國立交通大學
外國文學與語言學研究所
碩 士 論 文
(G)localization of the Sensory Experience and its Cultural
Expressions in Taiwan: Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls
全球在地化之感官經驗及其文化表現：以「台北 101」
與「閃亮三姐妹」為例
研 究 生：林建廷
指導教授：黃宗儀 教授
全球在地化之感官經驗及其文化表現：
以「台北 101」與「閃亮三姐妹」為例
學生：林建廷 指導教授：黃宗儀博士
國立交通大學外國文學與語言學研究所文學組碩士班
中文摘要
本文主要探討全球化過程中之台灣在地文化表現，包括建築以及音樂，作者以 為，若欲更為深入地掌握文化全球在地化的複雜性，當中不同的文化衝突，以及協商 等互動過程，可從感官經驗的視角切入。感官經驗可謂是文化政治的鬥爭場域，交織 各種不同的權力關係以及政治衝突，本文旨在論證感官經驗是各種全球流動，諸如資 本以及意識形態流動，與在地性互為作用，相互交涉的最重要媒介；亦即，感官經驗 作為全球在地化之文化表現的物質性基礎。為了闡述全球在地化的感官經驗此一概 念，本研究針對台灣兩個具代表性之全球在地化的文化文本進行分析：「台北 101」以 及「閃亮三姊妹」。以此兩個訴諸感官的文化表現為例，可以進一步說明感官經驗與文 化再現之間的複雜關係。就「台北 101」為例，本論文對其相關的論述生產以及形象 再造進行分析，試圖闡明「台北 101」如何透過空間外觀，商品形象以及各種視覺再 現，藉由感官吸引，尤其在視覺上，營造一種世界主義的理想；在「閃亮三姊妹」一 例中，主要分析她們音樂作品裡的歌詞和節奏等，並且檢視她們的身體表演，討論台 客電子舞曲的在地轉變以及在地差異，再度印證感官經驗作為全球流動與在地因子交 互作用的重要場域，批判性的檢視感官經驗全球在地化之訓育面向，旨在挖掘更多台 灣在地文化的因子以及尋求活絡在地元素的可能性。 關鍵字：文化全球化，全球在地化，文化表現，文化政治，全球在地化之感官經 驗，世界主義，「台北 101」，台客電子舞曲，「閃亮三姊妹」。(G)localization of the Sensory Experience and its Cultural Expressions in Taiwan: Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls
Student: Chien-ting Lin Advisor: Tsung-yi Huang
Graduate Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, NCTU
Abstract
This thesis concerns the process of glocalization, the interaction between the global and the local, as witnessed in our cultural expressions, including architecture and music in Taiwan. To examine the cultural complexity of new conflicts, negotiations, and hybridization embedded within these glocalized cultural representations, it is essential to resort to the sensory experience. The sensory experience is one of the most contested terrains of cultural politics of various power relations such as cultural conflicts between elite’s culture and folk culture or political contradictions between the nation state and the global power. I contend that the sensory experience as both the medium through which various global flows such as capital and ideology enact on localities and the container that contains these flows in aestheticized forms, exemplified by artistic expressions as high-rise building and popular music in Taiwan as a result of globalization.
The cultural texts I analyze include the new landmark architecture in Taiwan, Taipei
101 (台北 101) and Taiker Techno Music (台客電子舞曲) along with the example of Shining 3 Girls (閃亮三姊妹). These two cultural texts of Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls
help elaborate the intertwined relationship between cultural representation and sensory experience since they are two of the most sensually appealing and engaging cultural expressions to the viewers or audiences in Taiwan. In the case of Taipei 101, I analyze the discourse productions and image-making of Taipei 101 to elucidate how an ideal of cosmopolitanism appeals to our senses, dominantly the visual, through its outlooks, commodities and various visual representations in creating a sublime like awe. To illustrate how the local and the global factors re-create through each other in the sensory regime of Taiker Techno Music, I examine in detail the music and performance of Shining 3 Girls to demonstrate the local differences and variations. By unraveling the pedagogical perspective of the (g)localization of the sensory experience, I hope to tease out new factors and possibilities of local cultures in Taiwan.
Key Words: Cultural globalization, Glocalization, Cultural expressions, Cultural politics, (G)localization of the sensory experience, Cosmopolitanism, Taipei 101, Taiker Techno Music, Shining 3 Girls
Acknowledgements
This thesis cannot be completed without the guidance of Professor Tsung-yi Huang. As my advisor, she showed great patience and support for my project and me. I have benefited a lot from her intellectual inspiration as well as her admirable academic attitude. I am deeply indebted to her for all the help and wish her all the best.
Also, I want to thank Professor Chi-she Li for his valuable suggestions and insightful critique to make this thesis much improved. His advice has been invaluable to the completion of this thesis.
I would like to give my special thanks to Professor Pin-chia Feng, who has helped me go through many difficulties in life and in study. I am truly grateful for her support and encouragement to make this thesis work out. I owe her a great deal for all her kindly offers in my school life.
Many thanks go to my dear friends: Daniel, Vincent, Feung, Ema, Smallba, Smallin, Eno, Liling, Ya-fang, Chi-2, Lucy, Morris, Penny, Cindy, Joyce, Florence, Jeremy, Judie, Anne, A-hsiao, Hsiu-chia, Yiyin and all the friends from “Thursday’s Club” (星期四俱樂部) and many others that I do not list their names here. Their company has enriched my life in graduate school. I want them to know that I do appreciate and cherish the friendship. All the days that I spent with them have become my beautiful memories. I also want to thank my Hong Kong friend, Ben Ku, for bringing the “shock experience” to the boredom of my everyday life.
With greatest love, I thank my family for their irreplaceable love and support: my mom, my father, my brother and my sister. I know they are always there whenever I need them.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ... v
Introduction ... 1
Chapter One (G)localization of the Sensory Experience and Local Subjects in the Age of Globalization: A Theoretical Inquiry ... 12
I. Everyday Life and the Sensory Experience ... 13
II. The Sensory Experience in the Era of Globalization ... 19
III. (G)localization of the Sensory Experience... 25
Chapter Two (Visual) Consumption of Cosmopolitanism in Taipei 101... 29
I. Postcolonial Taiwan into the Globalized World: Historical Imperatives for Taipei 101 ... 34
II. (Visual) Consumptions of Cosmopolitanism: Taipei 101 ... 40
III. Global Tourism and Monopoly Rent: A Tourist Eye for Taipei 101 ... 52
Chapter Three Cultural Politics of Techno Music in Taiwan: Shining 3 Girls ... 59
I. Techno as the Global Popular... 64
II. “Taiker Techno Music” in Taiwan... 66
III. The Return of the Repressed: Revisiting Gender and Class Divisions in the “Taiker Techno Music” 80 IV. In Conclusion: Re-activation of the Local in Popular Music... 89
Conclusion ... 91
Introduction
My thesis concerns the process of glocalization, the interaction between the global and
the local, as witnessed in our cultural expressions, including architecture and music in
Taiwan. To examine the cultural complexity of new conflicts, negotiations, and
hybridization embedded within these glocalized cultural representations, it is essential to
resort to the sensory experience. The sensory experience is one of the most contested
terrains of cultural politics of various power relations such as cultural conflicts between
elite’s culture and folk culture or political contradictions between the nation state and the
global power. The sensory experience, as David Howes reminds us, is “the most
fundamental domain of cultural expression, the medium through which all the values and
practices of society are enacted” (XI). I will analyze the sensory experience as both the
medium through which various global flows such as capital and ideology enact on localities
and the container that contains these flows in aestheticized forms, exemplified by artistic
expressions as high-rise buildings and popular music in Taiwan as a result of globalization.
Taking on the sensory experience as the crucial perspective in understanding cultural
politics of glocalization, this project aims to shed new light on the dialectics of the global
and the local by addressing such questions as: How does the logic of globalization dictate
power relations between the global and the local cultures, implicated and practiced in the
aesthetic expressions such as architecture and music? Does the local always play the passive
role of respondents or recipients? Or to what extent have the localities thus been re-shaped,
subsumed, consumed, (re) produced or re-activated?
My object of study focuses on the sensory experience as the interface within which the
global and local forces encounter by foregrounding the visual, the auditory, the tactile and
the interplay of these senses. Instead of situating our sensory experience as given of merely
personal history or psychology, this study proposes it is on the ground of sensorium which
politics and aesthetics are intertwined. The concept of aesthetics, generally defined as the
philosophical study of beauty,1 has been broadened also to address aesthetic experience, values and expressions, together with the changing definition of art itself. In my discussion,
aesthetics consists of two reciprocal aspects, the sensual ways of knowing cultures, and the
cultivation of our senses and sensibilities through cultural and aesthetical learning and
disciplining.
Human senses, the fundamental means of knowing about and learning from the outer
worlds, are the basis on which our cultures are being created. The formation or reformation of
our local cultures, as I will argue, is built on the sensory formations that are both culturally
and aesthetically disciplined. The pedagogy of dictating the senses that informs our cultural
1
manifestations is thus as much aesthetical as political since cultural distinctions and
aesthetical ideology2 have been reproduced or reinforced in this learning/sensing process.
To analytically and critically address the questions posed above, this study needs to
formulate a solid theoretical framework to support my claims and arguments. I am aware
that it is a great challenge to theoretically articulate the cultural politics of glocalization with
the sensory experience. Even if the human sensorium has been recognized as one cultural
field for analysis, few academic discussions specifically bring the sensory experience to the
fore as the analytical regime in scrutinizing the dialectics of globalization and localization.
While the existing literature respectively on globalization and on sensory experience has
cumulatively amassed, I find no theories adequately addressing the interrelations between
these two axes of cultural globalization and the sensory experience. Most of the existing
discourses about glocalization recognize the fact that the global forces have been re-shaping
localities, including our living space, architectures, and landscapes, but they provide
inadequate explanations about exactly how these global flows interact with the localities of
our daily life. The reason I highlight the sensory experience as the medium in discussion of
cultural glocalization is to explicate not only what, but also how these flows insinuate into
our local cultures.3
2
Aesthetical ideology refers to, for example, the socially constructed distinctions and tastes of high culture as classic music and low culture as popular music.
3
This thesis employs an interdisciplinary approach of cultural studies, a combination of
cultural textual analysis and ideology critique, to critically explore the cultural
representations of architecture and music. The cultural texts I analyze include the new
landmark architecture in Taiwan, Taipei 101 (台北 101) and “Taiker Techno Music” (台客
電子舞曲) along with the example of Shining 3 Girls (閃亮三姊妹). Both of these two
cases of Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls exemplify the “glocalized culture” in the context of
Taiwan. Taipei 101, the world’s tallest skyscraper for the moment, stands as one emblem of
global power in Taiwan; Shining 3 Girls, a female artist group of three sisters, serves as one
of the most distinctive examples of “Taiker Techno Music,” one (g)localized music type of
the globally popular dance music. These two cultural texts of Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls
also help elaborate the intertwined relationship between cultural representation and sensory
experience since they are two of the most sensually appealing and engaging cultural
expressions to the viewers or audiences in Taiwan. Taipei 101, for instance, catches
everybody’s eyes by its imposing visuality particularly of its outstanding heights; Shining 3
Girls appeal to its audiences by the beats or sounds of Techno and the body performance of
these girls. By unraveling the pedagogical perspective of the sensory experience, I hope to
tease out new factors and possibilities of local cultures in Taiwan.
I divide the thesis into five parts: the introduction of this study presents my thesis,
the theoretical context of cultural glocalization connected to the sensory experience. In
Chapters two and three, I will closely investigate the cultural politics of my case studies,
Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls. I will conclude in the final part reflections on my findings,
contributions, limitations and expectations of this study for any future research.
Chapter one attempts to provide one theoretical framework illuminating how the
sensory experience relates to the cultural process of glocalization in theory and in practice.
Sensory experience, the most immanent in and intimate to our everyday practice, engages in
cultural/social practices and relations in our everyday life. As David Howes suggests, “Just
as meanings are shared, so are sensory experiences. This is why it is not enough to look at
the senses as “energy transducers,” “information gatherers” or “perceptual systems” (see
Geary 2002; Gibson 1996, 1979; Goldstein 2002); they must be understood as cultural
systems” (4-5). In other words, the sensory experience is loaded with historical heritages,
memories and political powers, from which we can explore different cultural meanings and
social values.
This chapter will address the intricately connected relations among cultural politics of
glocalization, and the sensory experience of bodily senses and everyday practices. I will
first investigate the effects of globalization on our everyday life by addressing the following
questions: How do the global forces and flows shape or reshape several ways of our daily
perceptions, conceptions and further re-formulate our knowledge and understandings of our
cultural and social life? To answer these questions, I will review theories of Karl Marx,
Georg Simmel, and Henri Lefebvre. Basically, all of them propose to problematize everyday
life as a category of cultural analysis and social relations because the process of
modernization and modernity has drastically penetrated into our daily life. Among these
theorists, Marx first discusses about the social relations reflected in everyday commodities
but it is Lefebvre that particularly points out global capitalism as the dominant force
shaping our everyday life. As he asserts, “the commodity, the market, money, with their
implacable logic, seize everyday life. The extension of capitalism goes all the way to the
slightest details of everyday life” (79). Even though Lefebvre shrewdly points out the
dialectics of global capitalism and everyday life, he does not explain about how exactly the
global power interacts with the everyday life. Inspired by Simmel’s culture of interaction, I
will seek in the daily interactions of seeing and listening to reactivate the dynamic process
between the global capital flow and the local everyday life.
This chapter then investigates the cultural dynamics of globalization by foregrounding
the senses to examine the interplay of our sensory experience and everyday life. The
globalizing process has certainly been re-structuring our life such as the ways we perceive
or feel, but how to understand the negotiations and conflicts of these cultural or social
life and on our cultural expressions by daily practices.
Senses are believed to be one of the foremost ways of knowing the outer world since
the seventeenth century. Empiricist philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke,
George Berkeley, David Hume, and Rene Descartes regard sensation as philosophical
relations between the external world and the mind. With the development of science, the
study of sensation and perception during the early and mid-nineteenth century focuses not
only on philosophical investigation but on research of the body, significantly formulated by
technology (Geurts 7-9). Based on these philosophical theories on the concept of senses, I
attempt to build up my own argument that senses are the medium through which we
recognize or interact with the global flows and through the sensations and understandings,
we imitate global cultures or (re)create local cultures of our own.
The last part of this chapter will lead my theoretical argument to my case studies,
Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls. I will justify, on the theoretical foundation, why I choose
these two local cases to analyze cultural globalization in Taiwan and explain how these two
cases help to address the theories and problematic brought about previously.
Chapter two analyzes the discourse productions and image-making of Taipei 101 to
demonstrate how an ideal of cosmopolitanism appeals to our senses, dominantly the visual,
sublime like awe. The word, cosmopolitanism, derived from the Greek word kosmopolitês,
meaning world citizen. Immanuel Kant has elaborated on the cosmopolitan idea in his
political writings to map out one cosmopolitan community. He says, “the idea of a
cosmopolitan law is therefore not fantastic and overstrained; it is a necessary complement to
the unwritten code of political and international law, transforming it into a universal law of
humanity” (qtd. in Nussbaum 25). Such a cosmopolitan version of peaceful world granted
by the political laws becomes particularly urgent and needy in the global era concerning the
dramatic transnational flows of people in petition for citizenship and residence. Given the
increasing importance of cosmopolitanism in this global era, we might have to ask if
everyone, regardless of his/her races, genders, classes, or sexual orientations, will be
encompassed into “world citizen” protected by the “universal law?” Or do many people of
us only maintain the imaginary relations to the ideal cosmopolitanism? In the case of Taipei
101, what kinds of cosmopolitan imaginations have been politically and culturally
appropriated? Does this cosmopolitanism projected by Taipei 101 apply to our real living
conditions or is it just another aestheticized myth?
To investigate the entangled power relations working at the global or the local levels
of cosmopolitan imagination embodied by Taipei 101, I will give historical accounts of how
Taiwan to the age of globalization.4 I analyze the ways in which the postcolonial impact and global forces, two intersected historical and social attributes, trigger the construction of
Taipei 101 to assert Taiwan’s cultural/national identity and to gain global recognition. To
further illustrate how this cultural identity is being imagined in the name of
cosmopolitanism, I will take a close look at the representations of Taipei 101 in different
media, such as the newspapers, magazines, photos, and commercials. Through a careful
examination of these representations, I will prove how the imagery of a world-top
skyscraper, fashionable commodities, professional administrative and global designs, has
come to form one sensually tangible but practically illusory space of cosmopolitanism,
flexible citizenship and economic prosperity shared by all inhabitants of Taiwan. For
example, one credit card commercial juxtaposes the images of those distinguished buildings
of Paris, New York or London with Taipei 101 to stress its cultural identity equally of local
uniqueness and global similarities. Or one photo in Taipei 101’s newsletter shows
transnational westerners shopping at Taipei 101 Mall to reinforce its own cosmopolitan
characters such as transnational imaginations and economic prosperity.
Monumental space like the skyscraper of Taipei 101 will, in Lefebvre’s words, “mask
the will to power” (143). The will to power, as this chapter argues, is being aestheticized in
representations of Taipei 101. Resorting to our senses, the images of cosmopolitanism
4
The postcolonial history here covers Japan’s colonization of Taiwan dated from 1895-1945 and afterwards to investigate the historical effects of Japan’s colonization in the present.
endowed with Taipei 101 invite us to identify ourselves as world citizens as those global
elites, in the commercial film of Taipei 101, who can travel around the world at free will.
Through critical evaluations of the representations of Taipei 101 and its discourse analysis, I
intend to disclose the myth of globally sensual/visual consumption in localities of Taipei 101.
In chapter three, I will employ Shining 3 Girls as an example to elucidate the cultural
politics of Techno as the global popular in Taiwan by highlighting the transformations of
“Taiker Techno Music.”5 The globally popular Techno in Taiwan merged with numerous local elements has produced one local music type of what we called “Taiker Techno Music.”
To illustrate how the local and the global factors re-create through each other in the sensory
regime of “Taiker Techno Music,” I will examine in detail the music and performance of
Shining 3 Girls, one significant representative of “Taiker Techno Music,” to demonstrate the
local differences and variations.
Shining 3 Girls distinguishes itself by Taiker/local characteristics combined with
Techno music, named “Taiker Techno Music” in Taiwan.6 Resorting to the sensory experience, these local variations shown by the music and performance of Shining 3 Girls
5
Here I borrow the concept of “the global popular” from Simon During, who defines it as follows, “since the 1980s some cultural products are indeed globally popular and internationally so; they are distributed and apparently enjoyed everywhere, at any rate wherever electricity is online or generators and batteries can be transported and where they are not successfully banned. They belong to what I will call (without any intended Gramscian resonances) the global popular” (808).
6
Taiker, in Chinese “台客,”usually refers to those who like wearing silk shirts with flower patterns, flip-flops, and a iron chain on the waist, having their hair dyed, riding Dio or Vino motor-bike, and speaking Mandarin with accent of Tai-Mandarin (台灣國語), mixing up Taiwanese accents with Chinese accents. Taiker Techno Music is one kind of Techno music, which aims at Taiker as the target audience. See “The Bible for Taikers’ Dressing” (台客裝扮寶典) http://udn.com/NASApp/rightprt/prtnews?newsid=1196493
provide alternatives for us to rethink the dialectics of the global and the local, and challenge
the fixed gender dichotomy of the global as masculine and the local as feminine. I will
argue through these distinctively local marks or Taiker features, that the local music,
illustrated by “Taiker Techno Music,” is not a passive respondent but registers a number of
varieties and agents as shown in the tempo, the beats and the lyrics. Instead of focusing only
on beats as most Techno music does, “Taiker Techno music” underscores the artists’ vocal
parts and the lyrics. To fit into Taiwan’s KTV markets for local consumers, “Taiker Techno
Music” also slows down their tempo to make singing easy for those KTV goers. More local
factors are found in the body performance and dressing styles of Shining 3 Girls, who
demonstrate different gender and body politics by engaging the audiences’ sensuous
Chapter One
(G)localization of the Sensory Experience and Local Subjects in the Age of Globalization: A Theoretical Inquiry
This chapter attempts to theorize the cultural politics of glocalization in connection to
the sensory experience. I argue that the sensory experience is one of the most contesting sites
of cultural politics and power struggles, a medium through which various global flows enact
on localities and a container that contains the flows in aestheticized forms such as architecture
and music in my discussion. In other words, this study analyzes the sensory experience as a
text itself, which is historically and spatially grounded because sensory experience, as this
chapter will prove, comprises our senses and everyday life. Our senses are historically the most
direct material mediums of interacting with the outer world since the seventeenth century. The
interacting process via the senses in our daily practices, temporally and spatially embedded
within our everyday life, is the foundation of our sensory experience. As the historical product,
sensory experience is the mediation of blending institutions and forces of capital, especially in
the era of globalization. To make it explicit, this chapter will address the effects of
globalization on everyday life in the beginning and then explicate how the sensory experience
mediates between the global forces and local factors in our everyday practices. In the last
section, I will tie the (g)localization of the sensory experience back to my cases of Taipei 101
I. Everyday Life and the Sensory Experience
The global flows of capital and technology have been drastically (re)shaping our ways
of living since the nineteenth century. As David Harvey points out, it is the postmodern
condition that we are experiencing shifting uses and meanings of space and time, a new
phase of time-space compression caused by global flow of capital (284). The socioeconomic
processes and techno-scientific transformations have been changing the ways we are
sensing our living conditions temporally and spatially, so much so that we also discover
drastic changes in cultural formation. For example, the forming of global markets attributes
to frequent exchanges of commodities among various places and peoples and thus throws
different cultures in contact. This is what John Tomlinson means by “complex
connectivity:” “globalization refers to the rapid developing and ever-densening network of
interconnections and interdependences that characterize modern social life” (2).
Succinctly put, political-economic transformations have direct impacts not only on
economic activities but further on social life and cultural practices since economic life and
cultural life are intricately tied together, particularly in the age of globalization. In short,
globalization should never be separated from “life” itself. It is our “every day life” that
attests to or is being modified by the globalizing forces. For instance, invention of new
technology changes the way we communicate with one another by using computers, the
options of commodities for daily use. Moreover, cultural practices such as cultural creations
and expressions in one place interact with those in another place due to the transnational
encountering of different cultures, economic systems and political philosophies. Take music
culture for example, in Taiwan we can listen to and learn from various music styles, such as
Blues, Hip-hop, R&B, Reggae, and Folk music from America, England, India, Spain or
Japan, without leaving our place. By just one click of mouse, the Internet will connect us to
various radio stations all over the world to get in touch with various types of music. Aside
from music, the other life-styles such as eating, shopping and reading habits are evolving
with the emerging malls, restaurants, bars, shops and bookstores coming from different
parts of the world. Through these daily examples, we find our everyday life embedded in
the global process and economic systems. However mundane and ordinary, everyday life is
a starting point to investigate the effects of globalization.
Embodying social forms and relations, everyday life engages in various cultural
politics. To understand the relationship between everyday life and the cultural complexities
of globalization, we should return to Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, and Henri Lefebvre7 to better understand the concepts of everyday life, modernity, and global capitalism. Basically,
they all agree that the process of modernization and modernity has drastically penetrated
into our daily life and propose to problematize everyday life as a category of cultural
7
The reason I discuss Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, and Henri Lefebvre is to show how the everyday life is closely connected to the social structures from the rise of capitalism to the era of globalization.
analysis and social relations.
Even though in his works Marx does not intend to deal with “everyday life,” his
theory on commodity first contours the relationship between commodities and modern life
and addresses the commodified social relations of daily life. For Marx, human social
relations are embedded in the “phantasmagoria” of commodities through our everyday
practices. The daily life of modernity is significantly characterized by commodities, in
which the social relations are being disguised (Marx 165). As Ben Highmore comments, the
representation of modern life in such fantastic forms of commodities is “the
spectacularization and exoticizing of everyday life” (16). The seemingly tedious and boring
everyday life, in this sense, has been de-familiarized and fantasized by the display of
commodities. Marx leads us to problematizing everyday life that has been eroticized as
commodities because social relations such as social organization of production, labor skills
and labor time are being entangled in the commodified everyday life.
While Marx engages in social relations that are affected by and expressed in modern
commodities, Georg Simmel stresses cultural analysis of modern life. Focusing on the
culture of interaction, Simmel believes that social structures are profoundly reflected in the
microscopic elements of life, diverse individualities, and the interactions of one another.
Embarking on microscopic investigation, Simmel draws an analogy between the social
everyday life itself, which are being “revealed as the genuine and fundamental basis of life”
(Simmel 109). In this sense, everyday life experiences serve as the foundation of cultural
expressions. Only by re-examining the aesthetic styles and social elements of daily life
could one get into cultural analysis then.
In his article, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” Simmel gives clear daily examples to
account for how the money economic in capitalist society changes “the sensory foundations
of psychic life.” He argues that the “blasé attitude,” the numbness and indifference of
modern people, is caused by the “intensification of nervous stimulations which result from
the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli” in modern life (410). In other
words, our sensory responses in everyday life are related to the social structures of modern
economic systems and life. From the details of psychic life, we can understand the large
scope of city life and its economic changes. This is why I stress that the “trivial” of
everyday life might hold the key to a wider social structure.
Among these theorists, Henri Lefebvre deploys the concept of everyday life in the
cultural and social domain (space) of transnational encountering. Lefebvre particularly
brings out global capitalism as the dominant force on everyday life: “The commodity, the
market, money, with their implacable logic, seize everyday life. The extension of capitalism
goes all the way to the slightest details of everyday life” (79). Lefebvre indicates the
equate everyday life to boredom and commonplace and thus leave it aside from the
academic domain while discussing globalization. Globalization, associated with
macro/global structures manifested in politics and economics, is assumed to have nothing to
do with the trivial/local everydayness. Lefebvre’s observation of global capitalism instead
reminds us it is everyday life that reflects and witnesses most of the political and
economical effects of globalization.
How do we understand the effects of global capitalism on everyday life? We should
take two axes of time and space into consideration as Lefebvre reminds us. Capitalist
divisions of working hours and leisure time regulate our daily life about when to work and
when to rest. This standardized concept of time has gone globalizing to fulfill the efficiency
that capitalism demands. Not only Lefebvre but Marx and Harvey recognize how the
rhythm of modern life corresponds to capitalist systems. Notably, Lefebvre pulls another
facet, (urban) space, in discussion of everyday life. Under the influence of global capitalism,
urban restructure and renewal have become a global trend. Urban planning manipulated by
the global flow of capital has re-scaled the urban space where we are living everyday.
Lefebvre’s comments on the tangled relationship between every life and urban space in
relation to the global power of capitalism provide us with many insights to comprehend the
triangular tensions of local life, global operation and (urban) space. In Production of Space,
space and time, by highlighting the disparity between how the space is mapped out
cognitively and how the space is experienced lively. The contradiction between
representations of space and representational spaces exemplifies the effects of globalization
on our everyday sense and sensibility of space. Specifically, the way we sensually interact
with our space is being structured by and also restructuring the process of globalization.
Reviewing these theories on everyday life helps us to re-think the dialectics of
globalization by starting with the problematic of everyday life since all these theories prove
that everyday life is imbued with social relations that require detailed analysis. Everyday
life might suggest the ordinary, the banal, and the mundane but these daily details are the
crucial accesses to the core of all kinds of social relations and activities and the components
of our cultural/social life. For example, a daily practice like shopping for a pair of shoes
would have involved several social relations including the shoes-makers, shop clerks,
shoppers and probably the transnational corporations especially in the global age. In other
words, daily practices point to the complicated power relations interwoven with the various
social and cultural relations. In this sense, everyday life is “politics” itself. Repetition of
everyday life itself is repeating different relations in various spheres and such daily
practicing implies replicating the hierarchical social orders imposed by global power. As
Lefebvre argues, “everyday life is profoundly related to all activities, and encompass them
common ground” (97).
II. The Sensory Experience in the Era of Globalization
Since everyday life is the cultural domain of different politics embedded within the
process of globalization, I am further intrigued by questions about from what aspects we
can understand the cultural dynamics of everyday life or what the most critical mediation
between everyday life and global flows is. Given the interconnectedness of daily practices
and aesthetical representations such as architecture, music or arts, I regard the sensory
experience as the material mediation that combines everyday life and cultural expressions
through sensuous practices. As a result, I would like to examine the cultural dynamics of
globalization with a particular emphasis on the sensory experience in discussion of
everyday life; that is, I try to bring the senses back to the domain of everyday life. We
should not treat “everyday life” as a “given,” which is pre-determined by global capitalism;
rather, it is important to find out how global flows insinuate into our everyday practices and
our cultural expressions through our senses of seeing, hearing, touching or tasting.
To further explain how the sensory experience reflects or witnesses the effects of
globalization on our everyday life, it should firstly outline the historical sketch of senses
and sensations from the seventeenth century onward to illustrate how the sensory
historical review will help explain why we need to re-examine the sensory experience in the
age of globalization. Secondly, I will draw on John Tomlinson’s theories on
“deterritorialization” and other theorists like Arjun Appadurai and David Howes to illustrate
how the geographical re-scaling brought about by global flows of people, culture and capital
contributes to the globalizing mundane experiences and now it affects sensory experience.
Senses have been regarded as one of the important ways to know the outer world since
the seventeenth century. Susan Stewart mentions that the notion of “five senses” firstly is
attributed to Aristotle, associating eye with water, hearing with air, smell with fire, and
touch with earth. The set of associations also imply hierarchical distinctions that the
“notions of sensibility and sensitivity are associated with refining of the higher
philosophical senses of seeing and hearing” (61). Following this tradition, the senses have
been ranked according to the degree of immediacy: “taste and touch, in direct contact with
the world, are lowest, followed by smell, which forms a kind of mean distance to sight and
hearing, which operate across distance and yet can be remembered at will (Langer 1972; I;
see also Janson 1952). Hearing and sight, because of their link with philosophical
contemplation and abstraction, hold the leading place” (Stuart 61-62). From then on, the
senses have often been interpreted as a philosophical concept of inquiring our mind in
relation to the outer world. Empiricist philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke,
philosophical relations between the external world and the mind. For example, Locke
describes that our “sensible qualities” are interdependent with the mind and Hume argues
that the formations of ideas result from our empirical experiences.
During the early and mid-nineteenth century with the development of science, the
study of sensation and perception focuses not only on philosophical investigation but
technological effects on the sensory experience. Classical sociology doesn’t deal adequately
with the social relations implicated by human bodies and experiences. However, Marx and
Simmel endeavor to investigate how the bodies are influenced by capitalist technologies and
its formations of modern experience. Continued with his persistent concern about social
class, Marx cares about the alienating effects on bodies on account of capitalist technology
exemplified by industrial revolution and mass productions by machinery. Simmel has
similar concern about how the money economy changed our emotional relationships with
one another, the way we interact with others of modern life. He indicates “all intimate
emotional relations between persons are founded in their individuality, whereas in rational
relations man is reckoned with like a number, like an element which is itself indifferent”
(411). Because of the domination of money economy, as Simmel argues, “modern mind has
become more and more calculating” (412).
The theoretical discussions above indicate that our sensory experience has played
historical periods. What particularly concerns me is what the role of the senses signifies in the
age of globalization or why we should return to the realm of the sensory experience to
understand cultural globalization. As I contend, the senses, apart from being as our contacting
front to the outer world, are also the material medium that these global flows require for
circulation. Globalization drastically precipitates the encountering of different cultures and
promotes cultural flows of “ethnoscapes,” “mediascapes,” “technoscapes,” “financescapes,”
and “ideoscapes” as Arjun Appadurai notes (33). Frequently associating such global flows as
capital, technology and ideology with floating, rootlessness and transnational mobilities, we
tend to overlook the material dimensions of globalization. However floating and mobile
global flows can be, they still require concrete or material space for production,
reproduction or circulation (Sassen 207-09). In other words, these global flows need
mediation interacting with the localities of our everyday life. One most direct and immanent
medium would be our bodily senses to interact and negotiate with these flows such as
sensual pleasures and stimuli engendered by transnationalization of global commodities and
cultures. Explicitly speaking, it is through our senses that the flows of people, culture and
capital are enacting on our everyday life and underlie our globalizing sensory experience.
It is the domain of the sensory experience from which we can see what global impacts
and changes are reflected in our everyday life. Furthermore, returning to the sensory
sensory experience refers to the sensory practices, which is spatially grounded in our daily
life. According to John Tomlinson, mundane experience, including sensory experience, of
deterritorialization makes it difficult to maintain a stable sense of “local” cultural identity:
“as our daily lives become more and more interwoven with, and penetrated by, influences and
experiences that have their origins far away” (113). The cause to the globalizing mundane
experience is related to the transnational flows of cultures that exactly result from the
geographical rescaling of “deterritorialization,” including the blurring of national boundaries,
the broadening world market and the growing global media. For Tomlinson, the process of
globalization sometimes is identified with the broad sense of “deterritorialization” since he
thinks the term can grasp different aspects of globalizing process:
This category grasps a number of aspects of a globalized (as distinct from a global)
culture as it is lived in daily experience, but it relates these to one key assumption,
namely that globalization fundamentally transforms the relationship between the
places (emphasis original) we inhabit and our cultural practices, experiences and
identities… In employing the concept of ‘deterritorialization’ we will try to
understand why this might be so (106).
Tomlinson’s discussions from “deterritorialization” to “mundane experience of
deterritorialization” point out that our mundane experience is one of the most crucial
the process of “deterritorialization,” the transformations of geographical and social
territories (106-07).8 Tomlinson’s theories allow the commonly overlooked complex of mundane experience come into focus again in the era of globalization and help justify why
we should go back to the domain of sensory experience as I suggest. Inspired by Tomlinson,
I attempt to narrow down the mundane experience to the sensory experience, for these
global flows are immediately and immanently mediated through our bodily senses and thus
attribute to multiplying sensory experiences of eating, drinking, listening and seeing due to
various cultural encounterings. In other words, I regard the sensory experience as the
cultural domain of combining our everyday life with our senses. It is through our senses that
we interact with these cultural flows that have formulated our sensory experience, which
have influenced the ways of cultural expressions.
Consequently, to examine the cultural complexity of new conflicts, hybridization or
glocalization brought about by these global flows implicated within our cultural expressions,
it is essential to return to the sensory experience as the analytical regime. As previously
argued, our sensory experience contributes to cultural expressions of localities when bodily
senses function as lived space interacting with these various global flows. Sensory
experience based on human sensorium is permeated with social values and cultural
significance to such an extent that it even is replicating hierarchical social orders. As David
8
The specific example of mundane experience of deterritorialization provided by John Tomlison is the globalization of food. For more details, please see his book of Globalization and Culture.
Howes informs us, our sensory experience may be “collectively patterned by cultural
ideology and practice” (XI). The sensory order will be linked up with the global powers that
diffuse new ideology of global capitalism to our local life worlds.
III. (G)localization of the Sensory Experience
In this final section, I will bring the theoretical discussions on the interrelations of
cultural representations and sensory experience back to the local context of Taiwan. From
the perspective of the sensory experience, I seek to sift the politics and aesthetics of two
(g)localized cultural expressions of architecture and music in Taiwan. By the aesthetics and
the politics of cultural expressions, I mean the gap between the sensually engaging and
disciplining ways of perceiving and creating our cultural representations and the invisible
global structuring powers and ideology in our daily life. Specifically, I will disclose the
political agenda, like in the service of capital, which is covered in the aesthetization of
cultural expression, in the name of cosmopolitanism for example in Taipei 101, from our
sensory relations and practices of everyday life.
Aesthetics has long been excluded from our daily life of experiences and being
categorized mainly in the domain of art. According to Terry Eagleton, however, aesthetics is
exactly in the territory of our sensate life: “In its original formulation by the German
aesthesis would suggest to the whole region of human perception and sensation, in contrast
to the more rarefied domain of conceptual thought” (qtd. in Goonewardena 48). Similarly,
Ben Highmore also agrees that in terms of the sensory experience, everyday life and
aesthetics become interconnected since both of them focus on the lived experiences (55). In
this sense, the sensual experience of daily life actually underlies the aesthetic
representations as I have argued previously.
To illustrate how these two (g)localized cultural representations of Taipei 101 and
Shining 3 Girls are involving and formulating within the process of cultural globalization,
this study proposes the concept of “(g)localization of the sensory experience” to address the
dynamic process of the interwoven cultural globalization, the sensory experience and
cultural expressions. By the term “(g)localization of the sensory experience,” I refer to the
social dynamics of how the sensory experience of bodily senses and daily life interact with
the global order of power struggles and hierarchical regulations through negotiation,
imitation, and incorporation. To put it simply, the logic of global capitalism that informs our
cultural expressions is mediated through the making of collective sensory experience, by
creating sensually appealing images and ideals to invite the local subjects to identify with.
For example, the case of Taipei 101 is being aestheticized in the name of cosmopolitanism
to make the collective identification with this global sublime through the (g)localization of
3 Girls lies in the imaginations of the global popular projected in the community of the
global techno tribe.
To explicitly elaborate on the cultural complexity of politics and aesthetics that are
converged in the sensory experience, I will employ cultural/literary texts of sensory
representations to exemplify more specifically what I mean by the “(g)localization of the
sensory experience.” In discussion of cultural globalization in Taiwan, I employ Taipei 101
and Shining 3 Girls as examples, two significant cultural expressions of “glocalized culture”
in Taiwan. Taipei 101, the most distinctive architecture in Taiwan, and the tallest building in
the world is practically an emblem of global power in the locality of Taiwan. Shining 3
Girls is the most typical example of “Taiker Techno Music,” one localized form of the
world’s most popular dance music. Connected to our everyday life in Taiwan, these two
cases attest to (g)localization of the sensory experience. The cultural formations of them
articulate different global/local factors on the surface of “sensory experience” in Taiwan,
such as the imposing visuality of the heights of Taipei 101 or the sensuous body
performance and music styles of Shining 3 Girls.
We should contextualize these two cases of Taipei 101 and Shining 3 Girls in Taiwan
to better understand their relationship with sensory experience. Historical factors including
the impacts of post-colonial history of Taiwan after Japan’s colonization from 1895-1945,
the age of globalization. The crisis of postcolonial identity will need the significant cultural
emblem such as Taipei 101 to reassure Taiwan’s cultural identity. To a large extent, such a
cultural icon should be sensually engaging to make us “bodily” believe it is our pride by
seeing and touching (Seeing is believing). Spatial compression is another factor why we
should consider from the perspective of the sensory experience when examining Taiwan’s
local cultures because the bodily tensions and stresses caused by the shrinking daily space
will find bodily outlets to release these emotions like listening to Techno music. For
instance, singing and dancing with Techno will make us sensually liberated and elevated.
Since sensory expressions are aesthetically embodied in these cultural representations,
we may find out more factors and possibilities of local cultures in Taiwan from these
expressions. The other reason is the insufficient discussions of “the sensory experience” in
the field of cultural/literary studies. As Howes suggests, since we are now living in the
world of “the sensual logic of late capitalism,” we should return to the sensory experience to
understand its cultural logic (281).9 Through detailed analysis of these texts, I hope to unravel the pedagogical perspective of the sensory experience that mediated the capital flow
to local subjects in historical and cultural context of Taiwan.10
9
In his article of “Hypersthesia, or The Sensual Logic of Late Capitalism,” David Howes explains how the global logic resorts to sensually appealing consumerism to achieve its capitalist purposes. Please see Empire of the Senses: the Sensual Culture Reader, 281-303.
10
Pedagogy is itself a complicated concept that concerns culture, social formation and education. Here I use it to explain that the global logic might be a pedagogy of global hegemony and ideology that is “schooling or disciplining” our senses and ways of thinking. That’s why this thesis insists on a critical view of the process of glocalzation through our senses. For more details, please see Peter Mclaren’s Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Formation of Education.
Chapter Two
(Visual) Consumption of Cosmopolitanism in Taipei 101
Every city has a landmark, an icon that
distinguishes it from others. Paris has the Eiffel
Tower, New York City, the Empire State Building.
By the end of 2003, Taipei will have TAIPEI 101. At
508 meters, it will be the tallest building in the
world.
Taipei Financial Center (Taipei 101) Newsletter
Ever since the day when Shui-bian Chen, mayor of Taipei at that time, proposed to
construct the world’s tallest building in Taipei in 1995, Taipei 101 has been the focus of
discussions and attractions in Taiwan. From the concrete space of the skyscraper itself to its
image-representations in the newspapers, magazines, photos and commercials, the visuality
of Taipei 101 has been constantly re-shaping one’s spatial perception of Taipei cityscape. To
a great extent, this new urban architecture successfully catches the inhabitants’ eyes by
advanced technology in constructing this tallest building with its outstanding world-top
height of 508 meters will first of all bring visual shocks to its viewers. Upon seeing this
building, onlookers from far or near would be reminded of their connection to a “global
village.” Moreover, viewers’ identification with the global identity of Taipei 101 would be
reinforced by the visual consumption of its ubiquitous images in all kinds of representations
and discourses. For example, Taipei 101’s management team cooperates with one credit
card company (Chinatrust) to propagandize Taipei 101’s global images by producing one
visually impressive commercial film. This commercial deliberately juxtaposes the images of
renowned architectures of Paris, New York or London, such as Eiffel Tower, Empire State
Building, and Westminster Abbey with Taipei 101 to stress the global identity of these
buildings. Or, in Taipei 101’s own promotion newsletter, a photo shows transnational
businessmen in brand-name suits shopping at Taipei 101 Mall. All these images are created
to endow Taipei 101 with global imaginations appealing to the public to identify with. If so,
what interests me is in what ways and for what purposes does Taipei 101 seek our
recognition and approval? In other words, what kind of global desire is exactly being
created in Taipei 101? Why do the government and the transnational corporations work
together to promote Taipei 101 as one global emblem of our national and culture identity?
Can our global yearnings evoked by Taipei 101 actually come realized or is it only an
Regarding these questions, this chapter seeks to investigate the intertwined
relationships of the global and the local converged in the visuality of this new landmark in
Taiwan. By reading and analyzing Taipei 101 as a text at two levels of the discourse
productions and its image-making, I will demonstrate how the various global flows,
particularly in capital forms, are being aestheticized in/through the consumption of the
cosmopolitanism entailed by Taipei 101. Cosmopolitanism is a concept of political
philosophy that derived from the Greek word kosmopolitês, meaning world citizen. Among
the various discussions about cosmopolitanism, Kant is a critical figure who has further
elaborated on the cosmopolitan idea in his political writings to map out one universalized
cosmopolitan community that include all citizens of the world with “the universal law of
right.” This universal principle protects “the freedom of each individual’s will to coexist
with the freedom of everyone else” (Kant 132-33). Though inspired by Kant, I will focus
more on the cultural imaginations of cosmopolitanism. I define cosmopolitanism, in terms
of cultural identity, citizen of word, and prospered life, as one political ideal that promises a
culturally and economically harmonized community where each one’s rights are guaranteed
and protected.
I contend that global capitalism through the senses prescribes an ideal
cosmopolitanism of Taipei 101, in terms of cosmopolitan cultural identities, flexible
Taipei 101, as the significant monumental building for Taipei’s cultural identity, is
intrinsically defined by the order of globalization materialized in the sensuous consumption
of Taipei 101. On the official account, one of the most important reasons to build Taipei 101
is to create this city “an icon that distinguishes from others” (Taipei 101 Newsletter). If
Taipei 101 as one monumental building cares to provide an “icon” for all social members to
identify with, what Taipei 101 projects is the image of “global elites.” In other words, this
icon has been pre-determined to certain class and social status such as successful
transnational businessmen highlighted in the photos of Taipei 101’s newsletters. As
Lefebvre points out, such a social visage found in the monumental space of Taipei 101 in
the form of skyscraper “hides a good deal more: being political, military, and ultimately
fascist in character, monumental buildings mask the will to power and the arbitrariness of
power beneath signs and surfaces which claim to express collective will and collective
thought” (143).
Lefebvre’s theorization of monumental space alerts us to the interrelations between the
monumental building and the hidden capitalist powers; however, in the case of Taipei 101,
the will to power that claims collective will is not just being covered but being aestheticized
in the name of cosmopolitanism. The aestheticzed cosmopolitanism embodied by Taipei 101
is expressed at least in three layers of national/cultural identity making, citizen of the world
cosmopolitanism, manifest in construction of Taipei 101, is created and mediated through
the collective sensory experiences of the localities, whether to maintain the visual relation to
various glittering representations of this monumental building, or to tour at Taipei 101 in the
real senses of lived experience: to witness this Taiwan miracle, to touch the exquisite
commodities, or to climb up to the roof of the world.
In the first part of this chapter, I will examine in what ways Taipei 101 becomes one
significant monumental building in the context of the historical and social changes of
Taiwan’s monumental space from postcoloniality to the age of globalization.11 On one hand, I will illustrate how Japan’s colonization from 1895 to 1945 contributes to Taiwan’s crave
now for a new national identity by building its own historical monuments today. On the
other hand, I will discuss how the global capital largely determines the functions and
purposes of Taipei 101, which is constructed in the hope of enhancing Taipei’s
competitiveness to make Taipei city become one of those global cities as New York or
London. As Lebvre suggests, while examining such monumental building as Taipei 101, we
should consider what is being politically hidden from us; that is, we have to take a close
look at the power relations behind the ideology of constructing Taipei 101.
Therefore, the second section explores the cultural politics embodied in the sensuous
images of Taipei 101. Through a critical analysis of the representations of Taipei 101,
11
This chapter avoids seeing post-colonialism and globalization as two separate historizations or fundamentally different mentalities; instead I endeavor to analyze its intersected elements and entangled complexities.
including the newspapers, magazines, photos, and commercials, I will prove how the
imagery of a world-top skyscraper, fashionable commodities, professional administrative
teams and global designs, serve to revise the reality by rendering one tangible but probably
illusory space shared by all inhabitants. To a certain extent, cosmopolitanism is
commodified as products or tour packages, for which the local consumers are grappling as
if to shop/to tour at Taipei 101 is immediately to become one citizen of the global village,
and “to pace with the world” (與世界同步).12
Tourism, in this respect, passes as the next step to realize the imagination of
cosmopolitanism that really invites local subjects to lively “experience” (i.e. to see, to taste,
to shop, to touch and to smell) Taipei 101. My last part will thus focus on the relations
between Taipei 101 and the global tourism with an emphasis on how the localities are being
globalized for tourist gazes by drawing on John Urry’s theories. Through the detailed
investigations of Taipei 101, this chapter aims to unravel the myth of global consumption in
localities of Taipei 101 by the sensory experiences.
I. Postcolonial Taiwan into the Globalized World: Historical Imperatives for Taipei 101
Under the historical imperatives of postcolonialism and globalization, Taiwan needs a
12
According to the news report, on November 14, 2003, the opening of Taipei 101 Mall was swarmed with thousands of visitors, approximately 250000-300000 tourists and the fever remains to this day. Taipei 101 has become one of the most popular touring attractions in Taiwan. See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_3270000/newsid_3271000/3271093.stm http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/11/15/2003075893
new landmark building to re-build its national identity as well as global identity. This urban
plan of constructing Taipei 101 was first proposed in 1995 by Shui-bian Chen (陳水扁),
mayor of Taipei at that time. This project, according to the official version on the website of
Taipei 101, aims to:
develop a state-of-the-art building that forms an integral part of the infrastructure
for advancing Taipei towards becoming one of the Asia Pacific Financial Centers
( 亞太金融中心 ). This project symbolizes the outstanding achievements of
Taiwan’s economic development.13
Taipei 101 Financial Center (Taipei 101) was officially launched on January 13, 1998.
While the office tower was still under construction, the Taipei 101 Mall opened on
November 14, 2003. One year and a month after the opening of Taipei 101 Mall, the
six-year construction project of Taipei Financial Center finally announced its
accomplishment on December 31, 2004. At the opening ceremony of Taipei 101 Mall,
Shui-bian Chen, then president of Taiwan, nodded, “It (Taipei 101) is not only a landmark
of Taipei but a sign of Taiwan’s development and prosperity. It is Taiwan’s asset and pride.”
Taipei mayor Ying-jeou Ma (馬英九) said the building was “the pride of Taipei residents”
and a mark of the country’s global ambitions.14 From “Taiwan’s asset and pride” to “the country’s global ambition,” or from “Asia Pacific Financial Center” to a sign of “Taiwan’s
13
Please see Taipei 101 official website: http://www.tfc101.com.tw/.
14
prosperity,” we can see the need for a new monumental building like Taipei 101 is twofold:
at both national and global levels.
To understand this twofold rhetoric, I suggest we should consider two intersecting
historical factors of postcolonialism and globalization in Taiwan. From “de-colonization” to
“Taiwanization” (台灣本土化),15 Taiwan has been searching for a national identity to localize the concept of “Taiwan” by providing a monumental space of our own in Taiwan
for Taiwanese to identify with. Now that the Japanese government during the colonial
period completed most of the significant buildings preserved in Taiwan, Taiwan government
hopes to discover or re-invent its own historical monuments, a building of Taiwanese people
constructed by Taiwanese’s own hands. For each colonizer, spatial restructuring is one
effective means to discipline its colonial subjects to identify with the imperial power. In
Taiwan, the process of modernization or westernization, marked by Japan’s colonial period,
had launched massive construction projects, including schools, hospitals, bridges, and other
buildings, many of them still being preserved in Taiwan to the present. During the colonial
period, many of the urban architectures in Taiwan were constructed in westernized or
Japanese style by the Japanese government, who had been influenced by the West at the
time of Meigi Reform (明治維新).16 Take Taiwan Governor-General Office (台灣總督府),
15
Japan’s colonization of Taiwan dated from 1895 to 1945 and the KMT regime was defeated in 2000 presidential election by the DPP, which propagates “Taiwanization.” The aim of “Taiwanization” by DPP is to make Taiwan an independent nation from China. In order to achieve this goal, the DPP government has launched a number of Taiwan discourses and related cultural policy to reinforce the idea of “Taiwanization.”
16
the former of ROC Presidential Office ( 總 統 府 ), for example, it was the highest
administrative institution at that time. This building, combined with the western style of
late-Renaissance and Japanese elements, was also the most significant and magnificent
architecture at its scale in Taiwan, and even one of the very few mega-structures at that time
in East Asia. For now, it has become one significant historic monumental building, as a
witness to Japanese colonial history and symbol of the great structure in world history.
Therefore, for a new history of “de-colonization” of Taiwan, to make a new monumental
building by Taiwanese architect in a Taiwanese style becomes extremely “necessary” and
“legitimate” for the Taiwanese in construction of their own identity. Under this historical
imperative, Taiwan determines to create its own monumental space.
Not only looking for its national identity, Taiwan government also works very hard to
upgrade its economic competitiveness and status to assume Taiwan’s global identity. To
respond to the process of globalization, the nation state has to open its market to all forms of
global flows such as people flows and capital flows. Simply put, in order to attract more
foreign capital Taiwan has to highlight its “global character.” As President Chen claims, we
will create “Taipei Manhattan” by building Taipei 101 Financial Center. Mayor Ma also
expresses that Taipei 101 as the world’s tallest skyscraper will “bring Taipei to the world.”
book entitled: Taiwan Architectures in the Colonial Period by Japan 1989-1945《日治時期台灣建築 1895-1945》. The claim that the architectures during the colonial period are westernized in this chapter does not deny the existence of other local style buildings as the author in this book claims. The attempt here is to foreground the historical process or causes to the construction of national identity in Taiwan now.
