Every morning here in Tainan, I get up, make up a cup of coffee, and then crack open my Tâi-gí (Taiwanese Hokkien / Minnan) textbook for something between a half hour and an hour of language study. Since arriving here in Taiwan’s south, I’ve been trying to get to grips with this most tricky of languages. Most of my neighbours speak a cocktail of Mandarin and Tâi-gí. In fact, as I write this, there’s some kind of commotion going on outside, as the neighbours are planning a weekend celebration. And I can hear boisterous, raised voices that are switching between Mandarin and Tâi-gí.
Given that Tâi-gí is so widely spoken, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn into studying the language. So I’m particularly pleased to see this piece published in The Dial on The Survival of Tâi-gí. For the piece, I interviewed the brilliant YouTuber Ayo, and the team from GuttaBooks&Coffee up in Taipei. It’s a story about politics, language and identity. And it’s about the possibility of thinking through what a nation might be, not by recourse to dreams of unity, but by weaving together a diversity of histories, languages and cultures.
