Hoklo in Taiwan in the context of the Sinosphere at large

[amhoanna]

And why even DPP is committed to ROC worldview and Mandarin?

I don't think they do this on purpose. They just kind of backed into it - not surprising, since they have no ideology and no ideas of their own, and haven't for a long time. Their voter base is mostly ROC-educated, and brainwashed. To cater to these voters, they've had to "move toward the center", and the center is the ROC worldview. Now some of the younger DPP politicos are ROC-brainwashed themselves. The DPP tried to stop the brainwashing by rewriting textbooks, but this only takes U so far when U don't have a mind of your own.

Taking the 400 yrs of Sino-Taiwanese history as a whole, the DPP are just part of a long pattern of half-hearted resistance turning into meaningless compromise and half-hearted struggles to hold onto power, followed by an outside takeover, colonization, more brainwashing, etc. The problem is the "political dependence complex" in the Hoklo psyche. The DPP is just a symptom. Hoklo Yam support for the KMT is just a symptom.

Btw how many people in TW speaking Mandarin "without accent", i.e. like news presenters?

There was a real split up into the 90s. Back then, certain people like newscasters, voice actors and schoolteachers had these stiff, put-on, impeccably rolled, "by-the-book" accents (in Mand) - they sounded like ducks! 95% of "the people" either didn't speak Mand, or spoke blatant "Taiwan Mandarin" or Hakka Mandarin or Southern Mandarin (inc. 閩粵浙 Taros). Granted, there were authentic Northern Chinese too. This changed around the late 90s. The "ducks" and the new adults - 70s babies - moved toward the accent that you hear TW celebrities speaking today, not really rolled, but with zh-/ch-/sh- sounding more like English j, ch, sh in (at least) stressed syllables. The news media is a bit stiffer still, though. Whenever I hear a news media-type talk in real life, I always felt caught off-guard, even in Taipak - and these girls are the kind that never set foot outside Taipak. Kagi and Tailam is just a rumor to them. They spend more time in Paris or Shanghai. The word 天龍 comes to mind.

Even today, though, there's still something different about how some young non-Hokkien, non-Canton Taros, esp. in Taipak, speak Mandarin. Kîsi̍t goá púnté mā sī. There's just something in the rhythm, the intonation, the tones, the vowels - rolling isn't required. There's a "Taro sound" which is very hard for Yam women and impossible for Yam men to imitate. Yam girls really like this accent on guys, sometimes subconsciously. Girls with this accent get put on a pedestal - they're classy, they 有氣質.

Another trend started in the 90s - speaking Mandarin (and even Hoklo) with the vowels, consonants and intonation of American English. Next time U see young TWese on TV, notice how some use dark L's like in English. But U won't hear this in a newscast or a telenovela. I call this the Aircraft Carrier accent, b/c like Clinton's aircraft carrier in the Straits in '96, it changed the balance of power and makes it possible for Yams to be powerful and cool w/o imitating Taros.

The thing that really surprises me is how matter-of-fact most Hoklos are about being linguistically inferior. Last yr I had lunch with my ex and her (girl)friend, both Yam Hoklo. The friend was just visiting from mid-island. As soon as we sat down, she commented on how the people in Taipak all had such good accents, so baku. She said, "大概是因為这裡外省人多吧. / I guess it's b/c there's a lot of Taros here." Not a trace of sarcasm or political awareness.

This morning I saw my mom watching CCTV4. It showed one of its news presenters touring 台北, highlighting that there are 長春路 in its north east part, 杭州路 in its eastern section and so on. She gladly explained that the whole台北 is a miniature of 中國. That must sound ironic to lots of PRCs.

I think Shanghai is the same way. A lot of cities and towns in Taiwan also have bits and pieces of this system. I think something has to be done about it. I think the best solution would be to expand the map. They should take some of the overlapping and redundant 中正 Streets and 民族 Roads south of the old city limits in Pangkiô and Sintiàm, for example, and rename them Cebu Road, Saipan Avenue, Bali Road, Saigon Boulevard, etc. Then go to Lāi'ô· and Lâmkáng and put in an Osaka Rd, a Ryukyu Avenue, even Alaska Street. So on & so forth. Strange, but I think a lot of ROC people would be offended and would try to block this.

[niuc]

Wasn't there also a secondary reason for the high proportion of Yam girl Taro guy marriages? Wasn't there was a huge gender imbalance in the numbers of Taros to start with? I remember a lot of old single soldiers hanging around the 眷村 who had never married.

This applies only to first generation, because most of Taros that crossed the strait were male, right?

These are uncool, taboo subjects now, not allowed in the workplace, etc. Some people, esp. Strawberries (the 80s generation), won't even admit these are taboo subjects - they just say they're out of date.

Sad to say that most young people now are brainwashed to be hedonistic, so these subjects are just plain "irrelevant" to them.

There's always a lot of butt-sniffing up front, and then everyone smiles and says it's great we're all Green, and then they start bashing China.

Quite typical of human group behaviour, right? IMHO a lot of problems happen and appear unsolvable because a lot of people don't have "common sense" (which includes "balance"). In fact few may have agreed about what "common sense" truly is!

But there is one profession that tends to be candid about these issues: taxi drivers.

In Singapore, many taxi drivers are also very candid about a lot of issues, sometimes entertaining & sometimes can be annoying e.g. some keep complaining about practically all things from the moment you board the taxi.

Taro = "Goāsénggá". So Taro Hoklo refers to Hoklo Goāsénggá (Mand: "外省閩南人") that migrated from Southern Hokkien to TW starting in 1945 - but not later than the 70s or so.

Oh i c, thanks. I always thought of 外省人 as non-Hoklo, not realizing there were Hoklo moving to TW after 1945. So "native" TW Hoklo consider "native" TW Hakka & Asli as "native" and Taro Hoklo as Goāsénggá? Interesting.

I think you're talking about the Beijing Downtown accent, where "你說我是小孩儿" comes out as "Ni ror yar!" In context, this was probably the accent of the pigtailed masses during the Qing. The "suave, elegant" Uptown accent that Beijing shares with Manchuria was probably the accent of Sinicized Manchus and the Han who worked for them directly. No surprise that Mod Std Chinese is based on the Uptown accent while Southerners use the Downtown accent as a whipping boy.

Thanks for the info. Are you sure (Of course you are! ) that "你說我是小孩儿" comes out as "Ni ror yar"? Wow, super elision from 7 to 3 syllables! Sorry, I have never been to Beijing yet. It seems I'd never understand their speech then. Actually what I meant by "rolling version" is the addition of 儿, even minus the other elisions. Occasional 儿 may be OK, but too much of it sounds weird and "uneducated" (just my personal feeling, no offence intended for Beijingers).

[niuc]

I don't think they do this on purpose. They just kind of backed into it - not surprising, since they have no ideology and no ideas of their own, and haven't for a long time. Their voter base is mostly ROC-educated, and brainwashed. To cater to these voters, they've had to "move toward the center", and the center is the ROC worldview. Now some of the younger DPP politicos are ROC-brainwashed themselves. The DPP tried to stop the brainwashing by rewriting textbooks, but this only takes U so far when U don't have a mind of your own.

Thanks for shedding light on this. How many of the Greens (esp. the leaders) have gone to US or Europe etc for further study? And the Blues? Anyone growing up overseas and back to TW to be in DPP or KMT?

Taking the 400 yrs of Sino-Taiwanese history as a whole, the DPP are just part of a long pattern of half-hearted resistance turning into meaningless compromise and half-hearted struggles to hold onto power, followed by an outside takeover, colonization, more brainwashing, etc. The problem is the "political dependence complex" in the Hoklo psyche. The DPP is just a symptom. Hoklo Yam support for the KMT is just a symptom.

You nail it! The impression I always have among Hokkiens is that the (central) government is somewhere else.

Even today, though, there's still something different about how some young non-Hokkien, non-Canton Taros, esp. in Taipak, speak Mandarin. Kîsi̍t goá púnté mā sī. There's just something in the rhythm, the intonation, the tones, the vowels - rolling isn't required. There's a "Taro sound" which is very hard for Yam women and impossible for Yam men to imitate. Yam girls really like this accent on guys, sometimes subconsciously. Girls with this accent get put on a pedestal - they're classy, they 有氣質.

I know what you mean. In a sense that impression is valid, and certainly not only for Mandarin. I have heard Singaporeans who said Taiwanese Hokkien (as spoken on tv news or drama series) sounds much nicer than Singaporean Hokkien. Some say (and I tend to agree) that certain E-mng accent is elegant. I also had met quite a number of Singaporean and Malaysian Malays who told me that Indonesian (actually they meant Jakarta accent) sounded smooth (lembut), refined (halus), elegant and much nicer (bagus) than their own accents. And many Americans like British accent, right?

Another trend started in the 90s - speaking Mandarin (and even Hoklo) with the vowels, consonants and intonation of American English. Next time U see young TWese on TV, notice how some use dark L's like in English. But U won't hear this in a newscast or a telenovela. I call this the Aircraft Carrier accent, b/c like Clinton's aircraft carrier in the Straits in '96, it changed the balance of power and makes it possible for Yams to be powerful and cool w/o imitating Taros.

Ah! I did notice some spoke (or tried to speak) Mandarin on tv as if they were ABC.

The thing that really surprises me is how matter-of-fact most Hoklos are about being linguistically inferior. Last yr I had lunch with my ex and her (girl)friend, both Yam Hoklo. The friend was just visiting from mid-island. As soon as we sat down, she commented on how the people in Taipak all had such good accents, so baku. She said, "大概是因為这裡外省人多吧. / I guess it's b/c there's a lot of Taros here." Not a trace of sarcasm or political awareness.

I think it depends on her intention, but of course I believe you know more about it. I mean, if, just in case, she meant Mandarin with that baku accent was better than "Hokdarin" (hua seng se mo su -> 發生什麼事), then I would have agreed with her. And of course not only Mandarin, but all languages naturally have certain preferred accents, i mean generally speaking, as personal preference may be different. Don't you think so?

I think Shanghai is the same way. A lot of cities and towns in Taiwan also have bits and pieces of this system. I think something has to be done about it. I think the best solution would be to expand the map. They should take some of the overlapping and redundant 中正 Streets and 民族 Roads south of the old city limits in Pangkiô and Sintiàm, for example, and rename them Cebu Road, Saipan Avenue, Bali Road, Saigon Boulevard, etc. Then go to Lāi'ô· and Lâmkáng and put in an Osaka Rd, a Ryukyu Avenue, even Alaska Street. So on & so forth.

Good solution indeed.

Strange, but I think a lot of ROC people would be offended and would try to block this.

That would be strange indeed!

[amhoanna]

Ah-bin wrote:Wasn't there also a secondary reason for the high proportion of Yam girl Taro guy marriages? Wasn't there was a huge gender imbalance in the numbers of Taros to start with? I remember a lot of old single soldiers hanging around the 眷村 who had never married.

This applies only to first generation, because most of Taros that crossed the strait were male, right?

This is a factor.

There were also a lot of old bachelor soldiers who weren't even assigned to a 眷村 (a privilege, actually). The rude question is why the hell did some Yam/Asli girls wanna marry these guys and go live in both poverty and cultural misunderstanding?

So "native" TW Hoklo consider "native" TW Hakka & Asli as "native" and Taro Hoklo as Goāsénggá? Interesting.

Absolutely!

There's also a special class of honorary Yams: Kimmn̂g lâng. Technically, the ones that migrated to Taiwan from '45 to about '80 would be Taros, and the ones that migrated later or never migrated would be aLa̍kgá! But in practice they're like instant Yams. Blue Yams.

[amhoanna]

Just thought of one more thing while out and about. Once the 2-28 Massacres got into full swing, squads of TW Hoklo men would take up arms - sometimes samurai swords - and hunt down ROC Chinese to maim or kill as payback. Looks could be unreliable, so they used Hoklo as a shibboleth, but in some places they would've had to suss out TWese from 苗栗, etc., who didn't speak Hoklo ... and they would've mistakenly spared ROC Hoklo (in fact I read a report written by a Taro saying he "passed" for TWese by speaking Hoklo, and was spared), so they started using Japanese as a shibboleth instead. This was illustrated in the scene on the train in 悲情城市 PICÊNG SIÂⁿCHĪ / CITY OF SADNESS (?) where the main character said "Goá sī ... Tâi'oân lâng" but still almost got cut down b/c he couldn't say anything in Japanese, till an acquaintance walked by and told the death squad he was mute. China vs Japan, I think that's what 2-28 was under the surface, before the ROC gov't fled to TW and started the White Terror.