I don’t know anything about accents, but years ago I had a musical colleague whose family came from Taiwan, and he would bristle with anger and immediately and forcefully correct anyone who dared refer to him as “Chinese”.
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Oh yes. I absolutely appreciate the sensitivities there. It’s the same if you ask a Ukrainian if they’re Russian. Yikes! Prepare to duck! I’ve never asked Dr. Lee if he’s really Chinese because of that, but I’ve always wondered why a Taiwanese, who ostensibly hates the Chinese, would want to go to China to recruit students, and be allowed into China to recruit students. I don’t pretend to fully understand the travel restrictions, rules, sensibilities or customs, but the whole thing seemed odd to me.
Having spent significant time in both places - I can say the following: The main language is mandarin chinese as is the majority of population.
Similar to Okinawa and Hawaii there is a native island dialect and population who consider themselves islanders first and do not consider themselves as (insert country here) - Hawaii moreso than Okinawa and Okinawa moreso than Taiwan, though it’s changing.
In addition, due to hand overs throughout the past 200 years between China, Japan, and I think Korea at one point there is a significant mixture in the overall population. While the majority consider themselves Chinese an increasing percentage consider themselves Taiwanese.