No, the DPP didn't "brainwash" Taiwan into "forgetting it is Chinese"

She couldn't have engineered a turn away from Chinese identity because she was elected after it happened!

I keep trying to write this post, and I keep failing. Or something happens in my life -- this week it was a migraine -- and I sort of wander away. Part of it might be that I keep trying to give it an "article-like" opening even though this is a blog, and then I get bogged down in trying to sound a certain way, and it comes out all weird. 

So, if I have any hope of saying what's on my mind, let's forget that and jump right in. 

Anyone who advocates for Taiwan online will eventually come across a particularly virulent strain of poor reasoning and straight-up falsehood: that Taiwanese identity is robust because the DPP made it so, and that Chinese identity in Taiwan is on the decline because, again, the DPP "brainwashed" Taiwanese into thinking it was true. This is often used to lament the 'letting go' of an understanding that Taiwan is part of some concept of China, or 'forgetting one's roots' because data show Taiwanese in general have moved away from the notion that having ancestral heritage in China means they are Chinese.

I've been seeing it more these days, which might be attributable to it becoming a CCP troll talking point, though many real people seem to hold it as a sincere opinion. Another possibility is that it's harder than ever to point to unclear or inconclusive data to claim that, at best, Taiwanese don't know what they want. We know most identify as solely Taiwanese, and we now know that although the infamous 'status quo' survey is often (ahem almost always) poorly analyzed, that most people see the status quo as sufficient to consider Taiwan an independent country -- no name change needed.

Or maybe people are just jerks, or acting out the fantasies their KMT parents taught them, and pinning it all on the opposition. I dunno. I'd rather look at the problems with the argument than speculate about this.

Chinese identity is not the default

The first issue is easily dispensed with: "Taiwanese forgot their true heritage, that they are Chinese" absolutely begs the question. It assumes that the default state of Taiwan is Chinese identity, that Chineseness is the baseline, the neutral state, and any change from that is the only thing that can be "political", and therefore the only thing that can be engineered or forced onto a population.

This is wrong. 

Remember when I said in a recent post that every KMT accusation is a confession? (Not originally my words, by the way). This is one, too. They accuse the DPP of using state power, including education, to force an identity on Taiwan. But that's what they did! The KMT implemented an education system that emphasized Chinese identity and either outright ignored Taiwanese history, or reduced it to a footnote within a greater Chinese framework. The KMT forced Mandarin on people who didn't speak it natively, actively banning other languages in school and government and highly discouraging their use in public (as in, speak Taiwanese or Japanese and we'll be watching you and maybe we'll send Officer Chang over to your house to check out your book collection, and if we can't find any "communist" literature we'll say we did anyway.) The KMT banned discussion of their own repressive acts in Taiwan. The KMT destroyed markers of Japanese culture in Taiwan, including not just language but modes of dress, temples and shrines. The KMT censored songs simply because the lyrics were Taiwanese, even if they held no inherent political meaning. In a twist that's going to matter later in this post, the KMT's own action to repress these songs is part of what led to them being used as acts of political symbolism! 

Arguably, the KMT engaged in this far more than the DPP ever has, which I'll get into further down.

Unless you take as a default that Taiwanese should think they are Chinese, and therefore it's okay for the KMT to force that identity on Taiwan but not acceptable for others to deconstruct it, this is inherently a political and non-neutral series of actions. I don't take it as a baseline that Taiwan is Chinese -- and why should I? Most Taiwanese don't either! Besides, historically China either didn't rule Taiwan, or ruled only part of the island. To that end, Taiwanese history overlaps with Chinese only to a degree, and I'd argue it's not a very great degree. Most of Chinese history is not relevant to Taiwan (just about anything up through the Ming Dynasty) unless you're talking about ancestral, not national, history as the island of Taiwan wasn't ruled by China in those centuries. And the few centuries where they do overlap, well, China not only didn't rule the whole island for the most part, they treated it as a backwater worth little attention and even fewer resources.

Perhaps the settlers' ancestors came from China, but from a political perspective, that ceases to matter after a few generations. The 1949 diaspora came more recently, but they were always a minority and their grandchildren have closer ties to Taiwan for the most part. It's fundamentally a flawed assumption to believe Chinese identity in this circumstance is immutable.


So, what is the default identity for Taiwan? 

The default identity for any group of people is what they want it to be. Not in an "I'm 1/16th Cree so I have decided I'm First Nations even though I don't participate in the culture and have always been treated as white" way. I mean in a "we live this identity and bear the full weight of it, so we get to decide what it means" way. 

Whether it's Chinese people furious that Taiwanese don't see themselves as Chinese, or white wannabe anti-imperialists who talk big about accepting different identities unless that identity is Taiwanese, in which case suddenly 23 million people don't get a say, it astounds me how people can be so two-faced. That is, talk one minute about how nobody else can tell others who they are or dictate their history to them, and the next about how Chinese say Taiwanese can't be Taiwanese, so we can't recognize Taiwanese identity out of respect for China. 

How is it not just important but imperative to respect every identity, but then whip around and call Taiwanese identity separatist, ethno-nationalist or even Sinophobic/anti-Chinese? 

How can you insist, if you are Chinese, that nobody else can explain your heritage and culture to you (which is true) -- and then feel comfortable explaining your version of Taiwan's heritage and culture to them? 

If you're not Chinese, how can you go around insisting everyone respect gender and sexual identity, heritage identity and neurodivergence (all great things to respect, and I agree) and then dismiss Taiwan as the one identity you don't have to respect? 

If you're an Asian American, how can you consistently leave Taiwan out of identity debates, and in some cases simp for the Chinese government, totally disrespecting your fellow Asian Americans who happen to be Taiwanese? 

Finally, if you're Taiwanese American (including the descendants of the KMT diaspora), how cam you tell Taiwanese in Taiwan that your grandparents' vision of an island they only briefly inhabited is the only correct one, and they better fall in line? How can you insist that your legitimate and valid view of yourself as Chinese must therefore apply to all Taiwanese? 

It boggles the mind! If Taiwanese say they are Taiwanese, fucking listen to them. 

(If the majority said they weren't Taiwanese, you should listen to that too. But they don't.) 

This is especially true as the tenor of pro-Taiwan discourse has trended increasingly towards accepting that some portion of the population will disagree. This is fine, as people have a right to their own views and identities. It is imperative, however, for the pro-China side to offer that same respect. Currently, I don't see that this is the case.

Seriously, I'm starting to think the fastest way to tell a real anti-imperialist for a straight-up fraud -- or a truly socially-conscious person from a self-righteous jerk -- is to bring up Taiwan. If you're not interested in respecting Taiwanese identity, I now assume you are a hypocrite who doesn't respect identity unless you personally approve, and therefore not worth my time.

Get your timelines right!

The final issue takes longer to talk about. It's a straight-up reverse cause fallacy in which time, for people who believe the DPP "forced" Taiwanese into "forgetting they are Chinese", apparently moves backwards. Or at best, it might be considered a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in which one historical trend is falsely fingered as the cause of another roughly concurrent trend.

For the DPP to credibly be the evil masterminds engineering Taiwanese identity, they'd need to be in a position of sufficient power or influence before the movement away from Chinese identity and toward Taiwanese. Otherwise, how could they have effected the change? With what exactly would they have forced their nefarious plan through, protest signs and...frequently getting arrested? 

Seriously, just look at the timelines. In what years did Taiwanese identity spike? First, starting around 1995, when it overtook solely Chinese identity, and climbed steadily until 2000. That's significant, and I'll talk about it in a moment.

From NCCU

It overtook "Taiwanese and Chinese" identity between 2006-2008. At that time, the DPP's star was falling thanks to the rumors swirling around Chen Shui-bian, reaching what might be described as a nadir with the election of Ma Ying-jeou.

A lot of people seem to think Chen was some sort of ogre forcing Taiwanese identity through schools and society, but during his presidency, Taiwanese identity rose far more slowly than in the preceding years, with a few dips. If he was trying to evil-villain Taiwanese identity to greater prominence, he didn't do a very good job. How could he have, when the legislature was still KMT-controlled?

The next significant spike hit around the Sunflower Movement, with the increase leading up to it following the descent of President Ma into deep unpopularity. "Aha!" you might shout. "It does follow the rise and fall of political party influence!"

Not so fast. Ma was still in power, and the legislature majority KMT. People often reference education as a site of struggle where these sorts of so-called "brainwashings" are engineered, but Ma's big education policy was to make the curriculum emphasize links with China, not Taiwanese identity! If anything other than the Sunflowers led to a spike in Taiwanese identity (and there was one), it was the electorate's reaction against policies like this, not the government's evil plotting.

Besides, if the DPP were able to control local identity so much before Ma, then how did Ma get elected in the first place?

The Sunflowers themselves wielded a great deal of cultural capital but not much institutional power, so while they certainly impacted the national conversation and societal beliefs, they could not have engineered or masterminded any sort of authoritarian changes intended to "brainwash" anybody. They occupied the legislature but weren't elected to it. They protested lawmakers, they weren't lawmakers themselves. 

Some will still claim that perhaps it wasn't Lee, or Chen, or the Sunflowers responsible for this "brainwashing", but Tsai. If that's so, explain how Taiwanese identity actually dropped a bit in the years following her election -- that is, when she began to actually wield power?

It's true that the most recent spike occurred around the 2020 election, gathering momentum from its 2018 "nadir" (well, compared to the years surrounding it. Overall it was no nadir at all.) But Tsai was already in power then and had not managed to elevate Taiwanese identity in the previous two years. It's unlikely that her knockout defeat of Han Kuo-yu and re-election caused this spike. Rather, they were probably the result of it. Fears about China and the overall incompetence of the KMT candidate are more likely possible causes.

Think about it: in what universe does "you elected me, therefore I will brainwash you" make any sense? Just in terms of, y'know, linear time?

To put it succinctly, if the "evil DPP" was "brainwashing" Taiwanese into thinking they were Taiwanese, how is it that Taiwanese identity hit milestones around the time KMT presidents (and legislatures) were elected, and leveled off or dipped a bit after DPP ones were? 

It's not even post hoc reasoning. It's just backward.

More likely, these changes occurred naturally, and the DPP was the beneficiary of changing public sentiment regarding identity, not its architect. Just as likely, they were a reaction against the newly-elected KMT turning back towards China once again -- so if anything caused a shift toward Taiwanese identity, it was probably (and unwittingly) the KMT!

Let's rewind. What happened in 1995, when that first spike happened? Well, Lee Teng-hui offered imminent democratization, and the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. Who got elected in 1996? Lee, who despite ushering in a more nativist approach, was KMT, not DPP. Who controlled the legislature and most mayoral posts? The KMT, though the DPP had a loud minority and the coveted Taipei mayoralty. A voice, but a minority or subordinate one in terms of power structures.

If it could not have been the DPP -- again, they lacked the actual power -- and the KMT was, if anything, reacting to a broader social change, the only reasonable explanation for the shift towards Taiwanese identity is probably best explained not by the machinations of political parties, but democratization in general. Democracy: that amazing thing where either party can be elected!  

No, education is not the cause -- it's the effect

"But the education system was changed to emphasize Taiwan in the 1990s," some might shriek. "The evil DPP pushed for that, it's their fault!"

Not really, though. Yes, textbooks were slowly deregulated and curricula decentralized. Local history and "getting to know Taiwan" were introduced. The 228 Massacre could finally be discussed, and the role of local languages in education debated (the preeminence of Mandarin still remained, however). But the authorities allowing these changes on their preferred timeline were the KMT, not the DPP, though you could say they were forced to make concessions to the opposition and even adopt some of their nativizing rhetoric into their own platforms as a result. Do not forget, however: the KMT retained most of the actual power. What's more, these changes merely allowed Taiwanese history, society and geography to be discussed in an expanded version of a "local curriculum" where Taiwan was still ultimately treated as part of a larger China, or as the site of the ROC on Taiwan, not a nation in its own right. 

If simply talking about Taiwanese history and not hitting or fining children for speaking their native languages in school is enough to turn people from Chinese identity to Taiwanese, then Chinese identity in Taiwan must have been resting on pretty weak legs to begin with, eh? Maybe that alone could topple a popsicle-stick house, but not a monolith. So either it wasn't the cause, or Chinese identity was a stick house. Regardless, the final authority that approved these changes was the KMT, not the DPP -- a KMT reacting to this social change to retain power, not engineering it. 

In other words, democratization, national educational curriculum changes and the move toward Taiwanese identity all happened around the same time. They probably didn't cause each other (although if any one of them is a root cause of the others, it's probably democratization -- don't quote me on that, though). The common cause of all of these effects was a reaction against decades of brutal, repressive KMT rule and enforced institution of Chinese identity, not some sort of evil DPP plan. Not only is there nothing wrong with wanting to learn about one's local history,  but a push to do exactly that -- and decouple that history from some larger story of a larger civilization as well as talk about the parts of that history that don't overlap with it -- usually follows a change in identity. It doesn't cause it.

That's the case, at least, when the push to do just that comes from a newly democratized society, or a minority voice in the government who can't change the rules at will. Chinese identity through education was a top-down project, fed to schoolchildren through the education system by the KMT. Taiwanese identity entered the education system from the bottom-up, when the DPP didn't have institutional power. 

A quick summary for the tl;dr crowd

The DPP certainly played an important role in pushing for democratization and being that minority voice once the KMT stopped arresting and torturing them (though remember, the last political prisoners were still in jail in the early 1990s!). They pushed for changes to the education system, but ultimately needed KMT acquiescence to realize them. The KMT caused a backlash thanks to its own repressive rule, and stands guilty themselves of forcing Chinese identity on Taiwan, which was not a neutral act as Chinese identity was not the default state in Taiwan any more than Mandarin was always the lingua franca (it wasn't). Even if you try to argue it by timeline, it doesn't match up and if anything is backwards reasoning. 

Whatever you want to name as the cause or origin of Taiwanese identity, it was not the DPP. If anything, they were an effect of that change, and to some extent, you can say the KMT did this to themselves. 

But really, if you absolutely need a "cause" (do you?) -- look no further than democratization. Do you hate democracy? I sure hope not. 

Taiwanese education is not particularly "Confucian"

It sure looks traditional but they've also got bags on their heads.

Happy Teachers' Day! I happen to be off today for reasons completely unrelated to the holiday. So I wanted to circle back to a topic I've hit on before, but bears repeating for emphasis: 

There's a cliche popular in Taiwan that Taiwanese education is "Confucian" or based on the philosophy of Confucianism.

This is used as praise where it succeeds: high standards, high societal respect for education, universal secondary school and near-universal tertiary education, educating some of the world's best engineers, inventors and medical researchers. It's also used as a criticism for the system's failures: an over-emphasis on testing and lack of critical thinking or creativity, uninspiring lecture-style teaching, slavish devotion to scores, sticking students in classrooms for hours longer each day than their Western counterparts, sometimes seven days a week, a dearth of chances to simply ask questions. 

It is, however, false. It's straight-up historically inaccurate. In addition to having little historical basis, "Confucianism" as the fundamental belief behind Taiwanese education doesn't even accurately describe the system that exists.

So why does this myth persist? Partly because it's been around so long, and educators themselves like to trot it out. It's made its way into writing about Taiwanese education, which then gets cited as historical and sociological fact, and repeated yet again. For years it was an easy way for the old KMT dictatorship to obscure what they were really doing with education in Taiwan: turning it into a system to churn out competent workers who didn't ask too many questions, and as a locus of Sinocentric indoctrination. Even they knew that sounded bad, but "Confucian" sounds good -- wholesome, traditional, local, back-to-basics. 

By repeating it, you're only helping that myth persist. 

What are the roots of Taiwanese education, then? Mostly, they're Japanese. 

Under the Qing, there was no centralized or universal education system in Taiwan. The wealthy sent their sons to Confucian academies; some of the buildings these were housed in still exist, but the schools themselves have been gone for over a century. Girls were either educated at home, if the family was wealthy and inclined to think it was "worth" educating them, or not at all. These young, rich men formed a base of Taiwanese literati, but there weren't very many of them. The Qing themselves did nothing at all to develop education (or much of anything) in Taiwan. 

How do we know this? Because at its worst, "Confucian education" is reduced to memorization and regurgitation in order to pass imperial civil service exams. And how many Taiwanese actually took these exams in the Qing era? According to Manthorpe (Forbidden Nation), in all those centuries the total was 251. Of those, only 11 made it to the third-level examination in Beijing. Of those, only one or two -- I'm not exactly sure, but fewer than 5 -- ever qualified to become a Qing official. No Taiwanese ever served as Qing officials in Taiwan.

In Chou and Ching's Taiwan Education at the Crossroad, a historical overview of education in Taiwan completely skips the Qing era. It simply was not emphasized at that time.

That's not to say that Confucian education has to be bad. At its best, it does in fact prioritize questioning, the teacher-student learning relationship, and application. As I've said before, while I won't defend Koxinga as a person, he was a very good military tactician: this was not because he'd memorized and regurgitated the classics. It was because he was able to apply the teachings of the classics to real-world military situations. 

If you're thinking hmm, okay, but that doesn't sound like Taiwanese education, you're correct. Because Taiwanese education is not particularly Confucian.

To what extent Confucian education existed in Taiwan a century or two ago, it was only for a very few wealthy boys.  Of course, that changed -- what did Japan do differently?

Taiwanese education under the Japanese was based on Meiji-era education in Japan itself. Meiji education in Japan was conceived as bell-shaped: basic literacy and numeracy for the masses, perhaps some secondary education or further vocational training for emerging middle classes, and high-level education for the elites. This was based both on Western and Japanese notions of universal education: roughly put, some level of universality from the former, study of classics and moral codes from the latter.

This isn't a perfect way of putting it, of course: in the 19th century not all Western societies had embarked on projects of universal education -- it might be said that Japan beat them to it. Now, the West tends to look at universal education as a foundation of liberal democracy, but it seems more likely that leaders in these societies felt that a better-educated population would increase the supply of competent labor, leading to greater economic prosperity (and thus more money for the elites who employed them). The connection to Western thought in Meiji education, however, is quite direct, and well-documented.

This was the system that the Japanese colonial authorities slowly imported to Taiwan.

It is true that traditional Japanese notions of education, including the more scholarly pursuits of the samurai class, did influence the system as well. The moral codes embedded within these do have connections to Confucian thought. But to take that connection and say that Taiwanese education is therefore Confucian is like saying the Taiwanese language is influenced by English because the word for truck is turaku -- which came from the Japanese adoption of the English word "truck". Technically correct, but a rather long chain of connections to base a belief on.

This isn't what most people mean when they say "Taiwanese education is Confucian", though. What they're usually trying to imply is that Taiwanese society is inherently culturally and historically Chinese, and therefore the foundational orientation of education is, too. They're (often unintentionally) trying to push the historical narrative away from Japanese influence and toward Chinese. This is also exactly what the KMT sought to do when Taiwan was in its jaws.

Japanese education in Taiwan started out by enrolling elites, with very few schools opening in the early years. Then it rolled out to universal elementary education. Junior high school followed. By the early 20th century, girls' schools had opened, and some young Taiwanese women from wealthy families were going to Japan to study, or at least aspiring to it. Higher education gradually became available to a few elites, although it was difficult to gain entry as Taiwanese. In fact, many would-be teachers and doctors opted to study in Japan instead, as admission requirements were easier and such study would certainly lead to good jobs back in Taiwan.

The goal of this system was, again, to give everyone a nominal education in order to produce good workers for the empire. It most certainly was not to teach them to inquire, think critically, question their place or consider themselves equal to their Japanese leaders, though some members of the elite did indeed gain a more critical political consciousness. 

Because Taiwanese were not Japanese and most had no emotional attachment to Japan, another goal was included: a civic education intended to acculturate Taiwanese into Japanese norms and instill (blind) patriotism for the Japanese empire. In other words, political and cultural indoctrination.

It did employ some of the morality of Confucianism, however, this was intentionally divorced from any sort of Chinese cultural context, and only encouraged where it served the Japanese rulers. That is, it was implemented for political reasons only. From Tsurumi's Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan: 

But because Chinese classical studies had been associated with Taiwan's past under Chinese rule, many Japanese regarded them with suspicion. Great care was taken to lift Confucian morality from its historical context. Where the classical tradition urged loyalty and obedience to one's superiors it was to be strengthened; where it encouraged identification with China it was to be forbidden. Confucian principles, colonial educators thought, could be taught through all-important Japanese language studies, which would emphasize loyalty to Japan as they improved communication between ruled and ruler....(p. 12)

Loyalty, filial piety, obedience to legitimate authority -- all found within the Chinese Confucian tradition -- were emphasized with this end [keeping rural Taiwanese in the same occupations as their parents] in view. At the same time, great efforts were made to instill a very non-Confucian idea in Taiwanese schoolchildren. This was that manual labor was a dignified and honorable pastime for a scholar as well as for anyone else. Again and again, educational authorities urged teachers to show that the man who worked with his head also worked with his hands. Children were taught to clean and tidy their schoolrooms and work in their school vegetable patches. (p. 214)

This did not change meaningfully when the KMT took over Taiwan. 

In fact, where Japanese rule had improved Taiwan, the new government simply kept what was working. In some cases, they retained the Japanese -- often engineers -- who had worked on these projects for some time, until they had the expertise to run these systems themselves. All they really did was re-brand and take over. 

With education, this worked by keeping the fundamental system in place, but re-orienting the national education/taught patriotism towards Chinese culture rather than Japanese. The language switched to Mandarin, and lectures on the importance of loving one's country now focused on the Republic of China's vision of China, complete with Sun Yat-sen's philosophies and chanting slogans while raising the new national flag. 

As far as I can tell, no re-introduction of Confucianism took place, and certainly Confucian styles of education did not replace the system that was already there. Why would it? What they had already suited their purposes, just as it had the Japanese: just enough education to create good workers who wouldn't ask questions, with a hefty dose of authoritarian indoctrination. All they really needed to do was teach obedience to legitimate authority, and then lecture endlessly about how and why their own authority was legitimate.

The only thing that had changed was the colonizer doing it.

There were some relevant shifts. One might charitably say that the old Confucian morality that the Japanese used to their own ends was re-attached to its cultural context. I take a more critical view, however: the KMT simply took the Confucian morals that the Japanese had worked so hard to engineer for their own purposes, and simply applied them to KMT dogma instead. Because the KMT came from China, they could claim that this morality was in fact Chinese culture, and such a claim would have a very surface-level plausibility. Even the punitive and traumatizing bevy of exams, both national exams and those given at the individual school level, could be said to be "Confucian", but as discussed above, this is Confucian thought only in its worst, most dogmatic, most base form. 

As an example of how thin this veneer is: in Chou and Ching's Taiwan Education at the Crossroads, they mention Confucianism in Taiwanese education five times. Each time, they tie it back to "the mainland", although to their credit, they don't pretend the first several decades of the Republic of China on Taiwan wasn't authoritarian. However, at no point do they dive into exactly what is so "Confucian" about this system, or how the Japanese structure was tied in with "Confucianism" in the 20th century. They state it was the case, but provide little or no evidence.

It suits the government to continue to cite Confucianism in relation to Taiwanese education, and so there hasn't been much effort to change these stale narratives. It makes it easier for the bureaucrats currently in charge to either not enact change, or do it so achingly slowly that it seems to have little effect. It makes it easier to leave the traumatizing, soul-destroying testing system in place because of "culture" rather than actually do something about it -- which would be harder.

Some people in the Ministry of Education do have more progressive views. However, they face a deeply entrenched bureaucracy as well as critics who think an orientation towards education appropriate for a democracy (that is, one that teaches you to actually think) and learning about Taiwan is the same as the old KMT authoritarian indoctrination, even though they are not at all equivalent.

For the pan-blue camp, it makes it easier to put a soft-focus lens on history. "A system designed to quash independent thought, create good workers and legitimize authoritarian leadership" isn't a good look. "Confucian!" is much better branding. It plays into their bottom line: that Taiwanese culture is Chinese, and diverts attention away from their 20th century dictatorial brutality in Taiwan.

For teachers, it makes it easier to square the cognitive dissonance of how they were trained -- through fairly modern methods that do help them understand the ideals of education -- with how they must teach in a system that badly needs reform. "We know this doesn't work but it's very difficult to change, and we have little power to do so" is depressing. "Well, Taiwanese education is Confucian and therefore it's traditional" is a little easier to live with.

That does not, however, mean it is accurate.

The ever-evolving propaganda vectors of education-adjacent "supplementary textbooks" in Taiwan

The cover of one of these horrid books

A few days ago, news broke that some "supplementary textbooks" available in many Taiwanese schools were full of racist depictions of Indigenous Taiwanese as well as pro-China, anti-sovereignty propaganda. The books themselves had been published in 2008, which feels like a lifetime ago in terms of evolving social consciousness in Taiwan. The problem was that these texts were still hanging around in classrooms, offering up all sorts of garbage to students. They're even touted, in some cases, as having "model essays" for young students to study and, I suppose, imitate. 

Here are the examples being shared on social media. I saw them from Saidai ／Reseres 伍麗華 (Saidai Tahovecahe), the first DPP legislator representing the Highland Indigenous Constituency in the legislature, and was elected in 2020, but she's not nearly the only person sharing them.

I am not a translator, so please don't take my translations as the final word. However, I think it's important to clarify exactly how awful these 'supplementary textbooks' are, and what one Indigenous reaction to them looks like.

The one with the racist cartoon of an Indigenous Taiwanese says something like: 

Hualien has many 'mountain compatriots' (an old-timey, racist and very ROC/China-centric way of describing Indigenous people who had not assimilated into Han society), their culture used to be very backward, but owing to the government's guidance, their lives and education have all developed very much. I hope that in the near future, they can be just like the 'plains people' (Han Chinese and Indigenous who have assimilated). 

It's obvious why this is racist, and not up for debate. In the words of Sifo Lakaw (the 2nd link above): 

怎麼這麼不小心，就這樣洩漏了你們內心裡根深蒂固的種族優越感？你們說「壯志飢餐胡虜肉，笑談渴飲匈奴血」的是民族英雄；戍守傳統領域的原住民族是野蠻人，需要被教化的對象。當我進入到蔑視和否定其他文化的教育體系，我一度相信這是邁向成功的道路，認為自己的語言和文化是不符合時代潮流，沒有競爭力的。

一直到從長輩的口中，聽見他們使用優雅且善用隱喻風格的族語，時而幽默，時而歌唱地描述外來者的貪婪，以及彼此猜忌與嫉妒的性格時，也才真正的發現，那些自居高尚的人，其內心是多麼地醜陋而險惡。既然事實已澄清，那就好好開始學習自己的語言和文化，期許自己和下一代成為真正的人，不被種族主義者擊垮。

How can you be so careless as to show the world the deep sense of racial superiority you carry inside? You say that (reference to an ancient poem related to people who follow Confucian ideals -- honestly this is beyond my ability to translate, and the original is quite gory) are national heroes; the native peoples who adhere to tradition are barbarians and need to be guided. When I started school, which denigrated and rejected other cultures, I once believed that this was the path to success, thinking that my own language and culture were inconsistent with the times and adhering to them wouldn't lead to success.

It was not until I heard the language of the elders -- metaphorical, humorous, lyrical -- describing the greed of the outsiders and the suspicion and envy between them, that I saw they were only out for themselves. How greedy and sinister the hearts of these 'noblemen' were. Now that we know the truth, it's time to start learning your own language and culture and expect yourself and the next generation to become actualized, not beaten down by racists.

 

The second one, which has some confused white people cartoons (I don't know why either) is titled "Many people put forward that Taiwanese and Mainlanders are different" and says something like:

You can hear a lot about how "Taiwan is for Taiwanese, people from the Mainland should go back to the Mainland." I don't understand this kind of talk, why should Taiwan be for the Taiwanese? Taiwanese and Mainlanders have yellow skin and black hair, are they not all Chinese, why must they be divided up so clearly? If you say "Taiwan is Taiwanese", it will unavoidably stir up suspicion about what is called 'Taiwanese'. 

I suppose the confused white people were put there to imply that it's foreigners who are trying to 'divide' the Chinese by talking about Taiwaneseness as a distinct identity, not Taiwanese themselves. This is a racist lie. It's only believable if you think Taiwanese people are empty-headed enough to believe random foreigners telling them about their culture, which I certainly hope you do not. Taiwanese identity came from Taiwan, period.

However, I see an ironic truth in the cartoon: this flummoxing text caused me to sympathize with the dude in the center -- the one with all the question marks. 

If you think that these examples of "supplementary texts" are egregious but rare (both in how horrible and common they are), that is wrong. 

They are terrifyingly common: I don't think I have a single local friend or student whom I've asked who doesn't remember these sorts of books from school. They may be allowed into schools by the Ministry of Education, but they are developed and distributed by private entities, mostly special interest groups trying to influence what students learn in school. This article details "extra-curricular" lessons taught by both LGBTQ allies and anti-gay conservatives, and mentions the materials they use. Religious indoctrination happens, too. 

While I might personally support the use of LGBTQ-allied material to make up for any shortfalls in the official textbooks, if the other side of that is allowing anti-gay content into schools, it's probably better that no 'supplementary textbooks' by any special interest group be allowed in. Or if they are, there must be a more rigorous materials assessment process before approval. 

Although I'm having trouble finding the specific articles I read a few years ago that cited 'supplementary textbooks' and their role in the fight for LGBTQ and marriage equality, I have a more terrifying, more personal story which should illustrate how sure I am that 'supplementary' materials on all topics are not only common in Taiwanese schools, but the way they spread their message has become more sophisticated. 

For reasons I cannot disclose, I had the opportunity to look at one such book aimed at elementary school classrooms (I did not assist in any element of its conception or production). I cannot tell you who it was developed by, but I can say that the foundation funding it is politically neutral itself, but the titular head of that foundation is not. This person was convinced that Taiwanese children had 'forgotten' the importance of respect for one's elders and other traditional 'Chinese' ideals. To put it bluntly, I disagree not just on the opinion but the worldview underpinning it, but that's not the point. 

The content was fairly innocuous on the surface, although I'm not at liberty to go into too much detail. It included a few 'folk tales' meant to teach children the importance of filial piety through examples from 'their own' culture. One of these included a well-known story about a child who breaks through ice to catch fish to feed an ailing parent. 

Then it became clear: this book purporting to be about 'filial piety' was slipping in cultural references to China, as a way of normalizing the belief that Taiwanese culture is fundamentally Chinese. 

I commented, "how can this story be from Taiwanese kids' own culture? There aren't very many lakes that ice over in Taiwan! Any that may exist are way up in the mountains, and this is a Chinese story, not an Indigenous one."

The response: "Oh, it's a story from northern China."

"Well, then it's not really a story that resonates in Taiwanese culture, so...that's odd."

"Mmm. They think it's all Chinese culture." [This is Taiwanese for "I agree with you but I don't call the shots."]

"Hmph...okay, though there must also be a story about a child who helps their parents that's from Taiwan, yes?"

"Do you like the tea?" [This is Taiwanese for "I understand what you're saying but you're/we're not winning this."]

"Yes, it's very fragrant." ["As long as my objection has been noted, I will drop it."]

I don't know if that book ever made it into schools, but I can guarantee there are a hundred, or a thousand, just like it. They might not be as obliquely racist and politicized as the 2008 examples people are angry about today, but they are there and they're circulating similar ideas using more sophisticated methods. And they're not from 2008: they're being published right now.

It's the same old Han supremacy and centering of China, and marginalizing not just Indigenous Taiwanese but all Taiwanese identity, in barely perceptible ways unless you know what to look for.

If you have children in Taiwanese schools, know this.

The Test is the Tumor

From a recently-closed exhibit at Tainan Art Museum

In a typical apartment in greater Taipei, my student and I chat about her week before looking at her school work and IELTS preparation. If an interesting subject comes up we dive a little deeper, to give her some practice articulating independent ideas. Even when I know things she doesn't, I prompt her to make rational guesses to get there on her own. She's pretty good at this and can communicate with very little problem, understanding and responding to natural spoken English at a fairly natural pace.

The tests she takes at her prestigious Taipei high school mostly consist of multiple-choice gap fills of complex grammar and lexis into long paragraphs, or translation. She's good at this too -- better than I would be in a foreign language -- but sometimes they include lexis she's never learned. I ask how her teacher conducts English class. "She has us read the paragraphs out loud. Then she translates them into Chinese for us, and we take notes on the parts we don't understand in English." Does she ever make you speak at all? "Sometimes to answer a question, like what's the answer to #3." Does she ever speak to her peers in English? "Never." Has she ever been asked to express a single idea, or even a sentence, that she created in her own head? "Absolutely not."

She takes a lot of these tests, as preparation for The Big Test. Or rather, Big Tests, because they appear to proliferate like tumors in a failing organ. Not a single one of these tests, Big or Small, includes any sort of actual foreign language communication.

In the part of Taipei that exists in the ether (that is, an online community), someone theorizes that English proficiency in Taiwan is low because Taiwanese are "shy" and "embarrassed" to make mistakes, speak out, take risks, whatever. That certainly is an easy explanation: things could be better, but, you know, culture.

Seven years ago this month, a group of activists stormed their own parliament, occupying it for weeks in order to protest the undemocratic passage of a trade pact. They barricaded doors, shouted, set up systems to stop the occupation from devolving into chaos, and held their ground until someone from the government responded. Some estimate that between 200,000-500,000 Taiwanese took to the streets to support them (my personal estimate is toward the higher end; I was in that crowd.) 

That occupation and the rally it inspired was unusual in its size, but Taiwanese people have been heading downtown to scream at their government ever since they could do so without getting shot (and sometimes even when they couldn't). That doesn't sound very shy or embarrassed to me. 

So this points to an issue not with culture, but with the tests. My student, the great communicator? The exams don't test that. If communication is the goal, they lack basic content and construct validity, because they do not test for communicative competence. There are no oral exams and the written portion is minimal. 

But the tests really matter in ways we can't dismiss -- they determine not only what schools you can attend, but what you can major in. Although they are worthless, the doors they open aren't: it's no wonder people take them seriously.

This curdles into negative washback. I can only speak authoritatively on English language proficiency, where the exams don't test communicative ability. So every school curriculum, almost every teacher syllabus, every class, every page of pointless multiple-choice and gap-fill homework, every metastasization of mock tests before the Big Test(s) all aim to help students not to learn English, but to do well on the test. And then people wonder why English is treated like a school subject rather than a communication tool.

Think of all the bad teaching, kids not learning, parents' traditional thinking, Taiwanese don't like to communicate in English, schools don't teach critical thinking, student don't think English class is useful that you hear. They're like nausea, tiredness and chronic pain: they're all symptoms stemming from the same source: the tests.

The tests are the tumors. You can treat the symptoms -- we need better coursebooks! More teacher training! -- and there might be some improvement, but it won't excise the cancer that's causing the problems.

But that's culture too! I hear you shouting. It's, y'know, Confucian! Traditional! That's how culture works -- it happens once in ancient history and then it never changes!

But it's not. Research among English language teachers in Taiwan has shown that they are aware of more modern teaching methods, and  elementary school teachers are more willing to implement them. Junior high and high school teachers also report willingness, but say that the necessity of preparing students for the major exams is the key reason why they don't do so. Researchers studying English language teaching programs in Taiwan also point out that English teaching curricula and government initiatives are based on outdated assumptions of how and why English is taught and learned. (Incidentally, I have met Drs. Kao, Tsou and Chen, and they all strike me as an exceptional scholars. If you care about English learning in Taiwan, you should be paying attention to their work.)

Anecdotally, I know that Chen is right about schoolteachers being open to communicative teaching approaches in principle. One of my jobs entails working with them; to be fair, the ones who sign up are a self-selecting group of particularly engaged teachers. As we collaborate, it becomes clear that they're already familiar with the core concepts underpinning communication and core-skills oriented professional development. And yet they're also frustrated. With large class sizes and looming exams, how can any of it be practically applied in the classroom? They'd love to teach towards better English language communication, but how can they when that's not on any of the tests, and the tests really matter?

If it was "the culture" holding Taiwan back, then these teachers' responses would have been quite different, or at least based on different reasoning, and Taiwanese voices would not be advocating for updated approaches to English teaching.

Everything they recommend -- better materials, more classroom resources, orienting foreign language education toward an English as a Lingua Franca, more professional development for teachers -- is useful and necessary. But again, these are treatments for symptoms. Teachers don't teach language communicatively because of the looming exams the students must take. English is treated as a school subject because the test makes it one. Teaching approaches and attitudes toward English are symptoms. The test is the tumor.

It's hard to justify the notion that test-driven learning is somehow endemically Taiwanese. "Ancient" Confucian-style learning did include a great deal of memorization, but the student-teacher relationship also mattered, and the test of true brilliance wasn't whether the  mature student could regurgitate what they'd learned, but whether they could put it into practice. Koxinga wasn't considered a brilliant general -- his other numerous failings notwithstanding -- because he had read The Art of War. It was because he could use that advice effectively in battle. 

Not that it matters. For the period when Taiwan was colonized by the Qing, they did little to develop education in Taiwan. Only the sons of the very wealthy attended Confucian academies, which funneled students into the imperial civil service. "Temple schools" weren't worth much either. Here's Manthorpe in Forbidden Nation telling you how that worked for Taiwan:

There was no encouragement for Taiwanese to re-enter the mainstream of the Chinese civil service, even though tuition was made available in 1686....There is no record of an islander passing the second-degree examinations until 1729. In the entire two hundred years of Qing rule, Taiwan produced only 251 second-degree holders. The third and highest-level civil service examinations were always held in the Chinese capital, Beijing, and there is no record of Taiwanese taking part until 1822, when eleven men from the island sat for the tests; only one qualified to become a government official. As far as can be determined, no Taiwanese civil servant ever worked on the island during the Qing tenure.

Then the Japanese came along and implemented their own educational system, mostly in order to equip Taiwanese to be good workers and obedient colonial subjects, assimilated into the Japanese empire but never co-rulers of their own territory or questioning the Japanese identity imposed upon them. There's a lot of history here, which I'll sum up in a quote about the early Japanese attitude toward education from Tsurumi's Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan: 

The policy was to...avoid creating or encouraging any general demand for higher education among Taiwanese. Gotō bluntly told his education personnel that they must take care to see that Taiwanese did not become educated above their stations in life. 

That system turned into one where learning basic literacy and numeracy along with cultural assimilation were the key benchmarks of education. One was never taught to ask too many questions or get too ambitious, although some Taiwanese were able to attain university educations as Japanese rule wore on. When you don't want the general population to think very critically, what happens in the classrooms? The same sort of exam-based regurgitation we see in Taiwan now.

That was the system the KMT inherited when they colonized Taiwan, and to be blunt, they thought it was an excellent brainwashing tool, simply replacing Japanese cultural assimilation with Chinese. The ask-no-questions, just-take-tests orientation was certainly kept in place. I suppose from the KMT's perspective, it saved bullets if people never asked questions in the first place.

What Taiwan has today is essentially that system. Does any of that sound like an education system built from Taiwan's cultural roots? Because to me it seems like a succession of colonizers either ignoring education entirely or imposing their own ideas on what that education should be like. I'm all for immigration, but if immigrants are good for a society, like probiotic yoghurt for your gut, colonizers are carcinogens, like microplastics in your fish.

Do we even know what education through a Taiwanese cultural lens would be like, seeing as it never seems to have been tried? Here's just a taste of what direction this could take:

In addition to being the seventh anniversary of the Sunflower Movement, this month is also the 25th anniversary of Taiwan's first free and full democratic election, a feat that would have been impossible if not for dedicated Taiwanese activists resisting everything that had been shoved down their throats in school. From my student -- the great communicator -- who didn't learn English in school so much as from parents and relatives who spoke it, to these generations of activists who also learned to think critically everywhere but school, it's clear that these ways of learning have a place in the culture here. An education system based on that could be very exciting indeed.

In a society, however, people have a range of beliefs and perceptions. Not long ago, I was talking to a friend in the cafe the Eslite Hsinyi. Her daughter is in high school. and my friend was complaining about the new requirements -- they look at your exam scores but also your "portfolio", which can include just about anything. Things like music lessons or playing a sport tend to fare well. 

"My daughter has to do all of that on top of getting good grades and taking the exam!" she lamented. "It's not fair!"

"I agree it's too much, but the problem is the test," I said. "What's unfair about everything else?"

"It benefits rich families. With the test, if you studied hard, you could do well no matter how poor you were. Everyone had a chance."

I pointed out that this had never been true; for English, the test is not only biased towards students who handle rote memorization well and against those who are simply good communicators, but it also privileges the families who can afford the expensive buxibans that prepare their children for it. We discussed the fact that places at Taiwan's top schools are dominated by the children wealthier urban families (I've seen data for this but can't seem to find it; if I do I'll come back and link). If the tests are "fair" and "any bright child who studies hard can succeed", then that gap should not exist. Yet it does.

The belief that the test is "fair" sits alongside the open secret that you need to pay for expensive buxibans in order to access that "fairness". This is also supported by the industry, which carries significant political clout. If parents believe that their own children might not get the maximum benefit from all that "fairness", and a wealthy special interest group benefits from the continuation of that myth, it can be very hard to fight indeed. Cancer usually is.

The result is hours of physically and mentally unhealthy rote learning on a hamster wheel that nobody seems to know how to stop. My neighbor's children come over for an hour a week of English practice. When we met on Tuesdays, they could barely stay awake, even through games they otherwise tended to enjoy. We switched to Wednesdays and their energy levels improved. I asked why one day, and they told me that their math buxiban ends at 9pm on Mondays, and then they go home and do homework. "We went to bed at one-thirty," they said. And when did they wake up? "Six-twenty." 

Why? "Because this week we have tests every day." Which subjects? "All of them." Are those the big tests? "No, that's next week." So what are these tests? "Practice." 

So when do you actually learn? They shrugged their shoulders. They had understood the question; they just didn't know the answer. 

It would be easy to blame the parents for pushing their kids through such an exhausting, expensive and traumatizing system which doesn't even promote core learning skills, the kids who obediently run that treadmill and the teachers who operate the machinery. It would be easy to castigate them all for not valuing "critical thinking". That's too simplistic, however. They're all just trying to survive in a system none of them can change alone. Their attitudes aren't the problem, they're a symptom. The test is the tumor. 

This attitude can lead to dark outcomes, as well. Years ago someone asked my advice about her teenage nephew. He lived in a far-flung New Taipei suburb and woke up at 5am every day to commute to school in Taipei, an hour and a half each way. Then he'd go to buxiban in Taipei until 10pm, before slogging home and doing homework until well past midnight. Then he'd wake up at 5 and do it all again. Weekends meant more buxiban, and more homework. The college entrance exams were coming, but honestly, she said, it had been going on for years.

She offered more details about their last meeting, which had concerned her greatly. I can't tell that story without being more specific than I feel comfortable with, but his behavior was worrying enough that I advised that he not only see a doctor, but that his parents do something about the untenable school situation. At best, he was dangerously exhausted. 

The concerned aunt fell out of my orbit not long after, and I never found out what happened to her nephew. Regardless of whether my advice triggered any change, I hope he found his way through. 

Why does all of this matter now? I could have written this post at any point over the last 13 years that Lao Ren Cha has existed. 

Well, I'm a foreign language teaching professional, and Bilingual by 2030 has been in the news of late. It seems everyone has an opinion. Can CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) succeed? What does it mean to teach English as a tool rather than a school subject? Should be importing foreign teachers, training local ones or both? What support should other foreign and local languages receive? Why does Taiwan need to improve its overall English proficiency at all? What does internationalization mean? How can we ensure the rich-poor and urban-rural divide isn't deepened? What role do critical thinking skills play? (I'm leaving out some of the less thoughtful takes; not everyone with an opinion has actually read the policy document.) 

These questions matter, but every last one of them is asking about treatment of a symptom. If, throughout years of English classes, students are subjected to multiple batteries of tests -- so many tests that they literally don't know when actual learning is meant to occur -- then it doesn't matter if the teachers are foreign or local, trained or not. They will prepare students for those tests. English will be treated as a school subject because the test renders it one. The test is the tumor.

If the goal of the Tsai administration and the Ministry of Education is to improve proficiency and communicative ability, and for Taiwan to be an internationally-accessible country with more global visibility, that won't happen if the assessments of educational attainment don't test proficiency or communicative ability. There are tests that do indeed aim to assess proficiency, such as IELTS. That test is problematic in its own way, but the English language exams students take in public schools don't even try.

It won't matter whether they're pushing general English classes with communicative teaching, or CLIL and EMI. It won't matter that research shows these methods tend to work, especially if they are implemented in earlier grades, although there are several factors influencing this. Students, teachers and parents will resist subject courses in English as long as there's a difficult and competitive test at the end, and preparing for it is slowed down by learning in a second language.

Arguably, the main reason why Taiwanese students spend years in English classes but do not always come out proficient in English comes down to negative washback from the tests. The tests don't assess communicative ability, so communication is not part of the class. The proficiency issues that these methods aim to treat are symptoms. Societal resistance to changing those classroom approaches? A symptom. The test is the tumor. 

No initiative -- not Bilingual by 2030, let alone anything that came before it -- is ever going to be successful if it doesn't treat the tumor.

This is arguably also a crucial time for Taiwan. I pointed out on Taiwan Context that one of the main reasons Taiwan needs English isn't to do business, it's to make itself heard on the international stage. In Pedagogies of Hope and Resistance, the teacher-researchers quote the thoughts of their Palestinian students, who say that they want to learn English to communicate with the West, so that people in other countries would know more about Palestine and their struggle. (Data on such perceptions is inconclusive, but anecdotally, I do see a change.)

Although I don't intend to make a direct analogy between Taiwan and Palestine, that same need exists in Taiwan. Palestinian students don't always learn English for job opportunities, and commentators love to point out that most Taiwanese workers won't need it, either. However, other countries -- such as Taiwan's peers, Japan and South Korea --don't need to constantly prove to the world that they are indeed countries. Taiwan does. To communicate that, its most ardent activists need English, and we can't know where those activists will come from until they're already in the education system.

With China inching closer to a long-threatened invasion, that need to communicate complex ideas about Taiwan's history, society and political situation as a country with the world has never been more urgent. 

But that's not going to happen as long as the language classes students take are oriented towards a series of tests that don't assess that kind of communicative competence. If you want learners to acquire certain skills and knowledge, the assessments the undertake should test what you want them to acquire.

The problem isn't the schools. It's not the parents, or the students. It's not the teachers. It's not "culture" or "society". It's not "traditional" or "Confucian" views of education or insufficient teacher training (though it's true that university teachers don't generally receive much, and that should be addressed). It's not even Bilingual by 2030 or the Ministry of Education. They all exhibit symptoms but they are not the disease.

It's the test. The test is the tumor. 

If the government isn't willing to tackle this, then the tumor will continue to metastasize as we waste time treating symptoms, while telling ourselves that the symptoms are the disease. Then we'll wonder why our organs keep failing.

If TutorABC isn't a Chinese company, they should stop acting like it

Translation of the relevant part: a teacher was fired by TutorABC for saying "I'm Taiwanese"

Guest Post: The aftermath of colonial education in Taiwan

The hiatus continues, but so does my experiment in guest posting. While I wrap up my dissertation, I've been trying to open up this platform to other voices - especially Taiwanese voices. This is re-posted with permission from Annie Lim, lightly edited from her Twitter thread. You can read the ThreadReader version here and on Twitter (where you can also follow Annie) here. I think this is an important story to share because while it's a personal family story on one level, on another it tells the story of the psychological scars of a generation, and how it affects their relationships with their descendants.

- Jenna

The aftermath of colonial education and decolonizing is really tough, especially for families. My parents grew up having the entirety of Japanese era ripped out from text book and only learnt about ROC and China. 228 is a huge taboo to them, talking about it means causing conflict. 

We took a family trip to Tainan and me being a history geek made everyone visit a bunch of museums. The thing about Tainan is that unlike Taipei, people really put their heart and money into saving history (in Taipei many evidence of the past were intentionally whipped out by KMT).

Bits and pieces of colonial past (including the White Terror) are EVERYWHERE in Tainan. And my parents can usually appreciate the beauty of the structures. However, I can see them visibly flinch when anything about the KMT's wrongdoing is mentioned. Even when we are in an art museum admiring Tan Ting-pho's painting...the exhibition has a timeline matching artworks with his life. And in the end it's just, "killed in front of Chiayi station in 228". My parents immediately turned and left the room with me standing there feeling heartbroken.

My parents love us deeply, and they feel a strong sense of regret on how they "failed" to protect their children from the influence of the evil DPP. They are not KMT supporters, but will always choose KMT over any other parties bc anything KMT does looked justified.

Yes, they know KMT massacred people. But they will also argue that its all in the past and DPP is obviously worse than KMT (when we aren't even talking about DPP at all). They don't wish to argue with me, so they choose to leave the scene even when we are just looking at art. 

And here's the thing - everything is politics. Art, history, language, food, music, buildings...everything. Just because Tainan isn't hiding it's past, doesn't mean they are "too political". But, even stating the truth (such as this person was wrongfully killed) is too much. When we are reading about something built in 1930, my mom commented: "Oh! It's from 民國29年" [Republic of China Year 29] and was visibly upset when my sister corrected her saying that 1930 was before "retrocession" so it shouldn't be read in ROC years.

Our family has been in TW for centuries, but here we are, restraining ourselves from latching into fights, because someone taught our parents that this is a land with no history, and killed off anyone who could have taught them otherwise. 

They do not understand why I am so fixated on figuring out WHAT it is that I have been missing.

This kind of behavior can be seen in many people growing up under heavy censorship. Knowledge like this could have brought them physical harm so they will actively stay away from anything that could've make them feel "rebellious". Staying silent and obeying is how they stayed safe. This is the scary part about censorship: the danger isn't always exterior. In order to stay alive, people will actively build the "safe narrative" into their system and stay away from anything that tells otherwise.

Native speakerism, teacher training, culture and place

I don't have a good cover photo so just pretend this is metaphorical or something. 

I've been meaning to write this for awhile but current events have been pushing it to the bottom of the queue. Feeling depressed and anxious about the state of affairs in Hong Kong and the rise of Big Uncle Dirk in Taiwan, however, I think it's time for a more uplifting topic.

Teacher training has been my main source of income for about a year now; my trainees are mostly (though not entirely) locals whose first language(s) are not English, but are highly proficient English users. There's a mix of experience levels, though most have had no previous training. 

In the real world, where this is what I'm 'known' for as much as talking smack about Taiwanese politics, I get asked all the time what it's like, how I feel about it, what my impressions are. So I thought I'd share something about that here, as I so rarely write about my actual profession.

Having no particular order in mind for this, I'll just start with what I think is the most interesting part, focusing mostly on the cram school system. 

Native speakerism has been, quite honestly, a cancer in English language education in Taiwan.

I appreciate and value that the work I do is one tiny cog in the fight to end that. Training local teachers who already have the language proficiency but need the classroom know-how to plan and execute a lesson, ascertain and meet learner needs, manage a class room and understand key theoretical basics gives them a leg up: a piece of paper, yes, but also actual knowledge and skills that will make them more effective in the classroom and therefore more likely to succeed in a market that is biased against them.

Not that the word 'native speaker' means anything. I have a former student whom you would not be able to guess, even by accent, was a 'non-native' speaker unless you combed carefully through her writing. I've also met 'native speakers' who were not particularly proficient language users (yes, that's a thing, and the major English proficiency tests generally acknowledge this) and people who have used English since early childhood from countries like India, Singapore and the Philippines but are considered 'non-native'. 

Because, of course, when people say "native speaker", what they really mean is "white". They'll deny that of course - I'm sure I'll get some angry comments - but you it's true. You know it's harder for non-white English teachers, whether they're what might be considered a 'native speaker' or not, to find jobs and command similar pay to white teachers. This was also the attitude on display when everyone's favorite Uncle Dirk dismissed the idea of English teachers from the Philippines (who generally can be considered what most people would call a 'native speaker'), saying "how can a Maria be our teacher?"

Although I don't think that there is a big difference in the classroom between an untrained foreigner and an untrained local with strong English language proficiency, it's hard to argue this to your average person. Training up locals on what I think is a quality course helps make the argument that a "non-native" teacher is no less capable just a little more persuasive.

To be frank, it also feels good to have mostly relinquished my former place in what I see as a racist system. I don't particularly like being a white lady taking up a teaching job that an experienced and trained local could do, and being paid more to do it. It's not that I want to stop all future foreign English teachers from coming here because all the jobs have been taken by locals - I just want the bar to be higher, and the best way to raise the bar is to have better-trained local talent as competition. Bringing in trained and experienced talent from the Philippines and other countries is a great idea as well, and that will be easier if more parents and students (including adult learners) get used to a non-white face leading the class.

This is related to another aspect of teacher training that I find deeply rewarding: the creation of future role models. My trainees, when they become teachers, can be role models to local learners in a way that I could never be as a "native speaker" from an Inner Circle culture (look it up). Someone learning English as a foreign language in Taiwan is going to have a different experience, context and set of reference points and will benefit from having someone with a similar background and experience to look up to and think, "if she can do it, I can too". That's not only more achievable than trying to be 'more like' someone like me, which sets up the impossible standard of learning English as a second language in an attempt to imitate people for whom it's a first language, but I'd argue it's less problematic as well. If the notion of encouraging Taiwanese to imitate Westerners - especially white Westerners - as though we are some sort of ideal - doesn't squick you out...it should. 

Here's where I admit that I lied above: I don't think that's the most interesting issue concerning my job. But I needed to say it to set up my next point. The cultural/identity aspects of Taiwan's education are often thought of as being in flux, depending on who's in power, between "Taiwanization" and "Sinicization". I'd argue, however, that since the debate about identity formation through education has existed in Taiwan - that is, ever since the Taiwanese electorate had a say in the matter - that it's actually been a three-way pull between Taiwanization, Sinicization and internationalization. It's a bit more complicated than that, with both sides trying to claim 'internationalization' alongside their preferred foundation of 'Taiwanization' or 'Sinicization' and both sides being somewhat insincere in the implementation process (though I'd argue the 'Sinicization' side, which I'm sure you've guessed is spearheaded by the KMT, is somewhat more insincere). 

I also happen to believe that 'Taiwanization' is more compatible with internationalization than 'Sinicization' is, despite being dismissed by critics as a form of ethnic nationalism (which it no longer is - if anything that attitude is more evident on the pan-blue, pro-China side). Taiwanization doesn't only seek to promote the notion of a distinct Taiwanese identity, which is a civic identity as much as an ethnic one, and a nation founded on that principle. It also seeks to situate that identity, and Taiwan as a nation, in a regional and global context. Sinicization doesn't go far beyond "we are all Chinese and you just have to accept this identity we've assigned to you". Although this wasn't always the case, it's currently more of an inward-looking movement.

What does all that have to do with teacher training? Well, a lot of people misconstrue 'internationalization' as going no further than a concept of English teaching as something done by foreigners, to Taiwanese students - and bringing in more foreigners to do this. The smiling white person at the front of the classroom telling Taiwanese how to be better "global citizens" through improved English, with "global citizens" of course meaning "people who act in ways that make Westerners feel comfortable".

In a word, barf.

I see internationalization as improving the state of foreign language education without overly focusing on Western countries (which isn't to say that language can be divorced from culture - the general consensus in the field is that it cannot). It's understanding not just the cultural, international and socieconomic context of English learning, but English learning as appropriation - learning it for one's own purposes, to communicate with the outside world as a lingua franca - rather than subjugation to a foreign ideal. And you don't accomplish that with idealized Westerners at the front of every class. You do it with locals up there, or teachers from a range of international backgrounds beyond "Bill is from Canada, and Janice is from the UK!" It helps society get used to the notion that English doesn't have to be a "thing we learn from and about white people", but something additive rather than subtractive, taught for themselves and (mostly) by others who may be like them. And you accomplish that by training up mostly local teachers.

Finally, I simply appreciate a chance to offer the fundamentals of good teaching practice to teachers who will go out and not only use them, but build on them. It's been argued that the sort of approaches I champion are themselves ultimately derived from teaching practices that suit Western cultures better, but I'd dispute that. First, we do talk about methodologies that are currently out-of-fashion, though I don't encourage them. Besides, such methods weren't common in Western countries either until the late 20th century: before that, the way language was taught wasn't that different from how it's taught in much of Asia now. The difference is one of time and institutional constraint, not one of culture.

More importantly, those 'traditional' methods are research-proven to be less effective, depending on what your goal is. If that goal is to communicate, do you think sitting in a 50-person class memorizing texts and repeating grammar points will be the most effective approach, regardless of culture? That English class in Taiwanese schools alone, without outside practice, does not lead to particularly stellar results, should be sufficient evidence that it will not.

But, most vitally, it's that local teachers and students have shown themselves to be open to other approaches. Despite unfounded stereotypes to the contrary, your average Taiwanese student does want their language classes to be more vibrant - fun, useful, communicative - than a traditional grammar-focused approach affords. Your average Taiwanese teacher wants to deliver that, as well, although institutional constraints (such as testing requirements) make it difficult. And as time passes, some of my best students will become head teachers or teacher trainers themselves, and will impart their own advice on what works and what doesn't, and "what works" will be forged of an entirely home-grown consensus. That can happen without me in the picture, but I feel grateful that I get to be a part of it. 

That's just it - I'm not seeking to put people down (such as untrained foreign teachers who come and get jobs easily) or push my own ideas on others. I just want the state of English teaching in Taiwan to be better. My Big Bad - my Final Boss - is probably the national-level exam (and the over-testing that takes place leading up to it). Although there have been changes and improvements, it's not nearly where it needs to be in terms of creating positive washback on the classes learners take. There's not much I can do about that now, but if the overall state of language teaching is both more localized and simply better, it's a step in the right direction. 

Improve English education in Taiwan with this ONE WEIRD TRICK!

My work in Taiwan is dominated by adult students who ask for help with accent training. They need to do business with Koreans, Japanese, various speakers of Southeast Asian languages, Australians, Latinx people, Indians or various Europeans.

You see, all their teachers have been from an "Inner Circle" country (UK, Ireland, US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand). They are therefore most used to those accents, North American ones in particular. They might meet people with those accents, but for business, there is a real need to better understand other Englishes.

My life in Taiwan is unfortunately punctuated by people bloviating about how racism in the English learning industry is somehow acceptable because of "choice" or "the market" or something (their arguments don't make much sense, because they are constructed mostly to avoid confronting uncomfortable issues rather than as stand-alone opinions).

They might try to say that this is acceptable because of some sort of subjective "clarity" of certain accents, although of course how clear an accent is depends in great part on how exposed you are to it compared to other accents (these people are not exactly experts in second language acquisition).

Some pontificate on how it is preferable to be taught by a "native speaker", usually with a very poor understanding of second language acquisition or what being a "native" or "non-native" speaker might actually mean. There is even less recognition that many people in India, Singapore, Nigeria, the Philippines (and more) are, in fact, native speakers, let alone questioning why they aren't recognized as such.

(The answer is racism, by the way. But that's hard for Johnny McBackpacker to admit when it casts doubt on his strongly-held opinion that "the market" is the Fairest Arbiter Of Them All.)

My life in England is characterized by mostly non-native speaking classmates, all of whom are fluent in English, and all of whom know more about the pedagogy of how to teach English than the average Johnny McBackpacker.

Sure, they have accents. But many of them have the accents that my adult students say they need to better understand for their work. Every last one of them is qualified to teach in Taiwan, but many if not most would struggle to get hired here.

We talk about all sorts of things, not least of which is the idea of English as a lingua franca (ELF) or English as an international language (EIL). Most English learners speak regularly with other non-native speakers, some perhaps almost entirely so, especially if they are using English in business or academia.

Back in Taiwan, the consequences are not surprising - all that learning of English from Canadians, Brits and Americans (the so-called 'preferable' native speakers) has actually put those students who tell me they need help with accents at a disadvantage. They get to work and realize, oh, all that time I spent with Teacher Becky listening to dialogues between Tim and Karen, but I actually have to communicate with people who don't speak like Becky, Tim or Karen. I have to do business with Sandeep and Cheng and Fumiko and Nnedi and Abdurrahman and Lupa. 

Of course, most people making hiring decisions are not educators. Even if they realize that they are actually disadvantaging their learners by not providing the English education many instrumentally-motivated Taiwanese learners are likely to need, they don't care. "It's the market." And the market wants white - even Inner Circle "native speaker" teachers who aren't white struggle to get hired.

And I just can't help but think, if y'all hired fluent English-speaking teachers from around the world, ensuring that most learners through their time studying English were exposed to a variety of Englishes, maybe not so many adult learners would come to me asking for help, which I have trouble giving with my Standard American accent. Maybe if we hired more English teachers whose usage represented the speakers and Englishes our learners would actually be communicating with, we wouldn't have this problem.

I mean, I don't want to say "duh", but...duh?