Who am I? This is a question that haunted me for many nights, when I can't help myself thinking about this question on the bed, you bet I'll get panda eyes next day.
Many Taiwanese people at the same age as I do have this same question, we don't really know who we are and think ourselves as Chinese by the influence of KMT government education system, we are almost brainwashed with Chinese history, geology, language, identity, and what country should I be loyal to, we are educated like SS in German WWII period, preparing our self with knowledge of the fantasized "Great China" and prepare to take back our land from traitors.
After 2000 presidential election, the world we live changed. Although my family start telling me more truth about the corruption of KMT government before that, they still didn't mention about what they do in the past.
After 2000, everything changed, the corruption is only just the tip of iceberg, they hide our original fate for decide our own future by the silence of US government that time for US's own interest, and eliminated a lot of our Taiwanese elite professionals who get really good education and with all kinds of knowledge to propel Taiwan into a country that might be as prosperous as Japan, just for the control of this tiny island for their life to perish without the fear of communists, they wipe out or assimilated the capable people who can lead. This is the 228 event that we all know today, but still without details and who should be responsible for.
If this is bad enough for innocent people lived in Taiwan, let me tell you, there are worse things happen before. Just a few month ago I found an article and translated to start this blog, in that article and related one, I found that 85% of Taiwanese is not originated from China dominated area, we are just assimilated by the Qing Dynasty that time. As you all know for those strong and invasive culture, they gave us new names, they gave us new "family history", they teach you to become a Chinese and forget or hide your true identity, which most people accepted to prevent their land being taken away, and most after a few generation, shamefully denied they are aboriginal natives since that will make them "lower rank" or uncivilized.
So when I think about who am I? It's a really hard question. My father still believe the family history book that my grandpa have, which he took from my grand grandpa. But look into my face in the mirror, it's really hard to believe I'm a Chinese descendant as the facial structure or my skin color tends to tell me I'm more like a Vietnamese plus Philippine, I even have once been recognized as a Thailand people once when I went there with my classmate during my college graduation travel.
This question is haunting me recently, I have a lot of thoughts about how to trace my origin. And there are also fears for doing so, what if my family(father side) indeed were come from China? I kinda hate this idea. I don't really hate Chinese people, but I hate Chinese government and their education. They tell you to die for the country that slaughter your people, they make things up to frame those who dare to speak the truth, and now they control the media to brainwash people again and again to hate whatever against their interest. How can I deal with the truth if my father is right about family history?
I'll find out someday, I want to film a documentary if I have enough money, I want to fund archaeologist that help recover the damaged or I can even say erased history about our true identity. There are just so many things to do, and there won't be much time. From the assimilation policy taken place, it's about 400 more years, that would count for around 20 generations if we average it for 20 per generation. That's a long way back since before Qing Dynasty, there are basically only a few written records from some European adventurers that time. For each generation passed, it will be harder and harder to recover the truth. (Like one article is speculating from statistical model of population growth that most of our people are natives before the DNA research are done, since there aren't many documentations to trace back.
This might just be one of my outlet of the emotion from recent government failure, I'm truly deeply concern about the future of our people, but there are so little I can do now. I can only write, and earn more money using my profession to contribute more in the future.
8.13.2008
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