History – Page 13 – Taiwan Insight

Taiwan’s Museum Act: Culture’s Value as a Matter of Politics

5 April 2021 Editor

Written by Susan Shih Chang. On the government’s side, the Museum Act has become a mechanism for exercising power through specific forms of knowledge and expertise; a technology that shapes society’s thoughts and understanding toward culture. On the applicant’s side, although the local government has control in the process of applying for the registration of a private museum, intentions and understanding from the private museum owners and their interaction with the public sector have added a new dimension and layer to the meaning and means of museums.

Unjust Deserts: Japan’s Taste for Modernity and Its Satisfaction Through Taiwanese Sugar Plantations

10 February 2021 Editor

Written By Lilian Tsay. The Japanese empire’s importance placed on the Taiwanese sugar industry can be seen in the design of the 1935 “40 years of colonial rule” exhibition, which had a whole section dedicated to the sugar industry and provided free sugar water to visitors. The sugar industry was a crucial part of the colonial economy; it also heavily impacted Japan’s dietary customs. Japan did not produce its own white sugar. Before the Meiji era, deserts in Japan were made using either dark sugar from Okinawa, wasanbon from Shikoku, or from white sugar imported from Southern China. Just as described in “Southward Expansion to Taiwan,” only with Taiwan’s help could Japan’s confectionery industry successfully develop alongside the expanding Japanese empire.

Creating Alternative Futures Through Indigeneities: Between Taiwan and the Philippines: Part II.

2 February 2021 Editor

Written By Yi-Yu Lai. ince the early 1980s, the PCT (The Presbyterian Church of Taiwan) intentionally organized groups visiting several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, because they attempted to strengthen and magnify their overseas missionary work in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, they not only collaborated with a Taiwanese pastor Jun-Nan Li (李俊男), who started to serve in the City of Cagayan de Oro since 1978, but also made contacts with the UCCP (United Church of Christ in the Philippines). At first, those Taiwanese people were all set to introduce their preaching works to the Filipinos during their first visit of 1983. However, they serendipitously found that the Philippine Indigenous resistance experiences might become a possible alternative to address their church land issue in Taiwan.

The Risky Business of Importing Pigs: The Story Of Taiwan’s First Insurance Company

22 January 2021 Editor

Written by Ko Lien. The demand for pig and pork products increased, but businessmen had begun to import pigs from across the strait since supplies have dwindled. As refrigeration technology was still in its infancy at this point, live pigs were imported. However, many overdue would die on the journey to disease or ship wreckage. In response to this, Taiwan’s first-ever insurance company was founded for protecting against pig loss.

The Politics of Hate and Fear

16 December 2020 Editor

Written by Andreas Sierek. A migrant construction worker was enjoying himself at a river. We might have disapproved of him being drunk, drugged and naked. We even might have been incensed by his rampageous behaviour. But shooting him dead? Like a stray dog infected with rabies? Not with one bullet but with nine? Insisting that the man – while lying on the dirt, in a pool of blood, dying – must be handcuffed before medics can approach him?

The History and consequences of Taiwan’s “War On Drugs”

27 November 2020 Editor

Written by Elsa Sichrovsky. Due to Taiwan’s geographically strategic position in Southeast Asia and proximity to the Golden Triangle of the heroin trade, it has had a long relationship with narcotics, dating back to opium smoking in the Qing dynasty. In the 1800s, the opium trade thrived following the Opium Wars in China, bringing in more than half of Taiwan’s revenue by 1892. During the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), the Japanese established an opium monopoly in Taiwan which benefited them economically while they maintained an appearance of opposition to opium smoking. Through sales to hospitals and pharmaceutical companies around the world, opium composed up to 46 per cent of yearly colonial income from Taiwan until 1904.

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