BEHIND THE WORK
In many places around the world, symbols representing the colonial past are being removed or challenged as part of the decolonization movement. Statues being destroyed and streets being renamed are just some of the ways people and places are trying to stop memorializing the colonizers. In Canada, the whole nation is still learning the truth behind the Indigenous Residential Schools where children were forced to adopt the colonizers’ culture. In Taiwan, memories of people being forced to give up their mother tongues are not too far removed for many generations today.
There are many cities around the world that were once colonized such as Seoul, Jakatar, Hong Kong, Macau, Manila, Taipei... Is it right to force the citizens of the place to honour their colonizers by recognizing their colonizers before their names of the cities? If people don’t want to be called English Vancouver, Japanese Seoul, Spanish Manila...then no more Chinese Taipei, the name is Taiwan, so Just Taiwan Please!
