2 Temple and History
2.6 KMT Securing Foothold in Taiwan (50s-60s)
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difference seems to be in context; imperial who officials criticized licentious cults were operating within the same cultural nexus, while Republican critique was using completely different cultural logic of modern scientism, and state secularism tried to eliminate both orthodox (zheng 正) a unorthodox (xie 邪) of the past as superstitious.242 The new conceptual framework included concepts such a religion, nation, national culture, citizenship, and competition between nation states, which were linked with new technologies of control and disciplination such as police and modern educational system. What changed was also vision of relationship the between state and people, who were supposed to transform from passive subjects into active citizens.243 Republic enforced vertical social organization instead of horizontal one – vertical local temple networks, were to be replaced with horizontally organized "churches" and incorporate into vertical power structure of the nationalist state.244 New life movement social transformation project was through was consciously modelled after hierarchical organization and disciplination in military. To this end, Great Learning (Daxue 大 學), one of the Four Books, served the Kuomintang nation building needs; as long as this guide for moral cultivation was interpreted in the spirit of the instrumental New Life morality and cultivation of proper civic conduct, and as a hierarchy of citizens’ loyalty with the Party at the top of the Panopticon.
2.6 KMT Securing Foothold in Taiwan (50s-60s)
Although the Nationalist government was eager to appropriate the infrastructure and institutes created under the Japanese administration, all other aspects of Japanese influence in the island had to be eliminated, including language, every day practices, modes of thought, and political culture. Taiwanese were described as having been “enslaved” (nuhua 奴化) and thus unfit of a status of full citizens until having been educated and transformed back into proper Chinese nationals. The Kuomintang therefore launched campaigns of “de-Japanization”
(quribenhua 去日本化) and “re-Sinicization” (zai zhongguohua 再中國化).
After the war, there were about 350 000 Japanese civilian residents in Taiwan who were classified by ROC and US authorities as either Overseas Japanese or Overseas Ryukyuans.
Taiwanese inhabitants were designated “provincials” (benshengren 本省人) and those newly arrived “outside-provincials” (waishengren 外 省 人 ). 245 In 1946, Nationalist government banned publishing and circulation of all books and periodicals using Japanese language.246 While the Japanese colonial representatives recognized and valued the shared cultural heritage they had in common with the colonial subjects, Nationalist regime rejected not only
242 Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes, pp. 9, 195.
243 Poon, Negotiating Religion in Modern China, p. 151.
244 Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes, p. 28.
245 Evan N. Dawley, “Closing a Colony: The Meanings of Japanese Deportation from Taiwan after World War II,”
in Andrew D. Morris (ed.), Japanese Taiwan: Colonial Rule and Its Contested Legacy, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, p. 115.
246 Huang Chih Huei, “Ethnic Diversity, Two-Layered Colonization, and Modern Taiwanese Attitudes toward Japan,” in Andrew D. Morris (ed.), Japanese Taiwan: Colonial Rule and Its Contested Legacy, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, p. 135.
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the Japanese culture, but local Chinese cultures, i.e. Minnan 閩南 and Hakka 客家, as well.
The Kuomintang saw Japanese culture as alien and tried to remove all its traces, including people, language, habits and modes of thought, and architecture. Yet, the targets were the Japanese-style buildings with symbolic connotations like Shinto shrines, and modern-style administrative or industrial buildings were eagerly appropriated.
In parallel with campaign against the old colonial language, the Kuomintang government started to propagate the use of the new national language, i.e. Mandarin Chinese.
Although many Taiwanese eagerly studied Mandarin, language barriers proved to be an obstacle between the government and islanders, especially for those who aspired at positions in the provincial administration. Besides the language policies, “re-Sinification” campaigns aimed at instilling national sentiments in the islanders through the promotion of the Sunist ideology, i.e. the Three Principles of People (Sanminzhuyi 三民主義), and dissemination of the nationalist literature, such as writings of Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881-1936).247 Aboriginal inhabitants were also required to subscribe to the Nationalist mythology of the unified Chinese nation with Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) as the founding father, and had to adopt Chinese-style names.248
In this era of political and economic turmoil, the Association for the Veneration of the Sage was re-established in 1946 with the goal to continue the sacrifices at the Taipei Confucius Temple. The new chairman was the mayor of Taipei City, Yu Mi-chien 游彌堅 (1897-1971), and the two vice-chairmen were the head of the Education Bureau, Huang Chi-jui 黃啟瑞 (1910-1976) who was later mayor of Taipei from 1957 to 1960, and a businessman Koo Chen-fu 辜振甫 (1917-2005).249 Yu was one of the so-called “half-mountain people” (banshanren 半山人). This term referred to the Taiwanese who during the Japanese era left island for Mainland and cooperated with the Nationalist government. After the Kuomintang gained control over the island, these Taiwanese served as a vital link between the Nationalist state and Taiwanese society. Many of them were of divided loyalties between the central government and the ties of locality.250 Koo Chen-fu was an influential businessman and diplomat, who later became a chairman of Straits Exchange Foundation (Haixia jiaoliu jijinhui 海峽交流基金會) in 1991. In 1946, Koo was tried and jailed by the Kuomintang on the charges of treason and collaboration with Japan against Nationalist. After that, he developed close relations with the Kuomintang government. His brother, Koo Kwang-ming 辜寬敏 (1926), who left Taiwan for Japan after the February 28 Incident, is a strong supporter of Taiwanese independence, and later on fostered ties with the Democratic Progressive Party (Minzhu jinbu dang 民主進步黨). Their father, Koo Hsien-jung who in 1925 donated land for the Taipei Confucius temple, also engaged in peaceful surrender of Taipei to Japanese in 1895, and maintained close ties with the colonial administration.
247 Phillips, “Between Assimilation and Independence,” pp. 284-285.
248 Huang, “Ethnic Diversity, Two-Layered Colonization, and Modern Taiwanese Attitudes toward Japan”, p. 136.
249 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.ct.taipei.gov.tw/zh-tw/C/About/History/1/3/18.htm.
250 Phillips, “Between Assimilation and Independence,” p. 280.
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The monopoly on political power by newly arrived mainlanders frustrated many of the Taiwanese elites who tried to resume efforts, started during the Japanese era, towards island’s greater self-government.251 Realization that Nationalist government operated just like another colonial regime, but was inferior when compared to the standards of governmentality established by the Japanese administration, together with economic exploitation, and political and cultural oppression led to increased tensions between islanders and mainlanders. Many Taiwanese were proud of their Japanese inheritance,252 and many drew on the previous colonial experience to make open comparisons and evaluations of Nationalist government.
Social tensions eventually escalated into the February 28 Incident (Ererba shijian 二二八事件) on February 28th 1947. An open revolt against Nationalist government was brutally suppressed by military forces arriving from the Chinese mainland. Different sources state different numbers of casualties, but a common estimate would be 10 000 killed and 30 000 wounded.253 The island-wide massacres effectively silenced any voices of opposition and alternative interpretations of the Japanese heritage for several decades, and determined the relationships between the Kuomintang and islanders, and islanders and mainlanders up to present. Although the government blamed those Japanese who were still present in Taiwan for inciting the revolt, the February 28 Incident did not cause significant harm to the Japanese residents. It did increase the Nationalists’ sense of urgency to remove of any remnants of Japanese legacy in Taiwan.254 In the following years, Taiwanese Shinto shrines were either destroyed or repurposed for other uses, such as national martyr’s shrines. Several Shinto shrines located in schools were converted into shrines to Confucius.
After the Nationalist government forced to retreat to Taiwan in December 1949after the lost the civil war, politics of control and assimilation of the islanders intensified. To this end, the martial law restricting civic and political liberties, which was first issued during the February 28 Incident, was reinstated on May 19th 1949. Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi 蔣介石, 1887-1975) in his reflection on the causes of the defeat by the Communist Party in the Mainland argued that the blame was to be put on the ineffective education, which failed to inculcate young people with the nationalist spirit and comprehension of Sunism.255 This analysis was a continuation of the line of reasoning behind the New Life Movement (Xinshenghuo yundong 新生活運動), which was initiated by Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-ling 宋美龄 (1898-2003) in February 1934, and which effectively ended with the retreat from Mainland. Nationalist Party was gradually establishing its monopoly on Confucianism as national culture and national ideology. Rituals in the Taipei temple continued to be organized by local elites with participation of the Kuomintang government. It was at this time, that the
251 Phillips, “Between Assimilation and Independence,” p. 288.
252 Wang Fu-chang, “Why Bother about School Textbooks?: An Analysis of the Origin of the Disputes over Renshi Taiwan Textbooks in 1997,” in John Makeham and A-chin Hsiau (eds.) Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 59.
253 Phillips, “Between Assimilation and Independence,” pp. 295-296.
254 Dawley, “Closing a Colony,” p. 126.
255 Tsai Ching-tien, “Chinese-Ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” Journal of Education Policy 17:2 (2002): 229–43, p. 230.
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date of ceremonies was set to September 28th as joint celebration of birthday of Confucius and Teachers day. Confucian texts were not part of the school curricula, but Confucianism was taught in schools as part of Sunism and ethics classes.
After having relocated to Taiwan, KMT did not continue New Life campaigns, since the immediate objectives were to secure a power base and defend against an imminent invasion from the People’s Republic. Yet, after the Korean War had started in 1950, United States changed its policy of not interfering in the Chinese civil war, and resumed its economic and military support to the Republican government. Since the 228 Incident quelled any internal dissent, the Kuomintang could concentrate its full efforts on political dominance, social stability and economic development, which were main priorities until the mid-1960s. The issues of legitimizing government and cultural policies of turning Taiwanese into Chinese were not an immediate concern at this period,256 and the Kuomintang at first focused on more cost-effective negative control over society across the spheres of social life ranging from politics, economics, religion, education, and language, to arts and entertainment.257 Because of the plans on retaking the Mainland, Taiwan was categorized as a province, and since it was impossible to hold national elections in what became the Peoples Republic of China, the Taiwanese were barred from access to ROC national government, effectively making Taiwan into a colony. The standing government officials had their posts extended indefinitely, until they eventually started dying off, and the Kuomintang had no choice but hold supplementary elections after 1969.258
The Kuomintang took over and expanded upon the Japanese schooling system, implanting mandatory universal education. Posts of school administrators were filled with Mainlanders, while Taiwanese teachers were usually relegated as secondary assistance.259 Japanese era textbooks were forbidden, and the new ones compiled according to the prescriptions by Chiang Kai-shek were introduced into schools. These textbooks were compiled by cooperative university experts who lacked teaching experience at the elementary school level and were isolated from the teachers and students who actually used the teaching materials.260 Since the political requirements had a primacy over educational qualities of the textbooks,261 the contents changed little since the New Life Movement era curricula. Changes made in Taiwan took form of negative control and concerned mainly language policies, i.e.
banning Japanese and local dialects. Mandarin was the only language allowed in schools, and students caught speaking in dialects were punished.
The purpose of education was to inculcate the Taiwanese with Sunism, anti-Communism, national sentiment and sense of belonging to China, and military drill. Textbooks’
256 Wang, “Why Bother about School Textbooks?,” p. 60.
257 Edwin A. Winckler, “Cultural Policy on Postwar Taiwan,” in Stevan Harrell and Chün-chieh Huang (eds.), Cultural Change in Postwar Taiwan, Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, p. 23.
258 Peter Chen-main Wang, “A Bastion Created, A Regime Reformed, An Economy Reengineered,” in Murray A.
Rubinstein (ed.), Taiwan: A New History, Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 2007, p. 334.
259 Chen, “Disciplining Taiwan,” p. 201.
260 Tsai, “Chinese-ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” p. 238.
261 Tsai, “Chinese-ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” p. 238.
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contents concentrated on history and geography of China and national heroes, with Chiang Kai-shek as last in the line. There were no changes to accommodate Taiwanese population other than to emphasize uninterrupted ties with the Mainland. Japanese era was downplayed in an effort to erase memory of the Japanese heritage from the Taiwanese minds, and replace it with Nationalist historic narrative that vilified Japanese colonial rule. Positive aspects of the Japanese reign were omitted, and stress was on suffering and "nationally motivated"
uprisings.262 Lessons on moral education continued to utilize Confucian terminology, and core values to be learned was obedience; obedience towards one’s parents was identified with filial piety and obedience towards political leaders with loyalty. Nation was personified by Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-set whose portraits and statues were as omnipresent in school spaces as they were in textbooks.263
Viewed in this context, it is apparent that the perspective of continuity between the contemporary situation and the "traditional Confucian" education and its unquestioning respect towards authority figures, rests on the acceptance of Nationalist rhetoric that they are transmitters on uninterrupted traditional Chinese culture, and, in the case of Taiwan, ignores the fifty years of the Japanese educational system. It is important to take into consideration difference in social contexts of the imperial era private schools (shufang) and modern schools, in the role of the teachers, and in the purpose of education (for the state officials, parents, and students). The shufang were not under government control, it was up to families and communities who they chose as a teacher, and there were different teaching styles across different private schools as a result of social negotiation between families/communities and teacher and children, and personality and knowledge of teacher and preferences of the families or local communities.
We may hypothesize that passivity and obedience of students vis-à-vis teachers might have been shaped by modern classroom conditions within a larger context of authoritarian party-state with emphasis on military discipline, nationalism, patriotism, and vertical orientation of society, where teachers were an extension of authority of the state materialized though the gaze of the leaders’ statues and portraits. Teachers did not have much of an agency in a way of teaching methods, since the actual authority was vested in the textbooks. The process of curriculum reforms made teachers into passive reproducers of the books contents that expressed the absolute authority from government, which could not be questioned by students and neither by teachers.264 The reasoning behind the Nationalist education was behavioural conditioning and mechanistic metaphor, where students were passive material to be moulded in the school-factory, and teachers were but machinery operators.265
Under these conditions, teachers would merely prepare courses in such a way as to help students prepare for written examinations and climb the educational ladder. There was a fixed set of answers to the questions in the textbooks, and teachers could be punished if
262 Wang, “Why Bother about School Textbooks?,” pp. 58-59.
263 Tsai, “Chinese-ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” p. 234.
264 Tsai, “Chinese-ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” pp. 236-267.
265 Tsai, “Chinese-ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” pp. 239.
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they did not follow the prescribed standards.266 As a result, the system was encouraging rote memorization through constant recitation, and conformity.267 Stress on memorization is often described as a relic of "Confucian education" by scholars and the Taiwanese themselves. Yet, this explanation overlooks historic discontinuities of the Westernizing reforms in late Qing, and fiercely liberal republican educators such as Cai Yuanpei who tried to sever all ties with previous education system and adopt an American model. This was followed by a turn to Leninist-style organization of state and society, which made education into a one-way channel of communication, where knowledge, technical skills and propaganda, were to be simply transmitted by teachers and memorized by students. The Leninist state imprinted itself into the structure and interpersonal relationships in public universities as well.268
After its arrival in Taiwan, the Kuomintang did not continue the temple destruction campaigns, Shinto shrines being an exception, since there were more pressing concerns, and mainly tried to restrict pan-Taiwanese cults,269 and actively discouraged large religious festivals by criticizing their economic wastefulness,270 especially condemnable at the time when resources should be directed to the welfare of the nation. Performances of Taiwanese opera in local dialects, which was part of the festivals, were banned and Peking opera was promoted instead. Other public performances in dialects were prohibited as well.271 The restrictive campaigns against religious festivals were effective in that regard that the temple festivals came to be held on the same date all-over island instead of different days throughout the lunar month according to local customs.272
The situation of organizations claiming Confucian identity or practicing Confucian rituals or self-cultivation etc. at the time of Nationalists’ arrival at Taiwan, and members of which organizations arrived in Taiwan, remains largely unexplored. There were several organizations in Taiwan, which made references to Confucianism, which were generally established before the martial law restrictions on forming non-government organizations. An emergence of a Confucian organization influential enough to challenge the state monopoly on Confucianism was impossible under corporatist means of control over religions.
Moreover, following the political and cultural debates in the Republic of China, Confucianism was not officially recognized as a religion, it was not feasible to try to appeal to religious freedom, especially since civil rights were curbed by the martial law. In a way similar to New Life era in the Mainland, Confucian temples in Taiwan have received special attention from the government. In contemporary Taiwan, Confucian temples, ancestor shrines, and public ceremonies, are all grouped together under supervision by the Department of Civil
266 Tsai, “Chinese-ization and the Nationalistic Curriculum Reform in Taiwan,” pp. 237-238.
267 Rubinstein, “Taiwan’s Socioeconomic Modernization, 1971-1996,” p. 380.
268 Rubinstein, “Taiwan’s Socioeconomic Modernization, 1971-1996,” p. 379.
269 Murray A. Rubinstein quoted in Paul R. Katz, “Religion and the State in Post-War Taiwan,” The China Quarterly 174 (2003): 401.
270 Robert P. Weller, “The Politics of Ritual Disguise: Repression and Response in Taiwanese Popular Religion,”
Modern China 13:1 (1987): 32.
271 Chen, “Disciplining Taiwan,” p. 205.
272 Weller, “The Politics of Ritual Disguise,” p. 33.
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Affairs in the Ministry of Interior.273 In contrast with New Life policies, the Kuomintang did not replace sacrifices to Confucius with civic ceremonies, nor did government seize control over the Taipei Confucius temple. Yet, the general framework created by legal system and government policies defined the range of possibilities for social action.
After the Association for the Veneration of the Sage was renewed in 1946, it adopted
After the Association for the Veneration of the Sage was renewed in 1946, it adopted