Han Taiwanese, Taiwanese Han (), Taiwanese Han Chinese, or Han Chinese are Taiwanese people of full or partial ethnic Han descent. According to the

Executive Yuan The Executive Yuan () is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Its leader is the Premier, who is appointed by the President of the Republic of China, and requires confirmation by the Legislative Yuan. ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

, they comprise 95 to 97 percent of the Taiwanese population, which also includes

Austronesians The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Au ...

and other non-Han people. Major waves of Han immigration occurred since the 17th century to the end of

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 main ...

in 1949, with the exception of the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). Han Taiwanese mainly speak three languages of Chinese: Mandarin,

Hokkien 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 ...

and

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

Definition

There is no simple uniform definition of Han Taiwanese,Hsieh, Shih-Chung. 1998. Three Definition of Hanren：Images of the Majority People in Taiwan. which are estimated to comprise 95 to 98 percent of the Taiwanese population. To determine if a Taiwanese is Han, common criteria include immigration background (from continental

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

), using a Sinitic language as their mother tongue, and observance of traditional Han festivals. Sometimes a negative definition is employed, where Han people are those who are not non-Han. Taiwanese Han ethnic groups include the Hoklo people and Hakka people that had arrived in Taiwan before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

(sometimes called "benshengren"), as well those and other Han people that arrived shortly after World War II (sometimes called " waishengren"). The distinction between benshengren and waishengren is now less important due to intermarriages and the rise of a

Taiwanese identity Taiwanese people may be generally considered the people of Taiwan who share a common culture, ancestry and speak Taiwanese Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka or indigenous Taiwanese languages as a mother tongue. Taiwanese people may also refer to the ...

. In addition, there are Han Taiwanese that do not fall into the above categories, including the Puxian-speaking people in Wuqiu Township,

Kinmen County Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It lies roughly east of the city of Xiamen in Fujian, from which it is separa ...

, the Mindong-speaking people in Matzu, and various newly arrived Han immigrants.

Genetics

There is a belief that modern Taiwanese Han are genetically different from Chinese Han, which has been used as a basis for Taiwanese independence from China. This belief has been called the "myth of indigenous genes" by some researchers such as Shu-juo Chen and Hong-kuan Duan, who say that "genetic studies have never supported the idea that Taiwanese Han are genetically different with Chinese Han." Some descendants of plains aborigines have opposed the usage of their ancestors in the call for Taiwanese independence. Genetic studies show genetic differences between Taiwanese Han and mountain aborigines. According to Chen and Duan, the genetic ancestry of individuals cannot be traced with certainty and attempts to construct identity through genetics are "theoretically meaningless." In the highest self reports, 5.3 percent of Taiwan's population claimed indigenous heritage. Estimates of genetic indigenous ancestry range from 13%, 26%, and as high as 85%. The latter number was published in a Chinese language editorial and not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, however these numbers have taken hold in popular Taiwanese imagination and are treated as facts in Taiwanese politics and identity. Many Taiwanese claim to be part aboriginal. Some Taiwanese graduate biology students expressed skepticism at the findings, noting the lack of peer-reviewed publications. Chen suggests that the estimates resulted from manipulation of sample sizes. The lack of methodological rigor suggests the numbers were meant for local consumption. In all scientific studies, genetic markers for aboriginal ancestry make up a minute portion of the genome. In 2021, Marie Lin, who was the source of the larger indigenous ancestry numbers, co-authored an article stating that East Asian ancestry may have mixed with indigenous peoples in their southward expansion 4,000 years ago, although this does not rule out more recent Taiwanese Han-indigenous admixtures. Han Chinese in mainland China, Han Taiwanese, as well as

Chinese Singaporeans Chinese Singaporeans () are Singaporeans of Chinese descent. Chinese Singaporeans constitute 75.9% of the Singaporean citizen population according to the official census, making them the largest ethnic group among them. As early as the 10 ...

all possessed Austronesian-related ancestry. However only one in five hundred Han Taiwanese individuals examined was genetically closer to the Dusun people, who are closer to the Taiwanese indigenous peoples than Sino-Tibetan populations, and there are "distinct patterns of genetic structure between the Taiwanese Han and indigenous populations."

Immigration history and demographics

North Side of Old Taipei City North Gate

There were two major waves of Han immigration: 1) during the

Qing dynasty 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-speak ...

in the 18th and 19th centuries and 2) from Republic of China's mainland area, which is now ruled by the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, in the final years of the

(1945-1949).

Before Imperial Japanese rule

Taiwan's southwest was home to a Chinese population numbering close to 1,500 before the Dutch first came in 1623. From 1624 to 1662, they began to encourage large-scale Han

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

to the island for labour, mainly from the what is today south

Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...

. Starting from 1683, the Qing government limited immigration to Taiwan. Such restriction was relaxed following the 1760s, and by 1811 there were more than two million ethnic Chinese in Taiwan. The 1926 census counted 3,116,400 and 586,300 Han people originating from the Hok-kien and Kwang-tung provinces (roughly

and

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

today) during the

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han pe ...

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-speak ...

dynasty.

After World War II

Around 800,000 people, the vast majority being Han, immigrated to Taiwan after the end of the

, when Republic of China took over Taiwan, with the biggest wave taking place around the founding of the

(PRC) on the mainland in 1949. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a small amount of Han immigration from the PRC into Taiwan. It mainly consists of two categories—brides of businessmen who work on the mainland, and women who have married rural Taiwanese, mostly through a marriage broker. Around 20% or 34,000 of the

Vietnamese people in Taiwan Vietnamese people in Taiwan form one of the island's larger communities of foreign residents. Of the roughly 80,000 Vietnamese workers who resided in Taiwan as of 2006, 60,000 are employed as domestic helpers, 16,000 work in factories, 2,000 i ...

are Hoa people, people of Chinese origin that are mostly Han.

Interactions among Han immigrants

Qing Dynasty

Conflicts

There were violent ethnic conflicts (termed "分類械鬥" in government documents of the

Qing Dynasty 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-speak ...

), which played a major role in determining the distribution of different groups of Han people in Taiwan. Most conflicts were between people of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou origins which includes acts where Quanzhang fought against

peasants from the southwestern hills of

(Tingzhou and western Zhangzhou) throughout the period. ("漳泉械鬥", Chang-Chin conflicts) and between people of

and Hakkas origins ("閩粵械鬥" in-Yue conflicts where Hoklo people united to fight against the

who largely came from

and a minority from

, is called ("閩客械鬥" in-Hakka conflicts. Trying to be a mediator, Tēⁿ Iōng-sek (鄭用錫, 10 June 1788 – 21 March 1858), the first Taiwanese to achieve the highest degree, ''

jinshi ''Jinshi'' () was the highest and final degree in the imperial examination in Imperial China. The examination was usually taken in the imperial capital in the palace, and was also called the Metropolitan Exam. Recipients are sometimes refer ...

'' or "Doctor" (Mandarin: 進士), in the imperial examination of the Qing Dynasty, wrote an article ''On Reconciliation'' (勸和論).

Cultural assimilation

In some regions, where the majority of the population spoke another language, the minority group sometimes adopted the more dominant language and lost their original language. This most commonly occurred with Hakka migrants, who adopted either Quanzhou or Zhangzhou

; they are referred to as "minnanized"

people (福佬客).

Republic of China

Unlike pre-World War II, when Han immigrants were predominantly of Hok-kien and Hakka origins, post-World War II Han people came from all over

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...

. Their different languages, habits, ideologies and relationships with the Republic of China government sometimes led to conflicts between these two groups.

Interactions with non-Han inhabitants

In Taiwan, the Han people came into contact with the Austronesians, Dutch, Spanish and Japanese.

Han people and Austronesians

The Amis term for Han people is ''payrag''. According to the historian Melissa J. Brown, within the Taiwanese Minnan ( Hoklo) community itself, differences in culture indicate the degree to which mixture with

took place, with most pure Hoklo Han in Northern Taiwan having almost no Austronesian admixture, which is limited to Hoklo Han in Southern Taiwan. Plains aborigines who were mixed and assimilated into the Hoklo Han population at different stages were differentiated between "short-route" and "long-route". The ethnic identity of assimilated Plains aboriginals in the immediate vicinity of Tainan was still known since a Taiwanese girl from an old elite Hoklo family was warned by her mother to stay away from them. The insulting name "番仔" (huan-a) was used against plains aborigines by the Taiwanese, and the Hoklo Taiwanese speech was forced upon Aborigines like the Pazeh people. Hoklo Taiwanese has replaced Pazeh and driven it to near extinction. Aboriginal status has been requested by plains aboriginals.

Biological traits and relationships with other Taiwanese/Asian people

Genetic relationships

Part of the

maximum-likelihood In statistics, maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a method of estimating the parameters of an assumed probability distribution, given some observed data. This is achieved by maximizing a likelihood function so that, under the assumed statis ...

tree of 75 Asian populations:

Alcohol metabolism

In Taiwan, the prevalence of alcohol dependence among the Han is 10 times lower than that of Austronesians, which is related to genetic, physical, psychological, social, environmental, and cultural factors. An association study by researchers at the Academia Sinica found that genes in alcohol metabolism pathway, especially '' ADH1B'' and '' ALDH2'', conferred the major genetic risk for alcohol dependence in Taiwanese Han men.

Languages

Map of the most commonly used home language in Taiwan

The languages used by Han Taiwanese include Mandarin (entire country),

(Taiwan proper and Kinmen),

(Taiwan proper), Mindong ( Matzu), Puxian ( Wuqiu Island, Kinmen), and other Han languages spoken by some post-World War II immigrants or immigrants from

since the 1990s. The writing systems used include Han characters, Han phonetic notations such as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols for Mandarin and Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols for Hokkien and Hakka, and the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

for various romanization systems, including Tongyong Pinyin, Wade–Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II for Mandarin, POJ and Taiwanese Minnan Romanization System for Hokkien, and Hakka Romanization System for Hakka. Significant numbers of Puxian Min, Fuzhounese, and Teochew speakers came to Taiwan proper, but they were eventually assimilated into the

(Minnan) speaking population.

Linguistic Diversity

The Taiwanese linguist Uijin Ang divided Taiwan (excluding Kinmen and Matsu) into 7 linguistic regions, including one Austronesian, five Han and one mixed.

Influence of Non-Han Languages

Ever since the arrival of Han immigrants in Taiwan, their languages have undergone changes through interactions with other Han or non-Han languages. For example, one unit of land area used in Taiwanese Minnan is ''Kah'' (; 0.9699 acre), which comes from the Dutch word for "field", ''akker'' (akker > > ). 1 yehliu 2015 panorama

Culture

Cuisine

Image:Fragpork Rice from Formosa Chang Taipei Neihu Store.jpg,

Minced pork rice ''Lo bah png'' (), as known as minced pork rice, is a rice dish that is commonly seen throughout Taiwan and Southern Fujian. The flavor may vary from one region to another, but the basic ingredients remain the same: ground pork marinated and ...

, a rice dish of Han Taiwanese. Image:Braised pork rice in Taichung.jpg, Minced pork rice in

Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: ''Tʻai²-chung¹'', pinyin: ''Táizhōng''), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality located in central Taiwan. Taichung has approximately 2.8 million residents and is the second most populous city of T ...

. File:Pig's blood cakes.jpg, Rice blood cakes to be fried. File:Oysterpanfry_TW.jpg, Oyster omelet in Lugang, Changhua.

Religion

The most popular religions of Han Taiwanese are

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Ta ...

and

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

. With 11,796 temples (78.4% Taoist; 19.6% Buddhist), Taiwan is the country with the highest density of temples in the world. File:Longshan Temple, Taipei 01.jpg, Lungshan Temple, a Taoist-Buddhist temple in Taipei. File:Iun-fug Giung in Longtan.jpg, Iun-Fug Giung (永福宮),

Longtan District, Taoyuan Longtan District () is a rural district in southern Taoyuan City, Taiwan. Longtan is home to the headquarters of the Republic of China Army. The township is known for the Buddhist temple in the center of Longtan Lake and the large Bainien ...

, is a traditional Han temple built in 1791 in the Hakka village Sam-Hang-Zii

Surnames

Han surnames in Taiwan

In traditional Han society, children inherit the surname of the father. Population analyses of Han Taiwanese based on the short tandem repeat sequences on the Y chromosome, which is specific to males, shows high haplotype diversity in most surname groups. Except for rare ones, the origins of Han surnames in Taiwan are pretty heterogeneous.

Villages

Confucian temple A temple of Confucius or Confucian temple is a temple for the veneration of Confucius and the sages and philosophers of Confucianism in Chinese folk religion and other East Asian religions. They were formerly the site of the administration ...

s formed an important part of the life of early Han immigrants. Famous temples include Taiwan Confucian Temple and Taipei Confucius Temple.

Written Records/Literature

One of the earliest written records of Taiwanese Hakka is ''A Tragic Ballad about Hakka Sailing to Taiwan'' (渡台悲歌), a work written in the Raoping dialect about the life and struggle of Hakka immigrants to Taiwan under the Ching rule.

Folk literature: Tales and Legends

One of the best known Han folktales in Taiwan is the ''Grandaunt Tiger''.

Architecture

Taiwanese architecture refers to a style of buildings constructed by the Han people, and is a branch of Chinese architecture. The style is generally afforded to buildings constructed before the modernization under Japanese occupation, in the 1930s. Different groups of Han immigrants differ in their styles of architecture. Being far away from the center of political power of Beijing, buildings were constructed free of construction standards. This, coupled with inferior level of expertise of artisans and craftsmen, and the Japanese colonization, the architectural style diverged from the ones on the mainland. Many traditional houses have been designated national monuments by the Taiwanese government, such as the

Lin Family Mansion and Garden The Lin Ben Yuan Family Mansion and Garden () in Banqiao District, New Taipei City, Taiwan was a residence built by the Lin Ben Yuan family. It is Taiwan's most complete surviving example of traditional Chinese garden architecture. The Lin Famil ...

and the House of Tēⁿ Iōng-sek (鄭用錫).

Handicrafts

Hakka Taiwanese have long traditions of indigo dyeing. The Yilan International Children's Folklore and Folkgame Festival exhibits collections of traditional Han Taiwanese toys.

Arts and Music

Films

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links

Taiwan Folklore & Folk Culture
( National Taiwan University OpenCourseWare) {{Taiwan related articles Chinese culture in Taiwan