Taiwan’s rose-tinted nostalgia for the Japanese years

26/11/2024 | Claudio_VL | 0 comments

I have a friend who worked for several years in Taiwan in the early 90s. I asked him the following:

When you were in Taiwan, were Japanese-era buildings and location being restored? I wonder if Taiwan is going through a trend where those 50 years (1895–1945) are seen with more than just a tinge of nostalgia.


My friend replied that he does not think he was aware of there being any restoration of Japanese-era buildings, back then.



Lientienshan Forestry Culture Park in Hualien County, Taiwan

It seems to me that this (the current trend where Japanese colonial buildings are restored) could be interpreted as an identity-building gesture, a way for Taiwan to further distance itself from China, where Japan was a short-term destructive invader, while on the island of Taiwan the Japanese were (lesser of two evils) long-term colonisers that imposed their culture (old Taiwanese can often still speak Japanese, which they learned in school), while exploiting the place’s resources.

I don’t expect the above to be a comprehensive analysis of the complexity of a nation’s identity, much less so in the case of Taiwan’s, where the present is intermingled with ancient Chinese culture, Aboriginal culture and influenced by 50 years of Japanese colonisation.


Tags: Taiwan

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