in Taiwan. Taipei: The Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica.
  • Huteson, G. (2005). Report on Language Proficiency, Language Use, and Language Attitudes Among the Puyuma. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2005-001, Dallas, TX: SIL International.
  • Thorne, John F. (1997). "Pangcah: The Evolution Of Ethnic Identity Among Urbanizing Pangcah Aborigines In Taiwan." University Of Hong Kong.
  • Ling.Nut 19:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A class?

Why is this article A class? I was under the impression that WikiProject China and Taiwan don't even use A class. Is A class automatically better than GA class? Who decides that, since the GA process and people are different from WikiProject internal rating processes? --Calde 02:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I changed it because WikiProject ethnic groups rated it as A-class. I did not know that WikiProject Taiwan and China don't use A-class.--Jerrypp772000 22:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, this is stupid. Rate it whatever you want. Ling.Nut 22:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Jerry, this is the only article in WPTAIWAN and WPCHINA right now with an A-class rating. I recommend you change it back to GA (or FA if it passes) until we reach consensus on what A-class should mean. I won't change it myself for obvious reasons. --Calde 20:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I think I'm gonna leave it A-class until a consensus is reached.--Jerrypp772000 20:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Supposed ties of Taiwanese Aborigines with "Melanesians"

(with ref to this edit)

  • I have no preferences or favorities in the discussion about genetic relationships — but it is clear that some people do. [Here I'm not talking about the editor who removed the info; I'm talking about what that removal could cause (see below)].
  • For that reason, it is crucial that such statements be verified. Please verify the new version with recent and authoritative sources. I know from exp. that if the info is not verified, editors will come along and tack on more and more groups of people who are allegely related to to Taiwanese aborigines, and argue their points interminably. All such info must be verified, in accordance with Wikipedia policy in WP:V, WP:ATT]], or whichever one has weight these days..
  • Please also provide a verifiable source backing up your removal of the previous info. I can re-obtain the cited article and email it to you...

Thank you Ling.Nut 12:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the discussion. I wouldn't mind seeing the cited article, especially to see if what is discussed there is really the origin of Taiwanese Abos. I doubt it both because of the text's wording ([Taiwanese people result from] "mingling between Austronesian speakers, perhaps from Taiwan or nearby areas, and the indigenous people of Melanesian islands"), and because of common scientific knowledge on the matter. The sentence quoted sounds as if the author were speaking of the Austronesian-speaking populations of Melanesia: these populations indeed are generally considered to result from a mix (both genetic and linguistic) of Austronesian and Papuan input. [note that I have no specific reference to cite here as this is the generally admitted hypothesis; but this can be found easily, at least in my domain of linguistics]. If I'm wrong and the cited paper is about the (genetic?) affiliation of Taiwanese Abos, then fine, feel free to revert my edit. But the sentence as it was formulated seemed to suggest that Taiwanese Abos originate in the mingling of Austronesian and Papuan (=Melanesian) input, which is against all received knowledge i'm aware of. Melanesia being located 3000 km south of Taiwan, is someone claiming that there were back migrations from Melanesian areas northwards to Taiwan?? I've never heard anything like this (but geneticists sometimes make statements that can be quite surprising to us linguists…)
Finally, regarding the areas I have added (Malaysia, Indonesia, Oceania), this is nothing more than a development of the term "Austronesian" [see wording = "Austronesian groups such as peoples of the Philippines, etc."]. It may be interesting for the reader to know (without needing to read the "Austronesian people" page) that Taiwanese abos have direct genetic and linguistic links with the populations of these major areas of the world. I don't think any reference is needed here, first because its place is in the Austronesian people page, second because once again this is common knowledge -- for the same reason as you won't need to add a reference if you say that Celtic or Scandinavian peoples speak Indo-European languages.
Cheers, Womtelo 14:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC).
Hi again:
If you'll look at my username and user page, you'll find I am a kindred spirit...
The article makes it extremely clear (citing Blust) that linguists see Taiwan as... as far back as we can peer thru time... the place of origin of the Austronesian languages, and hence the homeland of the Austronesian people. That is, the population movements go like this: start at Taiwan, and go out from there....
The section you removed was not about linguistics; it was about DNA testing. DNA-related evidence is far, far less clear than linguitic evidence. It is in fact utterly inconclusive. That is why the article went out of its way (via weasel words like "seems to be" and "possibly", and most importantly, by a direct quote in the footnotes which directly states that DNA evidence is unclear) to show the lack of conclusiveness of DNA evidence.
If I could have my way, I would delete it. But that absolutely must not be. If we delete the section, then I promise you, a month or six weeks later some editor(s) will add text connecting the Taiwanese Aborigines to every possible group imaginable, both reasonable and fantastic. Moreover, they will be making unsubstantiated claims of DNA links between the Aborigines and their personal group of choice....No, it is imperative that we put the authoritative (and utterly inconclusive) facts out there, cite them fully, qualify them carefully, and watch the page for unsubstantiated additions.
One of the two articles cited re DNA evidence is available online:
I'll try to get the other one for you. Wi9kipedia email does not permit attachments; I'll have to email you, then you'll have to reply, then I'll attach the article to my reply to your rreply. :-)
But given what I said above, are you OK with restoring the article to its prior state?
Thanks Ling.Nut 15:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Hello again. I understand your point, and appreciate your precaution. The problem, in my view, is that the paragraph I removed tells a totally different story from the one you're telling here. While you are precise we're dealing with "DNA testing" rather than linguistic, this is not mentioned clearly in the text (neither in the main text nor in the footnote); on the contrary a vague reference is made to "linguistic and genetic ties".

The Taiwanese Aborigines are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to Austronesian groups such as peoples of the Philippines, and possibly some Melanesian groups.

As a linguist, it is my duty to correct this statement, which is simply false: absolutely no evidence allows to derive the Formosan languages from any influence from Melanesia. If only DNA evidence is concerned here, then this must be stated much more explicitly.
Furthermore, you insist on the "lack of conclusiveness of DNA evidence". I'm sorry to say this scientific doubt does not show through in the quote or in the text:

Hill et al. (2007) state that: "...some scientists are converging on a model that involves mingling between Austronesian speakers, perhaps from Taiwan or nearby areas, and the indigenous people of Melanesian islands such as Papua New Guinea... Researchers argue about just how much mixing occurred between peoples, and at the moment each data set tends to favor a different homeland for the original voyagers." For a summary of some relevant arguments, see (Bird, Hope & Taylor 2004).

What the average reader will retain from the quote is that scientists (supposedly in the "linguistic and genetic" domains, which is false) tend to agree ("converge") that the origin of Taiwanese presumably involves the mingling of Austronesian and Melanesian input. I can't see where in that quote you can see any claim of "inconclusiveness": as you know, the "weasel words" you mention are commonplace in scientific papers when an author actually wants to claim something [such as "it looks like one could possibly conclude that Brittons come from Nicaragua"…]. Once again, if one wants to underline the inconclusiveness of genetic data, they should say much more clearly "Current evidence from DNA does not allow to achieve any firm conclusions regarding the origins, etc." In the absence of this sort of disclaimer, I take it that the quote is much more affirmative. Incidentally, I read through the paper you cite here (relevant page = p.155) and nothing seems to support the claim there. So at this stage, taking into account all these points, I'm afraid I'll have to confirm my deletion, until I find clearer evidence for the contrary.
Finally, you say:

If we delete the section, then (...) some editor(s) will add text connecting the Taiwanese Aborigines to every possible group imaginable, both reasonable and fantastic.

This is precisely what I wanted to avoid. Linking the Taiwanese Abos with Melanesian/Papuan populations is (on the basis of what I know) what I would call fantasy. Cheers, Womtelo 18:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

(undent) oops! My original text, which was closer to what I described here on talk, was altered by another editor in the process of copyediting. If you don't like the wording, then {{sofixit}}. We can alter it again, keeping it very brief, to meet our agreed understanding... but I dunno about calling a link to Melanesia a "fantasy." It was a direct quote from the article. The DNA bit is only discussing "relatedness," and is not trying to establish any chronological direction. The linguitic evidence is very clear about "from Taiwan to all other Austronesian-speaking groups." The DNA evidence is only intended to show a relation. I'm away from school, but am trying to get the Hill/Soares article.. meanwhile, let's fix this and move forward, shall we? Thanks Ling.Nut 19:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You said:

The DNA bit is only discussing "relatedness," and is not trying to establish any chronological direction.

Then there is a logical problem. If I understand you well, what geneticists show is that there is a relation between Taiwan Abos (who are Austronesian) and some Melanesians (a notion which is notoriously non-scientific, since it covers both "Papuans" and "Austronesian-speaking negroid people of Pacific islands"…) Now, only the latter (in PNG, the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia) are supposedly genetically mixed between Austronesian and Papuan. As a consequence, I see two possibilities, depending on the sense given here to the (very vague) word "Melanesians":
  • Melanesians is taken in the quote to mean "Papuan people" → in that case their relationship with Taiwan Abos is unexpected and paradoxical; it must be stated more clearly (what part of Melanesia exactly? what does this entail in terms of migration patterns?) -- Otherwise this is nothing more than confusing information.
  • Melanesians is taken in the quote to mean "Austronesian-speaking negroid people of Pacific islands" → in that case, the reason why there are genetic links with Taiwan is simply because that type of "Melanesians" have received Austronesian input (or probably they are Austronesians, and have received Papuan input), which comes back to the received knowledge, say in linguistics. If this is so, then this piece of information has nothing to do in the Taiwanese aborigines page! It would be as absurd as if the entry "Portugal" mentioned genetic ties with (mixed-race) Indians from Brazil! this of course would say nothing of the genetic origins of Portuguese people, and would just reflect the accidents of their more recent history…
To sum up, I can't see how that particular piece of text is any helpful in defining the nature and origins of Taiwan aborigines. Given the weakness of evidence in favor of any link with Melanesia, I think the simple mention of such a link is much more confusing than anything else. Unless convincing evidence is produced (maybe in the paper you were going to send me), I recommend that this para should be kept deleted.
Best, Womtelo 21:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC).
  • Thanks for the help. I was never married to the existing text. My only goal is to close the door on wandering editors (with some kind of agenda) who want to put various nationalities in as "related groups." Believe it or not, I now recall that long long ago there was no mention of such ties, and someone did just that. I have since tried and tried to resolve the issue, apparently to no avail.
  • I have the sources I originally used, plus others. As expected the DNA evidence is tangled. It's a huge headache to untangle. There seem to be as many opinions as there are papers. However, I can't just elide the issue.
  • It seems that Austronesians mingled with Melanesians, before the explosive migration... so they are related, but not in the sense that most people would expect when reading the article. Apparently that view is not universally held, but seems to be a recurring theme.
  • I didn't find the quote you deleted anywhere in the article I attributed it to... I dunno if I got it from.. a preprint version? I dunno. So for this reason I am of course OK with leaving it deleted. Now I am stuck with finding for something to replace it. Your current text is OK but I need citations, as I discussed above.
  • Thanks! Ling.Nut 22:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Alright. Apparently we shouldn't make too hasty changes on these tough issues, let's remain prudent. Good luck for your future work on this page. I'll watch it. Womtelo 22:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] WP:FA, finally....

Congrats to all the many contributors! Ling.Nut 01:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Congrats! BTW Ling.Nut, check and see if you can email me now.--Jerry 20:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added some information on political behavior of Taiwanese aborigines

I added some information on the political behavior of Taiwanese aborigines which I think adds an important nuances to some of the material already there. In particular, I wanted to point out that while aborigines are often cited as an example of "Taiwaneseness" by Taiwan separatists, the aborigines themselves judging by their voting behavior aren't enthusiastically supportive of this portrayal of them, and as they see themselves as a "minority" they tend to ally actually tend to vote for the parties that lean toward unification and form a political alliance with the "Mainlanders" on Taiwan.

The other important nuance that the article needed to add was that the article tended to talk about how disempowered the aborigines were, and the point needed to be added that they will have six seats in the 113-seat LY and could very will be crucial in determining control of the legislature after the 2007 elections.

I put in citations for all of my edits (and it took me a while to find a citable source for the motivations of aborigines). None of what I've added I think is particularly under dispute with anyone familiar with Taiwanese politics, and I'd appreciate it if someone could/would add better sources (i.e. I'd like to replace the newspaper article with a peer-reviewed academic article).

Roadrunner 04:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Would like to change Han.

I'd like to make some edits, but maybe it would be best if I wait a week until this gets off the front page.

In particular the article uses "Han" anachronistically. The concept of a "Han ethnicity" didn't exist the mid-19th century after Qianlong, and so the idea that Qianlong identified the idea of "cooked" aborigines with "being Han" is historically anchronistic. What was the case was that the important distinction to Qianlong and the imperial court was the difference between being "civilized" and "barbarian" and being "civilized" meant adopting Confucian modes of behavior, regardless of one's ethnicity.

This is significant because Qianlong himself was trying to identify *himself* and the imperial court as "civilized" despite the fact that they weren't Han.

Also, the part about Taiwanese aborigines being seen the same by successive colonial projects is clearly NPOV since it argues that the Qing court saw the aborigines in basically the same way as the Europeans. While fitting things in a colonizer versus indigineous peoples framework is one way of looking at it, looking at things in that way does force an POV on it.

In fact there is a strong colonizer vs. indigenous POV throughout the article, but fixing it probably won't be possible while the article is on the front page. Since the subtle debates needed to improve the article can't happen while people are fixing stupid vandalism.

This shouldn't be hard since I agree on the reference works that are to be used as the framework of discussion. However, I object strongly to describing the attitudes of the Qing-era as the Han looking down on the non-Han since the emperor himself was "non-Han." The question then becomes defining exactly what is in the primary sources, what is in the secondary sources, and then doing NPOV descriptions of the secondary sources.

I'll work on something else and come back in a week to a month.

Roadrunner 05:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Just to give a heads up as to what the changes that I'd like to make. The current article I think is very NPOV in that it not only mentions some of the Taiwan nationalist viewpoints, but also treats them as objective fact. These viewpoints basically tries to fit the idea of "sinicization" within the context of the "colonial versus indigineous" narrative in order to justify a movement that sees itself as anti-colonial.

The problem with that view is that this conflicts with recent scholarship that calls into question the whole model of "sinicization" which was advanced by Pamela Crossley, Evelyn S. Rawski, and Mark C Elliot. (see http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/xiaoweiqingessay.htm). The view of Taiwanese aboriginal history as "a doomed fight against Han colonization" simply conflicts with these new models of history that sees Imperial Qing policy as an effort to create a multi-ethnic empire, which in some ways was very different from previous "Chinese" dynasties.

The place I'd like to begin is to go through the citations for Crossley and make sure that she says what the article implies that she says. I have serious doubts that Crossley's views are being fully cited, in light of her work in questioning the notion of "sinicization" and describing the importance of the "Manchu identity" in modern China. There are also a lot of language tweaks (i.e. instead of saying X, say Y argues X).

The other thing that is missing is discussion about how Taiwanese aborigines fits into current Chinese nationalist views. Unfortunately, I don't know of any academic work on the subject, but I think that adding some of the political information on how aborigines actually vote (i.e. they are iron votes for the parties that lean toward Chinese unification) gives the reader some sense that things are more complex they they first appear. I think that I can add more information that firms up some of the general information. (i.e. statistics on voting patterns). Also, I'll look at KMT websites to try to get some information on current views toward aborigines.

Roadrunner 12:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

great, look forward to it. Blueshirts 18:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Han fits best with Ming and Qing ideas of others (see notes and books). I have a very good article I'm readign through right now on the KMT era. Crossley supports the ideas of Qing movements universalism and transformationalism. Her concepts of Sinicization are challenged by Melissa Brown and Patricia Ebrey. Many of the authors have been contacted regarding this article and agree with the current formula. It is also important to understand that "Manchu" was the invention of Hong Tai-ji as a unified people of the Aisin Gioro and other Jurchen and Han groups. Furthermore, although the Qing emperors were originally Jurchen, they acculturated themselves into Han and maintained the Han cultural structure of the imperial court.

These assertions are matters of current scholarly debate, and without mentioning the scholarly debate, they are subject to NPOV criticism. Evelyn Rawaski, in particular, argues that the term and concept of Han was invented in the late 19th century, and she has made a name for herself arguing that the "non-Han" components of the Qing court have been very understatement. Arguing that the Qing dynasty was "Han" seems to me to be very odd.
Roadrunner 21:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Lastly, the available material is almost entirely based on the observations of non-indigenous people, so the framing of this page as decolonizing achieves the balance...

But again, you run into NPOV problems. Arguing that Qing dynasty policy toward Taiwanese aborigines was essentially the same as European colonization is a POV. It's a POV certainly needs to be mentioned, but it is a POV.
I certainly think that readers should be exposed to the "decolonization frame." However, my concern is that readers should also be made aware that it is a frame, and one that isn't universially accepted.
Roadrunner 21:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

exposing the problems with the material so we can talk about it NPOV. For more on this era see the Dikotter book and Peter Perdue's China Marches West the Crossley books will be a big help. Before you make any major changes please contact me.Maowang 00:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I made one change which I hope will be non-controversial in that I took out the word "colonialism" and "colonial" and simply referred to "projects." The fact that some people see the Chinese nationalist project as colonial certainly needs to be mentioned, but asserting that the Chinese nationalist project is colonial is clearly NPOV.
One irony is that I've found that the "anti-colonial" viewpoints sometimes make as many assumptions about what happened as their supposed "colonial" opponents.
I need to buy Dikotter's book and Crossley. Perdue's book is excellent especially the later chapters when he gets into general issues of ethnicity and historical viewpoints.

Roadrunner 21:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Lastly, there is documented evidence of CLEAR discrimination by Qing and Han against Aborigines. Look at the Hoklo term "Huan-a" it is a dimunitive, like a child. I would be happy to support this over email.Maowang 00:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that you get into categorization issues. Attitudes toward aborigines in 1750 may not be the same as 1850 or 1950. Attitudes may vary strongly between different groups, different classes, different people. Attitudes may be different toward different groups of aborigines. The irony is that by trying to fit something into a "colonizer-indigineous" framework, I'd argue that people are creating a history that is as suspect for the same reasons as the "colonial histories" they are arguing against.
Roadrunner 21:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Include a link here

http://64.233.179.104/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:oaQqE89DpL4J:intl-mcx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/1/91+

Good stuff that will be needed later.
Roadrunner 22:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit

I made a change which contraposed "Chinese nationalist" with "multi-ethnic" and "multi-cultural" implying that the two are exclusive. If Hsiau asserts this, then I do not object to putting back the sentence as his POV. Hsiau argues that (...)

Being a Chinese nationalist, I do have major problems with stating this without attribution, as this asserts that Chinese nationalism is more mono-cultural than I think it actually is.

Roadrunner 21:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Enough edits for now

Leaving this article for a while for people to give feedback.

My main problem is the constant use of the term "colonizer" or "colonial" and I think they should be replaced by more neutral terms "outsider" or "non-indigienous." One problem I have with the term "colonial" is that this presupposes the idea that the indigineous peoples were displaced by the outsiders, which is simply not the case according to the latest anthropological research which indicates that there was huge amounts of intermarriage going on.

The big problem I have with the term "colonial" is that it includes a value-judgement that what happened in the 18th and 19th centuries in Taiwan was bad and illegitimate, and it is part of a project to delegitimize Chinese nationalism (which sees itself as anti-colonial). That clearly goes against NPOV. Using more neutral term "outside influences" describes the situation without creating an implicit moral judgement. (I don't have any objections to including moral judgements in an encyclopedia article if they are attributed and explicit.)

Again, I have no problem with mentioning the "colonial/indigineous" narrative, and I don't have any problem with terms such as "X argues that" or even "most anthopologists believe that ...." I do have big problems with using that as the main frame.

There are just so many caveats, but I think the nationalist (both Taiwanese and Chinese) viewpoints rely largely on faith, we are trying to use some type of science to gird this. This topic deals with a people who have not always had control over their representation and thus we need to be extra careful. These are people and their identities....

Roadrunner 22:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

At its base we have a people who identified and located the Aborigines as an ethnic "other" and determined the Aborigines "distance" from the "civilized center" (Which the colonizers identified with) and then promoted cultural policies that sought to draw the aborigines closer to the center. This has remained constant.

Great stuff. It should be in there but it should be marked and cited as a POV. Also is this citable or is this original research?

Roadrunner 06:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The article also explains that the Aborigines, played various roles, both active and passive, in the colonization project and at times colonized themselves. I think in several places, this article mentions the Aborigines own agency in various civilizing projects, but the "civilizing center" always remaind outside Taiwan.

Again great stuff. But it is not NPOV

Roadrunner 06:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The Qing sought to draw peripheral peoples into its orbit and transform them (Crossley) into citizens.

The Chinese nationalist view would regard this as achieving the national unification of the motherland, and not as an example of colonialism. One *big* problem that I have with your edits is that you are attributing views to authors which they do not seem to hold. Crossley and Perdue have both done a lot of good work on describing the Qing dynasty, but as far as I know neither put these activities into the language of colonialism. In fact, one of the reason I like Perdue is that he pretty explicitly talks about how we can fall into the trap of reading current concerns into previous era.

Roadrunner 06:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

All of this is clearly stated in the3 article. Michael Stainton does a lot of work on the roles of both religion and the economy in the voting patterns of Aborigines, especially the powerful patronage networks, which were used by the KMT to secure Aboriginal votes. These networks expanded during James Soong's tenure as "Provincial Governor", but may have nothing to do with Aborigines sense of alliance with any political party over the issue of political unification with the PRC or de jure independence.

But it does point out how Aborigines in general do not accept the "anti-colonial" project of the DPP. And in any case, there was not a single word about how Aborigines support the KMT, until I put it in there.
Roadrunner 06:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Maowang 05:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

I strongly object to the terms colonial and colonialism when more neutral and less emotionally charged terms will do nicely. The problem I have is that the article as it stands does not adopt a NPOV, and it also contains original research in which an author's written statements are taken far beyond the original meaning. I also strongly object in that current Chinese nationalist views on Taiwanese Aborigines are not described adequately enough.

I have no objection to describing the colonial narrative as *one* of several narratives describing the Taiwanese aborigines. However, I do have problems when that narrative is given a privileged status over other narratives, and when that narrative is treated as somehow more "objective" or "neutral" than the current Chinese nationalist narrative.

Anyway, I'd like to have more input from other readers. I'll refrain from edits, and it's enough for me to put a NPOV tag.

Roadrunner 06:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

OK one small and hopefully uncontroversial edit. I changed references to the KMT from Chinese Nationalists to the Chinese Nationalist Party.

Roadrunner 07:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The input from this reader is that the Taiwanese Aborigines were colonized.' I kinda think the work "colonial" may have been a little over-used, but I'm speaking from a stylistic point of view (repetitive language).
But they were not Qing, they were not not Han, they were not Dutch, they were not Japanese, they were not KMT... they were living on the island, and someone with more people and bigger guns came to take their lands and settle down there. That is colonization.' End of story. Saying otherwise is startlingly NPOV, in fact. Ling.Nut 12:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Let me describe the problem. The Cherokee in North Carolina were living peacefully when white Americans with guns pushed them off their land and settled there. The same is true with the Maori in New Zealand and dozens of other indigenous peoples which have been displaced by more technologically advanced groups.
However, one would not generally describe US policies toward native Americans as "colonial policies" and if one were to do that, you'd get a lot of screaming and NPOV tags.
The reason for that is that North Carolina is not considered a "colony" of the United States, hence US policies toward native Americans, right or wrong, good or evil, are not considered by most Americans to be part of a "colonial project."
I hope you see the NPOV problem here with respect to Taiwan.
Now I don't mean at all to censor or whitewash history. I'm sure that you can find lots of nasty things that Han settlers did to Taiwanese aborigines, but you can describe them without taking sides on a current active political controversy, just like not describing US policies toward the Cherokee as "colonial" doesn't morally justify them.
Finally, part of the Chinese nationalist description of Taiwanese aborigines was that they were "Chinese" whether they knew it or not. This *is* anachronistic, but it's no more historically suspect than talking about a native American 5000 years ago as a American.
Anyone I'll refrain from edits, and let other people chime in.

Roadrunner 16:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

One thing that I should note here is that one interesting thing is how Chinese nationalist views of indigenous peoples have changed over the course of last 200 years and even in the course of the last 10. Something I find fascinating about a lot of literature is that people in the West make "orientalist" and "colonialist" assumptions about the Chinese nationalist identity (i.e. that Chinese views are incapable of changing, and somehow there is a duty on the West to "civilize" Chinese.)
I would probably be less annoyed about the article if it didn't complain about people making major errors in historical studies (i.e. using categories that make no sense to the people involved, assuming a telelogy and a mono-directional direction in history, trying to fit things into one master narrative) and then precede to make the same mistakes that it complains about.
If you want my view of what an excellent article should look like. There are several wonderful chapters in Perdue's China Marches West were Perdue summarizes the major historical narratives regarding central Asia, and then rather even handedly discusses the weakness in all of them.
Roadrunner 16:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is an interview with Emma Jinhua Teng, (who by the way I think has written a wondering work) which I think very strongly strengthens my case that there are major NPOV and Original research issues here.

http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/people/Teng%20Interview.pdf

POTS: In your epilogue, you talk about the difficulties of talking about Taiwan as a post-colonial place. Could you elaborate a little on that?

T: (...)

What I did was to try to extend similar thinking to Taiwan's relationship with China. It kind of boils down to this, If we don't call the Qing annexation of China in 1684 a "colonial" occupation and **most people wouldn't*** (emphasis mine) - then you can't talk of Taiwan's post-colonality in relation to China. You have to have colonialism in order to have post-colonialism. So once you start to theorize the Qing occupation of Taiwan as being colonial, then you start to open up the possibility of thinking of Taiwan's relation to China as post-colonial, at least in terms of what I call "deferred post-coloniality" because that is another legacy that hasn't been addressed.

Also here is a fun article....

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a714856738~db=all

Roadrunner 20:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More stuff to support NPOV

Here is the intro from Teng's book. (p. 8)

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/publications/pdfs/Teng%20Intro.pdf
Expanding colonial discourse studies to include imperial China is no easy task, for one immediately runs into terminological difficulties. Scholars (both Western and Chinese) frequently argue that terms such as "imperialism" or "colonialism" cannot be applied to China on the grounds that Qing expansionism does not fit the model of European imperialism. Of course, the Chinese had an empire, just as Rome had an empire, it is often argued, but an empire is not the same as "imperialism."

Teng goes on to justify the use of the term "imperialism" and "colonialism" (quite well in fact) but the fact that she recognizes that the term is controversial and requires justification is precisely why I don't think that the terms should be used without qualification in the article.

I should point out that I really like Teng's book.

Also I should note that most of the sections I've marked as NPOV are not well cited.

Roadrunner 20:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

how about "settler"? Is that less pov? Blueshirts 08:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Settler, outsider, immigrant. Just about any term that doesn't use the term "colonialism" or "imperialism" in an qualified manner. BTW, I *don't* object to using colonial in a qualified, cited manner (i.e. in what Teng calls a colonial project). There is some really great scholarship (Teng, Perdue, and Laura Hosteler) that looks at Han settlement of Taiwan, Qing expansion and its commonalities to European colonialism and imperialism, and that certainly needs to be included.
The problem is this. Western scholars who try to look at Han settlement of Taiwan in colonial terms are really, really, really aware of the sensitivity of the terms that they use, and all of the books that I've mentioned spend chapters talking about this issue and they take a lot of care not to "take sides" in nationalistic disputes. The trouble is that when you summarize an entire book in one or two paragraphs, and then you strip away all of the nuances and disclaimers, you end up with a political polemic that doesn't fairly reflect the scholarship.
My concern is not with Teng, Perdue, and Hosteler, which as far as I can tell have no political axes to grid and spend entire chapters of their book making it clear that they have no political axes to grid. My concern is with Shih Ming's "400 Years of Taiwanese History" which while a valuable history book, *DOES* have a particular political agenda. What has happened is that the general tone of the article resembles Shih Ming's work. I don't know whether Teng, Perdue, and Hosteler even know about Shih Ming, but the DPP secondary sources mentioned in the article certainly do, and some of his views leak through without being cited. Take this (uncited) sentence
Four centuries of colonial rule can be roughly divided into two periods, separated by the Japanese colonization events of the mid-1930’s.
Now who is being cited? Not Teng, Perdue, or Hosteler whose works deal with the Qing dynasty. Where does this idea that KMT rule is colonial come from? Where does the number "400 years" come from? Once you've read it, it's pretty clear that it comes from Shih Ming, and unlike Western writers, he ***does*** have a political ax to grind. If this sentence is qualified, no problem. People can read Shih Ming and figure out what they think of his views. People *should* read Shih Ming and figure out what they think of his views. But without a qualification or citation, you have problems since you are basically making a political statement with the authority of Wikipedia. There is also an academic "bait and switch". The citations are to even-handed authorities like Teng, but what you get are the views of a political, nationalistic work like Shih Ming.
Just to be clear on my POV. I am a Chinese nationalist, but I'm very aware of the limitations and dangers of nationalist histories, and I'm well aware that Wikipedia isn't a political soapbox. But just as one shouldn't present the KMT version of history unqualified, one shouldn't present the DPP version of history unqualified, and I'm arguing that this is *exactly* what is happening. This is one reason that you need to be careful about sourcing and citation. Shih Ming isn't being cited here, but it's obvious that his version of history is leaking into the article.
I should point out that part of the reason that I like the "new Qing history" and a lot of the recent scholarship is that it actually ends up strengthening Chinese nationalism more than Taiwanese nationalism. A lot of the deconstruction of nationalistic narratives hurts Taiwanese separatism more than Chinese nationalism. The trouble is that Taiwanese nationalist narratives are based on "old technology" whereas a lot of the current political program of the KMT and for that matter the CCP is pretty obviously influenced by more current ideas like multiple narratives and local histories. Teng uses the word colonial, but her work and the work of other people writing the "New Qing History" (a term Joanna Waley-Cohen cooked up) shows that a lot of the "accusations" people like Shih Ming used against the Qing dynasty are factually suspect. Roadrunner 13:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm the kinda guy who loves to track down books and find references. I even do it for articles I have no personal attachment to.. see for example Georg Cantor. But .. I apologize... I got a message a couple days ago about a job opportunity (not guaranteed yet) as soon as September.. which makes it even more imperative that I pass Prelims in August... The timing of this little NPOV-in-a-teacup is absolutely terrible. I simply can't help.. much.. if at all. I deeply wish I could... If someone could scan and email me the relevant passages, that might help me to at least chime in a little... Ling.Nut 12:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Strange. Part of the problem is that I'm between jobs, and so I don't have an address for Amazon to send books to. Something that someone should do is to track down the first citation to Harrell and double check that the citation is on point. Roadrunner 13:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


I don't know where all this Shih Ming business comes in. I am highly critical of Shih Ming and it is an ethnonationalist history. Chin A -Hsiau has written some very good essays on this issue and I use him in the article for his balance. Your assertion that the nationalist argument has more weight is rediculous as both nationalist positions are equally weakened by their construction. They are both equally constructions that go only as far as their power to motivate people. Read the Chin A-Hsiau book...conclusion. I thought promotong a particular nationalism was no no for Wikipedia...no? Maowang 02:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] requested harrell from ILL; anything else I should request?

  • I requested the Harrell chapter from interlibrary loan. Be advised that I am kinda suspecting everyone will back up the "colonial" reading; but I am willing to reword if that is not the case.
  • BTW the Teng chapter that RoadRunner posted gives very strong support of the "barbarian" term that POTS objects to! Case is very closed. Will add to article when I have time.
  • Anything else I should request?
  • Ling.Nut 16:11, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Civilizing Project

Roadrunner's post

    • When I have a bit of time, I'll probably e-mail Emma Teng to ask her if she can give me references to works which strongly object to describing Qing in terms of colonial. I've had some discussions with Perdue over e-mail about other things. Teng describes Qing Taiwan in terms of colonial, but if you read her book, she realizes that her interpretation is "novel."

One thing is to be clear who is speaking. What I think is happening is that Harrell says something which Maowang clearly sees as colonial. The trouble is that it is Maowang speaking and not Harrell, and I think Maowang is being influenced by Shih Ming. It's not enough to say that Harrell says that Qing did X, Y, and Z and therefore it is colonial. Harrell actually has to use the term colonial project and I don't know if he has. My objections to the first sentence can be removed if you just take off the word "colonial" and just talk about "projects." A lot of the references that Maowang presents actually I think undermines his points. How can we talk meaningfully of "Han colonialism" in the 17th century when as DiKotter and Rawski points out Han as a racial/ethnic category is a 19th/20th century invention? How can we talk about the Qing's "colonial civilizing mission" when as Perdue points out, the Qing *didn't* subscribe to the traditional Chinese view of concentric civilizations. Also, if there is a English language version of Shih Ming's "400 Years of Taiwanese History" you should get that. My big objection to the article is that the view of history that is being presented largely comes from that work, and no one has cited it. I'm mildly annoyed when people talk about the Qing policies as "colonial." When you start talking about the KMT's, especially current, policies as "colonial" then I start screaming, because that is clearly political advocacy. (And you see why it was important to include aboriginal voting patterns in the article, since that clearly challenges the colonial paradigm.) FYI, the Taiwanese nationalistic narrative is to talk about Taiwan as suffering from 400 years of colonialism with the current political agenda being to throw off the yoke of "Chinese/KMT colonialism." One big problem in this history, so that to do this they have to identify the current population of Taiwan with the aboriginals otherwise you have the problem that the people who are promoting the narrative are the "bad people" and not the "good people" and this is where the "but we are really descendants from the aborigines" comes in. There is also the self-consistency aspect of this. One complains about outsiders putting the aborigines in their own projects, and then proceed to do the same thing. But it's *o.k.* because those projects were "colonial" (i.e. bad) projects and our Taiwanese nationalist project is a "de-colonial" (i.e. good) project. (I'm trying to find a way of putting this into the article, but a lot of it is probably OR. One reason I'm interested in finding Shih Ming is that he probably makes these points directly, and then you can find works that argue against Shih Ming for the other side.) Roadrunner

I used the term "Civilizing Project" to address Roadrunner's concerns.( -isms) Chinese Republicanism has its roots in both Han racialism of the secret societies and Anti-Manchuism girded by Social Darwinism with the aim to "save the Chinese nation from imperialists". It is a modernist construction and within a modernist project there is a denial of coevalness regarding the peripheral peoples (non-modern peoples). It became the job of the state and the nation to "modernize" i.e. "civilize" i.e. "tame" the Aborigines and bring them "through teleological time" to the "modern". Within Chinese nationalism, despite the concept of five races, the Han was positioned along side modernism and the state.

I am a little concerned with the emphasis on Aborigines voting patterns. It seems to imply Aboriginal voting patterns are connected with support for Chinese unification, but I don't think a connection can be determined and in my experience in the field the opposite is true (Aboriginal KMT voters either oppose or have no opinion regarding the independence-unification issue: Some wish to unify with the Philippines). Voting patterns are very complex and seem more tied to patronage or religious networks above party policy regarding relations with China. Maowang 03:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not see anything with describing the "civilizing" projects, which sought to transform the Taiwanese Aborigines in terms of their coloniality as being incompatable with the Nationalist POV or anything which would warrant a POV tag and greater clarification. It is perfectly conceivable that a patriotic citizen of the USA could understand and accept the colonial nature of the appropriation of indigenous lands and cultural projects aimed at the Native Americans and in no way supports a secessionist or "sepratist" movement. The current page gives us the neutrality to avoid nationalist tropes of appropriating cultures into a nationalist purpose. The current work remains critical of all sides, avoiding nationalist activism or the ethnocentricism which has played such a major role in defining Chinese and Taiwanese nationalisms. The current write also allows histories, and research by non-indigenes without becoming unamnagable as a bifurcated history. Maowang 06:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

would foreign/settler/non-native rule be a better choice? I think "civilizing project" sounds a tad awkward, not to mention it's always in quotation marks. Blueshirts

I am quoting the sources exact words. From discussions with the authors and other academics in the field it should work fine. "taming" would work too. The terms you suggest inappropriately and inaccurately conceal the imbalance of state and local power and mobilization goals of successive policies.Maowang 00:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

After finally reading Roadrunner's critique of my sources and motivations on User:Ling.Nut's talk page I feel RR needs to read the provided sources and refrain from original research or trying to link any position that he/she feel does not promote his/her stated aim to "create" a unified Chinese people, as being "Shi Ming" and therefore promoting Taiwanese "sepratism". Some of us simply want to provide the BEST work possible and have an academic interest in the subject without having to be assigned to a "Party". The research speaks for itself... let it.

Why is the current use colonialism supported? Road Runner feels I am "reading" my "own views" into the material...

The first requirement for those who would civilize is to define, to objectify, the objects of their civilizing project (Said 1979:44-45). The definitions produced must consist of two parts: a demonstration that the peoples in question are indeed inferior, and thus in need of civilization, and a certification that they can be improved, civilized, if they are subjected to the project. Such a definition process serves several functions: it establishes the assumptions and rules according to which the project is to be carried out; it notifies the peripheral peoples of their status in the system, and why and how this requires they be civilized; and perhaps most importantly, it gives the imprimatur of science to what is essentially a political project. All the civilizing projects described in this book (Confucian, Christian and Nationalist) have had the process of definition and objectification at their base. The Confucians, beginning with an assumption of heirarchy based on the moral valuesof "literary transformation" set out to classify peoples closer to or farther from the center on the basis of just how much wenhua they had. This both legitimized the superior status of the center (thus giving it a mandate to carry out the process) and determined the methods used in ruling over peoples, according to how close to civilization, and thus how civilizable they were.... The Manchus, who themselves as rulers controlled the process, were of course fully capable of absorbing, even improving upon, the literary, moral, and cultural accomplishments of Han civilization, even while they preserved and refined for themselves a separate, distinct identity (Crossley 1990a; Rigger, this volume)

(excerpt from Ed. Stevan Harrell's Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers 1995 pp.7-8)

On page 36, Harrell concludes his introduction by discussing how China's "civilizing projects" are examples of non-European colonialism and should not be ignored.

"As indicated in the beginning of this introduction, civilizing projects have not been particular to China. In fact, much recent scholarly attention has been devoted to colonial discourse, almost always analyzing the ideological side of European colonial domination of Asian and African peoples in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, as well as its neocolonial descendants in the postwar policies of the United Statesin particular. Much of this work is insightful and useful; it gives us some insight into the nature of the colonial enterprise. In addition, recent work, such as the articles collected in the November 1989 issue of American Ethnologist, is beginning to look beyond the simple dichotomy of colonizer and colonized to try to define varieties of colonial discourse as they changed over time and as they were different from one colonizer to another-beurocrat, missionary, aristocratic administrator and peasant soldier, Frenchman and Englishman, man and woman. But in this introduction, despite its admirable objective of putting European empires of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into perspective, does not mention the Japanese colonial empire, which was contemporaneous with those European empires, let alone the Confucian project, which was going on even as China itself was the object of Western imperialism (Cooper and Stoler 1989)
This is not to maintain, of course, that every book has to be about everything; this one is only about China and its periphery, for example. But it is necessary to point out that those of us who study the civilizing centers of the East have it incumbent upon ourselves to begin making our voices heard in the growing scholarly community discussing civilizing projects generally; it would be ironic if a community dedicated to deconstructing the ethnographic formulations behind its own colonialism ended up excluding colonialisms of other centers. It is in this spirit we offer Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers to the wider community."

(Ed.Steven Harrel's Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers p. 36)

From the source above you can see how even nationalist/modernist projects can be conflated into the basic criteria of a colonial/civilizing project as advanced by Emma Teng. As you can see... this is much different from the Taiwanese "Shi-Ming" ethno-nationalist trope of the common experience of successive colonization justifying political independence and I don't see any place in this article that suggests such a position. I'll rest here, but this view is supported by Brown and others.Maowang 03:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If we stick to the idea that peoples and polities sought to identify, define and incorporate the Aborigines into their own system i.e. colonize them... it puts the subject (Aborigines) equidistant from each group (even Aboriginal) that wishes to push a POV and thereby colonize the Aborigines and turn this page into a colonizing tool. Which would be very POV. This way... we can use colonized histories and research which is the product of colonized thinking. Unfortunately the bulk of the info we have is from these systems. This way we accept each POV as flawed by its own construction; Taiwanese, Chinese, European, Japanese American, Academic, Communist etc...as they all attempt to fit the aborigines somewhere into their own project...It even calls out the flaws in a Wikipedia article about Aborigines....making this all possible. Maowang 04:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

So anyway... My work is always well sourced with good material. Any implication of dubious scholarship I take as a very serious matter and assertions as such should not be made lightly or publicly without proper verification. Maowang 04:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese characters

I came looking for the names of the ethnic groups in Chinese characters, but could not find them. Can these please be added to the article? Badagnani 01:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Each separate article has them. If you add them to this article, you have to add the Simplified and traditional Chinese, and maybe even the various Romanization schemes, which could become a lot of Chinese in a hurry... Ling.Nut 01:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I found an article related to the Taiwanese Aborigines:[2]. Can someone put the information somewhere on the article. I think it's pretty significant for the Aborigines, I just don't know which section to put it. Thank you.--Jerrch 20:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe this article is too apocryphal to fit into the encyclopedia... maybe add it in the notes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.128.238.125 (talk) 08:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Han Chinese

I am still not entirely convinced Han and Chinese should not be mutually exclusive as both terms have contained different meanings over time and for the time periods discussed in much of this article Han did not equate Chinesene. Presenjit Duara has a very interesting study on the changing meaning of Han and Chinese, with a linkage of the two occuring only more recently. Maowang (talk) 08:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Niggling Changes

I modified the lede to better present the difference between Aborigines as the common title and the term being applied to indigenous peoples. Two different things.

I also made a slight modification to the politics section to clarify that not ALL people who are identified as Aborigines are aligned with the elites. The elites prefer more of a traditionalist approach to being indigenous as opposed to the experience as an Aborigine.Maowang (talk) 06:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seediq

The Seediq have now been officially recognised [3]. The content of this page needs to be updated to reflect this. Davidreid (talk) 08:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mythology

From the Creation myth page: The term creation myth is sometimes used in a derogatory way to describe stories which are still believed today, as the term myth may suggest something which is absurd or fictional.

From the Mythology page where definitions of "myth" are listed: 2a. "A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief". (1849)

The word "Myth" obviously has connotations whether intended or not. We can keep the link to the "Creation myth" page where it is explained, and which intern links to the "mythology" page where it is explained that in scholarly circles the term "myth" does not necessarily imply falseness. But this page has no such context. And without the context, the term "creation myth" strongly implies that the stories are untrue, which is POV. Readin (talk) 21:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Readin, your objection to the word 'myth' is on the same level as someone objecting to the use of the word 'theory' to describe scientific models. If a layman takes it it to mean something false, or unverified conjecture, in the case of either word, then that is not our fault. Wikipedia should provide a link to a page explaining the term, and we do. It is not up to Wikipedia to choose non-standard terms to describe something because someone doesn't like the proper term (can you imagine that guideline trying to be applied throughout the encyclopedia? Chaos!). If you truly object to the use of the word, then the creation myth page is the place to bring up your objections, not this one.
Since the link you're trying to maintain just pipes to creation myth anyway, I honestly think you haven't even bothered to click on your version of the link to see why the change was made. There is no point cherry picking pieces of Wikipedia articles to support your POV - yes, your POV is that the word is negative - it doesn't help, anyone checking those pages will get the full explanation anyway, and it's kind of childish. Ask yourself why the creation myth page even exists. Then ask yourself why we still use the word 'theory', and not a non-standard term, in articles aimed at scientific laymen. Finally, ask yourself why this page is different to every other page using 'myth', 'theory', or any other word that "is sometimes used in a derogatory way". 121.216.136.243 (talk) 06:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Drop the condescending attitude.
As for not using the term "myth" in this case, rather than comparing it to "theory" I compare it to "negro". Sure "negro" literally just means "black". And sure it doesn't literally have any negative connotation; Martin Luther King Jr. used the term frequently. But we avoid it anyway on Wikipedia so we don't offend people. What precisely, in your mind, is the difference between an "origin belief", a "creation story" and a "cration myth"? Other than the first one avoiding offensive negative connotations, what is the difference?
And by the way, while you're accusing me of not even bothering to click through links, you might note that I did not "invent" the words because I didn't write the pre-existing text.
Scholars may use the term in a non-negative way, as is described on the Mythology page, but Wikipedia is not just for scholars. Our audience is everyone, including the layman you seem to have so little respect for.Readin (talk) 01:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Drop the condescending attitude.
Sorry, but I really felt like writing that was a waste of time. I thought it was obvious the standard term was replacing the non-standard term.
We usually put NPOV over use of standard terms. That's why the article on Taiwan is about just an island or group of islands rather than being about a nation-state formally known as the "Republic of China".Readin (talk) 16:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
As for not using the term "myth" in this case, rather than comparing it to "theory" I compare it to "negro".
Why? The term creation myth wasn't chosen because it was negative in some way, it was chosen because it is the standard term. Likewise, we choose theory, or any number of standard terms used throughout the scholarly work that is this encyclopaedia. Offence doesn't even come into it. We don't use negro because it isn't standard to do so. Again, offence doesn't come into it, that is, we avoid it anyway on Wikipedia so we don't offend people is false.
What precisely, in your mind, is the difference between an "origin belief", a "creation story" and a "cration myth"?
Nothing. But my mind hardly concerns the rest of the world.
Scholars may use the term in a non-negative way, as is described on the Mythology page, but Wikipedia is not just for scholars. Our audience is everyone, including the layman you seem to have so little respect for.
Sigh. First of all, I'm a layman myself - you have a better education than me. Also, as I said above, Wikipedia is a scholarly work. It's not censored either. There are alternatives available to people who find Wikipedia offensive. Conservapedia for instance. 121.216.136.243 (talk) 08:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a scholarly work? So why do we have an article on "Dog" rather than "Canis lupus familiaris"? The latter is actually more precise and is the scholarly term. Wikipedia is a scholarly work in the sense that we provide sources and try to be accurate. But we do not try to be inaccessible. We also try to avoid offense when avoiding offense is just as informative as causing offense.
What precisely, in your mind, is the difference between an "origin belief", a "creation story" and a "creation myth"?
Nothing. But my mind hardly concerns the rest of the world.
Since they mean the same thing, let's continue to use the one that is less likely to cause offense. Perhaps more importantly, let's use the term that is most likely to be understood correctly by the entire audience, rather than a term that will educate some while offending and confusing others.Readin (talk) 15:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
We have a Dog article because this isn't a scientific work. Recall, we use the word theory not because this is a scientific work, but .. ? Anyway, let's not continue to use the non-standard term. While all the terms you listed mean the same thing to me, neither of us can rely on other users being familiar with non-standard terminology. If you have a problem with the term being used on Wikipedia, and since this page isn't unique or special in any way, then the creation myth page is the place to bring up your concerns. 121.216.136.243 (talk) 16:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see the point of this argument. Why use myth when we could use a more neutral term such as belief? In fact the neutrality of the terminology does not really matter here since the term origin belief was sourced. Therefore, to follow WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V, the latter term should be used.--Jerrch 18:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Jerrch, this article should use the term creation myth because the rest of Wikipedia uses it. If you feel the term is wrong, violates some policy, or something else, then I think you would agree the creation myth talk page is the place to discuss it, not this one. As for the second half of your comment, are you saying that to use a source, text must be copied verbatim from that source? I find that hard to believe, and I can't see anything on WP:NOR or WP:V that suggests it. Translations instantly come to mind. I imagine that if a source uses an uncommon term, and a more common/reasonable/accepted/whatever term exists according to Wikipedia, then the accepted term is used. A perfect example was given by Readin above - if we cite a scientific article that uses the term Canis lupus familiaris, we would replace it with Dog. 60.229.43.19 (talk) 12:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Dog is used because it is common usage. While creation myth may be a common term, why use it here when we can use a more neutral term such as creation belief?--Jerrch 18:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

After checking the discussion for the creation myth page it is clear that there is no solid agreement on what term to use; the debate there is ongoing. Even if there wer consensus to use the term "myth" for the main article, that would not dictate that the same term should be used for all references. For example, we who edit Taiwan stuff are very well accustomed to linking "Republic of China (Taiwan)" to the Republic of China page in order to maintain NPOV and clarity. In this case, it may be fine to continue calling the creation myth page the "creation myth" page, because when someone opens the page they can immediately see that "myth" as it is used there is not intended to disparage beliefs or judge truth. However, we do not wish to insert such a sentence into this article. It would be awkward to read "Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths (the use of the term 'myth' here is not meant to disparge the beliefs or judge their correctness), recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 17th century (Blust 1999)."

When special contributor says "this article should use the term creation myth because the rest of Wikipedia uses it" I have to question whether that was already true or whether he has been working hard to create that situation so that he can go back to the talk:creation myth page and argue for keeping the term "myth" because the rest of Wikipedia is using it after he went around and edited all the links. Readin (talk) 14:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The term is not wrong in any way, otherwise it would not be used on Wikipedia. The fact that you insist on arguing the point here, instead of the creation myth talk page, suggests to me you know this but you simply don't like the term - you're letting your own prejudices get in the way here. That isn't good enough, and until you have a consensus on the creation myth page (which I have invited you to gain just about every time I have posted here in good faith), we should continue using the currently accepted term. 60.229.43.19 (talk) 21:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
"until you have a consensus on the creation myth page...we should continue using the currently accepted term" How is there an accepted term when there is no consensus yet? In any case, as I've explained, consensus in the name used for a page is not the same as consensus for all links to the page. Readin (talk) 21:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe there is a consensus. Looking through the talk page, it looks like the page was specifically moved to creation myth not long ago based on such a consensus. 134.148.5.119 (talk) 23:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

People have been fighting that battle on the creation myth page for a long time and I don't particularly care to get involved in that battle both because it doesn't interest me much and because NPOV for the title of an article is not the same as NPOV for a reference to that article. Readin (talk) 00:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That is not true, at least as far as I know. NPOV should be independant of context, but I'm happy to hear how you think NPOV for the title of an article is not the same as NPOV for a reference to that article. Please cite some relevent policy. 134.148.5.119 (talk) 00:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
You go first: Cite a policy that says NPOV for an article title and a reference to an article are always and in all cases precisely the same thing with no variation whatsoever.
As for me, I will simply restate the counter-example given before: When referring to the Republic of China in an article, Wikipedia policy is to call it "Republic of China (Taiwan)" if there is a likelihood that it will be mistaken for the "People's Republic of China". However, the name of the article is "Republic of China". This is acceptable because there is disambiguation at the top of the "Republic of China" article and the first paragraph of the "Republic of China" article explains that is meant by "Republic of China". Similarly, the "creation myth" page has found it necessary to place the "myth box" at the top of the article.
Unless you intend to place that box everywhere you use the term "creation myth", you need to consider in each case the likelihood of misunderstanding. Readin (talk) 01:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
(Note: I removed the myth box for readability) Readin, you know that a NPOV is not article dependant. That is common sense, so I won't even bother to check and see if the NPOV policy actually states something to that effect. Once again, you're not comparing apples to apples in your example either. You say Republic of China may be confused with People's Republic of China. Please tell me what creation myth could be confused with? I have a feeling this is a long drawn out case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Unless you can give a valid reason not to use the accepted term on Wikipedia, then please leave the accepted term in place. 134.148.5.120 (talk) 04:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
NPOV is very much context dependent. Please tell me what creation myth could be confused with? The editors of the creation myth page know that "creation myth" can be confused with "something which is absurd or fictional" (see creation myth). That's why they put this "myth box" on the page.
And you are correct that I don't like terms that violate NPOV, needlessly offend and lead to confusion.Readin (talk) 13:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

No, a NPOV does not depend on context. A NPOV stays neutral, it does not change - that is precisely the point. You don't move from article to article, changing your point view on the way. I find it hard to believe you disagree with that. You're also putting thoughts into the minds of the editors of the creation myth page. They don't know anything of the sort, they do give a brief definition of the word myth though, but you would expect an article to make clear what it is talking about.

I just want to make sure I'm clear with your stance here:

  • You feel that the term creation myth does not satisfy WP:NPOV and/or is potentially confusing. Instead of taking this up on the creation myth talk page, you feel that this article should just use its own, different, terminology to satisfy your concerns.

My stance is as follows:

  • Wikipedia maintains an article at creation myth. There is a consensus for the term to be used on Wikipedia (this is still on the creation myths talk page, with reasons stated, and isn't very old). For consistency, since the creation myth article fully explains itself, and since this article isn't special in some way, this article should use the common and accepted term.

Please let me know if this (in)correct. If incorrect, please tell me your stance. I just want to make sure I have this right before continuing to argue one way or the other. 60.229.43.19 (talk) 15:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You're understanding of my stance is not correct. The term "creation myth" does not satisfy the NPOV without the context provided on the creation myth page. Since this is not the creation myth page, we have to evaluate the neutrality of using the word without the explanations provided on the creation myth page. Without those explanations the term is not NPOV because of its negative connotations, whether those negative connotations are intended or not.Readin (talk) 15:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Ahh, well at least now I think I understand why this has continued on this page and not the creation myth page. You're not opposed to the term, you're just opposed to it being used without some sort of explanation? 60.229.43.19 (talk) 16:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
You got the first part of it. The second part is that putting an explanation here would be disruptive and off-topic. Earlier I mentioned how we wouldn't want to put the myth box on this page, and I also pointed out that it would be awkward to say "Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths (the use of the term 'myth' here is not meant to disparge the beliefs or judge their correctness), recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 17th century (Blust 1999)." The current article links to the creation myth page, so anyone looking for more information about the topic will go there and see the term "creation myth" and the explanatory myth box. If they aren't interested enough to go looking, then what they really want is information about Taiwanese aborigines, and that is the information we should give them in a clear, concise, unconfusing, accessible to all audiences (as much as possible) manner.Readin (talk) 23:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] a better list?

This list was in "ethnic groups of China". I removed it because it didn't fit there. But it seems to have more information (at least the Chinese names) than we have on this page. Anyone able to say for sure whether this is a better list?

  1. Amis (阿美)*
  2. Atayal (Tayal, Tayan) (泰雅)*
  3. Babuza (貓霧捒)
  4. Basay (巴賽)
  5. Bunun (布農)*
  6. Hoanya (洪雅 or 洪安雅)
  7. Kavalan (噶瑪蘭)*
  8. Ketagalan (凱達格蘭)
  9. Luilang (雷朗)
  10. Paiwan (排灣)*
  11. Pazeh/Kaxabu (Pazih) (巴宰 or 巴則海)
  12. Popora (巴布拉)
  13. Puyuma (卑南)*
  14. Qauqaut (猴猴)
  15. Rukai (魯凱)*
  16. Saisiyat (Saisiat) (賽夏)*
  17. Sakizaya (撒奇萊雅)*
  18. Siraya (西拉雅)
  19. Tao (Yami) (雅美/達悟)*
  20. Taokas (道卡斯)
  21. Thao (邵)*
  22. Trobiawan (多囉美 or 多囉美遠)
  23. Truku (Taroko) (太魯閣)*
  24. Tsou (Cou) (鄒)*

Readin (talk) 04:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

We discussed this long ago. Where do you intend to put this list you are attempting to compile? Ling.Nut (talk) 04:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)