A Ghost and His Apparition Roam the South China Sea: Limahong and the Dream of a Hokkien Nation (南中國海上陰魂不散的鬼魅及其幻影：林鳳和一個閩南民族的夢)

Abstract

Through an analysis of three “hauntings” that spanned the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries, this article highlights recurring instances of Hokkien political maneuvering when the possibility of an autonomous Fujian or maritime-based Hokkien empire threatened the contrasting imperial and national missions of Spanish, Chinese, and Filipinos in the region. The first haunting occurred in the Spanish-controlled Philippines from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries when the imagined threat of an invasion from China led to reactionary pogroms and a schizophrenic Spanish China-policy. The second haunting occurred in the early twentieth century when Chinese nation-makers were challenged by a nascent Hokkien nationalism that threatened to tear Fujian from China. The final haunting took place in the pages of novels and history books from the Philippines in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; Filipino authors attempted to create and reinforce a stereotyped image of Chinese as apolitical business-minded people.透過對十六世紀到二十一世紀的三波「著魔」現象的分析，本文強調每當以福建為主體或以海洋活動為基礎的閩南華人有可能發展成一政體，從而威脅到包括西班牙、中國和菲律賓等帝國和民族主義者的使命時，針對閩南認同的政治工作就會一次又一次地在這個地區出現。第一次著魔現象出現在十六到十九世紀、西班牙統治時期的菲律賓。當時一旦有任何可能來自中國的入侵，就會引起西班牙在與中國相關政策上極大的精神恐慌。第二次的著魔現象發生在二十世紀初期，當時中國民族建構者面對新興的閩南民族主義試圖將福建從中國分離出來的挑戰。最後一波的著魔現象呈現在菲律賓二十世紀及二十一世紀的小說和歷史書籍裡。菲律賓作者嘗試去創造並強化華人對政治冷感、只是在商言商的刻版印象。 (This article is in English).