Taiwan

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Asian Countries; Countries

Taiwan ( Traditional Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; Simplified Chinese: 台湾; Hanyu Pinyin: Táiwān; Wade-Giles: T'ai-wan; Taiwanese: Tâi-oân) is an island in East Asia. "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the territories administered by the Republic of China (ROC), a state whose effective area of administration consists of the island of Taiwan, Lanyu (Orchid Island) and Green Island in the Pacific off the Taiwan coast, the Pescadores in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and Matsu off the southeast coast of the territories administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The main island of Taiwan, sometimes also referred to as Formosa (from Portuguese, meaning "graceful"), is located at 22°57′N 120°12′E, off the coast of the territories administered by the People's Republic of China, south of Japan and north of the Philippines. It is bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea. The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation.

By the end of major fighting in the Chinese Civil War in 1950, the ROC had lost control of mainland China to the PRC. Since then, the ROC has been restricted to its present effective area of administration consisting of Taiwan and some neighboring islands. Today, the PRC and the ROC do not recognize each other, and the PRC considers all of the territories administered by the ROC as PRC territory, and vice versa. For more information on this dispute, see Political status of Taiwan.

History

Prehistory and early settlement

Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back thirty thousand years, although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically distinct from any groups currently on the island. About four thousand years ago, ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines settled in Taiwan. These aborigines are genetically related to Malay and Polynesians, and linguists classify their language as Austronesian. Han Chinese began settling in the Pescadores in the 1200s, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of the trade resources valued in that era rendered it unattractive to all but "occasional adventurers or fishermen engaging in barter" until the sixteenth century.

Records from ancient China indicate that Han Chinese might have known of the existence of the main island of Taiwan since the Three Kingdoms period ( third century), having assigned offshore islands in the vicinity names like Greater and Minor Liuqiu ( Ryūkyū in Japanese), though none of these names have been definitively matched to the main island of Taiwan. It has been claimed but not verified that the Ming Dynasty admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He) visited Taiwan between 1403 and 1424.

In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and dubbed it "Ilha Formosa", which means "Beautiful Island." The Portuguese made no attempt to colonize Taiwan. They were content with their trading posts in Kyūshū, Japan.

Dutch and Spanish rule

In 1624, the Dutch East Indies Company, headquartered in Batavia, Java, established the first European-style government ever on the soil of Taiwan, and inaugurated the modern political history of Taiwan. They did not just collect taxes, but also tried to convert the native Formosans, who enjoyed a friendly relationship with the Dutch, and learned the Dutch language. Some aborigines still retain their Dutch Bibles even today. The records of the Dutch rule are well-preserved in a museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Documents there show that they even set up orphanages on Taiwan at that time (a rare occurrence in East Asia then). Today, their visible legacy in Taiwan is limited to a castle in Anping District of Tainan City. It was the Dutch who started importing on a large scale Chinese workers from China's Fujian province as laborers, many of whom became naturalized. The Dutch had its colonial capital at Tayoan City (source of modern name "Taiwan", and present day Anping). The Dutch military presence concentrated at a fort called Castle Zeelandia. The Dutch colonialists also used the aborigines to hunt the native Formosan Sika deer (Cervus nippon taioanus) that inhabited Taiwan, contributing to the eventual disappearance of a small subspecies in the wild. (A small population of the subspecies is being kept in captivity and currently being reintroduced into the Kenting National Park in southern Taiwan.) The pelt of the deer was shipped to Japan, from which the commodity continued its trip to Europe, the U.S., etc.

The Spaniards occupied the northern part of Taiwan for seventeen years before finally being driven away by the Dutch. Today the only visible Spanish legacy is the reddish, solid-looking San Domingo Castle, (dubbed the "Red-Hair Castle" by Taiwanese) that was used by the British consulate until the United Kingdom severed ties with the KMT regime and its formal relationship with Taiwan.

There was a time that the French occupied the group of islands in the Formosa Strait called "Pescadores" (Spanish meaning "fishermen"). A French admiral died there from some battle, and was buried there. His bones were unearthed and brought back to France in the 1960s after France severed ties with the KMT regime, and along with it any formal relationship with Taiwan.

Koxinga and Imperial Chinese rule

Naval and troop forces of Southern Fujian defeated the Dutch in 1662, subsequently expelling the Dutch government and military from the island. They were led by Lord Koxinga (鄭成功, p: Zheng Chenggong), son of a Southern Fujian pirate-merchant and a Japanese samurai's daughter. Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga retreated to Taiwan as a self-styled Ming loyalist and established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683). Koxinga established his capital at Tainan and he and his heirs, Zheng Jing (鄭經) who ruled from 1662-82 and his son Zheng Keshuang (鄭克塽), who served less than a year, continued to launch raids on the south-east coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty in an attempt to recover the mainland. Koxinga's attempt to solicit support from the Japanese Shogun was unsuccessful.

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of Southern Fujian,the Qing Dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. Cheng's followers were expatriated to the farthest reaches of the Qing Empire. The Qing Dynasty government wrestled with its Taiwan policy to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, which led to a series of edicts to manage migration and respect for aboriginal land rights. Migrants mostly of Southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan as renters of the large plots of aboriginal lands under contracts that usually involved marriage, while the border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines 'Sinicizing' while others retreated into the mountains. The bulk of Taiwan's population today claim descent from these migrants. During this time, there were a number of conflicts involving Chinese from different regions of Southern Fujian, and between Southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

In 1887, the Qing government upgraded Taiwan's status from that of being a prefecture of Fujian to one of province itself, the twentieth in the country, with its capital at Taipei. The move was accompanied by a modernization drive that included the building of the first railroad and the beginning of a postal service in Taiwan.

Japanese rule

Japan also sought to claim sovereignty over Taiwan (known as Takasago Koku, or "country of High Sand," a complimentary term in Japanese) since 1592, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi undertook a policy of expansion and extending Japanese influence overseas. Korea, to the west, was invaded, but attempts to invade Taiwan turned out to be unsuccessful due mainly to endemic and epidemic diseases that had no cure at that time such as cholera and malaria, and fierce resistance by aborigines on the island. In 1609, the Tokugawa Shogunate sent Haruno Arima on an exploratory mission of the island. In 1616, Murayama Toan led an unsuccessful invasion of the island.

In 1871, an Okinawan vessel shipwrecked on the southern tip of Taiwan and the crew of fifty-four were beheaded by the Paiwan aborigines. When Japan sought compensation from Qing China, the court rejected the demand on the ground that Taiwan was outside its jurisdiction. This open renunciation of sovereignty led to Japan's invasion of Taiwan. In 1874, an expeditionary force of three thousand troops was sent to the island. There were about thirty Taiwanese and 543 Japanese casualties (twelve in battle and 531 by endemic diseases).

Following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), by signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Qing China ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan in perpetuity, on terms dictated by the latter. Inhabitants wishing to remain Chinese subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and return to China. Very few Taiwanese took the offer.

On May 25, 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on October 21, 1895. This period of Japanese occupation was marked by suppression of local resistance movements by the Japanese, and the subjugation of the local populace into manual labor in various factories and plantations set up by the occupying force to produce exports to the Japanese mainland. Japan spent the first 10 years to eradicate the endemic diseases from Taiwan, setting up a public hospital for each chō, an Japanese administrative unit between the town and village. It also poured money and first-class expert labor into the island. Among those who worked to improve the condition of Taiwan was Nitobe Inazo. He and his, American wife, a Quaker, lived in Taiwan for two years, to improve the sugarcane quality of Taiwan. The first plantation scale sugar industry was thus established on Taiwan. Japanese also introduced the "Horaimai" into Taiwan, which was Japanese rice seeds planted in Taiwan's soil. The success came after years of research and experimentation. Some products were so good that they were submitted by the Taiwan governor to the emperor in Tokyo for the imperial family's consumption. Taiwan quickly became the jewel of the Yamato crown, yielding profits for the Japanese. Taiwan supplied the empire with rice, sugar, banana, pineapple, and high-class timber, hinoki, which was used by all the major Buddhist temples ( otera) and Shinto shrines ( jinja) in Japan. It was the first time that poor Japanese and Koreans had the chance to eat sugar. Before annexation of Taiwan, sugar in the form of snacks ( okashi) was for the nobles only.

Despite the otherwise relatively friendly relationship between Japanese and Taiwanese in Taiwan, Japan had some lingering suspicion of Taiwanese as Chinese, and did not draft Taiwanese as soldiers before the war. On the other hand, Koreans were not only drafted, but even allowed to enter Shikan Gakko, the government-run officers' school. Some women from Taiwan, like their counterparts from the Japanese mainland and Korea, were forced to serve as "comfort women" (sex slaves) for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War. Taiwanese people were classified as second and third-class citizens and Chinese treated as pariahs. Resistance had to be put down and by 1920s, armed uprisings have largely been suppressed. However, resistance with non-violent means continued and flourished in intellectual circles such as the Taiwanese Cultural Association. Many famous Taiwanese writers emerged from these literary groups.

Japan was forced to draft Taiwanese only after Pearl Harbour. However, Taiwanese proved themselves to be good soldiers, especially the aborigines. The dedication of these aboriginal soldiers ("Takasago Hei") towards the Japanese imperial armed forces is still celebrated by the Japanese veterans even today. After the Second World War, some soldiers stayed in Indonesia to fight the Independence War and were decorated by the Indonesian government as heroes. One of Admiral Yamamoto's personal pilots was a Taiwanese and some Taiwanese pilots even volunteered to become kamikaze. Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to integrate the island into the Japanese Empire. The person who guided the Japanese soldiers into the Taipei city in 1895, Ko Ken Ei, was appointed by the emperor as the first Taiwanese member of the Japanese House of Nobles, thus becoming a Japanese noble. Three other Taiwanese were subsequently appointed. By 1945, just before the end of World War II, desperate plans were put in place to allow entry of Taiwanese into the Japanese Diet to make Taiwan an integral part of Japan proper.

The signing of the Instrument of Surrender on August 15, 1945, put Taiwan under Allied occupation. General MacArthur then ordered the ROC troops into the island as the occupation force of Taiwan, pending final resolution of Taiwan's status internationally. On October 25, 1945, ROC troops representing the Allied Command accepted the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taihoku. The ensuing military occupation of Taiwan was however conducted on behalf of the "conqueror" and "principal occupying power," which was/is the United States. However, due to the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communists, the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and the Allies stipulated the United States as the principal occupying power of Taiwan while not naming the recipient of Taiwan's sovereignty. Chiang Kai-Shek, President of the ROC, refused to accept this arrangement, and the details of the San Francisco Peace Treaty were kept secret from the Taiwanese populace. The PRC was excluded from this treaty signing ceremony since it was not a recognized state yet and because the PRC was the major force fighting against the U.S. during the Korean War.

Supporters of Taiwanese independence claim that based on technicality, documents and treaties left the legal sovereignty of Taiwan ambiguous, and that the ruling KMT government of the ROC have merely exercised stewardship control over the island, as there are no international legal documents proving that the sovereignty of Taiwan has ever been transferred to China. The People's Republic of China, on its part, says that Taiwan's sovereignty was transferred to China under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, which Japan necessarily accepted by surrendering to the Allies. Some but by no means all Pan-Blue supporters in Taiwan are of a similar opinion. See Political status of Taiwan for more information.

Kuomintang rule

The ROC administration, led by Chiang Kai-shek, announced October 25, 1945, as "Taiwan Retrocession Day" (臺灣光復節). At first, they were greeted as liberators by the people of Taiwan. However, the ROC military administration on Taiwan under Chen Yi was generally unstable and corrupt; it seized property and set up government monopolies of many industries. These problems, compounded with hyperinflation, unrest due to the Chinese Civil War, and distrust due to political, cultural and linguistic differences between the Taiwanese and the Mainland Chinese, quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new administration. This culminated in a series of severe clashes between the ROC administration and Taiwanese, in turn leading to the bloody 228 incident and the reign of White Terror.

In 1949, on losing the Chinese Civil War to the CPC, the KMT retreated from Mainland China and moved the ROC government to Taipei, Taiwan's largest city, while continuing to claim sovereignty over all of China and Greater Mongolia. On the mainland, the Communists established the PRC, claiming to be the sole representative of China including Taiwan and portraying the ROC government on Taiwan as an illegitimate entity. Some 1.3 million refugees from Mainland China, consisting mainly of soldiers, KMT party members, and most importantly the intellectual and business elites from the mainland, arrived in Taiwan around that time. In addition, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, the KMT brought with them literally the entire gold reserve and foreign currency reserve of mainland China. This unprecedented influx of human and monetary capital laid the foundation for Taiwan's later dramatic economic development. From this period on, Taiwan was governed by a party-state dictatorship, with the KMT as the ruling party. Military rule continued and little to no distinction was made between the government and the party, with public property, government property, and party property being interchangeable. Government workers and party members were indistinguishable, with government workers, such as teachers, required to become KMT members, and party workers paid salaries and promised retirement benefits along the lines of government employees. In addition all other parties were outlawed, and political opponents were persecuted, incarcerated, and executed.

Taiwan remained under martial law and one-party rule, under the name of the " Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion" (動員戡亂時期臨時條款), from 1948 to 1987, when Presidents Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui gradually liberalized and democratized the system.

Geography

The island of Taiwan lies some 200 kilometers off the southeastern coast of China, across the Taiwan Strait, and has an area of 35,801 square kilometers (13,823 square miles). The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest. The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is the Yu Shan at 3,952 meters, and there are five other peaks over 3,500 meters. This makes it the world's seventh-highest island

The shape of the main island of Taiwan is similar to a sweet potato seen in a south-to-north direction, and therefore, Taiwanese people, especially the Min-nan division, often call themselves "children of the Sweet Potato". There are also other interpretations of the island shape, one of which is a whale in the ocean (the Pacific Ocean) if viewed in a west-to-east direction, which is a common orientation in ancient maps, plotted either by Western explorers or the Ching Dynasty.

Taiwan's climate is marine tropical. The Northern part of the island has a rainy season that lasts from January to late March during the southwest monsoon, and also experiences meiyu in May. The entire island succumbs to hot humid weather from June until September, while October to December are arguably the most pleasant times of year. The middle and southern parts of the island do not have an extended monsoon season during the winter months, but can experience several weeks of rain, especially during and after Lunar New Year. Natural hazards such as typhoons and earthquakes are common in the region.

Taiwan is a centre of bird endemism; see Endemic birds of Taiwan for further information.

Environment and pollution

With its high population density and many factories, some areas in Taiwan suffer from heavy pollution. Most notable are the southern suburbs of Taipei and the eastern stretch from Tainan to Lin Yuan, south of Kaohsiung. In the past, Taipei suffered from extensive vehicle and factory air pollution, but with mandatory use of unleaded gasoline and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, the air quality of Taiwan has improved dramatically. The motor scooters which are ubiquitous in Taiwan, especially older or cheaper two-stroke versions, also contribute disproportionately to air pollution in Taiwan.

Land and soil pollution has decreased as Taiwanese industry moves out of heavy industry; however, several toxic sites left mainly by foreign companies continue to pose challenges. Solid waste disposal has become less of a problem as a nation-wide recycling movement has taken hold, especially with support from Buddhist charity organizations.

Water pollution remains a problematic issue. Nearly 90% of sewage waste in Taiwan is dumped into waterways untreated. Several rivers are so heavily polluted that it would take billions of dollars to clean them.

Society

Ethnic groups

The ROC's population was estimated in 2005 at 22.9 million, most of whom are on Taiwan. About 98% of the population is of Han Chinese ethnicity. Of these, 86% are descendants of early Han immigrants known as "native Taiwanese" (Chinese: 本省人; pinyin: Bensheng ren; literally "home-province person"). This group contains two subgroups: the Southern Fujianese or "Hokkien" or "Min-nan" (70% of the total population), who migrated from the coastal Southern Fujian (Min-nan) region in the southeast of Mainland China; and the Hakka (15% of the total population), who originally migrated south to Guangdong, its surrounding areas and Taiwan, intermarrying extensively with Taiwanese aborigines. The remaining 12% of Han Chinese are known as Mainlanders (Chinese: 外省人; pinyin: Waisheng ren; literally "external-province person") and are composed of and descend from immigrants who arrived after the Second World War. This group also includes those who fled mainland China in 1949 following the Nationalist defeat in the Chinese Civil War.

Dalu ren (大陸人) refers to residents of mainland China. This group excludes almost all Taiwanese, including the Mainlanders, except recent immigrants from mainland China, such as those made ROC citizens through marriage. It also excludes foreign brides from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines or foreign grooms of which a greater number come from Western countries. One in seven marriages now involves a partner from another country. As Taiwan's birthrate is among the lowest in the world, this contingent is playing an increasingly important role in changing Taiwan's demographic makeup. Transnational marriages now account for one out of six births.

The other 2% of Taiwan's population, numbering about 458,000, are listed as the Taiwanese aborigines (Chinese: 原住民; pinyin: yuánzhùmín; literally "original inhabitants"), divided into 12 major groups: Ami, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Puyuma, Rukai, Tsou, Saisiyat, Tao (Yami), Thao, Kavalan and Taroko.

Languages

About 80% of the people in Taiwan belong to the Holo (河洛) or Hoklo (福佬) ethnic group and speak both Standard Mandarin (officially recognized by the ROC as the National Dialect) and Taiwanese (a variant of the Min Nan dialect spoken in Fujian province). Mandarin is the primary language of instruction in schools; however, most spoken media is split between Mandarin and Taiwanese. The Hakka (客家), about 10% of the population, have a distinct Hakka dialect. Aboriginal minority groups still speak their native languages, although most also speak Mandarin. English is a common second language, with many large private schools such as Hess providing English instruction. English also features on several of Taiwan's education exams.

Although Mandarin is still the language of instruction in schools and dominates television and radio, non-Mandarin dialects have undergone a revival in public life in Taiwan. A large fraction of the populace speak the Taiwanese dialect, a variant of Min nan spoken in Fujian, China, and a majority understand it. Many also speak Hakka. People educated during the Japanese period of 1900 to 1945 used Japanese as the medium of instruction. Some in the older generations only speak the Japanese they learned at school and the Taiwanese they spoke at home and are unable to communicate with many in the modern generations who only speak Mandarin.

Most aboriginal groups in Taiwan have their own languages which, unlike Taiwanese or Hakka, do not belong to the Chinese language family, but rather to the Austronesian language family. Their lingua franca is Japanese, incidentally.

The national phonetic system of the ROC is Zhuyin Fuhao ( Traditional Chinese: 注音符號; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhùyīn Fúhào; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or "Symbols for Annotating Sounds", often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this phonemic alphabet. It is used for teaching the Chinese languages, especially Standard Mandarin, to people learning to read, write, and speak Mandarin.

The romanization of Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan is inconsistent. Although the national government officially adopted Tongyong Pinyin in 2002, it allowed local governments to make their own choices. Taipei, Taiwan's largest city, has adopted Hanyu Pinyin, replacing earlier signage, most of which had been in a bastardized version of Wade-Giles. Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second-largest city, has adopted Tongyong. Elsewhere in Taiwan, signs tend to be in a mixture of systems, with the most common overall being MPS2, which was official before the adoption of Tongyong Pinyin. Because romanization is not taught in Taiwan schools and there has been little political will to ensure that it is implemented correctly, romanization errors are common throughout Taiwan; at present the area with the fewest errors on official signage is Taipei. As the Pan-Blue bloc has largely aligned itself behind Hanyu Pinyin and the Pan-Green bloc has largely backed Tongyong Pinyin, Pan-Blue victories in the 2005 county elections are likely to result in an expansion of the use of Hanyu Pinyin, especially in northern and central Taiwan.

Most people in Taiwan have their names romanized using a modified version of Wade-Giles. This, however, is generally not out of personal preference but rather a tendency to use the system that most reference materials in Taiwan have employed to date.

Religion

Over 93% of Taiwanese are adherents of a combination of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism; 4.5% are adherents of Christianity, which includes Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and other non-denominational Christian groups; and 2.5% are adherents of other religions, such as Islam and Judaism.

Confucianism is a philosophy that deals with secular moral ethics, and serves as the foundation of both Chinese and Taiwanese culture. The majority of Taiwanese and Chinese usually combine the secular moral teachings of Confucianism with whatever religions they are affiliated with.

One especially important goddess for Taiwanese people is Matsu, who symbolizes the seafaring spirit of Taiwan's ancestors from Fujian and Guangdong.

Culture

Taiwan's mainstream culture is primarily derived from traditional Chinese culture, with significant influences also from Japanese and American cultures, especially in the areas of politics and architecture. Fine arts, folk traditions, and popular culture embody traditional and modern Asian and Western motifs.

After the retreat to Taiwan, the Nationalists took steps to preserve traditional Chinese culture and suppress the local Taiwanese culture. The government launched a program promoting Chinese calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, folk art, and Chinese opera.

Since the Taiwan localization movement of the 1990s, Taiwan's cultural identity has been allowed greater expression. Identity politics, along with the over one hundred years of political separation from mainland China, half of which were under Japanese colonial rule, has led to distinct traditions in many areas, including cuisine, opera, and music.

The status of Taiwanese culture is a subject of debate. Along with the political status of Taiwan, it is disputed whether Taiwanese culture is a segment of Chinese culture (due to the Han ethnicity and a shared language and traditional customs with mainland Chinese) or a distinct culture separate from Chinese culture (due to the long period of recent political separation and the past colonization of Taiwan). Speaking Taiwanese under the localization movement has become an emblem of Taiwanese identity.

One of Taiwan's greatest attractions is the National Palace Museum, which houses more than 650,000 pieces of Chinese bronze, jade, calligraphy, painting and porcelain. The KMT moved this collection from the Forbidden City in Beijing in 1949 when it fled to Taiwan. The collection, estimated to be one-tenth of China's cultural treasures, is so extensive that only 1% is on display at any time.

Popular sports in Taiwan include basketball and baseball. Cheerleading performances and billiards are quite fashionable. Badminton is also common.

Karaoke, drawn from contemporary Japanese culture, is extremely popular in Taiwan, where it is known as KTV. Small soundproof rooms containing sofas and a huge TV screen can be hired out, and friends take it in turns to sing songs.

Taiwan has a high density of 24-hour convenience stores, which in addition to the usual services, provide services on behalf of financial institutions or government agencies such as collection of parking fees, utility bills, traffic violation fines, and credit card payments.

Taiwanese culture also has influenced the West: bubble tea and milk tea are popular drinks readily available around city centers in Europe and North America. Ang Lee is the famous Taiwanese movie director of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain.