The culture of Taiwan is a hybri blend of Confucianist Han Chinese cultures, Japanese, European, American, global, local and indigenous influences, which are often perceived in both traditional and modern understandings (Harrell/Huang 1994:1-5). The common socio-political experience in Taiwan gradually developed into a sense of Taiwanese cultural identity and a feeling of Taiwanese cultural awareness, which has been widely debated domestically (Yip 2004:230-248; Makeham 2005:2-8; Chang 2005:224). Reflecting the continuing controversy surrounding the political status of Taiwan, politics continues to play a role in the conception and development of a Taiwanese cultural identity, especially in the prior dominant frame of a Taiwanese-Mainlander dualism. In recent years, the concept of Taiwanese multiculturalism has been proposed as a relatively apolitical alternative view, which has allowed for the inclusion of mainlanders and other minority groups into the continuing re-definition of Taiwanese culture as collectively held systems of meaning and customary patterns of thought and behavior shared by the people of Taiwan(Hsiau 2005:125-129); (Winckler 1994:23-41).