The maintenance of Taiwan’s Hakka culture depends on more than government support for the language.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/05
By: Eryk Smith
Let’s stop torturing our kids by forcing them to learn minority languages that they will never use. English is hard enough.
Radio listeners can catch International Community Radio Taipei’s “We Love Hakka”
Credit: AP Photo/Wally Santana
segment several times per day (full disclosure: I work as a correspondent for ICRT in south Taiwan). The radio show is not everyone’s cup of lei cha, but it follows a similar pattern across Taiwan: promoting and teaching Hakka culture by teaching and promoting the Hakka language.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but language is only one part of culture.
More disclosure: I’m married to a Hakka woman who actually speaks Hakka. She is the only one among her siblings who can have a passable conversation with elderly folk in her hometown in Pingtung County. My two daughters are therefore half-Hakka, making me a member of the tribe through marriage. [FULL STORY]
