Tourism endangers

Nearly all of the tourist facilities near Sun Moon Lake (??趧?/CHINESE>) -- one of Taiwan's Eight Wonders -- were destroyed during last month's quake. In one night, the cultural value and natural beauty of the area was destroyed. Yet while the area is in dire need of reconstruction, we should pause and take into consideration the historical significance of Sun Moon Lake before we establish the main direction of reconstruction efforts in this area.

The Thao Aboriginal tribe (邵族) were the original inhabitants of the area surrounding Sun Moon Lake. Yet tourists have had no chance to learn anything about traditional Thao culture when visiting the area. Instead, they are bombarded with a deluge of Buddhist temples not in the least related to Thao culture or beliefs. The ancestral land of the Thao is called Puli (埔里), but this was sinicized to become Te-hua Village (德?ぃ? -- "to make virtuous" village -- under the chauvinistic values of the Han majority. The sacred homeland of the Pacalar, the highest God in the Thao pantheon, was called Lalu (now Kuanghua Island, or "light of China"). In 1987, the Nantou County government sponsored a group wedding on the island, and erected a bronze statue of a matchmaker there, flagrantly violating the Thao religion. There are countless other examples where policymakers, guided by Han Chinese-centric values, changed names or reshaped space with no regard to other cultures.

The development of the Sun Moon Lake area into a tourist attraction shows that the identity of the Thao people as Aborigines, along with their culture, has been used as little more than a resource in the tourist industry. The only principle used in planning the area was to meet the economic demand of tourists and the tourism industry, squeezing the Thao people from their land and cutting them off from their historical and cultural traditions.

The Thao did not have sufficient resources to compete with the Han majority. Moreover, there are only several hundred Thao people left, making them the smallest Aboriginal tribe in Taiwan. The 921 Earthquake not only leveled houses and interrupted businesses, but more importantly revealed the tragedy of a people on the brink of extinction. With this in mind, how should we progress with reconstruction efforts?

President Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) "moral government" has placed the restoration of the Hanpi Building (2[碧樓), a symbol of Chiang Kai-shek's(蔣?階? rule, as its top priority. The Ministry of Transportation and Communication, on the other hand, is bent on turning the area into a "high-class" tourist destination. The residents and businesses in the area are wondering when the lake will be restored to its original beauty, and when the tourists, with their piles of New Taiwan Dollars, will return.

We should not forget the culture of the Thao people, who were once the masters of this land. Last month's quake has driven countless families from their homes. Should this not give us pause to consider the feelings of the Thao people, forcibly driven from their ancestral lands by Chinese? At this time of rebuilding our homes, should we not let the Thao come home as well?

Yin Pao-ning is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University.