Braving the rain, Cheng-hiong Talavan, a 70-year-old man from the Siraya tribe, carried a giant cross made of bamboo from Greater Tainan and began a sit-in outside the Council of Indigenous Peoples in Taipei yesterday, urging the government to grant official recognition to his tribe.
“It’s always been my dream for the Siraya tribe to be granted official recognition, just like all the other Aboriginal tribes,” Talavan told the Taipei Times outside the council building. “I’m very worried and eager, because I’m 70 and I don’t have much time left.”
Sirayas are one of the so-called Pingpu, or “plains” Aboriginal tribes in the country that have not received official Aboriginal status.
The Pingpu Aborigines, as the name indicates, live mostly on flat areas across the country and have gradually adopted the culture and language of Han immigrants from China over the past four centuries. Because of the cultural assimilation, many Pingpu tribespeople have lost their identity, while others are still struggling to gain official recognition.
The Pingpu are aware that their tribal identity as Aborigines was recognized by the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese colonial government — recognition they lost in the 1950s when they failed to register as Aborigines with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government when it took control of Taiwan after World War II.
For two decades, Pingpu have been campaigning, fruitlessly so far, to gain official recognition as Aborigines.
“I don’t understand what the government is thinking. We are Aborigines because we are Aborigines, how can you deny our identity and reject our demands for recognition? Talavan asked. “If you don’t think we are Aborigines, then what are we?”
“We have to get our identity back, so we won’t have to apologize to our ancestors and we won’t feel regret when facing our descendants,” he said.
An executive officer at the council’s Department of Planning, Tzama Palatsasaw, spoke with Talavan during his sit-in protest.
Palatsasaw said officially recognized Aborigines worried that the Pingpu would take a share of the already scarce government resources for Aborigines, but promised the council would help the two sides negotiate.
Talavan said what the Siraya care about most is official recognition.
“We don’t really want a piece of the welfare that other Aborigines enjoy today, we’re open to discussions,” he said.
Talavan said he would continue his sit-in at least until tomorrow, when other Siraya are set to travel to Taipei and join him, but he was not sure when he would end his sit-in protest.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS