Taiwanese spoken here
Hakkas tend to take a low profile because of their weak economic status. Ability to speak Mandarin is something everyone needs in Taiwan, of course, but most Hakkas who do business in urban areas also learn to speak fluent Taiwanese in order to communicate with customers and, even more importantly, to hide their Hakka identity and avoid discrimination.
Even in predominantly Hakka towns, there is a deeply ingrained concept that "if you want to go into business, you have to speak Taiwanese." The city of Chungli in Taoyuan County, for example, has over 200,000 Hakka residents, and is acknowledged as the largest urban concentration of Hakkas in Taiwan. Take a stroll in Chungli, however, and what languages do you hear? Mandarin and Taiwanese. In fact, you might even run across a few Southeast Asian laborers speaking Thai or Tagalog. What you won't hear is Hakka.
This reporter jumped into a taxi and asked the driver, a man in his 50s who spoke perfect Taiwanese, why he would choose to go looking for work in a Hakka city like Chungli. He sheepishly explained that he was actually a Hakka from the local area.
Explains the driver (Wu Kui-hsin): "We Hakkas are the majority here, it is true, and we have a lot of money, but we don't like to go into business. We prefer to rent our business property on the main streets to Fujianese outsiders. We just collect rent." Over the years, all the stores have come to be run by Fujianese, and Taiwanese has become the language of business. Taxi drivers like Wu naturally take to speaking Taiwanese. Sometimes he will pick up riders that he knows perfectly well are Hakkas, but he still speaks Taiwanese with them, and it even feels quite natural to do so. His linguistic situation is even crazier at home-both he and his wife are Hakka, but they speak different Hakka dialects, so they prefer Taiwanese! Their children can only speak Taiwanese.
Where do they speak Hakka?
Traditional Hakkas are not adept at politics or business, which would seem to put them at odds with the spirit of modern city life.
Hsu Yu-ling, a student at Kaohsiung Medical College, grew up in a Hakka town in Miaoli County. She indicates that although the younger generation does not speak Hakka as often as older people do, you can still hear Hakka spoken on the streets, and at weddings and other festive occasions someone will always start singing Hakka folk songs. She does not feel that Hakka culture is in danger of disappearing. At the same time, however, she has not had the opportunity to speak Hakka since coming to Kaohsiung, and there is no place in this big city where she can go to get in touch with her Hakka roots. She feels a lot like a tiny creek that has suddenly flowed into a big ocean-all sense of the creek is quickly disappearing into the vast expanse of sea.
Yu-ling's junior high classmate, Kao Wei-tang, now serves as president of the Hakka students' club at Taipei Medical College. He recognizes Yu-ling's experience as a familiar one. When Hakka students who have been in Taipei for a long time get together, they always speak in Mandarin. Why? Says Kao: "I don't know. No one takes the lead in speaking Hakka. Maybe everybody would feel strange speaking Hakka in Taipei." The Hakka movement calls upon Hakkas to speak more Hakka in public places, and to use Hakka more often even when discussing things not directly related `to home life, but the psychological barriers are formidable.
The Ministry of Education recently adopted a plan to require elementary and junior high school students to study one of Taiwan's non-Mandarin languages (students will choose between Taiwanese, Hakka, and the various indigenous languages), but Li Yung-chi, a professor of history at National Taiwan University, has reservations about the effectiveness of this idea in spite of the fact that he himself is a Hakka who was involved in getting the Ministry of Education to adopt this plan. He bluntly points out that there are many concepts and situations that are difficult to discuss in Hakka, and there are not so many qualified teachers or teaching materials. Li indicates that he would not be opposed if his children decided to study Taiwanese rather than Hakka.
Cream of the crop
It must be stressed, however, that the underprivileged state of the Hakkas as a group does not mean that Hakkas are incapable of individual success. In fact, the Hakkas are noted for their diligence and love of learning. High-ranking Hakkas are to be found in large numbers in all walks of life, including government, business, academia, and the media.
Academia Sinica's Hsu Cheng-kuang points out that the Chinese people attach great value to education, and this is especially true of the Hakkas, who have been called the "Jews of East Asia." With the doors to the elite circles of politics and business virtually closed, Hakkas generally take advantage of every opportunity the government provides to ensure that their children develop into intellectuals. Hakkas parlay knowledge and skills into high-level jobs, and with the hard-working nature for which they are so well known, their bosses typically come to rely heavily upon them. They take the low-profile path to success-no need to vie for the top spot or take risks.
Activists in the Hakka movement criticize this type of behavior, saying that it seeks assimilation into the mainstream at the cost of lower visibility for the Hakkas as an ethnic group, but Hsu Cheng-kuang argues that this is a path that Hakkas have chosen for themselves on the basis of a sober assessment of Taiwanese society. In Hsu's opinion, this path has brought the Hakkas success, and is most in line with Hakka interests.
In recent years, Hakkas have gradually come to realize that economic power is the invisible hand that controls everything. Says Fan Yang-sung, "Economic power is what determines a culture's ability to survive. The economic base determines the direction of government policy." For this reason, the Hakka movement has gradually shifted its focus from the government to the private sector, and from cultural and linguistic preservation to the development of economic power.
The new theme of the Hakka movement is "creating a sense that Hakka culture is a valuable thing." The role of the media is an oft-discussed topic in this regard, for Hakkas do not receive anywhere near the degree of media exposure that their share of the population would seem to merit. Hakka activists have always concentrated on demanding more Hakka-language TV programming and more reporting of Hakka news.
Surprisingly enough, however, a look at the ethnic makeup of the mass media reveals that Hakkas are anything but a disadvantaged minority. In fact, they have quite a bit of clout. The president of the Chinese-language China Times is Hakka, as are the general managers of Formosa TV, Public Television, and China Television (CTV), not to mention the owners of many publishing houses. These people adhere strictly to professional standards on the job, however, and do not attempt to use their positions to create higher visibility for the Hakka community. Hakkas are actually quite numerous, and they wield a good deal of power, but their reluctance to assume a high profile is demonstrated quite clearly in the mass media.
Looking for that "star quality"
Lee Yung-te, acting president of the Public Television Service Foundation, has a thing or two say on the relationship between Hakkas and the media. As a Hakka from the township of Meinung, he recently took a barrage of criticism from his hometown friends and acquaintances on account of the fact that Hakka programming only accounts for 0.2% of total programming at Public Television. He points out that Hakkas already have their own TV station, and that there are two Hakka satellite channels in the greater Taipei metropolitan area. Furthermore, commercial television stations such as Formosa TV have stepped up their proportion of Hakka programming. Lee Yung-te, however, questions the usefulness of these measures, and asks what difference the existence of Hakka mass media makes when Hakkas themselves do not watch Hakka programs, listen to Hakka radio, or read Hakka magazines.
Lee stresses that in a world where the profit motive is king and commerce is dominated by a chase after the latest fashions, Hakkas must find something that sells, and they have to developing markets quickly to attract a following and take their place in the mainstream media. Many people seem to agree that the natural place to get a foot in the door is in pop music.
Chang Hsueh-shun, a Hakka legislator from Chutung (Hsinchu County), mentions Lin Chiang, a male singer who broke Taiwanese pop music out of its "vale of tears" rut by recording some popular upbeat music. His style was a breath of fresh air, and sparked a boom for Taiwanese music. Among Taiwan's aborigines, Ami singer Difang (Chinese name: Kuo Ying-nan) had a song incorporated into the theme song for the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta. Among the younger set, Chang Huei-mei ("Ah Mei") has established herself as the leading female pop vocalist, and her inclusion of indigenous flavor in her songs has greatly increased the cachet of aboriginal music.
Hakka singers Bobby Chen and Chen Yung-tao, and the rock band Shan Kou Ta have started to record Hakka songs in recent years. If they can combine Hakka folk music with rock and roll, the idea that Hakka culture is "cool" and worthwhile will rapidly catch on.
Once that happens, says Chang Hsueh-shun, Hakka culture can become the "in thing." Hakka youth would no longer feel embarrassed to be heard speaking Hakka, and other ethnic groups would become curious to know more about Hakka culture.
Onward and upward
Says Babuja A Sidaia, an activist seeking to raise the status of the Taiwanese language, "Sometimes I ask my Hakka friends, 'What impact have you Hakkas had on Taiwan's culture?' I just want to get them to think a bit." According to Sidaia, most people spend their entire lives in Taiwan without ever hearing a single Hakka song, watching a single Hakka movie, or seeing a single Hakka play. The lone exception would be Yuan Hsiang Jen ("a person from our hometown"), a novel by the Hakka writer Chung Li-ho, which came to the public's attention when it was made into a movie. Faced with this ignorance, how is Hakka culture to pique the curiosity of non-Hakkas?
Sidaia notes that Hakkas are actually very creative. Lai Ho, who was known during the Japanese colonial period as "the father of Taiwanese literature," was Hakka. Yeh Ching, who was once one of the most popular performers ofoutdoor Taiwanese theater, was also Hakka. Hou Hsiao-hsien, who achieved international fame making movies with a strong "down home" Taiwanese flavor, traces his lineage to Mei County in Guangdong. The king of Taiwan's TV variety show hosts, Hu Kua, is from Miaoli County. Plenty of Hakkas have made a name for themselves in Taiwan, and if they could stress their Hakka ethnicity a bit more, it would help to raise Hakka consciousness and create a sense that there is something valuable about Hakka culture.
The street march to raise Hakka visibility is over, but the effort to overcome the barriers that keep Hakkas from achieving prominence in political, business, and cultural circles has just begun. Still, as Hugh Lin states, "When you make up 20% of the population, you have no right to be pessimistic." Even though the Hakka movement has produced few concrete achievements in the past decade, it has spurred a lot of thought, introspection, publicity, and alliances. As a result, Taiwan is now at the forefront of a worldwide Hakka movement. A great deal of energy has been built up. In what direction will it flow once it has been released? We look forward to finding out.