What’s in Your Cup? The Making of Taiwanese Public Sphere in Japanese Empire, 1895-1945

Huei-Ying Kuo, Johns Hopkins University

This paper elaborates on the role of Formosan (Taiwanese) tea trade and consumption behind the making of “Taiwan for Taiwanese” identity in the island’s Japanese colonial era (1895-1945). Introducing the construction of tea cult in Taiwan amidst the burgeoning restaurant and café culture in the early twentieth century, I compare the development of Taiwanese identity with the surging pan-Chinese identity in colonial Singapore. Why did the Han in Taiwan, mostly Hokkien speakers, constituted the backbone of the Taiwanese, while their Hokkien counterparts in Singapore identified themselves as sojourners from China? Did the place-based Taiwanese identity generate the momentum of anticolonialism or facilitate the Japan-led pan-Asianism? Drawing the sources from oral history transcripts, newspapers, as well as diaries among primary merchants, this paper points out various types of heritage makings, mixing colonial norms and ethnic bearings. While Okakura Tenshin in The Book of Tea features the uniqueness of Asia civilization by the tea cult, such thesis, first published in 1906 in English, overlooks the tension among tea drinkers along linguistic, colonial, class and gender lines. The making of Han Taiwanese heritage in Japanese empire took place in the public sphere where male elites held their cups of tea, among other beverages including coffee and wine.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 219. Asians and the Construction of Ethnic Identities: Nationalism, Colonialism, and Power Relations