Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs published a booklet featuring two cartoon characters to inform the public about the proposed free trade agreement between Taiwan and China, commonly referred to as ECFA. The cartoons quickly attracted criticism as they were considered derogatory to certain ethnic groups. The cartoons depicted two characters, Yi-ge, a Hoklo-speaking salesman from Tainan and Fa Sao, a Hakka woman from Hsinchu who speaks English, Mandarin, Hoklo and Japanese. Yi-ge is depicted as poorly informed about ECFA while Fa Sao is shown as someone who seeks knowledge and is well informed about ECFA.
Why must they choose a person from Tainan? Tainan is the hometown of former President Chen Shui-bian. Tainan City and County are the places where the pan-green parties have never experienced a major electoral loss. You can say Tainan is the important town for pan-green supporters. Connecting Tainan people with the negative description of personality traits firstly makes the reader unconsciously take in a hidden meaning of a “pan-green = low class” caricature. Such strategy also ridicules A-Bian and his supporters without spelling it out explicitly.
The View from Taiwan featured a guest post by Drew Kerslake which analysed the cartoons in terms of their context in contemporary Chinese nationalism. Kerslake argues that both PRC and ROC nationalist ideologies are based on the late 19th century concept of racialism. He goes on to look at how this ideology is reflected in the cartoon characters and the relationship between the coloniser and colonised.
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In the case of the cartoon images we see a clear example of Hoklo and Hakka as “ethnic other/periphery”, with the KMT and its representatives firmly in place as the “civilized center” or as “advanced” on a constructed trajectory using the dichotomies of forwardness and backwardness/ advancement and degradation/modern and backward/ civilized and uncivilized .
Kerslake goes on to write that the cartoons are actually discriminatory to both Hakka and Hoklo speaking people in Taiwan.
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At first glance the characters are depicted to resemble opposites. Yi-ge the lowly, uneducated, blue collar worker, juxtaposed with Fa Sao, an educated, upwardly mobile Hakka. Although this may be a ploy to score political points with the Hakka, which have gradually shifted support behind DPP candidates, the cartoon depictions serve to degrade both Hakka and Hoklo speakers to the fetishized objects of colonial desire.
The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato writes that the production of the cartoon wasn't a mistake and someone high up should take responsibility.
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Deng can say all he wants about the ministry not wanting to insult anyone, but the fact of the matter is, surely, at one point in the process of creating the cartoon, someone in the army of “public relations experts” that came up with this brilliant idea would have noticed that by design or accident, the depictions were prejudicial, if not outright racist. Surely, someone would have raised an objection, or called for caution. If this happened, then that person was silenced, as often happens in government. If no one did, then it means that whoever was involved in the creative process all agreed on what can only be seen as defining characteristics based on biology, which is the first step toward outright racial discrimination.
Letters from Taiwan criticises the apology of Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘).
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Yiin thinks that being born in a place precludes you from ever doing anything that might upset other people from that same place. I can not agree with this premise. Second, Yiin makes a surly, underhand, illdefined attack against ‘people' who harbour ulterior motives. This comment is a clever way to imply that those who are upset about the cartoons all have ulterior motives (subtext message: if you don't want to be regarded as one of those people, you shouldn't feel so bad about the cartoons). By claiming that it is these ‘people' who are turning the matter into an ‘ethnic issue', Yiin not so cleverly hopes that it will distract the public from the origin of the ethnically insulting cartoons themselves eg the Government.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 22 Sep 2009 19:05 Post subject:
This is not "racist" in the U.S. sense. This is making stereotypes about different Han Chinese groups (yes I know some Taiwanese don't consider themselves Han, but most do not and this is still not a racial difference but a nationality difference, like a white American of Scottish descent saying he is not British).
So it would be equal to a New England WASP making fun of a WASP from the South, Midwest, West Coast, etc.
In Taiwan, but for the 2% who are aboriginal, EVERYONE IS HAN. That being said, those Han can from Mainland China at different times from different regions, therefore have slightly different cultures and language groups. This is not "racism". They are all "Han Zu" (Han Race) or (Hua Ren) (Culturally Chinese People) in Mandarin, no one would say someone who speaks Cantonese from Guangdong is a different race from someone who speaks SHanghainese in Shanghai or Sichuan Mandarin. So Haklo (Minnan) speakers in Taiwan (whose ancestors came mostly 500 years ago from Fujian province in China) are not a different race from Waishengren (Chinese who came to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war in 1949) are a different race.
I was hoping to get your opinion DragonHorse, considering your knowledge and experience with the region. I have heard stories that all of the Han Chinese are related, but the blog article about this cartoon seems to suggest that there is some sort of racialism going on... however absurdly constructed.
I have heard stories elsewhere about ethnic prejudice directed toward Hakka peoples, who have an interesting group identity given that they are spread across something of a wide diaspora.
I wasn't sure how to relate this story to stories about ethnic/racial cartoons in the US or in Europe. Do you see stereotyping going on, or would you call it a case of the race card?
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Wed 23 Sep 2009 12:39 Post subject:
erasmusinfinity wrote:
I was hoping to get your opinion DragonHorse, considering your knowledge and experience with the region. I have heard stories that all of the Han Chinese are related, but the blog article about this cartoon seems to suggest that there is some sort of racialism going on... however absurdly constructed.
I have heard stories elsewhere about ethnic prejudice directed toward Hakka peoples, who have an interesting group identity given that they are spread across something of a wide diaspora.
I wasn't sure how to relate this story to stories about ethnic/racial cartoons in the US or in Europe. Do you see stereotyping going on, or would you call it a case of the race card?
Well, this is a problem of translation.
In East Asia (not just with Chinese people) they often use race/ethnicity interchangeably. My wife is Japanese and often says "Chinese are a different race" or "Koreans are not the same race as Japanese". There really, to my knowledge has never been a separate term for race/ethnicity in East Asia.
This article is more like Swiss Germans from Zurich stereotyping French speakers, Italian Speakers, maybe people in Germany and Austria as well.
In the West we don't call this "racism" but it is "prejudice" we might even say "ethnocentric", etc.
Hakka (Kejia Ren) are also Han, but they have been discriminated against in the past because they were almost seen as Gypsies, they migrated from Northern China during one of China's many conflicts and have migrated around. "Kejia" means "Guest" and that is how they were seen when they moved to Southern China, as outsiders. They have their own dialect and were always a minority surrounded by other Southern Chinese grouips. The Kejia also have some strange cultural habits (strange by Chinese standards) such as strong assertive women who were traditionally aggressive with men and did "men's work" which other Chinese, steeped in Confucianism found offensive, this is less an issue in modern times. That being said, in Taiwan and in Mainland China Hakka are not considered a minority group, they are considered Han. Unlike Gypsies the Hakka do not have a history of being thieves or criminals, actually they have a tradition of being tough people with are also very good at physical labor and trading (including or especially the women).
In China, no matter what Chinese language group a person is native too, if they are ethnic Han, they are also "hua ren" meaning "of Chinese culture". There are minority groups in China and Taiwan. In Taiwan they are about 2% of the population and look like Filipinos and Malays, they live in the Mountains of Eastern Taiwan. In China they are about 7% of the population and live in the border areas (Tibetans, Uighurs, Huis, Miao, Manchus, ethnic-Koreans, Zhuang, etc).
This article is more like Swiss Germans from Zurich stereotyping French speakers, Italian Speakers, maybe people in Germany and Austria as well.
Very true. Even recent scholarly arrticles in European anthropology journals often refer to the "Italian race," the "Polish race, the Slav race," and so forth. Obviously, the denotation of "race" in European academia differs from that in the U.S.
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