Taiwanese Identity: March 2013

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Calling for Flash Mobs in Taiwan: Students in Taiwan could learn something from the young generation in Korea

Korean's have managed to keep their identity, language and independence through several thousand years of periodic invasions and occupation by the Japanese, Manchurians, Chinese, and Mongolians. The following video of a flash mob in Seoul is very moving. It starts off with a traditional Korean folk song and ends with the Korean national anthem.

Hope folks in Taiwan will organize similar events. But don't use R.O.C. songs and anthems. Use Taiwanese folk songs and for a national anthem, how about, "Verdant Taiwan"? We'll also need a Taiwan focused flag.

----- Now for Taiwan's flash mob:

Folk Song:

雨夜花 (though a different arrangement than the video below might be better....)

National Anthem:

《台灣翠青》詞：鄭兒玉 / 曲：蕭泰然 * Tâi-ôan Chhùi-chhiⁿ - words: Tīⁿ Jyi-giokk; music: Siau Thài-jiân

Flags:

You could use the Republic of Taiwan flag from 1895, only modify it to make it into a Taiwan Clouded Leopard instead of a tiger:

Or another flag you could use is the Don't Tread of Me flag, but make it into a Hundred-Pacer-Snake... and change the words into Mandarin:

There are lots of other possibilities. Perhaps we should have a mix?

臺灣加油! (leave off the weird Chinese Taipei designation) :~(

The following was posted on Taiwan Democracy Movement Blog ======================================================== Last night, a Friday night!, the streets of Taipei were virtually empty and quiet as everyone was indoors watching Taiwan play Japan in baseball. Following was a post this morning on someone's facebook timeline:

I noticed last night that Taipei 101 flashed 中華加油. And people post things like "Go Chinese Taipei!" What is "Chinese Taipei"? It is such a strange artificial formulation. What other country in the world is named by their capital? You never hear, "Go American Washington, D.C.!" or "Go Japanese Tokyo!" or "Go Chinese Beijing!" In the early 1970's after twenty years of the government in Taiwan claiming to represent China, the UN finally gave the "China" seat to China. However at that time Chiang Kai-shek, the dictator in Taiwan, was offered a new UN seat, a "Taiwan" seat. But he refused to take it because he could not identify with the country that he actually governed. That one chance for Taiwan has now been lost. Chiang Kai-shek's delegates marched out of the UN in protest claiming that they were still the legitimate government of China rather than admitting that they only governed Taiwan. --- Whatever weird name is forced on Taiwan's sports teams by the international sports organizations and a complicit governing regime in Taiwan, at least Taiwanese can simply say, "Go Taiwan" and everyone will know what they mean. 臺灣加油! Tâi-oân Ka-iû!

(Photo Source: 職業棒球雜誌官方粉絲團 https://www.facebook.com/cpblmagazine?ref=stream )

Hoklo Taiwanese Word of the Day

Hoklo Taiwanese Word for the Day:

• chhôan-piān-piān

used in the sentence: Saⁿ-ê hong-thai chò-hóe lâi, góa kā sok-si̍t-mī kā be̍h-á-chiú chhôan-piān-piān.

• There is a lot of uncertainty in Taiwan because of the KMT-controlled government's aims at forcing through ECFA and its attendant binding Taiwan closer to authoritarian China.

Taiwanese has many words related to uncertainty:

There are different levels of uncertainty.

To say, "possibly," one might say khó-lêng or tāi-khài. "Perhaps" it is better to use kiám-chhái. To express a greater degree of uncertainty, as in "maybe," one says bô tiāⁿ-tio̍h or bô tek-khak.

If you are certain that something is not possible, use bô khó-lêng. Most certainly not: pèng m̄-sī.

Possibly not: bô it-tēng.

Certainly: it-tēng, tek-khak, tong-jiân.

Certain: it-tēng, khak-si̍t.

To express an unspecificied-- Tī bó͘ chi̍t ê soaⁿ-téng... "In a certain mountain..." (src: Maryknoll)

One uses bó͘, "certain; particular," to particularize a mountain without specifically naming which one. Notice that in English the word "certain" has a broader range of meanings whereas Taiwanese uses distinct words.

• Unfortunately, because the R.O.C. government-in-exile suppresses the use of Taiwanese and other non-Mandarin languages in public schools in Taiwan, there is not much opportunity to learn the vocabulary of the non-Mandarin languages associated with an academic setting. Furthermore, few essay or papers in these languages have ever been written by students. The normal editing processes are never experienced. The following Taiwanese expressions describe editing practices.

* Underline this sentence = "kā chit kú ê ē-bīn oē sûn"

oē = draw ; sûn = line ; ē-bīn = underneath

[Notice the homonym: the noun oē 話 in "kú-oē" meaning speech/word and the verb oē 畫 meaning draw/sketch. These two homonyms are obviously different in their Han characters. But actually in the romanization, one has very little trouble differentiating them because of their distinct parts of speech and the noun often being associated in a compound word and the verb often being associated with an object -- e.g. kú-oē "sentence" vs. oē tô͘ "draw a picture" ]

* Circle this sentence = "Kā chit kú-oē kho͘--khit-lâi." or "Kā chit kú-oē kho͘ kho͘-á"

Kho͘ is a verb that means "to circle" ; kho͘-á is the noun that means "a circle" -- just as in English one can say: "Circle this sentence." or "Circle a circle around this sentence." Or to get more fancy you could translate it as "Circumscribe a circle..."

* If the word or phrase is really poorly written, sometimes you should just strike it out. Taiwanese is quite vivid in the way to say that. Jack-the-Ripper fashion, literally, you say "kill/murder/slash that sentence!" = "Kā hit kú-oē thâi-tiāu." or "murder that word..." = "Kā hit jī thâi-tiāu." This word "thâi," meaning kill/murder/slash w/knife, is also what someone who is good at bargaining can do: Kā i thâi kè-siàu. "Cut/kill the price."

• Poa̍h-kiáu 賭博 means "gambling." In the fall of 2009 there was a referendum being held in Phêⁿ-ô͘ (Penghu or the Pescadores) on whether or not to allow gambling casinos ( kiáu-keng ). Unfortunately, gambling profits are often controlled by organized crime ( o͘-siā-hōe ) and corrupt government officials ( tham-ù ê chèng-hú ). Where you find casinos you also find drugs ( to̍k-phín ), violence ( po̍k-le̍k ), sexual crimes ( sek-chêng ), and human trafficking ( jîn-kháu ê bé-bē) where the victims are controlled with drugs ( iōng to̍k-phín khòng-chè in ). A few people or mafia organizations can make huge profits off gambling, but for most residents, there is no benefit ( hó-chhù ) but rather an accumulation of societal problems -- particularly addiction in its various forms.

Gambling proponents often use spin ( hó-thiaⁿ-oē ) to trick people (kā lâng phiàn--khì).

· Taiwanese still has the saying with variations that basically translate as "An Austronesian Grandmother and a Hoklo Grandfather" --- For example,

"Ū tn̂g soaⁿ-kong, bô Tn̂g-soaⁿ-má." -- "Have a Han grandfather, but no Han grandmother..." With that intermarriage of Austronesian and Han that makes up today's Taiwanese people, I thought it would be interesting to share some marriage and kinship related terms:

Chheⁿ-ḿ 生姆 or originally written 青姆 means a son or daughter's mother-in-law. Mandarin uses a different word: 親家母

Chhin-chiâⁿ 親情 relative by marriage, in-laws. Mandarin uses a different word: 親戚

· Expression: "... chhin-chhiūⁿ teh ùn tāu-iû." Ùn means "to dip." Tāu-iû 豆油 is "soy sauce." Notice that the Taiwanese word is different from the Mandarin: 醬油ㄐㄧㄤˋㄧㄡˊ. Taiwanese uses this character 醬 pronounced chiùⁿ to mean "pickled" or "canned" as in chiùⁿ-chhài 醬菜 "pickled/canned vegetables."

This expression "teh ùn tāu-iû" is used in social circumstances to describe very short visits. If someone "drops by" and then leaves, it is like dipping food in soy sauce.

This expression is also very appropriate to describe the attitude of the Chinese Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek's regime. They treated Taiwan as a temporary place from which they would fight back to China. They spoke of winning back China within three years after fleeing as refugees to Taiwan in 1949. So you can notice today that all the beautiful architecture is mainly from the Japanese era (pre-1945). The KMT regime put up many hasty structures, allowed squatter shack communities of former soldiers to take over many of the parks in the cities, and generally allow industry to heavily pollute the environment and degrade the landscape because they thought of Taiwan mainly as a resource to be exploited before heading back to China.

· hān-chè 限制 suppress

kìm-chí 禁止 forbid {The Korean word 금치 "kum-chi" shows a consonant-vowel homology with Taiwanese but not with Mandarin}

These two words are what the colonialist KMT Chinese Nationalist Party and the Japanese empire before them in Taiwan did in an attempt to destroy Taiwan's native languages.

• "developed baby fat from nursing" hàng-leng

When a nursing infant grows well with lots of fat rolls, one does not call the infant the common words for "fat" such as pûi-ê or tōa-kho͘-ê. Taiwanese has this special word hàng-leng for "baby fat." If you say that about a baby, the mother will be very delighted to receive the complement. Incidentally, the word tōa-kho͘ literally means "large circumference" and kho͘ specifically refers to the metal bands that circle around the old wooden buckets and hold the pieces of wood together. (Or think of whiskey barrels.)

• "how much?"

lōa-chē 若多 {The literary pronunciation (JI)of 若 is Jio̍k and 多 is To}; Mandarin uses a different word -- 多少 ( ㄉㄨㄛㄕㄠˇ)

In Taiwan, you can still sometimes bargain for things you buy. But unlike Thailand, it is usually pretty standardized so that people are not automatically marking up the price 400 percent because you are a foreigner. So even if you do not bargain, you can get a decent price in Taiwan.

Source: http://www.taiwanchurch.org/taibun/eng-tai.html

Taiwanese Identity

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Calling for Flash Mobs in Taiwan: Students in Taiwan could learn something from the young generation in Korea

臺灣加油! (leave off the weird Chinese Taipei designation) :~(

Monday, March 4, 2013

Foreigners Seeking to Preserve Taiwan's Native Austronesian Languages and Cultures

Taiwan's Languages

TW-I-D-Blogs

Hoklo Taiwanese Word of the Day

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