https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/1j7uw9v/how_is_japanese_culture_so_popular_in_taiwan/
created by reforming_activist on 10/03/2025 at 09:40 UTC
135 upvotes, 36 top-level comments (showing 25)
As an otaku from Malaysia who frequently visits Taiwan for family. I have came to notice that Japanese food is everywhere, and there are many Japanese restaurant chains (Yoshinoya, Mo-mo Paradise, Royal Host e.t.c.) that don't exist pretty oftenly in many other countries. Anime is super popular among young people there, the anime event that took place at Nangang last month I think is probably the largest anime event outside of Japan (maybe rivalling Comic Fiesta in Malaysia), and that even Kadokawa set up their Taiwanese subsidiary there (which is almost an exclusive perk for Taiwanese given that almost no other countries has Kadokawa subsidiaries, I don't see a Malaysian Kadokawa here in Malaysia). Other than that, even the president calls himself as 'Lai-san'.
I am not sure if it's just being overly sensitive or whatever, but that's what I noticed, do you all agree with me? Doesn't matter if you agree or not, I hope to hear for your opinion on this, thank you! ✌️
Comment by FatMax1492 at 10/03/2025 at 09:43 UTC
381 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Might have something to do with Taiwan having been a Japanese colony for 50 years between 1895 and 1945
Comment by erich1510 at 10/03/2025 at 09:45 UTC
159 upvotes, 2 direct replies
sorry, unlike Malaysia, Taiwan can claim Japan as part of the cultural heritage. This isn't just pop culture. It runs in some slight cultural and politeness atittudes here, as well as some parts of the food and urban design.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but Taiwan is the CLOSEST thing to what Japan can claim as a former colony, outside the ones they outright own like Okinawa - the same way the Viets have French influence.
Comment by jamieclo at 10/03/2025 at 09:57 UTC*
95 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Probably going to get downvoted for saying this, and I know it’s a massive over-generalization…
But there’s truth to the saying “Taiwan is Mandarin-speaking Japan” …and it’s not because we’re weebs.
We as a recently decolonized (or not, depending on your political inclinations) colony has Japanese culture ingrained into our history.
The Japanese built not only a lot of the existing infrastructure during their rule, and by putting most of our elderly through the Japanese education system, also made them Japanese in both in the literal and figurative sense.
The people who were once ruled by the Dutch are long gone, but many of those ruled by Japan are still here to talk about it, help raise their great-grandchildren, build the country into what it is today and what it will be in the future.
And many (if not most) don’t hate Japan, unlike Koreans, so the culture has trickled down to the younger generations.
Comment by WakasaYuuri at 10/03/2025 at 09:43 UTC
18 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Go to Ximending and Underground mall in TMS. Its kind of huge. Alot of games from japanese ip also have taiwan version
Comment by voi_kiddo at 10/03/2025 at 10:53 UTC
19 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Nostalgia + lesser evil. You can’t hate minor police oppressions 50 years ago that much if the current colonizer is actively massacring.
I think it’s unfair to call us Chinese speaking Japanese, we have a lot of diversity and different experiences, but a lot of us do feel pretty close to Japan. A lot of us have grandparents that spoke japanese, we are similar in mannerism, and you gotta admit anime is cool.
Comment by DeanBranch at 10/03/2025 at 13:05 UTC
16 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As others have noted, Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years until WWII and treated like a model colony as advertisement for "hey, being a Japanese colony could be a good thing for you!" kind of way.
My grandparents lived during Japanese colonial rule and spoke Japanese and Taiwanese and not Mandarin. My parents were born and raised right after WWII, therefore understand Japanese and for vacation would often choose to go to Japan. My parents often spoke highly about what Japan did for Taiwan.
My parents grew up during KMT rule and there's a reason they never vote for KMT
Comment by amitkattal at 10/03/2025 at 09:59 UTC
30 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Taiwanese regards japan and its culture very highly. They did colonize taiwan for a long time and did a lot of bad things too lik enforcing japanese and trying to remove the aboriginals and also other things. But then chiang kai shek comes with his military law and caused more bad stuff. So people eventually chose lesser evil and started seeing japanese rule as the "better times of progression" because what they compared it to was much worse.
And now with new generation and pop culture and social media has japan even more popular.
Comment by Ok-Bed-326 at 10/03/2025 at 09:52 UTC
17 upvotes, 3 direct replies
In the past, Chinese tourists were banned. There were no tourists from South Korea, Europe and the United States. Taiwan relied entirely on Japan for foreign tourists.
Comment by muvicvic at 10/03/2025 at 12:17 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Other commenters alluded to Taiwan/ROC being okay with Japan pretty quickly. Geopolitical and economic expediency mattered a lot. Globally, the Cold War was solidifying and the KMT government wanted to be on the side against the CCP in Mainland China. The KMT government never wavered from being on the US side, whereas much of South East Asia ended up with the Non-Aligned Movement and their leaders did go through periods of distancing from the US. This allowed for periodic stoking of anti-Japanese sentiments. Apart from ideology, Japan was deeply entrenched in Taiwan AND China’s economies in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries.
The elite class of Taiwan during Japanese colonization consisted of Japanese government officials, Japanese business people, AND local Taiwanese business people. The local Taiwanese elite were able to accumulate a lot of land and power by collaborating with the Japanese authorities. When WWII ended, the elite families continued their economic ties with Japan.
The KMT have always been in bed with Japan, especially the Japanese military and business circle. Much of the KMT military leaders and civilian leaders were educated in Japan. This is because Japan was the most advanced country in Asia at the time and China had a major aversion to Europeans because of past conflicts (opium wars, foreign concessions, etc). Japan was also a major investor in Chinese businesses and financed major infrastructure. These economic ties continued, even at the height of WWII when Japan committed atrocities in China. When the KMT lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan, they turned to US for aid and to Japan’s zaibatsu for foreign investments. It’s a whitewashed area of Taiwan’s economic development history, that the same Taiwan elite who accumulated wealth under Japanese colonization continued accumulating wealth with the KMT government by leveraging historic ties to Japan’s businesses. One way or another, Japan and Japanese business has played a significant role in almost all the conglomerates and major companies in Taiwan (China Trust, Far Eastern, Evergreen group, Formosa Plastics, Shin Kong group, etc). The semiconductor industry is somewhat exempt from all of this, as a relative newcomer to the Taiwan economic scene.
Finally, Japan had massive soft power in Asia from the 70’s to the 90’s. Taiwanese elites and society had already overlooked or forgiven Japan for WWII and the brutal colonization era, so there wasn’t a large aversion to Japanese influence.
Every single Asian country from Myanmar to Korea has a good reason to hold a grudge against Japan. Taiwan’s leadership decided to overlook their very real long-standing issues for the sake of expediency and society had more pressing issues to deal with. When Japan’s soft power was at its zenith, Taiwan did not have many hang ups about it compared to other Asian countries.
Comment by Roygbiv0415 at 10/03/2025 at 10:05 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Japan is close, familiar, and easy to travel to. Taiwan contributed a record 5.5 million visitor arrivals to Japan in 2024, trailing just behind 2nd place China (6.3m). First place is unsurprisingly South Korea, but SK only had 8m visitor arrivals, despite being physically much closer and a population twice that of Taiwan.
When you have such huge numbers, it's unsurprsing that Taiwanese have an affinity for a Japanese-like experience in Taiwan. As for the general anime/manga/otaku scene, Taiwan has followed Japan closely for at least the past three decades, with a very high degree of infiltration and information sychronization.
It probably also helps that quite a few Taiwanese young and old can do a certain level of Japanese, with about 80% of friends in my circle capable of at least a conversational level, and able to read manga, watch anime, or play games in Japanese with few difficulties. That's totally anedoctal, and I won't extend that ratio to the *entire* population, but I won't be surprised if youngsters these days do better Japanese than English.
Comment by Future_Recover1713 at 10/03/2025 at 10:06 UTC*
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Disclaimer: I’m not Taiwanese. I was told by one Taiwanese middle aged guy in US, that Taiwanese majority right now was the beneficiary of Japanese colonialism as the Japanese educated them and use them to rule over the real Polynesian Natives. As a result, the descendants of the current Taiwanese majority don’t have the similar rebellious feelings against the Japanese oppressor as the other colonized countries such as Korea, Singapore, Philippines or China.
Comment by Additional_Show5861 at 10/03/2025 at 12:35 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Lots of reasons;
Comment by tokcliff at 10/03/2025 at 10:25 UTC
11 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Taiwanese are the ultimate jap glazers lol
The old generation remembered japan fondly because they underwent their education system
Japan also didnt really bully the taiwanese too much, and "helped" them with a lot of stuff
Kuomintang failed to appeal to the masses. So the old generation keep reminiscing about the japanese days because it was in fact better compared to kmt taiwan for quite a while
So the middle aged follow the old people and like japan
now the young people also like japan. This is basically a global trend
Compound with the fact that japan never did any nanking massacre or whatever in taiwan, at least on a massive scale, a lot of taiwanese love japan
Influence on japan is particularly pronounced in hokkien(taigi). Bread is pan, apple is ringo, gas is gasu, motorcycle is otobai. Basically a lot of things. Also culture wise, baseball is popularized by japan, the taiwan rail is from japan.
Japanese companies have also been constantly investing in taiwan too.
Also a lot of taiwanese young and old like to eat japanese food. Opinion but i think taiwanese food is kinda mid, so they go to japanese food, which is slightly better mid
Thats my view. Disclaimer, im singaporean lol.
Comment by fatcatbiohaz at 10/03/2025 at 11:13 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
My Great-Grandparents and Grandparents are fluent Japanese speakers due to Japanese being mandatory in school for the Yi-Lan area during the 1940's. Based on my elders' accounts, the Japanese were strict but did not treat the local population badly; in fact, they have a poorer assessment of the KMT.
Comment by Controller_Maniac at 10/03/2025 at 10:50 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
When Japan conquered Taiwan, they made it into the model colony as a example that their rule was peaceful, the Taiwanese were forced to learn Japanese, they also helped Taiwan build many infrastructure, and many Taiwanese also look at the colonization though a rose tinted view, which gives us the Japan loving Taiwan we have today.
Comment by coffeeandnicethings at 10/03/2025 at 10:27 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I laugh in Filipino.
But yes, I agree. I visited Taiwan just recently and I felt like I was in Japan. Like little Japan, I guess.
What shocked me is I think when it comes to shopping, even for personal items, Taiwan is more expensive.
Comment by chartry0 at 10/03/2025 at 11:18 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Might as well ask why we follow UK’s state, political and judicial systems? And why some still sembah mat salleh?
Comment by f1122660 at 10/03/2025 at 15:27 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Set aside from historical reasons, I'd say it's purely just sales better because we think Japan=good stuff, and we love good stuff.
Comment by Bruggok at 10/03/2025 at 15:54 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My ahma used to say “the Japanese let great uncle X go to college then attend medical school in Japan. His family became rich and later sent their grandchildren to the US.” and “the Japanese head of Taiwan Sugar promoted great uncle Y to be the regional manager in Tainan, and he was then able to help poor relatives.”
In contrast, about KMT (from various sources) was “they punished us for speaking Taiwanese in school”, “they took land from Taiwanese and gave it to their people”, and “most government jobs went to their people”.
The worst but funny one was “Air force pilot jobs almost all went to mainlanders. China Airlines pilots used to be mostly ex-ROCAF pilots, so in addition to top leaders the company was run by mainlanders. Many didn’t understand English, were alcoholics, and could not unlearn bad habits from ROCAF. Now you know why they used to crash every few years, because they only got their jobs by favoritism. Once China Airlined hired ah-dohg-ah (white people) to be pilots the crashes stopped, so that’s proof that the inept mainlanders were the cause of crashes all along.”
To conclude, the Japanese were remembered well because they treated the Taiwanese better than the KMT, who did such a lousy job.
Comment by miserablembaapp at 10/03/2025 at 16:23 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Same reason why English culture is so popular in the US and their other former colonies.
Comment by dLight26 at 10/03/2025 at 17:34 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Really nothing to do with Japanese colony… 15 years ago, anime is considered for weirdo, tv entertainment show also make fun of weebs and light novels and anime.
Comment by Koino_ at 10/03/2025 at 10:01 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Cultural proximity.
Comment by falseprophic at 10/03/2025 at 09:47 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Taiwan is an immigration nation. It is completely normal for us to keep something nice from our history into our culture.
Comment by StormOfFatRichards at 10/03/2025 at 09:43 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Unresolved historic traumas of multiple occupying parties and a complex chain of economic developments
Comment by achent_ at 10/03/2025 at 13:22 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Honestly it's just how much our lives today still depend on the original Japanese urban planing and infrastructure. Sure we expanded on them and replaced them when they become outdated but it all started from the Japanese vision of a modern Taiwan. This is apparently what you get from 50 years of mostly civilian Japanese colonial rule. (RIP to other former Japanese colonies cause those occupied by the military did not end well)