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Paiwan People
The Paiwan () are an indigenous people of Taiwan. They speak the Paiwan language. In 2014, the Paiwan numbered 96,334. This was approximately 17.8% of Taiwan's total indigenous population, making them the second-largest indigenous group. The majority of Paiwan people live in the southern chain of the Central Mountain Range, from Damumu Mountain and the upper Wuluo River in the north of the southern chain to the Hengchun Peninsula in the south of it, and also in the hills and coastal plains of southeastern Taiwan. There are two subgroups under the Paiwan people: the Raval and the Butsul. The unique ceremonies in Paiwan are Masaru and Maleveq. The Masaru is a ceremony that celebrates the harvest of rice, whereas the Maleveq commemorates their ancestors or gods. History The name "Paiwan" may have originated from a myth. According to the myth, Paiwan ancestors lived in a location on Dawu mountain (Tawushan) that was called "Paiwan", where heaven is said to exist. Paiwan people ...
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Bamboo Flute
The bamboo flute, especially the bone flute, is one of the oldest musical instruments known. Examples of Paleolithic bone flutes have survived for more than 40,000 years, to be discovered by archaeologists. While the oldest flutes currently known were found in Europe, Asia too has a long history with the instrument that has continued into the present day. In China, a playable bone flute was discovered, about 9000 years old. Historians have found the bamboo flute has a long history as well, especially China and India. Flutes made history in records and artworks starting in the Zhou dynasty. The oldest written sources reveal the Chinese were using the kuan (a reed instrument) and hsio (or xiao, an end-blown flute, often of bamboo) in the 12th-11th centuries b.c., followed by the chi (or ch'ih) in the 9th century b.c. and the yüeh in the 8th century b.c. Of these, the chi is the oldest documented cross flute or transverse flute, and was made from bamboo. The Chinese have a word ...
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Hokkien Language
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in Taiwan, and it is also widely spoken within the Chinese diaspora in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia; and by other overseas Chinese beyond Asia and all over the world. The Hokkien 'dialects' are not all mutually intelligible, but they are held together by ethnolinguistic identity. Taiwanese Hokkien is, however, mutually intelligible with the 2 to 3 million speakers in Xiamen and Singapore. In Southeast Asia, Hokkien historically served as the ''lingua franca'' amongst overseas Chinese communities of all dialects and subgroups, and it remains today as the most spoken variety of Chinese in the region, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and some parts of Indochina (particu ...
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National Taiwan University
National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served during the period of Japanese colonization. After World War II, the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government assumed the administration of the university. The Ministry of Education reorganized and renamed the university to its current name on November 15, 1945, with its roots of liberal tradition from Peking University in Beijing by former NTU President Fu Ssu-nien. The university consists of 11 colleges, 56 departments, 133 graduate institutes, about 60 research centers, and a school of professional education and continuing studies. Notable alumni include Tsai Ing-Wen, current President of the Republic of China, former presidents Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, Turing Award laureate Andrew Yao, and Nobel Prize in Chemistry ...
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Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai Ing-wen (; born 31 August 1956) is a Taiwanese politician serving as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 2016. A member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tsai is the first female president of Taiwan. She served as chair of the DPP from 2020 to 2022, and also previously from 2008 to 2012 and 2014 to 2018. Tsai grew up in Taipei and studied law and international trade, and later became a law professor at Soochow University School of Law and National Chengchi University after earning an LLB from National Taiwan University and an LLM from Cornell Law School. She later studied law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, with her thesis titled ''"Unfair trade practices and safeguard actions",'' and was awarded a Ph.D. in law from the University of London. In 1993, as an independent (without party affiliation), she was appointed to a series of governmental positions, including trade negotiator for WTO affairs, by the then ruling party Ku ...
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Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Taiwan after 1949. It was the sole party in China during the Republican Era from 1928 to 1949, when most of the Chinese mainland was under its control. The party retreated from the mainland to Taiwan on 7 December 1949, following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law and retained its authoritarian rule over Taiwan under the ''Dang Guo'' system until democratic reforms were enacted in the 1980s and full democratization in the 1990s. In Taiwanese politics, the KMT is the dominant party in the Pan-Blue Coalition and primarily competes with the rival Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). It is currently the largest opposition party in the Legislative Yuan. The current chairman is Eric Chu. The party originate ...
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Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on mainland China. The war is generally divided into two phases with an interlude: from August 1927 to 1937, the KMT-CCP Alliance collapsed during the Northern Expedition, and the Nationalists controlled most of China. From 1937 to 1945, hostilities were mostly put on hold as the Second United Front fought the Japanese invasion of China with eventual help from the Allies of World War II, but even then co-operation between the KMT and CCP was minimal and armed clashes between them were common. Exacerbating the divisions within China further was that a puppet government, sponsored by Japan and nominally led by Wang Jingwei, was set up to nominally govern the parts of China under Japanese occupation. The civil war resumed as soon as it bec ...
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Japanese Invasion Of Taiwan (1874)
The Japanese punitive expedition to Taiwan in 1874, referred to in Japan as the and in Taiwan and Mainland China as the Mudan incident (), was a punitive expedition launched by the Japanese in retaliation for the murder of 54 Ryukyuan sailors by Paiwan aborigines near the southwestern tip of Taiwan in December 1871. The success of the expedition, which marked the first overseas deployment of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy, revealed the fragility of the Qing dynasty's hold on Taiwan and encouraged further Japanese adventurism. Diplomatically, Japan's embroilment with Qing China in 1874 was eventually resolved by a British arbitration under which Qing China agreed to compensate Japan for property damage. Some ambiguous wording in the agreed terms were later argued by Japan to be confirmation of Chinese renunciation of suzerainty over the Ryukyu Islands, paving the way for ''de facto'' Japanese incorporation of the Ryukyu in 1879. Background In December ...
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Qing
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaking ethnic group who unified other Jurchen tribes to form a new "Manchu" ethnic identity. The dynasty was officially proclaimed in 1636 in Manchuria (modern-day Northeast China and Outer Manchuria). It seized control of Beijing in 1644, then later expanded its rule over the whole of China proper and Taiwan, and finally expanded into Inner Asia. The dynasty lasted until 1912 when it was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution. In orthodox Chinese historiography, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The multiethnic Qing dynasty lasted for almost three centuries and assembled the territorial base for modern China. It was the largest imperial dynasty in the history of China and in 1790 the fou ...
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Mudan Incident (1871)
The Mudan incident of 1871 (、Japanese: 宮古島島民遭難事件、Japanese: 琉球漂流民殺害事件) was the massacre of 54 Ryukyuan sailors in Qing-era Taiwan who wandered into the central part of Taiwan after their ship shipwrecked off of Taiwan's southeastern coast. Twelve survivors were rescued by local Han people and were later returned to Miyako Island in the Ryukyus. However, because the Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary state of Qing China as well as within the Japanese sphere of influence, the massacre was used as a pretext for Japan to invade southern Taiwan in 1874 to avenge "Japanese nationals" as well as to annex the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879. Incident Shipwreck On November 30, 1871, four Ryukyuan tributary ships left the capital of Shuri, on Okinawa island, homebound for Miyako Island and the Yaeyama islands (both in the southern part of the Ryukyu Kingdom). However, before reaching home the four ships were blown off course and hit by a typhoon on December ...
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Ryukyu Kingdom
The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a tributary state of imperial Ming China by the Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island to end the Sanzan period, and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands and Sakishima Islands. The Ryukyu Kingdom played a central role in the maritime trade networks of medieval East Asia and Southeast Asia despite its small size. The Ryukyu Kingdom became a vassal state of the Satsuma Domain of Japan after the invasion of Ryukyu in 1609 but retained ''de jure'' independence until it was transformed into the Ryukyu Domain by the Empire of Japan in 1872. The Ryukyu Kingdom was formally annexed and dissolved by Japan in 1879 to form Okinawa Prefecture, and the Ryukyuan monarchy was integrated ...
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Rover Incident
The ''Rover'' Incident ( or ) occurred on 12 March 1867 when the American merchant ship ''Rover'', captained by Joseph Hunt who was accompanied by his wife Mercy G. ''Beerman'' Hunt, and en route from Swatow to Newchwang, was wrecked off the coast of Formosa (Taiwan), then ruled by the Qing dynasty. The ship struck a coral reef called Chihsingyen near Oluanpi and drifted into the area of Kenting in modern-day Hengchun, Pingtung County, Taiwan. Fourteen American sailors, including Hunt and his wife, were killed by Taiwanese Aborigines in revenge for earlier killings of Kaolut (Koalut/Ku-a-lut/etc) tribe members by foreigners. Subsequently, the U.S. military decided to send a military expedition against the tribe members responsible. American reaction Following the wreck of the United States ship and killing of the surviving crew by aborigines, the American Consul to Amoy Charles William Le Gendre quickly traveled to Foochow, arriving on 2 April 1867, to persuade the governor ...
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