1. An Articulation of the Middle Way Perspective

        If we look for a thing through a name, we shall find that there is no actuality in that thing which would correspond to the name.  If we look for the name through a thing, we shall find that the name is not capable of helping us to discover a thing.... As name and actuality do not correspond  to  each  other, where  do  the myriad things exist?[1]

The basic thrust of Nagarjuna¡¦s (Às¾ð)(the founder of the Buddhist middle way school in the 1st century C.E.) work, ¡§ The Fundamental Wisdom of Middle Way¡¨[2] (¤¤Æ[½×)(Mulamadhyamikakarika), is emptiness (ªÅ©Ê)(sunyata)--a Buddhist special term for indicating the emptying of inherent existence, independent existence, or substance in things. Nagarjuna relentlessly analyzes phenomena or processes that appear to exist independently and argues that they cannot so exist. And yet, though lacking the inherent existence imputed to them either by naive common sense or by sophisticated, realist intellectual theory, these phenomena are not nonexistent--they are, he argues, conventionally real. In other words, they have socially constructed reality-effect on people who count on them.

Almost all of Nagarjuna¡¦s reflections are structured around the emptiness of things and names, by which he means that they do not have ¡§own-being¡¨ (¦Û©Ê)(svabhavah). The own-being in this context is to be understood as that which is self-identical, exists inherently by itself or through its own accord, and is not dependent on any other conditions for its existence. In other words, the self-sufficiency of things or names can be asserted as eternal and absolute. From the middle way perspective, this is a substantialist view of phenomena. 

The basic philosophic argument of middle way is that there is no such reality, ¡§thing,¡¦ or ¡¥name,¡¨ either in terms of sensible objects of social world, such as the reality of Taiwan society, or subjective components of the consciousness and their conceptualization and signification, namely, the discourses on Taiwan. All things and names are, rather, ¡§empty¡¨ and without pre-given identical substance. Here the middle way rejection or caution of substantialism is predicated on two supporting arguments. The first argument proceeds from the premise that the reality is such that its emptiness, and indeterminateness would logically preclude the possibility of assigning to it any substantially describable attributes or nameable features. Accordingly, since reality, absolutely considered, is devoid, like a vacuum, of any determinate qualities, the absolute reality is not a nameable or describable referent. However, one the other hand, this non-substantialist view of things and names does not espouse a total refutation of the existence of things and names. This kind of nihilist view of phenomena is also unacceptable from the middle way perspective. Rather, the middle way perspective positively acknowledges that emptiness is not non-existence, it is rather a relative, dependent existence. Thus, emptiness is in synonymous with dependent co-arising (½t°_)(pratitya-samutpada). This applies, in terms of the interest of this paper, also to the social formation of Taiwan society per se, as well as the discursive formation on Taiwan society. 

Since the insight of middle way dependent co-arising is a non-substantialist and non-nihilistic view of phenomenon, it can never accept a view of assuming phenomenon as inherently and independently existent. It must propose a relational-processual approach, that is, to see things and names not only exist in the processes of arising-abiding-changing-ceasing (¥Í¡N¦í¡N²§¡N·À), but also in the interweaving and interpenetrating relational context. However, it is important to note that, it will be inadequate to merely focusing on processes without taking into account relations, because a non-relational view of process will assert a self-generating, self-causing, or self-effecting process of things that can constantly shift in endless flow without any other conditions and consequences relative to this ¡§thing¡¨ or ¡§process.¡¨ This view of self-processing things is again trapped into the flaw of substantialism, the assertion of own-being. In the mean time, it is also insufficient to simply proposing a relational view of phenomena without considering the dynamic changing process of relations of things. Otherwise it will impose a static pattern on relations among things, which can never account for the proliferation and transmutation in any circumstance. This view of static relation of things is still substantialist due to its inability of explaining the movement of conditions, which, to certain extent, cause the emergence of current relations and the evolvement of subsequent relations that contributes to the ongoing production, proliferation and mutation of those relationships.

Let me summarize my main points in regard to the argument up till now:

a. All things and names are empty of own-being.

b. All things and names are not non-existent. 

c. Since emptiness is in synonymous with dependent co-arising, all things and names are existent relationally and processually. 

d. The relation and process, the constitutive of things and names, are not tenable when we consider them as two discrete properties. 

Linking to our interest in Taiwan studies, these four claims will be reformulated as below:

a. All social realities of Taiwan and discursive formations on Taiwan are empty of own-being. There is no ever-lasting, unchanging entity called Taiwan per se. Nor is there a singular, coherent discourse on Taiwan that is sufficient-in-itself and never shifted to another.

b. Conversely, All social realities of Taiwan and discursive formations on Taiwan are not non-existent. We cannot therefore totally negate any meaningful and socially constructed existence of Taiwan societies. Neither can we nullify the socially conditioned effects, or ¡§truth-consequences¡¨ of discourses on Taiwan. 

c. The realities of Taiwan societies and various discourses on Taiwan are always already existent in certain concrete relational context, in ethnographical, historiographical, geographical sense for instance. It is also, in the meantime, constantly changing in historical-specific process, archaeologically and genealogically speaking.

d. Taiwan society cannot survive without interacting with its relational context. Neither can it live unless it could constantly refresh itself in an ongoing process. These two cannot be separated. The discourses on Taiwan are constituted in a relatively constant but also ever-shifting binary opposition between itself and other societies. It is relational but not fixated. On the other hand, it is processual but not singular. 

I will try to elaborate these four claims by examining the history of system of thought on Taiwan in the following section. But here, for better understanding the relational-processual character of phenomenon, I would like to resort to a metaphorical construe. Let me start with a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Heraclitus¡¦ theory of flux and impermanence by his using of simile of the river that can better illustrate my argument. As Heraclitus points out:" You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on"[3] From the middle way perspective, the world is just like the river which is in a constant state of change, or flux. In regard to the aforementioned claim of relational-processual insight of middle way, the self-identical view of the river as the ¡§same river¡¨ perpetuating through time is problematic. In actuality, every material component of ¡§the river¡¨ is constantly changing in flux. Even the concept, the signifier, or the name of the river can be varied due to its man-made characteristic. Since river and its name can never remain identical in substantialist sense, we thus should accept that the river, as well as its name, is empty of own-being. 

But, if so, what is it that changes? Can we say that because, in the constant flux, there is no substance behind the material constituents and conceptual imaginary of the river so there is no river qua river identifiable as a particular river in relation to, and thus distinguishable from, the change of another river? Of course not, we still identify the Tamsui River as it is and distinguish it from the Yellow River despite impermanence of both rivers. Tamsui use to be called San Domingo by Spanish, but it will be absurd if we say Tamsui is essentially no different from San Domingo. However, since we can certainly distinguish the change of this particular river from the change of other particular river. We still can recognize the particularity of this river in contrast to other rivers. Although there is neither a material nor a name remaining identical through time, yet, it is surely insane to say that a river becomes an absolutely different river from moment to moment so the phenomenon and the name of the river does not exist. Nor can we say that since the river is in flux hence the name is also shifting arbitrarily at will. We can¡¦t call the Tamsui River as the Yellow river arbitrarily for one moment and the Nile River for the next moment. By the same token, we recognize Taiwan used to be named by Portuguese as ¡§IIha Formosa¡¨, by the native Taiya people as ¡§Tayoan, ¡¨- but it will be crazy to say Taiwan as essentially equivalent to China (PRC). Even though the politics of naming in regard to Taiwan is still ongoing but there is no reason to say that Taiwan can be called China in the next minute without considering the consent by Taiwanese inhabitants.

Clearly, from the middle way point of view, the continuity of social change, say the Taiwan society, does not change into another kind of thing, such as Japan or China; nor does it change into a essentially different thing from other things, again, as Japan or China. In other words, neither can we say Taiwan is essentially different from China or Japan in any sense. The recognizable and identifiable differences between them are relational and processual and therefore should not impede our imagination over their differentiating, deferring, intermingling and interpenetrating dynamics.  I would like to extract some points from above discussion as below:

a. All phenomenal things and names are impermanent existing in constant flux.

b. It is unacceptable to assert an identity, in the substantialist sense, of things and names throughout temporal process.

c. Neither is it acceptable to say that, in nihilistic sense, there are no identifiable things and names in the flow of time.

d. It is also not plausible to claim that all phenomenal things and names are essentially different, in the substantialist sense, from other things and names, because this will assume many independent entities, which have no relation or connection between one another.

e. From the relational perspective, all things are interdependent, interweaving in specific and relevant contexts, therefore they cannot be essentially different from their relevant others. From the processual perspective, all things are changing and thereby mutating, so it is impossible to remain essentially identical all the time.

In the context of Taiwan and Taiwan studies, these five points can be reformulated as below:

a. The Taiwan society as a social reality and the discourses on Taiwan as a social imaginary both exist impermanently in a constant flux. 

b. It is unacceptable to assert an own-being, the Taiwan society, for instance, as an unchanging entity, or the discourses on Taiwan as an ultimate, final truth-claim despite its mutation throughout the temporal process. They both are empty of substantiality.

c. Nor is it acceptable to say that there is no identifiable society called Taiwan in the flow of time, or to say that there is no meaningful discourse on Taiwan in the history of knowledge constitution. They still arise, shift, and cease co-dependently.

d. It is also implausible to claim that Taiwan society is essentially different from any other societies, namely, Chinese, Japanese, American, or Western societies, because this will assert an independent entity called Taiwan having no relation or connection to other societies.

e. According to the relational perspective, all societies, in some sense, are interdependent and interweaving in historically specific contexts, therefore they cannot be essentially different from their relevant others. Think about the dynamics of  ¡§international relations¡¨, ¡§global economies¡¨ and ¡§intercultural hybridizations.¡¨ From the processual perspective, all societies and discourses in relation to them are, more or less, slowly or rapidly, changing, so it is impossible for them to remain identical all the time.

2. A Middle Way Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is understood as the analysis of language 'beyond the sentence'. Whereas, Western philosophy of language was long canonized by Aristotelian-inspired belief that linguistic signs are eminently matched to the task of describing things. Aristotle, with his affirmation on linguistic precision, tended to take articulated language as the only path to knowledge (sophia) and hence our understanding of things. He truly believes that the countablility of knowledge can be relied on language: ¡§the world lends itself to the grasp of language; it has a ¡¥logical¡¦ or ¡¥discursive¡¦ character, (and) a systematic structure.¡¨[4] Therefore, on this viewpoint, knowledge becomes primarily a linguistic matter rather than a matter of humanly emotions and interests. However, from the discussion of the last section I would argue that this kind of linguistic substantalism is fundamentally misguided and dangerous. According to Aristotelian tradition, to know is to be able to define conceptually and say precisely the ¡§what¡¨ of a thing, and to thereby identify and locate it in a pre-existing system of classification. As Carter (1990:26) points out, for Aristotelian, ¡§to know a thing is to name it, and to name it is to attach one or usually more universal predicates to it¡¨.[5] The Aristotelian way of knowing, therefore, entails fixing the identity of things in a system of universals so that only the fixed, not the flux, and the substance in the phenomena becomes knowable according to this system of knowledge. Let me extract two assumptions from Aristotelian view: 

a.     that sign system and linguistic definitions are correspondent to things as it is in itself; 

b.     that only the universal is knowable, particular is inconceivable. 

By contrast, the middle way perspective always remains skeptical of the adequacy of language concerning the description of human world. In the context of this paper, our middle way discourse analysis is mindful of the futility of analytical representation and the inherent insufficiency of language. Our discourse analysis is in contrast with types of analysis more typical of modern analytical-empirical-realist writing, which are mainly concerned with the systematic study, and thereby writing, of ¡§reality¡¨. In our context, the systematic study of Taiwan society, for instance, such as geography, historiography, ethnography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and so forth. The middle way discourse analysis, based on the insight of emptiness and dependent co-arising, will address the larger chunks of discursive formations as they flow together, or one after another. 

In the mean time, from the Buddhist point of view, as long as we are still attached to the substantialist worldview, the own-being of self, others, things or names, our vision will thereby definitely be distorted and confined by it. Any discursive formation followed by that vision with regard to the description and judgment of a researched object could be erroneous accordingly.

The most fundamental problem of human being, from the Buddhist point of view, is sufferings, which are caused by the attachment to our ego or the outside world as substance. Starting from egocentrism in which three poisonous components (greed, hatred, and ignorance) breed. Based on these three poisons and their mixture and proliferation, a deeply embedded habitual scheme of seeing, thinking and doing is shaped. It makes our worldview very much defiled by this interest-bound habitual scheme. Accordingly, our vision of the world will naturally become desired, prejudiced, and discriminatory. In this paper, my argument is that the social imaginary, through which we conceive others and ourselves, is the constitutive part of our social practice and social constitution. Once this social imaginary has been more or less conditioned by our interest-attachment, whether in its material or ideal form, our social imaginary will be much distorted, either manifestly or latently. In other words, as long as our social imaginary is interest-bounded we can never attain a disinterested worldview in regard to the knowledge of self or the others. It seems to be inevitable in the phenomenal world, yet, if we try to justify, or even disguise our worldview as essentially real and objective, and thereby ultimately true, then this view will be precarious, and might contribute to the formation of a fixed and asymmetrical power relation. Therefore, I would argue that, when insufficient of relational-processual insight, the discursive formation, different kinds of writing on Taiwan in different phases will have their specific context-attachment, extra-textual interests, such as, say, colonial, religious, scientific, political, and commercial impetus, and you name it. 

My aim in the next part is to conduct a discourse analysis, to disclose the underlying interest- attachment and their context in each discourse on Taiwan.  The goal of this discourse analysis, as I stated, is to unravel this substantialist mystery: to describe the description, to illuminate its often obscured rules, to clearly mark out its dualistic framework and to identity the motive of its rule inventors. More specifically, it examines how writers construct naming messages for readers and how different parties, concerning the discourses on Taiwan, constitute a historically specific interweaving, or figuration. In addition to the theorizing of the middle way perspective, my investigation of these concerns will take the form of a discourse analysis of the system of thought in historiography, geography and ethnography in relation to Taiwan society. 

Before diving into the deep sea of historical materials, I shall first elaborate two different but problematic self-other relations regarding the knowledge production on Taiwan:

a. The imposition of self-other asymmetrical binary opposition through the discourse on others, and thereby substantializing other culture as essentially different and inferior.

b. The internalization of self- other asymmetrical binary opposition on ¡§self¡¨ and yet trying to reverse the judgmental power relation by essentializing self as superior. 

3. A Middle Way reflection Over the History of Discursive Formations--Writing Formosa Through Western Hand

3-1 Formosa Under the Dutch

The unbearable taxation caused the Chinese peasant revolt in 1952, led by Guo Haiyi (known to the Dutch as Fayet). The Chinese conquered the Dutch hamlet of Provintia, but the next day the Dutch and their Formosan allies counter-attacked, and three days later the Chinese fled. 4000 farmers were killed in the fighting. Fort Provintia was then established near Saccam to maintain Dutch control of the Chinese population. On 1 February 1662, Coyet surrendered to Coxinga, thus ending the Dutch period on Taiwan.

A Discourse Analysis¡Xthe Underlying Interests of the Dutch Colonial Writings 

What I want to argue here is that a great number of discursive representations, geographical mappings, religious writings, taxation reports and governmental documentations, and all kinds of colonial diaries and contracts were more or less, explicitly or implicitly, influenced by the strong economic interest. With this economic imaginary embedded in their cognitive scheme, the Dutch¡¦s vision of Formosa turned out to be like a treasure island, a profit making site, for Dutch themselves rather than native inhabitants or the Chinese. Indigenous people through the Dutch eyes, hence, were seen as productive manpower like animal rather than human being. For instance, VOC authorities established themselves as tenants on the island to cultivate the fertile lands of the western plains. Many people, impoverished as they were by the horrors of the civil war that ravaged China in the 1640s, were eager to respond to this call. In 1649 governor Nicolaas Verburch said of them: ¡§The only bees who produce honey on Formosa are the Chinese, in fact the Honourable Company could not exist in this area without that nation¡¨. The tragedy was that the VOC, while becoming economically increasingly dependent on the labor of Chinese immigrants, gradually incorporated them into a form of serfdom. This inhuman treatment and attitude, together with unbearable tax burden, eventually aggravated tensions among dissatisfied Chinese peasants, culminating in a serious revolt as mentioned above (September 1652).To prevent from further threats, the Dutch official even made a discriminatory remark about the constraining of the freedom of the Chinese. ¡§¡K.Chinese farmers being somewhat prospered, according to state and authority, either by some displeasure or by the too many liberties which they had been allowed to lure them to this republic, by [their] own movement have undertaken this treacherous work; be it so, this has been a good warning for us and our descendants both here as on Formosa, to keep always an alert eye on the cunning and perfidious Chinese and especially on Formosa not to become master of any resistance. Furthermore to cut down the great liberties as much as possible." (Gen. Miss, January 31, 1653)

For the VOC, the strongest stimulus to chase away the Spaniards from Formosa and to keep them away would have been that there were probably gold mines present in the northern part of the island. "Of the island's mineral products Gold is the most important.... It may be said.... that of the limited area investigated the north....possesses the most valuable Gold deposits" (Davidson, The Island of Formosa, page 460).[9] The government in Batavia wrote already on May 23, 1637 to Governor Van den Burch: 

".... so that the goldmines at Formosa would be opened to the profit of the Compagnie, in this way both the Parrot and the Eagle are shot, though everything needs its time and big cities were not built in one day".

Obviously, they did not intend to take into consideration of the rights of the Formosan over these mines that goes for the government in Batavia without saying. "That which has [previously] been written about the goldmines has pleased us a lot, but will please us even more if by experience (which already will have been taken according to the advises and reports of the Governor Traudenius) come to know that they are rich with gold and well to be mined; the same being of importance will be entirely secured for the Compagnie, and without waiting for further orders, replace the occupants, exterminate them or drive them away ¡K" (Missive Batavia to Taijouan, April 23, 1643). "Of the island's mineral products Gold is the most important.... It may be said.... that of the limited area investigated the north....possesses the most valuable Gold deposits" (Davidson, The Island of Formosa, page 460). The writing like this was full of egocentric desire out of economic interest without considering the existence of other inhabitants.

b. Religious Imaginary

For better mastering the problem of the governing the ¡§savages¡¨, the Dutch fully appreciated the advantages that would accrue from the conversion of the natives to Christianity. For missionaries, like Candidius, the strong motive to convert the pagan, the savage away from their esoteric beliefs and practices, naturally revealed in their writing. From the ¡§Memorandum from Rev. G. Candidius to Governor Nuyts¡¨, Candidius first expressed his optimism regarding the conversion. 

¡§ I do not doubt but that, post ponendis, the Christian faith will commend itself to this people, and that their own religion, customs, and manners, so far as they are opposed to the law of God, will be abandoned and rejected by them. Moreover, I confidently believe that on this island of Formosa there may be established that which will become not only the leading Christian community in all India, but one that will vie with the most flourishing and glorious in Holland itself.¡¨[10]

Out of this Christian-centered worldview, the pastor¡¦s construe of native Formosan¡¦s religion was evidently biased.

¡§¡Kthe ridiculous part of their religion is that the people find sin things which are really not sinful. For instance, it is considered an evil thing for any one to build a house on some so-called forbidden day; or to gather wood or food without taking due notice of the singing of birds, or for any pregnant woman to keep alive her children before the thirty-seventh year of her age¡Xa custom which is surely abominable and in itself deserving of punishment.¡¨[11]

The Formosans was even described by Rev. Campbell in his book, Formosa Under Dutch, as ¡§stupid, blind, and ridiculous heathen people; and yet has pleased God¡Xas we shall hereafter see¡Xto bring many of them to the knowledge of the Truth.¡¨[12]

Candidius tried to make a theoretical reasoning on why it is easier to convert natives than the Chinese.The ¡§ the Formosans have neither head, ruler, nor chief to whom they need listen, and every man is free to believe whatever he likes¡K.the people of Formosa have neither written documents nor valiant and famous teachers to spread abroad a knowledge of their faith. They have only some women who act the part of priestesses, but who know as little about religious matters as they themselves do; on which account those matters are regarded as amounting to mere customs which may be followed or not, just as circumstances require.¡¨[13] These priestesses were taken as the counterpart of Christian missionaries. Pastors even downplayed them as the obstacle for church mission. In 1658, the Dutch banished 298 aboriginal witches to the wilderness, with 250 of them starving to death and 48 forced to convert in order to be released. 

On the other hand, Candidius¡¦ prospect for converting Chinese was relatively dim. For they had their own pre-existing religious systems and ceremonies embodied in written laws, so ¡§for those who cling to error have writings in which their opinions are embodied, so that they can teach their posterity the same falsehoods.¡¨[14]Due to their relatively difficult relation with the Chinese, economically and religiously, and fewer converts from the Chinese, the Dutch seemed to favor the natives as a better people than Chinese.¡§These natives seemed to be superior to Chinese, and the Dutch owed much of their tranquility to them¡K.they were of good morals¡K¡¨[15]

Candidius, out of his Christian interest, strongly requested that the Governor-General not abandon Formosa as part the territory under Dutch sovereignty, because ¡§for in that case the Spaniards would certainly annex it; and under Japanese rule, the Christian religion would meet with no kind of shelter or protection.¡¨[16]

Georgius Candidius, the first missionary in the field, engaged himself in learning the native language before preaching. Most of the villages around Fort Zelandia were Christianized, and in each of them school-masters were placed to instruct both old and young in the leading doctrines of the Scriptures. 

In short, the economic and religious imaginaries constitute two primarily underlying interest-attachments that had infiltrated most writings of the time, and that also had substantialized an asymmetrical binary relation, between colonizer and colonized, ¡§reasoned¡¨ and ¡§unreasoned¡¨, and thereby superior and inferior. "Submitting to the location of Formosa where the Compagnie has taken her residency, with the intention to draw the trade of China to there and to enjoy the commodities of this worthwhile Island, as well as to bring the blind heathens to the Christian faith and to keep them under our subjection" (Missive Batavia to Taijoan, July 4, 1644).

3-2 Imagined Witness¡XA Fake Formosan in Early 18^th Century

It is usually important to identify a name for ourselves so that we can be subjects recognizable in the wider social context. But it is also true that we are often bound to the name we have in which we sometimes make up stories, narratives and legendary and thereby manufacture a coherent self. But what if we intend to fictionalize ourselves with a fake name and a pseudo story? Are we going to be confined by the story we made? Imagined characters have been known to prevail the earth, either when allegedly like you and me have taken on assumed identities, or the whole name and story have been invented for one use or another. Let us see a case of forgery in England.

There once was a fellow who called himself George Psalmanazar. In the late 17^th Century, George wandered around Europe pretending to be a cannibal prince from the exotic Formosa. He made up a whole book of ethnography concerning Formosa, which included detailed descriptions of an alphabet system, religious practices and exotic wildlife and so on. In 1704 he compiled these observations into the book ¡§An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa.¡¨ It was not until his death in 1763, a posthumous work, his memoirs, was published, in which he confessed to the decades old hoax. Eventually his life was revealed to have been one long work of amazing improvisational dramatic fiction.

Let me retrace the story of George Psalamanazar, a self-proclaimed Formosan in early Eighteenth-century Britain, an era filled with famous plagiarists and tricksters. It was around 1700 in Northern Europe a man, among many travelers, who identified himself as a native of the faraway island of Formosa. The man who spoke a strange language, followed a foreign calendar, and worshipped the sun and the moon. Therefore people supposed that he really was a native of Formosa, since at that time the Europeans knew very little about ¡§Far East¡¨. Two years later, this Formosan arrived in the town of Sluis in Holland, where he met William Innes, a Scottish clergyman serving in the English army. Innes gave that Formosan a Christian name, George Psalmanazar. News about Psalmannazar spread throughout Europe. In London his fame spread even wider, where the Bishop of London wanted to meet with him. 

Of course, apparent to us, Psalamanazar was a fake who had never been to Formosa, nor had he been encountered any person from Formosa. Psalamanazar¡¦s real name is unknown, nor his mysterious background. But it is speculated that he was born to Catholic parents around 1680, possibly somewhere in the south of France. After an onerous Jesuit education, he then commenced up to a wandering journey. For the safety sake and cheaper passage through France, and partly for a lark, he disguised himself as a mendicant Irish Catholic on a pilgrimage to Rome. Due to his lack of knowledge about Ireland, his Irish identity quickly engendered troublesome when surrounded by people who actually knew lots about Ireland[17].

Psalmanazar then identified himself to the remote, way too remote, corner of the world, where the risk of being exposed of his phony was significantly low. Yes, he then became an indigenous of Formosa. After winning some fame in the military, the charming faux Formosan was introduced to the beau monde, and eventually to England accompanied by Innes in 1703. For making himself more convincing as an exotic Oriental, he spent his time weaving anecdotes about his homeland, and not only linguistically representing them, but also living them. For instance, in order to satisfy English¡¦s imaginary of Formosa as bizarre other, he ate his meat uncooked and strongly spiced, he slept in a chair with a lamp burning. Such habits made people believe that he was not an European, who could work through the night without ever resting, for that was the way it was in Formosa.

Psalmanazar then published the book, A Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, in 1704, a year after his arrival in England[18]. Within a year it was expanded into a second edition and translated into French. This work offered the European readers a curious glimpse into the Formosan culture. In the book it was described that the convicted murderers in Formosa were hung upside down and shot to death with arrows covering their bodies; that polygamy was allowed; and that every year the Formosan sacrificed 18,000 young boys under 9 to appease their gods (an illustration of the Gridiron upon which the hearts of the young Children were burnt was shown). He won some popularity since then, he was even asked to teach the Formosan language at Oxford. 

Despite some serious debunking by Jesuit missionaries, such as Father Fontaney, who had been to Formosa, Psalmanazar safely defended his position, not by the empirical proof of course, but partly by people¡¦s dislike of Jesuit missionaries and partly by their exotic imagination of Formosa. He was even challenged by an astronomer, Edmund Halley, by questions such as: did the sun ever shine all the way down the chimneys in Formosa? (Astronomers at that time believed that sun would sometimes be overhead) Psalmanazar¡¦s negative answer was a significant evidence for being phony. But he immediately made it up by saying that Formosan chimneys twist and turn on their way down, so the sunlight never reached the bottom. He even justified his blond hair and faired skin by saying:

My complexion, indeed, which was very fair, appeared an unanswerable objection against me¡K. I soon hatched a lucky distinction between those whose business exposes them to the heat of the sun, and those who keep altogether at home, in cool shades, or apartments under ground, and scare ever feel the least degree of the reigning heat.[19]

Psalmanazar was being a widely favored Formosan until doubts about his descriptions of Formosa grew overwhelmingly by naturalists. Over the last decades of his life he composed a lengthy confession of himself, published in 1764 (a year after his death) as Memoirs of ****, Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalmanazar; a Reputed Native of Formosa. There he cdisclaimed his description as ¡§that scandalous romance,¡¨ ¡§ a mere forgery of my own devising, a scandalous imposition on the public,¡¨ ¡§that vile and romantic account,¡¨ ¡§ that monstrous romance,¡¦ and so on.[20]

Discourse Analysis¡XThe Underlying Interests of the Fictional Writing

a. Writing and Subjectivity 

The writing on the other is often replete with fakes, forgeries and prejudice. Travel writing is very frequently an area of deception where much hyperbole and conjecture are found. But like many recent ethnographers, George Psalmanazar not only forged a fake travel guide to Formosa in the early 18^th century, but also constructed a systematic description of the culture of Formosa¡Xits language, customs, religion, architecture, costumes, and social organization. To make a convincing writing on Formosa, he, unlike most ethnographers, invented an entirely fictitious object and named it ¡§Formosa,¡¨ and then invented a character for him to match it. If ¡§going native¡¨ is an ideal position for ethnographer to have deeper understanding of the natives, Psalmanazar¡¦s plot of going native is even more ¡§radical¡¨. He fabricated himself to be the authentic native, an origin that ethnographers would love to possess. Because of this total invention, of writing and subjectivity, he represented a ¡§true story¡¨ even truer than true travelers, such as Jesuit missionaries. This is why he won more credit than missionaries, who had been to Formosa and should have been the true storyteller of Formosan culture. His writing included a fake Formosan alphabet, sketches of inhabitants, with fake costumes, and a fake language created out of gibberish.

The book was during that time widely popular, partly due to the exotic imaginary of the Orient in the 18^th century. Readers of that time were fascinated by the colorful description of Psalmanazar¡¦s account of the origin of his invented home country, Formosa. It was eventually presented to British literary, religious, and scholarly communities. It was a sophisticated and articulated deception that could successfully conceal his true identity¡Xan identity, which was revealed only by himself via his ¡§confession¡¨ of his crime in the ¡§Memoir¡¨. But is this confession entirely reliable? Well, no one knows except himself. 

What intrigues me, with regard to this paper, is that the desire in writing is, in this case, again interest-bounded. The best method to enhance his credibility and market value of his book is to generate more discursiveness¡Xthe incorporation of scientific authenticity and responsible authorship. This interest can be economic or religious, or a mixture of both, as we have seen in the preceding discussion. But this interest can also be articulated with a desire to be recognized as a distinctive self in a specific context. In other words, the ego-attachment was one of the most crucial constitutive interests that made this writing possible. Psalmanazar desired to be recognized as a noble subject in the context of Europe, so much so that it drove him to fake himself to act like an exotic and distant noble despite the risk of being prosecuted by his forgery. Besides, the format of his writing was so ethnographically sound, in accordance with the standard of his time. His invented story was internally consistent and together with his personal qualities¡Xsecrecy, consistency, effrontery, and an air of sincerity¡Xfor enhancing the authenticity of his work, he merged his subjectivity, and thus his ¡§first-hand experience¡¨, together with his writing.

b. The Production of Writing and Its Commercialization

Psamanazar¡¦s work had received wide popularity. In addition to his English version, published in 1704, it was also translated into French in the same year (a translation reprinted in 1708, 1712, and 1739), it was published in Dutch 1705 and in German in 1716. A second English edition also appeared in London in 1705, and very soon he became a household name. He became the guest of the fashionable London, and people everywhere wanted to see him in person and hear his esoteric story from this ¡§true¡¨ witness, or living fossil. 

It is important to be aware that the production of this book is not the single effort of one individual. From the middle way view of dependent co-arising, we would ask what was the social condition that made the publication of his writing possible? What is the relevant social figuration that mutually reinforced the publication of this writing? In other words, the relational context of Psalmanazar¡¦s hoax was a product of interdependency. Concretely speaking, the rise of new forms of literary production in relation to its market value was emerged and aggravated. This market-oriented production of literary discourse constituted an environment of competition, in which authentication and fabrication became one of the most appealing means to gain sound profit. Moreover, such a trend of capitalization of literary production also paved the way to more entrepreneurial modes of the booksellers (Eagleton 1984:29-43).[21] Out of this market interest and its time pressure on its publication, Psalamanazar had to make up his quick, easy to digest and compelling fiction. As he disclosed in his Memoirs:

And this I was left to hammer out of my own brain, without any other assistance than that of Varenius'¡¦ description of Japan, which Dr. Innes put into my hands, to get what I could out of it. All this while, both he and the bookseller were so earnest for my dispatching it out of hand, whilst the town was hot in expectation of it, that I was scarcely allowed two months to write the whole. (1765:182-83)[22]

The time pressure came not only from the publication side, but also from demand side, the reader¡¦s expectation. Since exoticism and nostalgia were reader¡¦s favorite tone, the seduction of invention and the fabrication of reality attributes to one of the writing motives.

c.Defending Authenticity by Calling on the Anti-missionary Sentiments of Readers

As mentioned above, Psalmanazar¡¦s book was not unchallenged. The strongest accusation of him as being imposter was from missionaries. To conquer these doubts, Psalmanazar articulated his counter arguments. For instance, the Dutch missionary Candidius¡¦ writings about Formosa used to be referred by others to falsifying Psalmanazar¡¦s argument. But upon reading their accusation, he decided to rely on people¡¦s common sense inertia that could hardly count Candidius¡¦s works as true. For example, Candidius claimed that, in Formosa, when a woman became pregnant before age thirty-seven, the priestesses laid her down and jumped on her stomach until she aborted. Psalmanazar claimed that this is nonsense and unreasonable, man of reason should never believe this kind of authors and their absurd fiction. By this counter argument Psalamanazar safeguard his own unthinkable description. Another even more skillful defense is by calling on people, especially free thinkers, of their distrust on religious institutions. When the missionaries were attacking him, the opposing party would tend to protect their enemy¡¦s enemy. This in turn reinforces the reliability of Psalamanazar¡¦s writing to certain extent. Partly due to the limited knowledge of European public at that period of time towards the distant other, it was hard to verify truthfulness between two contradictory discourses. Therefore, the blending of self-inventing subject, first-hand experience, high degree discursiveness, marketability and relatively pitiful status constituted the authenticity of his work.

Even though Psalmanazar¡¦s weird ¡§self-representation¡¨ of Formosa was insufficient of many of the characteristics of Orientalism proper, or systematized Orientalism, it has one of them in spades. It indicates the vulnerability of the Orient to be substantially represented upon by the West, a quality it has never entirely shaken off. In other words, it is the fanaticized social imaginary of the West in regard to the Far East that safeguards the apparently absurd discourse of Formosa by Psalmanazar, in spite of the skepticism coming from missionaries who had visited Formosa.

3-3. 19^th Century Western Colonial Imaginary

The lessons for England [in respect to Taiwan] are: (a) the value of information regarding and true appreciation of colonial interests and feelings, (b) the danger of divided counsels and vacillation, (c) the necessity to safeguard its interests and trade supremacy by colonial defences and naval forces, (d) the danger of 'scares,' with their hurried, ill-considered preparations, hardly commenced before abandoned.[23]

Formosa would undoubtedly become a place of some importance, if it ever pleased God to give it anything like a decent government, and if colonization advanced into the interior. At present it was merely fringed by settlers of the worst class of coast Chinese. It was badly governed by the officials sent there; [24]

Standing on the basis of the earlier mercantilism, or commercial capitalism, the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century greatly increased the military and technological power of the European countries, enabling them to extend their rule over areas inhabited with indigenous populations. To regions in Asia and Africa where previously there had been only European commercial posts, the European nations now sent troops along with commercial agents, officials, and Christian missionaries. These areas were turned into markets for Europe's industrial products and suppliers of its raw materials. The Western colonial power was then on its peak.

Western interest in Taiwan shrunk after the retreat of the Dutch, and it wasn't until early in the 19th century and the era of foreign intervention in China that Taiwan was to figure once again in colonialist imaginary. As China suffered harassment under foreign domination, Taiwan was also inflicted at the hands of the British, Americans, French and Japanese.  Taiwan's first military contact with the colonial powers of the nineteenth century came as China was fighting the British in the Opium War (1840 to 1842), when Britain shelled Taiwan as an example to the Chinese empire. But while the British were at one stage thinking of turning Taiwan into a penal colony similar to Australia, the ¡§savagery¡¨ of Taiwan's inhabitants made the British change their mind. 

Nevertheless, British interests in Taiwan grew stronger after China signed the barrage of unequal treaties forced upon it by the colonial powers during the mid and late nineteenth century.  Apart from Mainland Chinese ports, the unequal treaties also opened Taiwanese ports to foreign trade, and included Tamsui, Takao (Kaohsiung), Anping and Kee-lung.  Needless to say, foreigners enjoyed the same rights and privileges of extraterritoriality (i.e. exemption from Chinese laws) while in Taiwan as they did in the mainland.In the early 1860's, key coastal cities on Taiwan were included in the ever-expanding number of treaty ports, and were opened to Western merchants and missionaries. Here, it should be remarked, across over the northern limit of that wide region, in which the work is carried on by missionaries from the Presbyterian Church in England. Lai-sia is the remotest of their stations to the north, while Sin-kang is the southernmost of a large group connected with the only other Protestant mission in the island; that, namely from the Canadian Presbyterian Church. Dr. Maxwell was the pioneer missionary to Formosa, who -- strengthened by the temporary assistance of the Rev. Carstairs Douglas of Amoy, -- commenced the work during the summer of 1865. At the beginning of 1872, the Rev. G.L. Mackay opened the mission in north Formosa. Among the missionary residents it was the British Presbyterians (such as H. Ritchie) who led the way, followed later by Canadian Presbyterians (G.L. Mackay). 

These residents (merchants and missionaries), based in Tainan and Tamsui and Taipei, wrote detailed accounts of their experiences and their impressions of their new habitat. In addition to the writings by missionaries, there were also some naturalists, geographers, and travelers who were eager to explore and discuss about Taiwan. And their works proved to be the first of an increasing number of Western works about this island. When Taiwan was ceded to Japan, the missionaries, scholars and merchants remained and were joined by travelers exploring the new Japanese colony. A new set of works on the island during this second phase of its post- Opium Wars history. The Japanese officials also wrote about the island and English translations of these works soon found their way into the literature. My focus in this part will be specifically on the writings such as ¡§The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London¡¨ and other English periodicals. Most of their information regarding the island is the result of the journeys and observations made by naturalists, missionaries, merchants and officials who had been resident in the island since 1860, when the Treaty of Tientsin threw open the ports to foreign trade.

Discourse Analysis¡XGazing Formosa Through Western Eyes

a.The Geographical Imaginary of Taiwan

The island of Formosa, one of the largest in the Eastern Seas, is situated between 22? and 26? North latitude and 120? and 122? East longitude, and is separated by a channel some hundred miles in width from the adjacent mainland of China, of which it is a political dependency. It forms the end of one of the many chains of islands which, from the Western part of Russian America to the Southern archipelagos, seem to fringe the Eastern coasts of the Asiatic continent with a succession of long loops, and terminates that of which the Japanese group, the Loochoos and the Meiaco-Sima group are the component parts.[25]

The mapping ofTaiwan by the fellows of the ¡§Royal Geographical Society of London¡¨, missionaries writing of ¡§The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal¡¨, and others, not only described but also systematized the observed natural and social scenery of Taiwan. By putting specific localities within broader frameworks and world area, a Western geographer implicitly tells his readers how the West writes, and locates, the geographical characteristic of Taiwan. It also orients readers with directional markers: ¡§the Far East¡¨ always means ¡§east of us¡¨ for Westerners, reflecting the prejudices of the geographers, the map-makers. Although such directional markers are substantialized designation to build up an asymmetrical relation and subsequently to start the process of defining oneself: who am I, and where am I, in relation to others? Hence, in addition to the obvious materialist interest that intrigues the geographical imaginary of Taiwan, in search of the meaning of the self in opposition to the others is also one of the most important underlying motives that drove Westerners to picture the East in general, and Taiwan in particular.The Western ¡§Eye¡¨ on Taiwan in this context was like ¡§the voyeur¡¨ gaze. Many naturalists, missionaries, and travelers, as empirical observer wandering over the villages, mountains, and streets, playing ¡§flaneur¡¨, watching and listening to people¡¦s practices and conversations, and reading the local written documents. It seemed like that these Westerners could learn more about Taiwan and its social and natural characteristics by engaging in microgeographies, microethnograhies and microhistoriographies of everyday life. However, as voyeur, these Westerners, to some extent, shared a transcendental viewpoint, which allow them to ascend to a high point and look down upon the intricate landscape of Taiwan, and thus build a homogeneous imaginary of the environment and society of Taiwan. The privileging of the high viewpoint was advantageous for observers to conceptualize, categorize and typify the observed object. In the mental map of these Westerners, Taiwan was considered as the land of resources exploited by the colonial capitalists. as stated by Dennys:

The geology of the interior, which [h]as been but little explored, is comparatively unknown, but recent travellers speak of the existence of strata of slate and shale, and the traces of coal and other minerals discovered justify the belief that the mineral wealth of the country is very great. On the inhabited or Western side the soil in the plains is a rich alluvium, while the Southern portion, especially near Takow abounds in calcareous conglomerate full of fossil shells and remains of coral.[26]

Also by Allen, with regard to its vegetation:

The information obtained from time to time about Formosa showed that everything there was in its infancy. Rice, camphor, wheat, coffee, tobacco, tea, and sugar were all grown there; and no doubt other tropical produce would thrive, if there was a good government and colonists were encouraged to settle.[27]

The Western attitude towards the social condition and landscape of Taiwan is so interest-driven and prejudiced that it had defiled the privileged positionality of the researchers. Therefore, it is important to note that, from middle way point of view, not only the things we perceive and the discourses we form are endangered by our substantialized viewpoint, but also the positionality of viewers and writers within certain relational matrix is frequently being reified. Actually, this kind of positionality-attachment is the result of egocentrism, and thereby the starting point of the politics of representation of the others. Hence, it is necessary to problematize the disguised or invisiblized positionality of observers, in our case, the Western writers.

b.Ethnography and Uncivilized Others

The island is highly favoured by nature, but civilized man had not yet succeeded in leaving his mark on any but a very small portion of it. [P. 189]¡¨[28]

The aborigines are addicted to spirituous liquors and are blood-thirsty. They wear no caps, shoes, or clothes; and have no marriage or burial rites.[29]

The inner logic of ethnography often presents itself as transcendental seeing through the production of a system of differences¡Xthat is, an immediately apprehensible, and hence comparable, system of categories of the social whole: manner, custom, ritual, belief, costumes, kinship, etc.Such categories in turn internalize the situation of difference as sense of cultural hierarchy which enters into ethnographers in a pervasive and equally systematic way. The logical principle holding this presumed coherent whole behind ethnographic writing is basically Baconian and Linnean. The Baconian and Linnean system of taxonomy based on the logical principles of mutually exclusiveness and exhaustiveness of concept differentiation and hierarchicalization used to be adopted by zoology and botany.In the mean time, Formosa was also perceived by naturalists and ethnographers as a site for knowledge accumulation and verification. 

¡§The President said, when he was Her Majesty's Minister in China, he visited Formosa, and was very much struck by the luxuriance of its tropical vegetation. He believed that Mr. Veitch, and other botanists, had enriched our greenhouses with many beautiful orchids, and ornamental plants that they or their collectors had brought home from thence.¡¨[30]

The Baconian and Linnean system of taxonomy was also the key to the development of ethnography in the 19^th century. Ethnography and other forms of travel writings, by missionaries or naturalists, with examples of customs and manners taxonomies alongside examples of early modern ethnographic classificatory schemes became the underlying consensus among these writings. 

Despite some experiences of direct encounter, which were potentially conducive for the accumulation of knowledge, Europeans and Americans had created images in their writing that represented Euro/Am ideas, especially in their moral judgment, more than they reflected the reality of Taiwan. It seems very obvious that Western writing about Taiwan at that time had not been fairly objective scholarship. Instead it overwhelmingly was an image of Taiwan which reflected European and American ideas and interests, and which was definitely different from Taiwanese perceptions of self or from actual relational-processual view concerning the dynamics among Europeans and Taiwanese. However, European and lately American ideas and interests have had and continue to have a tremendous amount of impact on the world, and the power of these ideas and interests can limit the way one analyzes any part of the world which has apparently varied cultural and social traditions. The underlying commonality of these writings below the superficial variety is their being too concerned with economic, political, religious and scientific problems of their own when they study Taiwan, and that their work has reflected Western problems and concerns as much as, or more than, they have expanded understanding of Taiwan history and geography.

As for the scientific imaginary, one of their dialogical counterparts was Darwinian evolutionarism:

The Hill Savages of North Formosa are, without doubt, exactly like other human beings in the shape of their bodies and number of their limbs, and although they are as wild as the animals which roam about their country, have no written language of their own, and live in a most primitive style, yet there are no signs of a Darwinian tail, neither do they at all give you the idea that their progenitors were of the monkey species.[31]¡¨

I think, however, apart from their freedom of life, the absence of all luxury and effeminacy, and the other advantages of a savage existence, much of this strength and superiority of person must be owing to what is termed "natural selection," or the "struggle for existence." I have no doubt&endash;though they would not acknowledge it&endash;that weak and sickly children are allowed to die, and that the task of reproduction falls to the strong and healthy, who naturally produce strong and healthy offspring. I feel convinced also that they are in the habit of destroying their female children, and am the more confirmed in this conviction from the fact that there was not in the village we visited a single female child or unmarried woman.[32]

In the sense of Foucaldian panoptic gaze, Western ethnographers performed their imaginative trips from the advantageous outlook of the center, underneath its various, empirical vantage-points. Western writers on Taiwan, in turn, perceived it with the surveillant eye, which was detached, disembedded and yet also interconnected in an asymmetrical relation. Taiwan was thus visualized by Westerners as uncivilized, natural and unreasoned society, yet to be enlightened.

4. Euro-centrism and Its Diffusionist Imaginary 

From middle way relational-processual perspective, aforementioned Western geography, ethnography and historiography is embedded in an underlying imaginary, which is basically European-centered and often colonial and religious. The constitutive imaginary serves up visual assumptions and theories, most of them implicit and latent, upon which geographers, ethnographers and historians ¡§map out¡¨ their ¡§findings¡¨ and ¡§discoveries.¡¨

Behind these writings there is a diffusionist worldview shared by European observers. It presumed a European center and a non-European marginal. The center was naturally progressive, rational and therefore superior. The marginal was naturally stagnant, unchanging or slowly changing, and hence inferior. The reason of its inferiority was a lack of progressiveness and a lack of rationality. This produced a world in which civilization rose at the center and diffused to the marginal. This outward flow of Western culture (Christianity, utilitarianism, etc.) was deemed natural and justified.

The writing of Hughes on Taiwan evidently discloses this kind of diffusionist view of civilization:

But we ought to remember what Professor Huxley has somewhere said, that "in the early ages of the world, the first impulse of man was, not to love his neighbour, but to eat him;" and when we consider that there is, as far as we can ascertain, a total absence of cannibalism amongst this primitive people, and that they are even showing a disposition to abandon their inclination to slaughter, wantonly, strangers who give them no grounds for provocation, we may safely infer that they have made, at all events, some progress, however slight, on the road to enlightenment and civilization..[33]

The initiators, or the germs of the improvement of the unenlightened or uncivilized were certainly Westerners. In return, the marginal should feedback counter-diffuses resources, products, labor, and art objects to the center, a sort of proper and natural repayment for the gift of civilization.

Colonialism was the vehicle for this diffusion of civilization to the periphery. Therefore, since the diffusing of civilization from Europe to non-Europe was deemed natural and beneficial, colonialism was thus natural and beneficial. Eurocentric diffusionist imaginary served to justify and assist colonialism. One of its original founding discourse was in a theological argument: the Bible relates that civilization and even humanity itself appeared first in the ¡§Bible Lands,¡¨ and then was spread (diffused) to the rest of the world by Noah¡¦s sons. Later, the colonial-scientific doctrine of Eurocentric diffusionism replaced the theological one, grounding its discourses on various substantialist theories as to why the Europeans were, supposedly, more intelligent, more rational, more ethical, etc., than everyone else, hence why Europe naturally was superior and naturally bestowed civilization on the colonials. This is apparently a form of asymmetrical binary relation that is against the reality of dependent co-arising and the emptiness of own-being of Western culture and non-Western culture.

5. Middle Way Relational-Processual Rethinking

One of the sources of persuasiveness of the diffusionist imaginary is the taken-for-granted ¡§natural attitude¡¨ among lay people and even various fields of social scientists. The founding fathers of all disciplines in social sciences are Westerners. The canonical interpretations of the origins of modernization, globalization, industrialization, democracy, science and technology are basically Euro-centric. These classic theoretical construes were so pervasive and paradigmatic, which was so buttressed by implicit beliefs that could significantly impede an alternative, relational-processual, imagination. It is also difficult to think differently by a non-Westerner, because of the deep embeddedness of the disciplinary canon already ingrained so radically into his or her own scheme of conception and even perception in regard to scientific research, empirically or theoretically. But it is important to confront these taken-for-granted paradigms and reject their substantialist, and thereby biased, assumptions. 

However, it is important to note that a deconstruction of Euro-centric diffusionist imaginary does not mean to reverse the asymmetrical power relation and to downplay Western culture in order to glorify the superiority of non-Western culture. This kind of reversed binary opposition is still a form of substantialism in the sense that it remains attached to an ¡§own-being¡¨ assertion. It still cannot overcome the internalization of self- other asymmetrical binary opposition by trying to reverse the judgmental power relation by essentializing self as superior. In other words, it also, as Euro-centrism does, lacks a relational imagination, and thereby cannot think of, or appreciate, the historical and geographical interpenetration and interdependency between different parts of the world. Besides, it is also insufficient of a processual imagination, and thus often identifies a fixed point of glorious cultural essence, historically and geographically. From our former reflection we can assure that there is no one culture or society that is not experiencing a constant movement in the temporal process.

f.The production of knowledge about Formosa and its publication in the context of the West is framed by the relation between observing and observed in which the observers were also colonizers, soul savors, or at least citizens of colonial countries. The asymmetrical exchange relation in terms of material, spirit and information was also established. The observer¡¦s gaze or desire to write was interested. Out of these interests, the observation, conducted by travelers, ethnographers, geographers, missionaries, naturalists and so on, was in turn schemed and prejudiced. Their social imaginary underpinning this scheme was shaped by colonial, religious, scientific and popular interests. Conditioned by the scheme, the discursive formation on Formosa was to some extent fixated and inherent. The constant flux regarding the concrete life situation either was ignored or disappeared altogether within their framework. The so-called first-hand-experience concerning Formosa claimed by those writers was therefore not native, indigenous point of view. Local knowledge was downplayed by Western ¡§universal knowledge.¡¨

6. Concluding Remarks

Historically speaking, the dependent co-arising of Taiwan society has gone through enormous change in the constant flux. In some of the aspects, the changes were acknowledged by lay people, or social scientists, yet some other, even more so, weren¡¦t, mostly due to the limitation of people¡¦s reified vision. However, from our theoretical reflection in the light of middle way perspective and its social-historical retrospection, we can argue that, Taiwanese history is like a constant flowing river, which can never repeat and remain the same. Different historical periods, political regimes, social imaginary, underlying interests or positionalities tend to establish substantialist discourses, to define and thus confine as something essentially existent, just like building up water dam to block the natural flow of the water. But according to the middle way perspective, this kind of attempt is problematic and also unjust, because it ignores the interweaving and interpenetrating relationships and changing process. 

Nevertheless, a relational-processual view of Taiwan doesn¡¦t mean that Taiwan cannot so exist. The middle way perspective cannot accept this kind of nihilistic extreme either. The interweaving relationships and changing process doesn¡¦t impede the formation of an identifiable particularity of Taiwan, in the sense of culture, politics, economy and what have you. Although Taiwan in the past, say, four hundred years ago, or more, cannot be the same Taiwan today in a substantialist sense. Taiwan (Formosa) perceived by the Dutch, Psalmanazar or writers in the 19th century was significantly different from how we perceive Taiwan today. But, it is impossible to say that Taiwan does not have any continuity of development or recognizable community formation over time. Just like the Nile will never change into the Indus, neither will Taiwan society dissolve all her historical-geographical uniqueness and turn into an essentially different society despite its constant intermingle and inter-dialogue with her significant others. Pragmatically speaking, Taiwan cannot survive as an independent entity without taking into account her relation with other societies. Hence, an interdependent relation with her surroundings is crucial for her survival. Nor can Taiwan persist as an inherent being that never changes her constituency. Therefore, a constantly metabolic revitalization and refreshing of her figurations is inevitable. However, this relational-processual social imaginary doesn¡¦t mean that Taiwan has no socially effective identity, or Taiwan can be assimilated or represented by other society without considering the will of her people. The will formation of Taiwanese people makes the social imaginary of Taiwan and its institutional figuration relatively strong and sturdy, even though it is not a solid essence. This is the dependent co-arising of collective force, which constitutes a set of structural complex of constraints and enabling. Any change of this configuration must go through the acknowledgement of the will of her people, consciously or unconsciously, gradually or progressively.  By the same token, any discursive formation on Taiwan must recognize the contribution and existence of Taiwanese inhabitants in a relational-processual sense. 

Thus, there is a sense in which the Taiwan society four hundred years ago is not the Taiwan of today. But there is also a sense in which the Taiwan four hundred years ago is still the Taiwan of today. According to middle way double negation there is no Taiwan that remains unchanged through time, nor is there a non-existence of Taiwan in constant flux. As Nagarjuna points out, there is neither absolute identity through time nor an absolute difference. Expressed paradoxically, it is the same in some sense and yet not the same. Taiwan is not the same as before, yet in relation to other societies, Taiwan is not a different society in the same sense that Taiwan is essentially different from China, Japan, Philippine America or Europe. 

It is erroneous to insist that all the conceptions of self-nature in Taiwan, or the East, fall to one side of the wall and that all so-called Western perception of the self-nature fall to the other side. Isn¡¦t it possible that societies might grapple with similar problems in similar ways? Is there no mutually enriching exchange among societies? Why do we need to essentialize an East and a West in our writing?