Chapter 21 Conclusion The characteristics of Taiwanese culture

Culture is a vivid portrayal of human existence and activities. It forms and develops under certain geographical and historical conditions. Wherever people go, culture must follow, where it takes root, blossoms, and bears fruit.This is a natural phenomenon independent of human subjective will. From ancient times to the present, there have been three groups of mainland Chinese immigrants to Taiwan: the first group was the "Zuozhen people" and "Changbin people" in the late Paleolithic period. They lived about 15,000 to 30,000 years ago or even earlier. The second batch of immigrants originally belonged to the ancient Yue nationality in the south of the mainland. The earliest immigrants to Taiwan can be as early as the early Neolithic age 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, and the latest were from the Han Dynasty about 2,000 years ago. Most of today's aborigines are their descendants; the third group is the immigration of the Han nationality, which began during the Song and Yuan Dynasties and ended in the late 1940s.The significance of this batch of immigrants is very important. Taiwan was able to gradually expand and the Han culture was able to spread on the island, all of which were the direct result of the massive immigration of the Han nationality.Despite the decades-long colonial rule of the Netherlands and Japan, the tradition of Chinese culture in Taiwan has always been continuous and prosperous, showing its tenacious vitality.

Looking at the history of Taiwan's cultural development and its appearances, we can roughly summarize the following four characteristics: antiquity, lateness, diversity, and homology. The so-called "ancientness" firstly means that Taiwan's prehistoric culture is quite long. As early as tens of thousands of years ago in the late Paleolithic period, human beings lived and lived there; With the creation of art and music, they "can make fine cloth, and also make patterns on it, and have articles to decorate it" ("Linhai Tuzhi·Yizhou Chronicle"), and can "song like a dog howling, Entertaining with each other".In the Sui Dynasty, they were able to "carve animals", "dance and dance, stepping on their hooves, singing and dancing with one person, everyone is in harmony, the sound is quite sad, holding women on their arms, and dancing with hands." Great progress has been made in both art and singing and dancing; But I have already understood that "looking at the moon's profit and loss, you can record the seasons, and wait for the prosperity and decline of vegetation to think of the year", in fact, you have the simplest and oldest "calendar" ("Sui Shu·Biography of Dongyi").The Atayal people were able to tie knots and record events very early.Long before the Han Chinese immigrated to Taiwan, the Bunun people had long been able to use simple symbols to express certain meanings.If you use ▲ to represent a day,

The so-called "delay" means that Taiwan developed and entered a civilized society much later than the mainland. It was not until the Song and Yuan dynasties that Han culture was introduced, the Ming Dynasty gradually entered the development period, and the Ming and Zheng dynasties entered the stage of development. Threshold of Feudalism.At that time, the feudal civilization in mainland China had lasted for at least two thousand years.However, although the development of Taiwan was late, once the advanced blood of Han culture was injected, it developed quickly. Not only did it leapfrog the development stage of slave society, it went directly from primitive society to feudal civilization, and it only took about 200 years. In just a few years, it has caught up with or even surpassed the economic and cultural development level of most provinces and regions in the mainland of the motherland. This cannot but be said to be a miracle worth exploring.

Due to historical reasons, Taiwanese culture also presents obvious "diversity": it not only has the "indigenous culture" of the aborigines; it also has the remarkable characteristics of "Fujian culture" and "Lingnan culture"; , "Wuyue culture", "Jingchu culture" and other cultural characteristics in other parts of the mainland; in addition, there is also a considerable degree of "foreign culture" (Western and Japanese culture) influence.It is precisely because Taiwan is more impacted and influenced by various Eastern and Western cultures than the mainland, and thus absorbs and integrates many beneficial elements of various cultures. In the long-term historical evolution process, it gradually formed a distinctive culture. Taiwan's local culture has continuously enriched the connotation of Chinese culture and made its own contribution to the development of Chinese culture.

However, the "same origin" of Taiwanese culture is self-evident: whether it is "Fujian culture", "Lingnan culture", "Wuyue culture", "Jingchu culture" or "Central Plains culture", All are the regional cultures of the Chinese nation with "Chinese culture" as the main body; and "indigenous culture" is mostly a branch of ancient Chinese culture introduced from the south of the mainland in ancient times; even the Japanese culture in "foreign culture" As we all know, it has also been greatly influenced by Chinese culture.Therefore, we can say unequivocally that Taiwanese culture is a natural extension and development of Chinese culture, and belongs to the same inseparable cultural system as the motherland.

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of cross-strait relations, various cultural exchanges between Taiwan and the mainland are developing increasingly extensively and deeply. We believe that Taiwanese culture will absorb more and more nutritious from the motherland's Chinese culture matrix Milk, so as to grow healthier and stronger.