Well, here it is a holiday that we’ve celebrated every year for almost 50 years — Ten-Ten Day. Both the faithful readers of this blog know all about it, but if you’re new, Ten-ten, or Double Ten Day is a real national holiday in Taiwan. Why do we (Jimmy and Claire) celebrate it?
Actually, it may be one of the most hard-to-understand days to explain to anyone not somewhat versed in Chinese history.
Ten-Ten Day is observed on October 10 every year….
October 10 is…
Not Taiwan’s birthday.
Not the Republic of China’s birthday.
It’s the Chinese Nationalist Party’s birthday — however, Ten-ten Day is not a celebration of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s birthday. It is the celebration of the start of the Wuchang Uprising, which later led to the Xinhai Revolution.
The Wuchang uprising marks the start of the end of the Chinese dynasties. The Manchu controlled Qing dynasty became very unpopular and a number of revolutionaries combined for the purpose of overthrowing the Qing dynasty. One of these revolutionaries was Dr. Sun Yet-Sen, who spent most of his time overseas trying to get funding for the uprising. Most of his work was overseas because he was exiled from Ching during a previous Guangzhou uprising in 1895.
Eventually many provinces ceded from the Qing Dynasty and Sun returned to China and was elected the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912. The end of the Qing Dynasty was finalized with the last emperor Puyi abdicating his throne on February 12, 1912.
For more than 30 years, the Nationalist Chinese steadily lost ground to the communist forces of Mao Zedong. On December 8, 1949 Chinese Nationalist leaders departed for the island of Taiwan, where they established their new capital. Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek left for the island the next day marking the beginning of the “two Chinas,” leaving mainland China under communist control. This also was effectively the end of the long struggle between Chinese Nationalist forces and communist leader Mao Zedong. For the United States, this posed a troubling diplomatic problem, and President Truman’s recognition of the Nationalist government on Taiwan infuriated Mao, ending any possibility for diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.
The United States continued its support of Taiwan, while Mao’s government continued to rail against the Nationalist retime. By the early 70s, U.S. policymakers were looking to open economic relations with China and also hoping to use China as balance agains Soviet power. That led to a closer relationship with communist China and in 1979 the U.S. officially recognized the People’s Republic of China.
Today is a big holiday in Taiwan — nearly all Taiwanese get the day off from work on Ten Ten Day. In mainland China, Ten-Ten Day is referred to as the Anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising, and various memorial celebrations are held.
The reason we celebrate Ten-Ten Day is because in 1972, we lived in an apartment building next door to the Taiwan Embassy in the Philippines. They had a very big party on Ten-Ten Day. It looked like fun, so every year we celebrate Ten-Ten Day — and we have Chinese food.
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