Search

This paper explores the ways in which the production of commercial Hokkien popular culture - including film, music and television - has been transformed over the course of the last half century from a regional industry into something now associated almost exclusively with 'nativist' Taiwan. The paper thus draws on and contributes to debates about Diaspora, transnationalism and cultural expression in the wider East Asian region. In tracing the development of the Hokkien popular culture industry since the Second World War, I hope to show how many of the practices and traits common to Hokkien cultural production in Taiwan today originated in earlier eras and in other parts of the Chinese Diaspora (most noticeably early post-war Southeast Asia and Hong Kong). The paper also provides some ideas about why what was, in the 1950s, a lively international trade in commercial Hokkien popular culture, has, in more recent decades, become largely confined to Taiwan, with broadcast and cultural policy, demographic changes and commercial realities all playing a part in influencing the industry's fate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In postcolonial Taiwan, although Taiwan-centric consciousness is the dominant discourse, it does not exclude but often conforms to transnational capitalism. Nativism and globalism combined form a powerful hegemony. Taiwanese television 'idol dramas' endorse the status quo, justifying and propagating desire for the Occident; yet such idealization of the West cannot fully silence skepticism and aversion. This paper examines Green Forest, My Home (2005), to explore the Occidental myth and its discontents. In binary opposition, (quasi-)Westerners are portrayed as rich, beautiful, and refined; locals as malicious, simple, or ludicrous. Race is conflated with one's socioeconomic and cultural status, one's language, and one's moral standing. Frustration and resentment are projected onto the minor roles played by authentic Westerners: authoritative yet anti-romantic, they represent the West with negative connotations. The drama's double-faced portrayal of Westerners betrays a profound ambivalence toward the self and the Western other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]