Taiwanese folk musician A-Tat (阿達) has a keen interest in the preservation of local languages in his home country. In an interview with the Toronto Spark, the singer and guitarist with TUDI-VOICE points out that mother tongues of Hoklo, Hakka, and Indigenous residents of Taiwan have been banned at different times.
This included under Japanese rule, which lasted from 1895 to 1945. Following the Second World War, the Kuomintang regime enforced the use of Mandarin under martial law, which lasted from 1949 to 1987. Native tongues such as Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka were forbidden in all official government business and public education.
“This policy wasn’t lifted until I was in second grade,” A-Tat says. “As a result, all mother tongues other than Mandarin are now endangered. My son and I primarily speak Taiwanese, but few children his age can speak their heritage language.
“At school, he has no classmates to converse with in Taiwanese,” the musician continues. “This is a very serious issue in Taiwan today.”
To draw attention to linguistic repression, A-Tat and his bandmates recorded the single “Native Tongue (阿母的話)” for TUDI-VOICE’s most recent album, The Song for You. It won Best Folk Song at the 2024 Golden Indie Music Awards.
“I wrote this song to highlight the issue of mother tongue loss, to remind everyone of its value and importance, and to ask: who cut off our native tongues?” A-Tat declares.
Watch TUDI-VOICE perform “Native Tongue (阿母的話)” (above).
TAIWANfest presents Rally for Taiwan
At this year’s Toronto TAIWANfest, TUDI-VOICE will perform at a free concert called Rally for Taiwan: Music in the Soundscape of Democracy 拉力台灣：音樂在民主的聲場中. This event draws on the Taiwanese tradition of popular musicians performing at major rallies. It will run from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday (August 23) on the Concert Stage at Harbourfront Centre.
A-Tat is part of the Hoklo community. It’s a major Taiwanese ethnic group whose ancestry goes back to the Hokkien-speaking people from southern Fujian. In addition to TUDI-VOICE, the Hakka band Traego (粹垢) will play a set at the Rally for Taiwan. Hakka people are often seen as hardworking and conservative. However, Traego upends that stereotype by performing punk rock to express anger over the marginalization of Hakka, as well as the challenges facing all young people in urban settings.
There are approximately 4.6 million Hakka people in Taiwan. Their ancestors are mostly from western Fujian and southern and northern Guangdong in China. The Hakka conducted an insurgency against Japanese rule. Plus, they endured the imposition of Mandarin after Chiang Kai-shek established his dictatorship on the island following the Chinese Civil War. When martial law was finally lifted, Hakka people held large protests demanding the return of their mother tongue.
Meanwhile, a member of the Truku tribe from eastern Taiwan, Lihaw Lihang (一好‧屴夯), will also perform at the Rally for Taiwan. The Truku are one of the country’s 16 officially recognized Aboriginal tribes. They’re known for their weaving culture, face tattooing, and their code of conduct and ethics known as “gaya”. In 1914, they resisted Japanese colonization in a bloody battle.
Watch Traego’s music video for “Hakka Sucker” (above).
Scholar rejects Sinocentric view of Taiwan
Toronto TAIWANfest organizer Charlie Wu points out that Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Indigenous languages have been part of Taiwan for centuries. Yet when Chiang Kai-shek came from China, these heritage languages were suppressed.
“All three communities have people who do not know how to speak their mother tongues,” says Wu.
This year, Toronto TAIWANfest is shining a light on Taiwan’s Hoklo, Hakka, and Indigenous heritage in a variety of ways. Wu hopes that this helps local Taiwanese Canadians gain greater appreciation for their distinct cultural and linguistic identity rather than simply self-identifying as Chinese or Taiwanese.
One of the speakers, Taiwanese historian Kaim Ang, tells the Toronto Spark that as far back as the 16th century, historical records described a diverse Taiwanese population. The island included Indigenous communities as well as incoming fishermen, merchants, and adventurers, including pirates.
“Approaching this period of history enables us to move beyond a Han-centric or Sinocentric worldview, or the idea of a ‘family-state’ where Taiwan and China are one inseparable unit,” says Ang, an adjunct research fellow at Academia Sinica. “Instead, it opens the door to a more global, multi-shore perspective—shifting from a cross-strait narrative to a multi-strait or global view. It invites us to rethink history through a multi-ethnic lens, rather than from a single ethnic or national vantage point.”
Island’s rulers fostered inter-ethnic tensions
Ang emphasizes that those who crossed the sea from Ming-ruled China were not limited to Hakka and Minnanese. Rather, some came from Xinghua and Fuzhou in Fujian, whereas others came from Zhejiang province.
“Beyond the presence of Indigenous and Han populations, people from Japan (and likely Korea), Southeast Asia, and Western powers such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and England also came into contact with Taiwan,” continues Ang, also a part-time professor at National Chengchi University. “The international situation during this period was highly dynamic, and Taiwan was far from an isolated island—it was already deeply connected to the outside world, in ways not unlike the present.”
Moreover, ruling powers often deliberately fostered inter-ethnic frictions at different periods in Taiwanese history.
“By pitting groups against one another, rulers could maintain control and prevent any unified challenge to their authority,” Ang states. “In other words, not all ethnic conflicts were inherently antagonistic—many were provoked, orchestrated, or exaggerated for political ends.”
Ang will share his thoughts on East Asia’s internal dynamics at a free “Hope Talk” at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday (August 24) at Lakeside Terrace at Harbourfront Centre. His lecture is called Whose “Motherland” Is It? Rethinking Taiwan’s History From the Age of Exploration Onwards「祖國」是誰的國？從近代初期海洋看台灣歷史.
Taiwanese author depicts migration
Another speaker at the festival, Chih-Hsin Chiang, is a novelist and essayist with a PhD in Taiwanese literature from National Cheng Kung University. She was born in a Hakka village in Hsinchu County but her family background goes beyond Hakka and Minnanese heritage. It also has roots in the Atayal and Amis Indigenous tribes of Taiwan, as well as in Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Africa.
“Much of my work begins with my family. I observe their migration journeys and try to understand, as broadly and deeply as possible, the reasons behind their movements,” Chang tells the Toronto Spark. “Through this, I’ve learned to view history in a more nuanced and complex way, and to approach questions of identity with a more inclusive and empathetic lens.”
Her grandfather worked in a textile factory in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) before returning to Taiwan with her grandmother at the end of the Vietnam War.
“It was my Vietnamese teacher who told me that the war we call the ‘Vietnam War’ is referred to in Vietnam as the ‘American War’,” she says. “They also explained that even within Vietnam, people from different regions and backgrounds understand the war in different ways.”
She included these perspectives in her novel Weaving (織), which draws on her grandfather’s experiences. It’s part of her “Hakka Road Trip Trilogy (客途三部曲)”. One of the books, Mirage (海市), drew upon her mother’s migration from her hometown to Taipei City; Mountain Mirror (山鏡) leaned on her father’s experiences working at a mountain resort.
TAIWANfest event links heritage to food
Chang’s most recent book, Xiumei, reveals the life history of a Hakka woman—her grandmother—through food.
“Xiumei was born during the Japanese colonial period and lived through the Kuomintang government era,” Chang explains. “Her youngest son married a Hakka woman from Indonesia, and her second son married a Vietnamese woman. Each dish in the story not only reflects the historical currents of the times but also connects deeply to Xiumei’s personal life experiences.”
Chang will speak about her book and some of those dishes at 12:30 p.m. on August 23 at Lakeside Terrace at Harbourfront Centre. The free event is called Return Home: The Hakka Table and Journeys 轉屋下：客家人的餐桌與遠行.
Yet another Toronto TAIWANfest speaker, Professor Lieh-Shih Lo, is a scholar of Hakka historical anthropology at National Tsing Hua University. In an interview with the Toronto Spark, he notes that Taiwan developed a distinct Hakka cultural tradition. According to Lo, this has been shaped by the community’s “position of relative social and political marginalization”.
He maintains that Hakka people have strengthened their distinct cultural tradition through engagement in political and social movements in Taiwan. Hakka have not only affirmed their own place in Taiwanese society but also contributed meaningfully to inter-ethnic dialogue and democratic participation.
“Drawing from Taiwan’s Hakka history—especially the complex and evolving relationships between Hakka settlers and Indigenous Peoples—I will offer a comparative perspective that includes Southeast Asian Hakka experiences,” Lo says. “Through this, I aim to shed light on the broader dynamics of globalization and localization as lived by Hakka peoples.”
Watch this preview (above) for Rally for Taiwan.
Linguistic diversity blossoms in Taiwan
Back in 1996, elementary school curriculum guidelines introduced the Hakka language into Taiwanese classrooms. Lo points out that Taiwan has since embarked on a Hakka language revitalization initiative across the education, community, family, and public sectors.
“Beginning in 2019, local language instruction—including Hakka—also became mandatory in junior and senior high schools,” he adds.
Lo will elaborate on this at a free “Hope Talk” at Toronto TAIWANfest. It’s called Global Hakka, Local Ties: Taiwan Indigenous-Hakka Relations Reframed
全球客家在地化：從台灣原客關係談起 and he will speak at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday (August 24) at Lakeside Terrace at Harbourfront Centre.
Nowadays, more musicians write and perform songs in Taiwan’s different languages. It’s another manifestation of language revitalization in the Asian nation. That includes TUDI-VOICE, which sings in Taiwanese Hokkien.
“Folk music can’t exist without the land, and land cannot exist without mother tongues!” insists A-Tat, the band’s singer and guitarist. “Our mother tongue tells us who we are and where we come from. No matter where we go in the world, our identity is the foundation of our presence and our strength.”
Ann Cheng translated questions and answers for this article.
Toronto TAIWANfest runs from Friday (August 22) to Sunday (August 24) at Harbourfront Centre. For programming details, visit the website. Follow Charlie Smith on Bluesky @charliesmithvcr.bsky.social. Also, follow the Toronto Spark on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
