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It’s been two weeks now since Chinese New Year—I suppose it’s about time to write up the final adventures of my New Year break. My friend Andy from college who is Taiwanese-American came back to Taiwan to celebrate the New Year and invited me to tag along.

Day 1: New Year’s Eve

The adventure began now three Wednesdays ago, when I took the high speed rail down to Kaohsiung (高雄). Andy showed me around the city a little bit (including the nearby temple with the European-looking knight) and we had the traditional New Year’s Eve dinner, which is one of the most important parts of the New Year. We all stayed up watching TV (and the adults playing Mahjong), then Andy and I then set off some fire crackers at midnight.

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I just got back from the Fulbright Taiwan Midyear Conference, this year in Hualien with a day trip to the nearby Taroko National Park. Here’s one for the travelogue. I had a great, stimulating trip with lots of talk of linguistics (mostly about Classical Chinese), religion, economics, and politics—some of my favorite subjects. This being a Dr. Wu gig, there was also of course ample food, and Taroko was absolutely stunning.

Day 1: Trains, buses, and talk

I met up with everyone in the morning at the Hualien train station. Living in Nanao, I actually live really close to Hualien (about 40-50m) so I just elected to take a local train and meet the crew there. We then drove around to a couple interesting coastal points. (The one taking pictures below is Dale… I’m sure his blog will soon have photos more beautiful than mine.)

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A sixth grader at Nan-ao today gave Jennifer and me cell phone charms. ^^

I do believe she made it herself. The large bead on top is unique… it is very geometric and features diamonds. In Atayal culture, diamonds represent the eyes of ancestors watching over us. I love the green color of the beads too… it complements my phone very well. ^^

Last night there was an Atayal cultural festival: a traditional Atayal wedding demonstration supplemented by a variety of cultural acts. The wedding demonstration (which actually was a wedding—four couples got married) included:

1. the first proposal with tribal elders meeting with the families to discuss whether the two should get married—the first proposal always fails, to add value to the marriage;
2. the second proposal, again with tribal elders, this time accepting the terms of the marriage;
3. an offering from the groom’s family to the bride’s;
4. the wedding itself, with the groom carrying off the bride on his back.

A couple famous aboriginal singers came, as well as a number of local primary and secondary school dance groups (complete with pyrotechnics). The (very nice) high school gymnasium was packed.

We sat near the Nan-ao elementary school contingent—here’s a photo of me with some of my kids:

A few other ETA’s came to check out the event as well, and got to play with my kids. (One later told me, in English, that Jeannie is beautiful.)

The real highlight of the show, though, was my kids’ dancing act. Somehow I was under the impression that they were going to do a traditional dance, but it turns out it was a hip-hop routine set to Beyoncé and Sean Paul’s Baby Boy and what I believe to be an Amuro Namie single. Remember, these are elementary school kids. Pretty amazing talent, especially given that this is over 10% of the students at the school.

(Some photos courtesy of Katie.)

From tribe says its dialect needs official recognition for exam:

Under an affirmative action program set up by the Ministry of Education, members of Taiwan’s tribes are entitled to have their high school and college entrance exam scores raised by 25 percent. Under a policy expected to be made effective next year, those who pass a tribal language exam would have an additional 10 percent added to their scores.

The article is directly addressing the Kangke (寒溪) dialect of Atayal, which apparently received more Japanese influence during the occupation than did other dialects, making the new Atayal aboriginal language tests difficult for their students to pass.

I’ve heard Jennifer mention a couple times now how some student (often in their middle elementary years) who is half-Atayal had changed their last name from their father’s clearly-Chinese last name to that of their mother’s, precisely to be (more) eligible for such affirmative action down the line. While it struck me as strange that the student’s last name would be a real consideration in such policies, the language incentive makes more sense for me. My views on affirmative action aside (I’m not sure exactly where I stand, and of course Taiwan’s diversity is a whole other ballgame), I’m a fan of government systematically encouraging the continued use and study of aboriginal languages, especially given their rich connections to heritage and culture.