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During the mid-1990s, Taiwan witnessed a remarkable proliferation of historical writings and cultural movements pertaining to 'the local'. 'Place (difang)' and 'community (shequ)' became two ubiquitous terms in the lexicon of being Taiwanese.
This book is a critical examination of the socio-historical condition in which the discourse of local diversity emerged and gradually permeated Taiwan's public culture. Interweaving ethnographic sensibility and theoretical insights across disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies and cultural geography the study elucidates the complex relationships between localism, nationalism and globalism. Not only is it a rare type of ethnography in Taiwan studies, this book also enriches our understanding of the increasingly significant field of East Asia (post)modernity. ... Read more

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Oustanding comparative sociology of emerging "civil society"
By comparing civil society in contemporary China to that in Taiwan before and after the lifting of martial law in 1987, in Alternate Civilities Boston University professor Robert P. Weller shows that democracy can grow out of Chinese cultural roots and authoritarian institutions. Both the Chinese communist party leadership and the similarly geriatric authoritarianism of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew have justified their rule by some essential Chinese need for paternalist domination and claimed that human rights are a form of neocolonial and ethnocentric meddling from the West, and should not be allowed to disrupt the splendid Confucian subordination of individuals to collectivity. This view of necessary passivity -- an extreme version of cultural determinism --is belied by the recent history of Taiwan. After half a century as a colony of Japan and half a century under brutally repressive Kuomintang martial law, democracy and civil society have blossomed in the last fifteen years. These days Taiwan is more democratic than its former tutor, the United States: there are election campaigns going on seemingly all the time in Taiwan, there is more real freedom of the press, and the candidate with the most votes in the 2000 election there became president.

Weller's comparison of civil society in Taiwan and in the PRC focused onbusiness organizations, religious groups, environmental movements, and women's networks, synthesizing a wealth of detail about "horizontal associations" (i.e., associations between equals in contrast to vertical relationships to the state apparatus or the deference to and domination by elders within families).

Weller justly claims that "by comparing China with the vibrant democracy that has developed over the last decade in Taiwan, I show how civil society can grow out of Chinese cultural roots and authoritarian institutions. "He is not so rash as to argue that a vibrant civil society and democracy will necessarilyblossom in China, only that the often invoked essential need for authoritarian rule has been disconfirmed.It seems to me that, like most American social scientists who look through Taiwan to see China (whether a past or future one), Weller underestimates the extent of non-Chinese influences on Taiwan, including not only 20th-century Japanese and then American ones, but that Taiwan was incorporated into production for export in the early 17th century by European footholds (on an island never completed controlled by any imperial Chinese dynasty).

South Korea provides another comparison of a society for which earlier authoritarian rulers claimed a Confucian duty to repress the "disorder" of public criticism. Like Taiwan, Korea was a Japanese colony (1910-45) and a flowering of civil society and democratization occurred during the 1990s.

Weller discusses material on voluntary associations from Taiwan and China interestingly, and his book is an important contribution to the comparative study of post-authoritarian sociopolitical transformation. ... Read more

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This is the first English-language anthology on the Taiwan New Cinema and its legacy. It is an exciting collection which covers all the major filmmakers from Hou Hsiao Hsien and Edward Yang to Ang Lee and more. It gathers a range of essays that analyze individual films produced since the advent of the Taiwan New Cinema in the early 1980s..

"As the first English-language anthology on Taiwan New Cinema, this is truly a groundbreaking work. The editors have assembled a collection of insightful essays by a group of well-informed and critically astute scholars. The book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to acquire an in-depth understanding of Taiwanese cinema, or more broadly, transnational Chinese-language cinema." – Sheldon H. Lu, University of California at Davis ... Read more

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A beautiful servey of Taiwan's native peoples, in English and Chinese, lavishly illustrated with black and white and color photos. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Countries and Their Cultures, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 3401 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Covers the broad range of popular religious culture of the United States at the close of the twentieth century. Beliefs, practices, symbols, traditions, movements, organizations, and leaders from the many traditions in the pluralistic American community are represented. Also includes cults and phenomena that drew followers, such as Heaven's Gale and UFOs. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Social Justice, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 10719 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Deploying weapons of the weak in civil society: political culture in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Author: Ming-cheng M. Lo
Publication: Social Justice (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 33Issue: 2Page: 77(28)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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The Taiwanese culture is a hybrid blend of Confucianist HanChinese, Japanese, European, American, global, local andTaiwanese aborigines cultures, which are often perceived inboth traditional and modern understandings (Harrell/Huang1994:1?5). The common socio-political experience in Taiwangradually developed into a sense of Taiwanese culturalidentity and a feeling of Taiwanese cultural awareness,which has been widely debated domestically (Yip 2004:230- 248; Makeham 2005:2-8; Chang 2005:224). Reflecting thecontinuing controversy surrounding the political status ofTaiwan, politics continues to play a role in the conceptionand development of a Taiwanese cultural identity,especially in the prior dominant frame of a Taiwanese andChinese dualism. In recent years, the concept of Taiwanesemulticulturalism has been proposed as a relativelyapolitical alternative view, which has allowed for theinclusion of mainlanders and other minority groups into thecontinuing re-definition of Taiwanese culture ascollectively held systems of meaning and customary patternsof thought and behavior shared by the people of Taiwan(Hsiau 2005:125?129); (Winckler 1994:23?41). ... Read more

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Warning
Very poor value for money here.BIG price for Wikipedia downloads.If Kama exists, the three "editors" will be edited out of the earth's biosphere. Pleae do not fund evil.

Wikipedia is on the net for free.

How many "books" have these jokers "edited"? ... Read more

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Compilation of color photos with exposition in both Chinese and English. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1184 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Scott Simon, Tanners of Taiwan: Life Strategies and National Culture.(Book review)
Author: Susan M. Belcher
Publication: The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 43Issue: 4Page: 474(3)

Article Type: Book review

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Taiwan is densely-populated and culturally diverse,including a majority of ethnic Taiwanese (including the Holoand Hakka peoples), a powerful faction (around 15%)mainlanders who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek in the middleof the 20th century) and the minority of aboriginal peoples.With the arrival of the KMT led Republic of China governmentin 1949, native Taiwanese culture was suppressed, andStandard Mandarin, as the official language of the Republicof China, was promoted. This led to a break in tradition inparts of the island, and ended in 1987, when martial law waslifted and a revival of traditional culture began. ... Read more

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With the insights provided in this Culture Shock! Guide, you'll learn to see beyond the stereotypes and misinformation that often precede business travel to foreign land. Whether you plan to stay for a week or for a year, you'll benefit from such topics as understanding the rules of driving and monetary systems, building business relationships and the particular intricacies of setting up an office. ... Read more