benshengren

alternative Benshengren

1. 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).

   Gu Xionghua remembered when he first got to Taiwan there was no Benshengren in the army.

   2011, Joshua Fan, China's Homeless Generation: Voices from the Veterans of the Chinese Civil War, 1940s-1990s, Routledge, →ISBN, page 60

   2 more examples

   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.

   2000 August 18, Takefumi Hayada, “The complexity of the Taiwanese”, in Taipei Times

   The tsunami of around 1.5 million exiles who accompanied Chiang to Taiwan produced two castes: benshengren — people from this province — and waishengren — people from outside this province.

   2021 August 4, Sarah A. Topol, “Is Taiwan Next?”, in The New York Times Magazine

1. Alternative letter-case form of benshengren (“Han Chinese in Taiwan before 1945 and their descendants”).