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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 7 page research paper reports on commentaries written by foreign observers of Taiwanese culture, with one being the diary written by Yu Yonghe in the seventeenth century. Also, writers from the nineteenth century are also cited. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
7 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KL9_khtaiwan.doc
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also how these commentators viewed the indigenous population through the lens of their own cultural biases. This is evident in the earliest commentary, which was written by Yu Yonghe in
the late seventeenth century, as well as those of the late nineteenth century. Examination of these texts, therefore, reveals the social world of the people of Taiwan, within the context
of their lives, but also the way in which outsiders related to this world. Just fourteen years following the conquest of the Taiwan by the Qing dynasty, in 1697,
Yu Yonghe, a private secretary, volunteered to go on a sulfur expedition to the island and became the first member of the Chinese educated class to travel to Taiwan and
report of his experience (Yu 548). A Dutch colony between 1624 and 1661, Zheng Chenggong, a Ming loyalist, established Taiwan s a base of operations, after ousting the Dutch, for
his resistance movement against the Manchu Qing dynasty (Yu 548). Although Taiwan lies less than a hundred miles off the coast of mainland China, it was considered remote and was
seldom visited except for pirates and fisherman. Admiral Shi Lang was sent to handle the problem of the rebel base and the Qing dynasty annexed the island in 1684 (Yu
548). As this suggests, commentary written by Dutch writers predate the observations penned by Yu. For example, Reverend Georgius Candidus, who served as a minister in the Dutch colony
of Formosa, describes the inhabitants as speaking several languages and also as lacking in any form of governance, as they have "neither king, governor nor chief," and also living in
a constant state of warfare between neighboring villages (Campbell 9). During his time on Formosa, Candidus indicates that he interacted primarily with eight villages that share the same "manners, customs,
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