When I was living in Japan, I once asked my Taiwanese colleague, Ms. C, “How did you learn Japanese?” She replied, “At first, I learned by watching Japanese anime and reading manga.” It’s true that you can pick up simple words and characters from anime and manga.
Ms. C also told me, “But older people in Taiwan speak Japanese better than I do.” So, when I met Taiwanese people who spoke Japanese while traveling in Taiwan, I wasn’t all that surprised.
However, the elderly people I mentioned in my previous post are different. They converse in Japanese on a daily basis. Although I could understand them to some extent when they spoke, I wanted to know more, so I looked into it after returning home.
After winning the First Sino-Japanese War(1894-95) and gaining control of Taiwan, Japan established the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office in Taipei and began full-scale governance. Initially, anti-Japanese sentiment was strong, so it was only natural that military officers took on the role of Governor-General.
In 1921, 26 years after the start of Japanese rule, once the entire island had settled down and peace had been restored, civilian officials—such as those from the Ministry of Home Affairs—replaced the military officers as Governor-General. This likely signaled a greater emphasis on education aimed at the Japanization of Taiwan.
At the time, the education system was divided into three categories: elementary schools for Japanese children, public schools for Taiwanese (Han Chinese), and educational institutions for indigenous peoples. Elementary schools and public schools provided six years of elementary education in Japanese, while the educational institutions provided four years.
By 1929, the barriers between Japanese and Taiwanese students in middle schools were removed, and the system transitioned to coeducation. At the same time, elementary education, which had previously been segregated by ethnicity, was reorganized into two categories: “those who use Japanese in daily life” and “those who do not.” This allowed even Taiwanese children to attend Japanese elementary schools.
Then, in 1936, as the ominous footsteps of war gradually drew nearer, the position of Governor-General returned to a military officer. Nevertheless, elementary and secondary education in Taiwan continued until the end of the war, and the final enrollment rates—nearly 100% for Japanese and over 70% for Taiwanese—were the highest in Asia at the time.
I met Taiwanese people who used Japanese on a daily basis in 1983. At the time, those three people looked elderly, but assuming they were all 60 years old, they would have been 13 years old when the Governor-General was replaced by a military officer in 1936.
In other words, in the peaceful Taiwan of that time, they likely had the opportunity to study freely as elementary school students under Japanese teachers who were, as one might expect, passionate about education. If they were 65 years old, that period would have extended through junior high school. That proud and joyful way Mr. Oto spoke—“My teacher…”—strikes me as [one of his happy childhood memories].
It wasn’t just the Taiwanese. Among the indigenous peoples as well, Japanese conversation became firmly established. In areas without teachers, it is said that the local police officers served as substitutes. Even among indigenous peoples belonging to the same Austronesian language family, over the long years, the linguistic commonalities between tribes gradually disappeared, so that people from different villages could no longer understand each other’s languages. Consequently, Japanese came to be widely used as a common language between tribes.
日本にいた頃、同僚の台湾人Ｃさんに「日本語はどうやって勉強したの？」と聞いたことがあります。「最初は日本のテレビアニメや漫画本を見て覚えました」との答えでした。確かにアニメや漫画から簡単な言葉や文字が想像できます。加えてＣさんは「でも、台湾の年寄りは私より日本語を上手にしゃべりますよ」とも教えてくれました。ですから台湾を旅行中、日本語を話す台湾の人に出会ってもそれほど驚きませんでした。
ところが前回記したお年寄りたちは違っています。日常的に日本語で会話してるのです。話を聞いてそれなりに理解ができたものの、さらに知りたくなって帰国後に調べてみました。
日清戦争に勝利し、台湾を割譲した日本は台北に台湾総督府を置き本格的な統治を始めます。当初抗日運動が強く、当然のように軍出身の武官が総督の任にあたります。統治開始から26年経過した1921年、台湾全土が落ち着き平穏が続くようになると今までの武官に変わり、内務省出身などの文官が総督の任に就きます。台湾の日本化のための教育に力が入るということでしょう。
当時は日本人子供向けの小学校、台湾人(漢人)の公学校、原住民の教育所と三つに別れ、小学校と公学校は６年間、教育所は４年間、日本語による初等教育を行っていました。
1929年になると中学では日本人と台湾人の垣根が取り外され共学に移行します。同時に初等教育も日本人、台湾人と民族によって分けられていたものが「日常的に日本語を使用する者」と「そうでない者」とに分けられるようになり、台湾人の子供でも日本の小学校で学べるようになります。
そして1936年、徐々に怪しげな(戦争)足音が近づく中、再び総督は軍出身の武官に戻ります。それでも台湾の初等中等教育は終戦まで続き、最終的な就学率は日本人ほぼ100％、台湾人70％以上という当時のアジアの最高水準でした。
私が日常的に日本語を使用する台湾人にあったのは1983年のことです。当時、あの３人がお年寄りに見えましたが、かりに皆さん60才だとすると、1936年に総督が武官に戻った時には皆さん13才です。つまり、それまで平穏な台湾で、おそらくそうであろう教育熱心な日本人教師のもとでのびのびと小学生として勉強できたのではないでしょうか。もし皆さん65才だとしたらその期間は中学にまで及ぶことになります。あのオトウさんの自慢気で嬉しそうな「私の先生は……」は、［子供の頃の楽しい思いでの一つだったんだろうな］私にはそう思えるのです。
台湾人だけではありません。原住民の間でもしっかりと日本語による会話は確立されていきました。先生がいない地域では駐在所のお巡りさんが先生の代わりを努めたそうです。同じオーストロネシア語族に属する原住民の間でも長い年月を経て、いつの間にか部族間の言語の共通性がなくなり、住んでいる村が違うと互いに話す言葉がわからないのです。それゆえ部族間の共通語として日本語が広く活用されていったそうです。
My Life with Bicycles 