ASTRONAUTS FROM TAIWAN.

• Author: YANG, JIAN
• Position: Review

Taiwanese Immigration to Australia and New Zealand Authors: Tim Beal and Farib Sos Published by: Steele Roberts Ltd, Wellington, 1999, 190pp, $29.95.

With the end of the Cold War and the economic success of greater China, the study of `the Chinese diaspora' is flourishing. The study has been strongly influenced by two paradigms, first the China-oriented and China-centred approach, the paradigm of the inevitability of return to the native land, China (luoye guigen), and then the paradigm of `growing roots where they land' (luodi shenggen). Both paradigms, however, are hardly applicable to a relatively new phenomenon in the diaspora -- the `astronaut' phenomenon.

The term `astronaut' (taikongren) first gained widespread public attention in the 1980s. Both Taiwanese writer Chen Ruoxi's (Chen Jo-shi) 1984 novel Yuanjian (Foresight) and Hong Kong writer Hang Fengyi's 1989 novel Fengyunbian (Change) are about female `astronauts'. The `astronaut' phenomenon started to appear when many middle-class families in Hong Kong, amid pervasive concerns about the colony's impending return to Chinese rule in 1997, sent their members abroad while the chief breadwinner commuted between a home and family in the new country (mainly the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and a business or occupation in the old.

Astronauts from Taiwan is a much-needed investigation of Taiwanese immigrants in Australia and New Zealand. The book originated from a research project initiated and funded by the Asia Pacific Public Affairs Forum (APPAF) of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The project resulted in a report entitled `Global Citizens? Taiwanese immigration to Australasia and the search for a new life'. The authors decided to use `astronaut' in the book title because the communities are characterised by a `far too high' proportion of `astronauts'. The term `has connotations of failure; the failure to establish a successful business or to gain appropriate professional employment. It leads ... to families under stress and virtual dissolution', the authors note. They want to highlight the problem in the hope of finding solutions.

The authors, however, have made clear that they do not want to give the impression that `astronauts' are the whole story. The book is therefore a more general investigation. Guided by the APPAF's research goals, the book investigates, among other things, immigration as an issue in Australia and New Zealand, the role of business in the two societies...