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A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

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Customer Reviews (17)

Great book if you want to learn about Taiwan and its culture!
This book was a great introduction to Taiwanese culture and what to expect when visiting Taiwan. I have read other books related to traveling and a lot of them lack the cultural depth and understanding. Culture Shock Taiwan gives a lot of information without being boring by adding a lot of personal touches. I really enjoyed reading about the culture and etiquette of Taiwan.

Outdated and not worth the price
Echoing what a number of other reviewers have noted, the reality in Taiwan is substantially different than what is portrayed in this book. It may have been more accurate 30-40 years ago, but Taiwan has changed substantially (politically, economically, and socially) in the interim and either the authors have not bothered to update their experiences or they themselves are stuck in the past. I found little of value in it and my wife, a native of Taiwan, found it cartoonish, laughable and occasionally offensive.

not what I was looking for..
I didn't like this book, we are planning to go to Taiwan to pick up or adopted daughter and I was hoping to learn about the culture to pass on to her. This did not have much about the family rituals and traditions and had alot of business info instead.

Must read before your first visit to Taiwan (or any other foreign country for that matter)
This book provided tons of facts and very useful information about Taiwan and its culture.I spent a few years in Taiwan while I was young but my husband (fiance at the time) had never been to Taiwan or any part of Asia.To prepare him for his first trip to Asia (Taiwan), I got him this book.I of course read / scanned through it before I purchased it and found that this book included the facts that I can vouch for and more.I highly recommend this book and a trip to Taiwan!!

Good introduction to Taiwan; can be read through quickly
I've been reading a handful of books around Taiwan and China; relating to their history, business, traveling there, etc.

This was a nice, concise, easy to read (especially skim) account of things.While it's not always on the mark 100%, I think it errs on the side of caution which I appreciate.A nice read. ... Read more

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An ethnography of the leather-tanning industry in SouthernTaiwan, Tanners of Taiwan examines what it means to be Chinese.

Tanners of Taiwan is an ethnography of identity construction setin the leather-tanning communities of Southern Taiwan. Through lifehistory analysis and ethnographic observation, Simon examines what itmeans to be Chinese - or alternatively Taiwanese - in contemporaryTaiwan. Under forty years of martial law from 1947 to 1987, the ChineseNationalist Party tried to create a Chinese identity in Taiwan throughideological campaigns that reached deep into families, schools andworkplaces. They justified their rule through a development narrativethat Chinese culture and good policy contributed to the prosperity ofthe Taiwan miracle. These ideological claims and cultural identities,however, have never been fully accepted in Southern Taiwan. Thisethnography is the first to document from the ground level how thoseclaims have been contested, and how a new Taiwanese identity has beenconstructed since democratization. Tanners of Taiwan providesmore than a description of workplaces in Taiwan. Looking at thedifferent perspectives of tanners, women managers, and workers, itdemonstrates how cultural and other identities are constructed throughdynamics of power and political economy.

A small, affordable case studies book to be assigned with a coretextbook in introductory anthropology courses. Shows how the US readeris connected to the seemingly distant lives of Taiwanese tanners. Simonfollows hides from the US to tanneries in Taiwan, then elsewhere to bemade into shoes and other leather goods, and then back to the consumerin the US - demonstrating concretely the notion of "globalinterconnectedness."

Anchored in personal observation and ethnographic detail, the book makesvery tangible such otherwise abstract notions as "national identity" and"global integration." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Easy to read....really useful!
This is an excellent summary of the basics of building business relations in Taiwan. It can be read on the airplane on the way to Taiwan, or at home while you are planning the trip. Foreigners would be greatly benefited bytaking the helpful hints that Kevin Chambers provides in this fact filledlittle book. ... Read more

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The Republic of China on Taiwan is the last nation in theworld to be excluded from the United Nations. The world's seventeenthlargest economy and Asia's most vibrant democracy, Taiwan hascontinually to convince the world of its historical independence fromthe People's Republic of China. At the same time, however, forces ofhistory and contemporary economics make Taiwan's intimate cultural andeconomic ties to the mainland another crucial reality. Yet somehowunder these singular conditions, the people of the island go abouttheir daily affairs, making themselves a remarkable font of creativityand cultural innovation. The Minor Arts of Daily Life is anaccount of the many ways in which contemporary Taiwanese approachtheir ordinary existence and activities. It presents a wide range ofaspects of day-to-day living to convey something of the world asexperienced by the Taiwanese themselves. What does it mean to beTaiwanese? In what way does life in Taiwan impart a different viewof Chinese culture? How do Taiwanese envision and participate inglobal culture in the twenty-first century? What issues (cultural,social, political, economic) seem to matter most? What does "China"mean to them today?

Focusing on such broadly appealing topics as baseball, movies, gay and lesbian identity, television shows, and night markets, the contributors seek to introduce Taiwanese culture to a broad readership. In lively, non-technical prose, they approach their topics from a variety of disciplines in ways that will not only give students a comprehensive view of Taiwanese life, but also provide them with a range of theoretical perspectives with which to explore this fascinating nation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cheaper copies
I don't know why Amazon has stopped carrying the paperback version of this book. You can find new copies of the paperback version of this book at the University of Hawaii Press web page:http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shopcore/?db_name=uhpress&page=shop/flypage&product_id=3328&category_id=b3e6237d1b1b3b8594488ed1c40d0dfb&PHPSESSID=31e5b8112782d16da949c0ba320466ed ... Read more

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The "one China" policy officially supported by the People's Republic of China, the United States, and other countries asserts that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it. The debate over whether the people of Taiwan are Chinese or independently Taiwanese is, Melissa J. Brown argues, a matter of identity: Han ethnic identity, Chinese national identity, and the relationship of both of these to the new Taiwanese identity forged in the 1990s. In a unique comparison of ethnographic and historical case studies drawn from both Taiwan and China, Brown's book shows how identity is shaped by social experience--not culture and ancestry, as is commonly claimed in political rhetoric. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Fundamentally Sound Work, in Need of Focus
Although Melissa J. Brown completed Is Taiwan Chinese? over 10 years ago, her study still contains much value for readers of today. In her work, Brown investigates the discrepancies between cultural identities in Taiwan and China, and the "narratives of unfolding" that the PRC regime, on one hand, and Taiwan's media culture on the other use to explain local identities. Brown indicates that, in her work, the term "narratives of unfolding" refers to constructed ideologies that are seen as the product of a person's culture or ancestry and that leave little room for individual choice about belonging or departing.

Brown pokes holes in these narratives of unfolding, mainly through analyses of "the impact of culture, power, and migration on changing identities" -- the sub-title of her book. She focuses her study on the effects of Han immigration and intermarriage with locals on Aboriginal culture in Taiwan and vice versa. She adds complexity to her study by considering similar identity changes among the Tujia ethnic minority of China.

Brown's analysis of this subject is quite complete and impressively detailed. She shows that the Taiwanese Hoklo of today, while retaining a Han ethnicity, can be considered different from Han in China. Meanwhile, by demonstrating, through the Tujia example, that the CCP-ruled China has accepted the possibilities of both Sinicization and de-Sinicicization within the PRC, she insightfully highlights the problems with the CCP's own narrative of unfolding, which posits that Taiwan's Han residents are incontrovertibly part of China and have been so since antiquity.

This is not to say that Is Taiwan Chinese? is not without its share of faults. Readers who expect these faults before picking up the book will be better armed to look past them and see the validity of Brown's message, which she enunciates, in clearest form, in the final chapter of the book.

Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of this study is the degree to which Taiwanese national identity seems to be placed on the back burner in regards to the ethnic identity of Taiwanese Hoklos. Readers who have completed the book will understand that Brown's focus on the Hoklo/Aborigines and the Tujia/Han is a study of the mechanics of identity change, and that knowledge of these mechanics is useful for understanding the solidifying national identity of Taiwanese based on shared experiences, particularly those of the 20th century.

Those who are familiar with Taiwan will know that Taiwan is a patchwork of "ethnicities" - Plains Aborigine, Mountain Aborigine, Hoklo, Hakka, and "Mainlander (post-1949, pan-China nationalist immigrants)" - and regime influences - Zheng, Qing, Japanese, KMT, American and PRC (the latter two by external effect on Taiwanese society rather than by direct administration). The shared experiences of all of these ethnicities over time is the foundation for a Taiwanese national identity that continues to strengthen in the second decade of the 21st century.

Naturally, the ethnic Hoklo-Plains Aborigine melting pot experience is a part of this national identity. However, those seeking a more detailed study of the question of whether "Taiwan is Chinese" may be slightly dismayed to know that almost all of Brown's research is focused on ethnic changes among Hoklos and Aborigines that occur before the 1930s. Other changes to customs in Taiwan, among other ethnic groups (such as Mountain Aborigines and Hoklos), or effects on the shared experiences of Taiwanese as a whole in the political sphere, receive very little treatment.

Brown certainly understands the importance of a more global view of Taiwanese identity. She specifically notes the enormous role of sociopolitical influences in solidifying Taiwanese identity in the 1990s. However, Brown's analysis of the experiences of Taiwanese in the 20th century - the time in which Taiwanese would have most clearly formed their identities based on shared experiences - is limited to the last 30 pages of a 250-page book.

This is unfortunate because the main title of the book, Is Taiwan Chinese?, is constructed on the basis of a national identity (Chinese) and not an ethnic one (Hoklo/Han, Aborigine, etc). Therefore, one might say that the title and subtitle should be reversed: "The impact of culture, power and migration on changing identities in Taiwan: Implications for the resolution of the "Taiwan Question".

Such a title would be quite a mouthful and would lack the punchy effect of Is Taiwan Chinese?. However, it would better cue the reader in to the nature of this important study. Brown's study is clearly applicable to Hoklos, Aborigines and Tujia. Other important influences on Taiwanese national identity, while important to the way she frames the book, are not major elements of her work. Readers seeking more information about the effects of Japanese/KMT policies (aside from the Japanese footbinding ban) on the Taiwanese identity would do best to look elsewhere.
Other problems within Is Taiwan Chinese? are not as difficult to navigate for a patient reader. For example, the language that Brown uses is a bit too academic at times. This affects the accessibility of the material. Of course, this is partly understandable in light of the fact that the book was written as a doctoral dissertation. The original audience was academic. This will not make the average reader's job any easier. Brown also tends to repeat herself frequently. This too affects readability.

Finally, the opening paragraph of the book and the first sentence of the back cover contain a large and easily identifiable error. Brown says in the opening passage, "The "one China" policy, officially supported by the PRC, the US, and many other countries, and formerly supported by Taiwan, asserts that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of it."This sentence contains a major factual error.

Brown cites a work by Windberg Chai entitled Relations Between the Chinese Mainland and Taiwan to back up this assertion. I have not read Chai's work. However, if this is what Chai said, he is certainly in the wrong. According to the text of the 1972 Shanghai Communique, the text of which Chai would have had to use to come to his conclusions, the US "acknowledged" that both Beijing and Taipei believe that there is only one China. The language was made firmer in the 1979 Joint Communique, in which the US "acknowledged" the Chinese position that Taiwan was a part of China. The use of "acknowledge", as opposed to "accepted" was intentional. The United States has never "accepted" that Taiwan is a part of China. Brown overlooks the fact that Beijing, Taipei, Washington, and Tokyo all follow their own versions of "a" one China policy. There is no one universally accepted version of the one China policy.

Why is this important to the validity of Brown's work? Because this easily verifiable point is the point of departure for her entire book. The Taiwan policies of the respective countries have governed each country's treatment of Taiwan over the last few decades. This treatment has influenced the sociopolitical experience that has been so important in creating a Taiwanese national identity.

If Brown isn't aware that she has used such an obvious mistake as the springboard of her book, then a critical reader can be forgiven for questioning any of the other claims she makes in her book. In a few words, she undermines her authority to comment on such a delicate political situation.

Despite holding this reservation, after concluding Is Taiwan Chinese?, I believe that Brown does, at least, understand the material that is based on her own anthropological studies. After all, she is not a Taiwan policy maker, and her work has been accepted and praised by her peers. She has done an enormous amount of research, and done it well. Therefore, this book can be of value to those who wish to better understand the effects of culture, power, and migration on changing identities among the Hoklo and Aborigines of Taiwan. With a clearer focus and more streamlined language, this book would be a pleasure to read.

The Description of this book is Misleading.
"The "one China" policy officially supported by the People's Republic of China, the United States, and other countries asserts that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it." The Description of this book is Misleading.

United States acknowledged China's claim but do not agree with "Taiwan is a part of China". United states position is the resolution shall be peaceful.

The answers I was looking for !
If- like me - you are interested in the title's answer, Ms.Brown's is the book! Quoting some of her words: " Many events are completely unknown to us, many events are known only through extremely biased perspectives, and many events are so contradictorily reported that is difficult to reconstruct even a chronological sequence of what occurred". And - believe me! - Ms. Brown interviewed people- in Taiwan ( living there) and interviewed people- in China !!! We are talking about an Stanford University Professor. Congratulations and thanks to Amazon .

Very insightful !
I'm a Taiwanese myself. Even though the content of this book is not new to me, it still provides a fantastic read for me personally and I can imagine it'd be more fantastic for someone wishing to know more about Taiwan. Because Taiwan is so isolated in the international arena, books such as this one is highly recommended for the average person. The only aspect I did not like about this book is the first part of this book's title: "Is Taiwan Chinese?". I'd just like to inform readers that all the population in Asian countries (east, north and south east) all originated from China. So basically everyone is Chinese, so it doesn't just apply to Taiwan. It is like saying: Is Australia British? Nevertheless, a rather informative book for all.

Been Waiting For This!
At last, a book that covers an aspect of Taiwanese history and culture not often discussed until recent years: the Taiwanese people are a hybrid people.Many have some Plains Aborigine blood (traced on the maternal side).But, with cultural stigma, many Plains Aborigines and part Plains Aborigines forfeited their identity and were absorbed by "Han" identity.I've been waiting for a book in English to discuss this area and am glad Melissa Brown published this book. ... Read more

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Taiwanese society is in the midst of an immense, exciting effort to define itself, seeking to erect a contemporary identity upon the foundation of a highly distinctive history. This book provides a thorough overview of Taiwanese cultural life. The introduction familiarizes students and interested readers with the island's key geographical and demographic features, and provides a chronological summary of Taiwanese history. In the following seven chapters, readers gain insight into Taiwanese customs and culture through its thought and religion; kinship and marriage systems; literature and art; architecture; festivals and leisure activities; music and dance; cuisine and fashion. The final chapter presents the most recent information regarding children and education, and explores the importance of the Taiwanese family in the context of meaningful relationships amongst acquaintances, friends, and institutions that make up the social universe of the Taiwanese. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Best Book
I liked this book very much.I thought that it was informative, and well written.I didn't think that the other review was helpful or made any sense.Thankyou Barbara E.Reed and Gary Marvin Davison for making such good book.

Easy to read.
I am still waiting for another nice book ... Read more

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This inter-disciplinary volume of essays opens new points of departure for thinking about how Taiwan has been studied and represented in the past, for reflecting on the current state of ‘Taiwan Studies’, and for thinking about how Taiwan might be re-configured in the future.

As the study of Taiwan shifts from being a provincial back-water of sinology to an area in its own (albeit not sovereign) right, a combination of established and up and coming scholars working in the field of East Asian studies offer a re-reading and re-writing of culture in Taiwan. They show that sustained critical analysis of contemporary Taiwan using issues such as trauma, memory, history, tradition, modernity, post-modernity provides a useful point of departure for thinking through similar problematics and issues elsewhere in the world.

Re-writing Culture in Taiwan is a multidisciplinary book with its own distinctive collective voice which will appeal to anyone interested in Taiwan. With chapters on nationalism, anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, religion and museum studies, the breadth of ground covered is truly comprehensive.

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Focusing on the work of four contemporary filmmakers -- Ang Lee, Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Tsai Ming-liang -- the authors explore how these filmmakers broke from tradition, creating a cinema that is both personal and insistent on examining Taiwan's complex history. Featuring stills, anecdotes, and close readings of films, the authors consider the influence of Hong Kong and martial arts films, directors' experiments with autobiography, the shifting fortunes of the Taiwanese film industry, and Taiwan cinema in the context of international cinema's aesthetics and business practices.

Customer Reviews (1)

Betzee
A wonderful book on a topic that had not been well covered, i.e., the history of New Taiwanese Cinema. Covered in detail are its origins as well as the motivations of different directors and how it all intertwined with Taiwan's political liberalization in the 1980s. ... Read more

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Robert Weller's richly documented account describes the extraordinary transformations which have taken place in Chinese and Taiwanese responses to the environment across the twentieth century. The book focuses on nature tourism, anti-pollution movements, and policy implementation to show how the global spread of western ideas about nature has interacted with Chinese traditions. Inevitably differences of understanding across groups have caused problems in administering environmental reforms. They will have to be resolved if the dynamic transformations of the 1980s are to be maintained in the twenty-first century. ... Read more

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The growing field of popular culture studies in Taiwan can be divided into two distinct academic trends; a different analytical framework is used to examine either locally oriented popular culture or transnational pop culture. This volume combine these two academic trends, firstly by revealing that localized popular culture in Taiwan is in many ways a merging of Chinese, Japanese, American, and indigenous cultures and therefore is a form of hybridity that arose long before the term became popular. Secondly, the chapters show that the transnational character of Taiwan’s pop culture is one of the more important ways that it distinguishes itself from mainland China. In other words, it is precisely Taiwan’s transnational hybrid character that helps to define it as a distinctive local space.

The contributors explore how traditional Chinese influences modern localized lives in Taiwan, localized identity, culture, and politics as a contested domain with Chinese and traditional Taiwanese identities and Taiwan’s localization process as contesting Taiwan’s gravitation towards globalized Western culture.

Including chapters on baseball, poetry, pop music, puppets and Harry Potter, Popular Culture in Taiwan is an accessible and stimulating read for those studying the culture and society of Taiwan and China as well as cultural studies more generally.

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In discussions of postcolonial nationhood and cultural identity, Taiwan is often overlooked. Yet the island—with its complex history of colonization—presents a particularly fascinating case of the struggle to define a "nation." While the mainland Chinese government has been unequivocal in its resistance to Taiwanese independence, in Taiwan, government control has gradually passed from mainland Chinese immigrants to the Taiwanese themselves. Two decades of democratization and the arrival of consumer culture have made the island a truly global space. Envisioning Taiwan sorts through these complexities, skillfully weaving together history and cultural analysis to give a picture of Taiwanese identity and a lesson on the usefulness and the limits of contemporary cultural theory.

Yip traces a distinctly Taiwanese sense of self vis-à-vis China, Japan, and the West through two of the island’s most important cultural movements: the hsiang-t’u (or "nativist") literature of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Taiwanese New Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. At the heart of the book are close readings of the work of the hsiang-t’u writer Hwang Chun-ming and the New Cinema filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien. Key figures in Taiwan’s assertion of a national identity separate and distinct from China, both artists portray in vibrant detail daily life on the island. Through Hwang’s and Hou’s work and their respective artistic movements, Yip explores "the imagining of a nation" on the local, national, and global levels. In the process, she exposes a perceptible shift away from traditional models of cultural authenticity toward a more fluid, postmodern hybridity—an evolution that reflects both Taiwan’s peculiar multicultural reality and broader trends in global culture. ... Read more

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-- Robert Hegel, Washington University

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An encompasing socio-intellectual history of TW literature
I greatly enjoy this new book. It offers me an encompassing social-intellectual historical overview/analysis of Taiwan's literature.

As a stranger to the Taiwanese literary scene, this book
would be better to me if Chinese characters would accompany the English transliteration of Mandarin proper names. ... Read more

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Since the mid-1990s Taiwanese artists have been responsible for shaping much of the international contemporary art scene, yet studies on modern Taiwanese art published outside of Taiwan are scarce. The nine essays collected here present different perspectives on Taiwanese visual culture and landscape during the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), focusing variously on travel writings, Western and Japanese/Oriental-style paintings, architecture, aboriginal material culture, and crafts. Issues addressed include the imagined Taiwan and the "discovery" of the Taiwanese landscape, which developed into the imperial ideology of nangoku (southern country); the problematic idea of "local color," which was imposed by Japanese, and its relation to the "nativism" that was embraced by Taiwanese; the gendered modernity exemplified in the representation of Chinese/Taiwanese women; and the development of Taiwanese artifacts and crafts from colonial to postcolonial times, from their discovery, estheticization, and industrialization to their commodification by both the colonizers and the colonized.

The central theme of this volume is "refracted modernity"--the recursive and transferable nature of modernity--in the context of colonialism. Modernity and identity in Taiwanese visual culture emerged in the cross-cultural complexity engendered by Japanese colonization. Their formation involves a range of interdependent cultural transfers and appropriations between Europe, Japan, and Taiwan. Viewed in terms of refracted modernity, the state and product of localization/appropriation appears in an eclectic manner and is often characterized by the term "hybrid." The notion of hybridity describes the complex state that results from the continuous dissemination and translation of cultures in colonial situations, thus revising the one-dimensional historical analytical models of colonialism. The model presented in this volume instead stresses original and creative aspects and renounces the notion of imitation, a judgment often imposed by the Eurocentric view.Offering many examples of hybrid expressions that render Taiwanese visual culture unique and attractive, the case studies collectively make a strong argument for revising the traditional positioning of colonialism while offering a thought-provoking perspective on Taiwan's surge forward as a major force in contemporary art today.

Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan will be of substantial interest to historians of Taiwan, China, and Japan; art historians of Chinese and Japanese art; and scholars of colonialism, decolonization, modernism, and modernity in general. Readers in the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, visual culture, and women's studies will find its essays timely and highly informative. ... Read more

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With a special place among the world's important trading countries, Taiwan presents the international practitioner with its own particular legal issues and problems. Among the world's most many-sourced legal systems, the law of Taiwan sustains major elements from Chinese and Japanese sources as well as its own indigenous and traditional rules and strong influences from both civil and common law traditions.

This convenient guide, written by a scholar-practitioner who is both Dean of Law at the National Taiwan University and a panelist in the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body, is an ideal introduction and practical handbook for anyone involved in a transaction that raises issues in Taiwanese law. After detailed summaries of Taiwan's system of government, its court system, sources of law, and administrative law and procedure, the author covers practice and procedure in such fields of legal activity as the following:

• contracts;
• torts;
• consumer protection;
• property rights;
• family law;
• law of succession;
• alternative dispute resolution;
• intellectual property law;
• trade;
• government procurement;
• labor law; and
• criminal law and procedure.

International lawyers will find all the legal situations most likely to arise in the course of transactions connected to Taiwan covered expertly and knowledgeably in this very useful book. It is also valuable to students and scholars for its special insights into issues of comparative law.

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Taiwanese Legel Culture
Legal Culture And System of Taiwan by Chang-fa Lo (Kluwer Law International) With a special place among the world's important trading countries, Taiwan presents the international practitioner with its own particular legal issues and problems. Among the world's most many-sourced legal systems, the law of Taiwan sustains major elements from Chinese and Japanese sources as well as its own indigenous and traditional rules and strong influences from both civil and common law traditions.
This convenient guide, written by a scholar-practitioner who is both Dean of Law at the National Taiwan University and a panelist in the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body, is an ideal introduction and practical handbook for anyone involved in a transaction that raises issues in Taiwanese law. After detailed summaries of Taiwan's system of government, its court system, sources of law, and administrative law and procedure, the author covers practice and procedure in such fields of legal activity as the following:
contracts;
torts;
consumer protection;
property rights;
family law;
law of succession;
alternative dispute resolution; intellectual property law; trade;
government procurement; labor law; and
criminal law and procedure.
International lawyers will find all the legal situations most likely to arise in the course of transactions connected to Taiwan covered expertly and knowledgeably in this very useful book. It is also valuable to students and scholars for its special insights into issues of comparative law.
The legal system of Taiwan is unique from many perspectives. There is a mixture of Chinese and Taiwanese traditions and western legal values. When introducing the western legal system into the society of Taiwan, there were always modifications and adjustments. The modifications and adjustments are to reflect the local perceptions of law and the local values. These adjustments could be positive for the purpose of making the law-transplantation more smoothly. However, there could be negative implications arising from the modifications. In addition to introduc¬ing western systems, there are also very important locally developed systems which have remarkable implications. The book tries to identify these and makes its observations so as to allow readers to make their own judgments.
Since this is only an introduction of Taiwanese legal system, the expla¬nations are rather general and are not designed to give advice on specific legal issues or problems.
... Read more

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Pedestrian 1970s ethnography of atomized Taiwanese village
With a foreshortened historical perspective, Harrelldescribes changing patterns of employment, internal stratification, social grouping, family types, and ancestral cults in a former mining town in Haishan that became involved in manufacturing, both in local, small, subcontracting enterprises and as a source of labor for larger enterprises in and around nearby Daiba (Taipei) during the 1970s. He attributes the absence of lineage organization to the difficulties involved in collective ownership of property other than land and the ease of migration for those not tied to landholdings. (Many Taiwanese villages were exclusively or predominantly comprised of persons with the same surname. The one he studied was atypical in its mixture of surnames.)

Harrelldiscusses the social and economic co-operation of unrelated persons, the simplification of ancestor worship in a locale without established lineage organizations, and the relatively higher status of women in a place where the household is the predominant unit of social organization. Rates of uxorilocal marriage are higher (15%) and rates of minor marriage are lower (35%) than in peasant villages in which the lineage is the major unit of social organization. Harrell attributes the relative lack of "dependency" symptoms (stratification and comprador capitalism) to the expansion of the (manufacturing) core to such villages, while avoiding examination of politics, local, national, or international. (In earlier work,he creditedJapanese development of transport infrastructure and agriculture for providing the base for decentralized industrialdevelopment.) ... Read more

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Describes the geography, history, government, economy, and culture of Taiwan. ... Read more

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