Culture of Taiwan - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Cell phones are very popular in Taiwan. Mobile penetration rate stands at just over 100%. Because of their high use, phones in Taiwan have many functions and are becoming cheaper.

Internet cafes are very popular with teenagers. They often sell food. Many gamers eat while using the internet. Many parents and teachers are concerned with the amount of time youth spend in the internet cafes.

One of the best known figures in Taiwanese cinema is director Ang Lee, who has also made movies in the West and has won an Academy Award. Some popular pop artists in Taiwan include Leehom Wang, Jay Chou, Jolin Tsai and David Tao. Some of them have gained international fame and toured Asian countries like Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. Since Taiwan is well known for its entertainment scene, some of its TV stations have organised talent search to find new and young talents to join the big family of pop culture here. Some successful bands like S.H.E were formed in the talent search.

Hip-hop culture from the United States also flourishes in Taiwan. G-Unit and Eminem are also very popular. In this process, Taiwan produced several hip-hop artists, including Dog G, MC HotDog, Machi, and L.A. Boyz. Many young Taiwanese can be seen in throwback jersey, bling-bling, and baggy jeans which shows the effect of hip hop fashion in Taiwan.

Taiwanization of the culture of Taiwan has been a trend since democratisation in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2000, after half a century of Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party rule, the first ever democratic change of ruling parties in Taiwan occurred with the election of Chen Shui-bian and his Taiwan-centric Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), marking an important step towards Taiwanization. While generally the KMT, the other major political party, is also more open to promoting Taiwan's cultural autonomy than in the past, the DPP made Taiwanization a key plank in its political platform. The Chen administration's policies included measures designed to focus on Taiwan while de-emphasizing cultural and historical ties to China. These policies included changes such as revising textbooks and changing school curricula to focus more on Taiwan's own history to the exclusion of China, and changing the names of institutions that contain "China" to "Taiwan". This sometimes led to incongruities such as Sun Yat-sen being treated as both a "foreign" (Chinese) historical figure and as the "Father of the Country" (Republic of China). These policies are called Taiwanization but have been attacked by detractors as "desinicization", which explains why these policies are generally applauded by most ethnic Taiwanese and opposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party.

One phenomenon that has resulted from the Taiwanization movement is the advent of Taike subculture, in which people consciously adopt the wardrobe, language and cuisine to emphasize the uniqueness of popular, groundroots Taiwanese culture, which in previous times had often been seen as provincial and brutally suppressed by Chiang Kai-shek.

The Kuomintang took power in 2008 with the election of Ma Ying-jeou to the presidency. The new KMT administration has controversially sought to reverse some of the desinicizing policies of the Chen administration, to various degrees of public support. The restoration of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to its former state has been generally supported. By contrast, a directive by the administration to foreign missions to henceforth refer to visits by foreign dignitaries as "visiting (cultural) China" has been rescinded after criticism from DPP legislators.

Since 1949, Taiwan had managed to develop itself into the center of Chinese pop culture (also known as "C-pop" or 中文流行文化). Today, the Commercial Chinese music industry in the world (esp. Mandopop and Hokkien pop) is still largely dominated by Taiwanese pop artists. Successful Chinese pop artists from other countries (for e.g. Stefanie Sun, JJ Lin from Singapore) are also trained, groomed and marketed in Taiwan. Chinese pop artists from other countries who wish to become successful usually have to go to Taiwan to develop their music career. Mandarin Pop and Taiwanese (Minnan/Hokkien) genre music continue to flourish in Taiwan today.

Ever since 1990s, Taiwanese Variety Shows (綜藝節目） had grown from its home base in Taiwan to other parts of the world. Today, it is widely watched and enjoyed by the Overseas Chinese community in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, America, etc.