On Preserving Taiwanese Through Romanization

Image credit: yf Chan , Flickr

Before my first trip to Taiwan with my kids, I told my father I wanted to eat xiao long bao at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Taipei. As soon as he picked us up from Taoyuan airport at 5:30 in the morning, our hired minivan took us to a breakfast shop a few blocks away from my grandmother’s flat. There, we teetered on stools set around a table, threatening to fall over under the weight of our sleepless flight. The savory aroma from steamer baskets full of soup dumplings tickled us, and when we bit into the little bundles, the explosion of hot, salty pork broth slapped us awake. These xiao long bao were delicious, but they were not the award-winning ones known for having precisely eighteen pleats on top.

Over our two weeks in the motherland, my dad’s brother—the one we call Uncle Jeff—drove us almost everywhere. “What do you want to do today?” he and my father asked each morning. Over and over, I told them I wanted to go to the other, famous dumpling restaurant, which only elicited grunted excuses and resistance. Was I not communicating myself clearly enough? My father questioned if the Michelin-starred dumplings were really that much better than the ones at the many mom and pop shops we had already visited. “Close enough is okay,” he grumbled. Only he didn’t use those English words. He used a Taiwanese phrase, one that means basically the same thing—but earthier, saltier, more resigned . . . more Taiwanese.

Read my full reflections on the Taiwanese language and the challenges of Romanizing it, at Catapult…