"Taiwanese" refers to all Taiwanese including Hoklo, Hakka, mainlanders, and aborigines, a more stricter but common usage is the Hoklo and Hakka. But judging from the description I guess it's the aborigines?sketerpot wrote: The Han Chinese ethnicity really doesn't have a good record of playing nicely with other ethnic groups. In Taiwan (where I've been living for a few months now) they suppressed Taiwanese culture and language in a way reminiscent of the way the US treated the Indians in the 19th century.
Seems like you're talking about the Wai-laos, their jobs are mostly short-term manpower. While some from Philipines can communicate with English, a large portion can only speak their native languages. This is the first problem, 2nd problem is by laws at most their contract can only be 3+3 years. After all, the jobs are short term in nature and local people also still need jobs.Today there's a large lower class of immigrants from poorer east Asian countries, and nobody wants to help them assimilate. The goal is to bring them over here for a few years, exploit them, and then send the foreigners back where they came from. This kind of screw-the-other-ethnicities attitude is amazingly widespread. The troubles in Tibet are just another example.
When you're in an unfamiliar place and it is hard to communicate, eventually people tend to stick with those of the same nationality/ethnicity. The Wai-laos hanging around in the Taipei Main Station aren't different as, say, foreign students hanging around speaking their language. I've been in the States for like 3 years and by experience the only way foreign people can assimilate is when they try to do so.
