Men in Double Marginality-Chinese Diaspora “at Home”!

Men in Double Marginality-Chinese Diaspora “at home”! ! !

Ping Lin

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(2007

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Men in Double Marginality--- Chinese Diaspora “at home” Ping Lin Abstract This paper uses data gathered from research project partially sponsored by Oriel College in Oxford and Academia Sinica in Taiwan to explore the adaptation of Mainlander Taiwanese in China. They moved from China to Taiwan in 1949 and back “home” with their descendents in 1990s. By examine the life of seventeen respondents in Dongguan/Shanghai in 2004-2005, we argue that they were in sense of double marginality despite the diversity of the sample. Whilst foreigners regarded China as a new territory to explore more economic benefits, these returnees were more likely to regarded China as a place with sense of belonging, not sense of colonising. However, they found that the real China was different from what they expected before return. They felt being excluded from Taiwan, but they also felt unwilling to participate in China due to this home disillusion. Further discussion on the adaptation of other type Taiwanese in China will be displayed in separated papers. Keyword: return migration, Taiwan, China! 1. Introduction Whilst most migration research focuses on why people move from poorer countries to richer countries and how they overcome the widely cultural gap in migration, there is little research stressing on migration either on the opposite direction or between countries with cultural proximity. The phenomenon of Taiwanese people in China1 provides us a good chance to fill in this gap. It is

Ping Lin is Assistant Professor of Political Science at National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. Email address: polpl@ccu.edu.tw 1 The official title of Taiwan today is the Republic of China), which was established in 1911 in Nanjing (a city on the Chinese Mainland), following the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. The Constitution of the ROC was passed only in 1948 in Nanjing. Then it was brought to...