Taiwan Diaspora
Read the following statement of Hu A-Ting and respond to following questions. Your response should be written in the form of short essay. Please do not separately answer each question. Try to integrate your response with the brief concluding remarks of your opinions or comments. The midterm essay won’t be hard, should be covered by my PPT and readings. The logics of statement, integration of responses, and personal opinions are the keys for grading.
Citations from readings or other references are required, especially to support your arguments and comments.
Part I. Statement: A Hakka migrant, Hu A-Ting in Taiwan
Mr. Hu A-Ting moved to a Hakka village in southern Taiwan in 1859, was recruited by his fellow villagers in Guangdong. With legal permission of migration, unlike his fellow villagers, A-Ting traveled back to home village every five years for the ancestor worship or searching marriage in the first decade after arrival. He however married a Taiwanese aboriginal in 1867 for the reason of land ownership but also for the appearance of the bride. The bride looked no difference from any Hakka girls in home villages and Taiwan.
In one warm spring, A-Ting walked on the stepping-stones that studded the path to the little hill where his wife’s tribe was, he accidently noticed a blond-hair foreigner who was shooting photos in the woods. He never saw camara before but unknowingly felt a new age was coming. He returned home. A strange feeling of sorrow arose when he stared at the Confucius books on the table…
*Double spaced, APA style, 3 pages (approx. 800 words).
Part II. Questions:
There were multiple reasons for A-Ting to travel back to home village but still married with an aboriginal.
What could be the possible motives for his decision to travel back and get marriage in Taiwan? And why his fellow villagers decided to stayed in Taiwan for ancestor worship and marriage? Explain this phenomenon by “localization theory”. How did it mirror the transformation of self-identity of being “Taiwanese”?
What could be the possible “new age” that A-Ting felt when he saw the foreigner? And what the major changes in Taiwan after the 1870s?
What is your definitions of “migration“ and “diaspora”? Are they different? Does Mr. Hu’s earcgoly career reveal the difference?