Music Education in Taiwan Taiwan (Officially Named the Republic
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CHAPTER FOUR MUSIC EDUCATION IN TAIWAN Taiwan (officially named the Republic of China; hereafter the ROC) is bordered on the east by the Pacific Ocean and on the west by the For- mosa Strait, which separates it from mainland China by over 100 km. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), in the sixteenth century, there were only a few Han immigrants living in Taiwan, which was populated mainly by Malayo-Polynesian aborigines who had been living there for thousands of years. The first Europeans to visit Taiwan were the Por- tuguese, who arrived in 1590 and were so impressed with the island that they called it Formosa, which means “beautiful” in Latin. Dutch traders came to Taiwan in 1623 and used the island as a base for com- mercial activities with Japan and coastal areas of China. The following year, Taiwan became a Dutch colony. The Dutch East India Company administered the island and its predominantly aboriginal population until 1662, establishing a tax system and schools, in which aboriginal languages were taught using romanized scripts (Blusse and Everts, 2000; Campbell, 1915). In 1664 the Ming resistance forces directed by Zheng Cheng-gong (also known as Koxinga) expelled the Dutch and set up a local Chinese government in Taiwan (Li, 2009). It was the first time for Taiwan to be incorporated into the Chinese Empire. Taiwan was thus incorporated into the Chinese Empire for the first time. In 1895, the Japanese defeated the Manchus in the Sino-Japanese War; Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonosek, and remained under its control until 1945. During Japanese colonial rule, the people of Taiwan were cut off from mainstream Chinese culture and compelled to learn Japanese language and culture (Chen, 2001; Clough, 1996; Liao and Wang, 2006). Strong ties with traditional Chi- nese culture were re-established only after mainlanders returned to Taiwan after 1945. In 1945, civil war broke out in China between the Kuomintang (KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) and the Chinese Com- munist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong (1893–1976). After its defeat in 1949, the KMT fled to Taiwan and Chiang proclaimed Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC. More than two millions of Chiang’s 104 chapter four followers came with him to Taiwan,1 which Chiang contentiously claimed to be the legitimate government of China. In addition to administrators of the KMT Party, government members, as well as military men and their families, a considerable number of the main- landers were intellectuals including historians, writers, painters, Chi- nese opera performers and other strong supporters and advocates of traditional Chinese culture. The ROC advocated the pro-capitalist teachings of Sun Yat-sen in opposition to Chinese socialism. Since the mid-1980s, Taiwan has gradually moved from authoritari- anism to democracy. Chiang Ching-kuo (the son of Chiang Kai-shek and President of the ROC from 1978 to 1988) wisely tolerated the formation of an opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986, and the lifting of martial law in 1987. On March 23, 1996, Lee Teng-hui (President of the ROC and Chairman of the KMT from 1988 to 2000) (1923–) became the first directly-elected president, winning 54% of the popular vote. During his term as President, Lee supported “Taiwanization” to encourage the assimilation of the ROC into the entire Taiwanese population. During and after Lee’s presi- dency, Taiwan’s citizenry underwent a major change in national iden- tity (Jacobs and Liu, 2007). In the early 1990s, it began to refer to itself as “the ROC on Taiwan” or “Taiwan” (rather than “the ROC”) on many public occasions, in government documents, and, more impor- tantly, in its bid for the United Nations membership. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian (President of the ROC from 2000–08) (1950–) became the first directly-elected non-KMT president, and the first native-born president. He was subsequently criticized for provok- ing China with an aggressive pro-independence campaign. On May 20, 2008, following a seventeen-point victory in Taiwan’s presidential elec- tion, Ma Ying-jeou2 (Mayor of Taipei from 1988 to 2006, and Chairman 1 The history of modern China includes a history of struggle and reconciliation between the KMT (or Chinese Nationalist Party) and the CCP. The Chinese Civil War (known as the Nationalist-Communist Civil War), which lasted from April 1927 to May 1950, was waged between the KMT and the CCP, and reflected the ideological chasm between the Western-supported Nationalist KMT and the Soviet-supported Communist CCP. On 21 April 1949, Communist forces crossed the Yangtze River, capturing Nan- king, capital of the KMT’s ROC. The fighting between the PCC and the KMT ended with the Landing Operation on Hainan Island (also known as the Hainan Island Campaign), that resulted in the Communist conquest of the island in April 1950 and of Choushan Island in May 1950. The KMT was determined to “counterattack on the mainland” and regain its authority over it; whilst the CCP determined to “liberate Taiwan”. 2 Ma Ying-jeou was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. He received his first law degree from National Taiwan University in 1972. After a two-year stint .