I want to thank you for giving me the best day of my life
Oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life
- Dido
Combat boots, flannel shirt, hair spiked and bleached. Spotless brown skin, bright black eyes. Well-choreographed dance moves, perfectly rehearsed. A beautiful voice without the slightest trace of an accent. A brazenness of youth unaccompanied by self-awareness. A phenomenal performance.
Most Taiwanese girls dress in one of two styles: cute JC Penny advertisement or Kurt Cobain preservation society. As those on the margins of Taiwanese society, aboriginal teenagers gravitate toward grunge. Mismatched clothes are cool. Dyed hair is cool. Bad attitude is cool. Even though the style is ten to fifteen years tardy, America is cool. And two Americans walking through the slate streets of your village - very cool.
Two friends sit nearby. A male wearing mascara and a female in similar grunge – they are familiar with the performance but curious about the new audience. From a quick introduction we gather she does not speak English. But the Lukai tongue is a member of the Austro-polynesian language group, sharing many phonetical characteristics with English. Thus, even though she doesn’t fully understand her words, she can form them perfectly. And her voice is strong enough that I close my eyes, just might be fooled into thinking I’m really listening to the British singer who made the song famous.
What is the future for a gifted Lukai child? Would anyone other than her audience of four ever care to hear her sing? The stream of Chinese tourists trickling by certainly didn’t bat an eyelid. Roger Lee of Sony paid a recent visit to the village. His purpose, however, was to expose a group of European composers to eclectic instruments and styles such as the nose flute, not to root out hidden talent. I wonder, as the Lukai elders must wonder, where are the young people headed? Moreover, who will they be when they arrive?
One possible outcome is for the young people to be trapped on the mountain. Some of the younger generation may gladly make a career in the tradition of their forebears. Surely there is nothing wrong with hunting, weaving, and farming. But there is an increasing world-awareness among the aborigines. Every family has a TV, some have computers, and most know more about pop culture than I do. In addition the outside world makes a daily march through the villages, pulling up in tour buses, poking around the houses, buying beads, hats, and trinkets, then moving along. The village is a glass house at best, always open for the outside world to look in. At worst it is a zoo.
My wife comments on the faces of several women whom she visits every week. Tourism has just exploded within the past year or two. Thus when we arrived, it was still a bit novel to have guests in the village. It is fun to smile and display goods and there is a hope of a good payday. But the smiles on those faces disappear as reality sets in. The smiles are replaced with lines of resignation, etched as by each person who passes by, gives a slight glance, and then walks to the bus having gained an hour’s entertainment but given nothing back either in terms of money or cultural appreciation.
The elderly tend to be more resilient. I am told that there is a cultural imperception of the insults that seems so obvious to me. “Their hearts are pure. They don’t understand that question,” I was told upon asking if people were offended by government aid. I have seen it firsthand. The tour group comes through, the old woman hobbles over to her sales table of hand-made beads. No one buys anything. She sits down and resumes sewing on a piece of cloth that will soon join the sale rack. She is unfazed. I am perplexed.
A better scenario than resigned bitterness is for the youth to receive a good education, see the world, and bring their knowledge back to the mountain to serve the tribe. One example is Igung Shiban of the Taroko tribe, who moved to Japan for to receive a better education. Upon her return she and her Japanese husband became involved in a land struggle between Asia Cement company and the Taroko tribe. She explains her reason for service: “My husband, who can speak to the older indigenous people (educated before 1945) in Japanese and himself also speaks pretty good Mandarin Chinese, has helped me unselfishly and provided me the resources to dedicate myself to this matter. No one else in our village had the resources to pursue this legally.” The matter of unlawful annexation of tribal lands has proceeded all the way from the coast of Taiwan to the United Nations and is yet unresolved. Even still, the fact that the tribespeople now have a voice is a significant development in the case, as well as a call to educational arms for young people in all the other tribes.
Will they return, however, is the essential question. Mrs. Shiban returned to her people for circumstantial reasons - that her husband might recover from an illness. But what are the circumstances begging the other youth to return? Each young Lukai man is bound to two years of military service required of Taiwanese citizens. Then should he choose to attend university he will be absent from his home another four years. Opportunities on the mountain are few and he has already begun to forge a life as a normal Taiwanese citizen. Is he to be blamed if he remains in the city?
Consequently cultural identity is being redefined for the Lukai. A child may not learn the language, to hunt, or to sew. He or she may live on the coastal plains, only returning to the mountains for special occasions or a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. For children like these, new ideas are being tried and tested, such as creating school clubs and musical groups aimed at retaining and teaching culture. The mirror might speak of their heritage, but a workbook will teach them about it.
One such endeavor is ITV – indigenous television, a government-sponsored station scheduled to commence under an aborigine educational grant in July of 2005. The station’s vision is to serve as an educational and entertainment resource for people of all tribes, with history programs, soap operas, children’s shows, and the like. An interesting twist is that a large number of the actors and workers will be aboriginal students at various universities on the island, thus engaging a disappearing generation of aboriginal youth in learning and teaching about their cultures.
Indigenous youth issues are suddenly on the world’s mind with the recent school shooting on a Native American reservation. But the producers of ITV have already been looking to the world for help, drawing inspiration primarily from successes of indigenous peoples in Canada and the Maori of New Zealand. The vision of their programming is consequently not limited to Taiwan in subject, as they hope to display occasional Discovery Channel and National Geographic features on tribes in other parts of the world. Nor is the programming limited to Taiwan in style. One special feature that has been proposed is tellingly entitled “Aborigine Idol.” There may be hope for the future of my teenage bleach-blond superstar after all. Hope is exactly what she needs.
Oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life
- Dido
Combat boots, flannel shirt, hair spiked and bleached. Spotless brown skin, bright black eyes. Well-choreographed dance moves, perfectly rehearsed. A beautiful voice without the slightest trace of an accent. A brazenness of youth unaccompanied by self-awareness. A phenomenal performance.
Most Taiwanese girls dress in one of two styles: cute JC Penny advertisement or Kurt Cobain preservation society. As those on the margins of Taiwanese society, aboriginal teenagers gravitate toward grunge. Mismatched clothes are cool. Dyed hair is cool. Bad attitude is cool. Even though the style is ten to fifteen years tardy, America is cool. And two Americans walking through the slate streets of your village - very cool.
Two friends sit nearby. A male wearing mascara and a female in similar grunge – they are familiar with the performance but curious about the new audience. From a quick introduction we gather she does not speak English. But the Lukai tongue is a member of the Austro-polynesian language group, sharing many phonetical characteristics with English. Thus, even though she doesn’t fully understand her words, she can form them perfectly. And her voice is strong enough that I close my eyes, just might be fooled into thinking I’m really listening to the British singer who made the song famous.
What is the future for a gifted Lukai child? Would anyone other than her audience of four ever care to hear her sing? The stream of Chinese tourists trickling by certainly didn’t bat an eyelid. Roger Lee of Sony paid a recent visit to the village. His purpose, however, was to expose a group of European composers to eclectic instruments and styles such as the nose flute, not to root out hidden talent. I wonder, as the Lukai elders must wonder, where are the young people headed? Moreover, who will they be when they arrive?
One possible outcome is for the young people to be trapped on the mountain. Some of the younger generation may gladly make a career in the tradition of their forebears. Surely there is nothing wrong with hunting, weaving, and farming. But there is an increasing world-awareness among the aborigines. Every family has a TV, some have computers, and most know more about pop culture than I do. In addition the outside world makes a daily march through the villages, pulling up in tour buses, poking around the houses, buying beads, hats, and trinkets, then moving along. The village is a glass house at best, always open for the outside world to look in. At worst it is a zoo.My wife comments on the faces of several women whom she visits every week. Tourism has just exploded within the past year or two. Thus when we arrived, it was still a bit novel to have guests in the village. It is fun to smile and display goods and there is a hope of a good payday. But the smiles on those faces disappear as reality sets in. The smiles are replaced with lines of resignation, etched as by each person who passes by, gives a slight glance, and then walks to the bus having gained an hour’s entertainment but given nothing back either in terms of money or cultural appreciation.
The elderly tend to be more resilient. I am told that there is a cultural imperception of the insults that seems so obvious to me. “Their hearts are pure. They don’t understand that question,” I was told upon asking if people were offended by government aid. I have seen it firsthand. The tour group comes through, the old woman hobbles over to her sales table of hand-made beads. No one buys anything. She sits down and resumes sewing on a piece of cloth that will soon join the sale rack. She is unfazed. I am perplexed.A better scenario than resigned bitterness is for the youth to receive a good education, see the world, and bring their knowledge back to the mountain to serve the tribe. One example is Igung Shiban of the Taroko tribe, who moved to Japan for to receive a better education. Upon her return she and her Japanese husband became involved in a land struggle between Asia Cement company and the Taroko tribe. She explains her reason for service: “My husband, who can speak to the older indigenous people (educated before 1945) in Japanese and himself also speaks pretty good Mandarin Chinese, has helped me unselfishly and provided me the resources to dedicate myself to this matter. No one else in our village had the resources to pursue this legally.” The matter of unlawful annexation of tribal lands has proceeded all the way from the coast of Taiwan to the United Nations and is yet unresolved. Even still, the fact that the tribespeople now have a voice is a significant development in the case, as well as a call to educational arms for young people in all the other tribes.
Will they return, however, is the essential question. Mrs. Shiban returned to her people for circumstantial reasons - that her husband might recover from an illness. But what are the circumstances begging the other youth to return? Each young Lukai man is bound to two years of military service required of Taiwanese citizens. Then should he choose to attend university he will be absent from his home another four years. Opportunities on the mountain are few and he has already begun to forge a life as a normal Taiwanese citizen. Is he to be blamed if he remains in the city?
Consequently cultural identity is being redefined for the Lukai. A child may not learn the language, to hunt, or to sew. He or she may live on the coastal plains, only returning to the mountains for special occasions or a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. For children like these, new ideas are being tried and tested, such as creating school clubs and musical groups aimed at retaining and teaching culture. The mirror might speak of their heritage, but a workbook will teach them about it.One such endeavor is ITV – indigenous television, a government-sponsored station scheduled to commence under an aborigine educational grant in July of 2005. The station’s vision is to serve as an educational and entertainment resource for people of all tribes, with history programs, soap operas, children’s shows, and the like. An interesting twist is that a large number of the actors and workers will be aboriginal students at various universities on the island, thus engaging a disappearing generation of aboriginal youth in learning and teaching about their cultures.
Indigenous youth issues are suddenly on the world’s mind with the recent school shooting on a Native American reservation. But the producers of ITV have already been looking to the world for help, drawing inspiration primarily from successes of indigenous peoples in Canada and the Maori of New Zealand. The vision of their programming is consequently not limited to Taiwan in subject, as they hope to display occasional Discovery Channel and National Geographic features on tribes in other parts of the world. Nor is the programming limited to Taiwan in style. One special feature that has been proposed is tellingly entitled “Aborigine Idol.” There may be hope for the future of my teenage bleach-blond superstar after all. Hope is exactly what she needs.
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