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The colonial purpose of the Office of Taiwan Governor-General sought to make Taiwan an extension of the Japanese homeland and grow economic benefits. Though cultural business was not part of the colonial plan, modern cultural business had emerged and laid the foundations of contemporary cultural evolution. This research explores the process and the contents of the cultural businesses in Changhua area during the Japanese colonial period.
The research subjects are six cultural undertakings—publication, journalism, lectures, cinema, and broadcasting—with the features of being influential, communicative, popular, and common. Japanese used the cultural activities as a means of naturalization of Taiwanese and dominate the directions of cultural development. However, people in Changhua intended to strive for the leading position of the cultural business in areas of publication, journalism, lectures and cinema.
In publication, Changhua has its leading place in primers on Chinese studies, and a collection of poems on old, and new Taiwanese literatures. In journalism, Changhua people are important shareholders of the Taiwan Minbao, getting involved with the editing process of the Taiwan Xinminbao, the Taiwan DaZhong ShiBao, the Xin Taiwan DaZhong ShiBao. And they formed “ChangUan North News Association” to be the mouthpiece of the people. In lectures, Changhua was set as headquarters for debates on issues of Taiwan’s social movements by left-right political affiliations. In cinema, Ding-Xing Society and the Alliance for Black Youth made Changhua as a fortified point for Drama performance that promulgated anarchism.
People engaged with Changhua cultural business used press, news forum, lectures, drama performance, and films to promote Taiwanese cultures. However, the local uniqueness was criticized as substantiated representation of ‘deteriorative thoughts’ by Japanese. Later generations dubbed it “Heng-Xi Spirit” to reflect the thoughts of revolt. The sphere of cultural activities was expanded to Taichung City, attached to the cultural area of Central Taiwan, which contributed to the phenomenon that the Central area is the thinking navigator of Taiwan.
The case study has the following findings. First, cultural business development in Taiwan has its periodic expressions: an initial period (1985~1921), a developing period (1921~1937), a controlling period (1937~1941) and a stasis period (1941~1945). Not until Marco Polo Bridge Incident in the controlling period, does the Temporary Intelligence Agency emerge and have special responsibility for all affairs in cultural businesses. Second, historical development and the policies in the Office of Governor-General influence the disparity in local areas. Changhua, Lukang, Uanlin, and Beidou are more advanced areas of implementation. Moreover, the practices of cultural businesses are associated with social class, as people who are well-off and educated are more receptive to cultural identity, thus causing individual differentiation in cultural identification. Last, cultural businesses help the formation of Taiwan’s public forums during the Japanese colonial period. People can create consensus, express public opinions via the media provided by cultural businesses, and constitute a civil society, though under Japanese control.
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