Wearing white and blue flip flops, beach shorts, tank top and gold necklace with Taiwanese gum ‘betel nuts’ chewing in their mouths while riding motorcycle, who are they? They are 'Tike.’Living in this digital era, people’s lives are profoundly influenced by globalization, yet we shall not forget our root. That is why Taiwan has a new ‘Retro is in’ trend, the localization force is about to launch a new revolution in 21th century Taiwan.
With its unique history background Taiwan has a diverse cultural variety. Netherlanders and Spanish colonials in 17th century, Japanese colonial in late 19th century and the U.S. army garrison in the 1950s, each of them had contributed their characteristics and melted in Taiwan peoples’ blood.
With its unique history background Taiwan has a diverse cultural variety. Netherlanders and Spanish colonials in 17th century, Japanese colonial in late 19th century and the U.S. army garrison in the 1950s, each of them had contributed their characteristics and melted in Taiwan peoples’ blood.
What is ‘Tike’
'Tike,’ literally means Taiwanese man, was more of a discriminative way to describe Taiwanese people within a designated area of southern Taiwan. It used to be an impolite, tacky, vulgar image, but in recent years, Tike has been reborn and has generated a distinguish music genre, food, fashion and its own music festival. Even the local government has noticed this trend and is encouraging people to hold or participate in the Tike related festivities.
'Tike’ represents the spirit of originality and vitality, and one of the icon figures is the pop singer 'Wu-Bie.’ He is the father of advocating ‘Tike’ as ‘Taiwan soul.’ His ‘Tike style rock n roll’ steer up the passion of Taiwanese people and encourage people that they should be themselves regardless of the mainstream.Even though the multi-cultural influence enriched Taiwanese lifestyle it also resulted in the difficulties of nation identification for Taiwanese. Taiwan’s sovereign right lacks of international recognition, as a country strives for identification of the world it should starts with the identification of the citizen within itself. To understand, to feel, to find out the inner voice would be the first step for Taiwan to invite people of the world to appreciate this beautiful island and take Taiwan as an eminent member in global village.
Tike culture is a subculture that not everyone recognizes it, yet Tike remains an irreplaceable factor in modern Taiwan culture for it reminds us of individualism and not being manipulated by pop culture. In the mean time we are undergoing the rapid change of globalization; we should still put our feet on the ground and be proud of just like ‘Tike,’ what is ‘Made in Taiwan.’
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