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What's in a name?

Taiwan's Aborigines have fought for 400 years for the right to use their own names, something that most people take for granted. Calling themselves ren (human, 人) and all other races fan (barbarian, 蕃), Han Chinese forced or cajoled Aborigines to take up Han names, without which they could not enjoy full civil rights. Aboriginal birth names were forgotten, along with their origins. Today many in the Pinpu tribe, for example, can no longer trace their genealogy.

After much effort by Aboriginal groups, revision to the name law was made in 1995, allowing Aborigines to use their traditional names. Over the past seven years, however, only 0.1 percent of Aborigines took advantage of this revision to register their real name on their ID cards. Why do Aborigines continue using names that were forced upon them? Have the legal changes brought about any meaningful changes for them?

Aboriginal filmmaker Mayaw Biho made five documentaries on this theme earlier this year. The What's Your Real Name? documentary festival will show the results of his investigation into the topic.

What's Your Family Name, Please? is a humorous series of interviews with many Aborigines, in which they talk about their tribes' peculiar nomenclature and the dilemma many Aborigines encounter when introducing themselves to strangers, who are often perplexed by their "strange" names.

The Dawu tribe's naming system, in which one's name, drawn from nature, changes with the size of one's family, is as rare as it is peculiar. When forced to adopt Han names, some Dawu were tricked into naming themselves "gas" or "little bird." However, the Han names on their ID cards mean very little to them in their daily life. Their peculiar situation is documented in The Name that Grows Bigger and Then Smaller.

To Change or not to Change covers the history of the real name movement from 1983, when a group of Aboriginal students launched Green Mountain magazine in which contributors used their tribal name, to after the enactment of the name-revision law in 1995.

Most interestingly, the films shed light on why some Aborigines decided to shed their Chinese names, while many who didn't regret not having done so. As such they offer insight on how Taiwanese of Chinese origin see the Aborigines as well as how the Aborigines see themselves.

The five documentaries will be shown from 12:28pm to 7:03pm at the lecture hall of the Taipei City Library, located at 125 Chiankuo S. Rd., Sec. 2. And then on Public Television every Saturday at 10pm starting tomorrow. What's Your Family Name, Please? will run tomorrow. The Name that Grows Bigger and Then Smaller will run Nov 16. Don't Want to Share Your Surname will run Nov. 23. Tautauwalai will run Nov. 30, and To Change or not to Change will run Dec. 7.
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