Written by Chee-Hann Wu.
Image credit: TaiwanFest 2019 by GoToVan / Flickr, license: CC BY 2.0.
The world is filled with diverse cultures and histories, each with its own unique narratives and connections. This special issue explores Taiwan and Canada’s fascinating cultural and historical ties. Despite their geographical distance, these two nations share surprising parallels that have shaped their identities and fostered mutual understanding. From immigration experiences to artistic exchanges, this special issue demonstrates how the connections between Taiwan and Canada are a testament to the power of shared experiences and the ability of diverse nations to establish meaningful bonds.
One of the primary foundations of the cultural relationship between Taiwan and Canada lies in historical immigration. Taiwanese immigration to Canada began in the mid-20th century and significantly increased in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Taiwanese immigrants brought with them their rich cultural heritage and contributed to Canada’s multicultural fabric. Their contributions in various fields have played a pivotal role in shaping Canada’s society.
This special issue on Taiwanese Canadians and Canada’s TAIWANfest was created in partnership with Pancouver, an online arts and culture media named after Leigh and Carol Pan, a Taiwanese-born couple in Vancouver. Carol Pan was one of the Taiwanese pioneers in Canada. In January 1971, the National Taiwanese University grad moved to Ottawa, which is the national capital and one of the country’s coldest cities. Her Taiwanese husband Leigh had attended graduate school at the University before being hired as a civil servant.
According to Carol Pan, it was very rare to hear anyone in Canada speak Taiwanese, let alone Mandarin. “The Taiwanese community was very small,” she recalls. “One time, I went to the supermarket. I heard someone speak Taiwanese, and I started to cry. That’s because we missed home so much.”
Over the years, the Pans have witnessed remarkable growth in the population of Taiwanese Canadians. Nowadays, there are more than 190,000 overseas Taiwanese people in Canada, according to Taiwan’s Overseas Community Affairs Council’s 2021 report. Pan says that this has led to growing confidence within the community of Taiwanese Canadians. This is reflected in the growing presence of Taiwanese Canadians in arts and culture, as well as academia, the professions, and business. In 1990, a Taiwanese Canadian cultural enthusiast in Metro Vancouver, Cecilia Chueh, started a “Music Night of Taiwanese Composers”, which then grew into the annual TAIWANfest celebrations in Vancouver and Toronto.
The Pans and many of the other Taiwanese community pioneers in Canada have helped nurture the growth of TAIWANfest, which promotes not only music, but dance, literature, fashion, film, and other cultural touchstones of Taiwan. The festival has recently partnered with other countries—such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam—to showcase their diasporic artists. TAIWANfest values the transnational experience of migration and the diverse cultural exchanges that come with it. Through its collaborations, it manifests how the shared experience inspires dialogues between Taiwan and the world, and how Taiwan can be a vibrant member of the global community.
This special issue features five articles by journalist Charlie Smith that explore Taiwan-Canada relations through the lens of transnational Indigenous culture, the formation of Taiwanese-Canadian identities, and finally, an introduction to the 2023 TAIWANfest.
The first article explores Indigenous music from Taiwan to Canada through the lens of Kanatal, a Taiwan-based Indigenous music group. Both Taiwan and Canada have undergone the devastating effects of colonialism and settler colonialism on their Indigenous peoples. Taiwan’s Indigenous people have experienced displacement and oppression over the past few centuries, resulting in the loss of language, culture, and identity. Similarly, in Canada, the Canadian government’s policy of forced assimilation has severely impacted Indigenous communities. While steps have been taken in recent decades to heal the collective trauma, the echoes of colonialism continue to reverberate in the lives of Indigenous peoples in both countries.
Following the shared experiences of Indigenous peoples, the second article in this special issue continues to emphasize the connection between the two nations by presenting the time-travel dialogues between iconic Canadian artist Emily Carr (1871-1945) and Taiwanese painter Chen Cheng-po (1895-1947), and how both are significant to their times but also to generations after.
As nations with diverse populations and histories of colonialism, Taiwanese and Canadian identities have often been negotiated or even challenged and contested. French scholar Stéphane Corcuff refers to Taiwan as a “laboratory of identities”; similarly, Canada’s history of settlement and colonization has resulted in a multicultural society. What about the Taiwanese Canadian identity? Is it even more complicated? The third article in this special issue includes the stories of Taiwanese Canadians who share their journeys to embrace their identities and how Canada has shaped their identities as Taiwanese and more.
The last two articles introduce the theme of TAIWANfest 2023. This year, TAIWANfest will partner with the Netherlands to further explore the history of colonialism, working with scholars and organizations from Taiwan and the Dutch Cultural Association of B.C., Canada. A three-day lecture series in Taiwan on 20 May, 27 May and 10 June, featuring a total of five talks delivered by different speakers, marked the prologue of this year’s TAIWANfest “Self-portraits of Formosa,” which will be followed by a series of events and exhibitions in Vancouver, Canada, in September. Having events in both Taiwan and Canada further demonstrates the festival’s attempt to build bridges and promote exchanges between the two nations.
To briefly conclude, recognizing the value of Indigenous knowledge and cultural diversity, and learning from the colonial past, Taiwan and Canada have fostered collaborative exchanges between communities, including cultural practices, environmental stewardship, and political advocacy. Through shared experiences, people from Taiwan and Canada find strength and inspiration, forging alliances across borders and working toward common goals of empowerment.
This special issue on Taiwanese Canadians and TAIWANfest’s dialogue with the Netherlands was created in partnership with Pancouver, an online arts and culture media by The Society of We Are Canadians Too.
Chee-Hann Wu received her Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from the University of California, Irvine. She is the president of the North American Taiwan Studies Association and editor of Taiwan Insight. Her current book project considers puppetry as a mediated means of narrating Taiwan’s cultural and sociopolitical development, as well as colonial and postcolonial histories.
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