benshengren

Etymology

From Mandarin 本省人 (běnshěngrén), literally "original province people" (from the point of view that Taiwan is a province of the Republic of China).

Why this word is great

BENSHENGREN — [Noun] Han Chinese who migrated to Taiwan from mainland China before 1945, particularly those who lived under Japanese colonial rule, as distinct from those who arrived after 1945 following the Chinese Civil War. From Mandarin 本省人 (běnshěngrén), literally "original province people," reflecting the perspective that Taiwan is a province of the Republic of China. Unlike "waishengren" (post-1945 migrants, often tied to the KMT and mainland loyalism) or "Taiwanren" (a defiant claim to indigeneity, rejecting both mainland and provincial labels), "benshengren" occupies an ambivalent middle ground—neither wholly settler nor wholly native. It is the quiet tension in a grandmother’s Japanese-era school photo, the stubborn Hokkien inflection in a Mandarin sentence, the way a family heirloom might be both treasured and vaguely shameful—proof that identity is rarely a choice, but something accumulated, like sediment, under the pressure of history.

noun

Han Chinese who came to Taiwan from mainland China before 1945, often having experienced Japanese rule, as compared to Han Chinese who came to Taiwan from mainland China after 1945, following the Chinese Civil War (waishengren).“What surprised me was that it was not a "waishengren" who had such a deep consciousness of Chinese history, but a "bensheng-ren"[...]Many Japanese people residing in Taiwan, including myself, receive a lot of help from benshengren, who are fluent in Japanese. We often hear them complain about waishengren and China, while they appear to cherish Japan.”