Alongside the regular graduation certificates, Nanshan Elementary School in Yilan County’s Datong Township (大同) gave its graduating students an additional, hand-written letter that included an Atayal word to wish them the best for the future.
The elementary school saw 13 students graduate this year, from the school’s population of 66 — all of whom are members of the Atayal Aboriginal community.
The school, located on the border between Yilan County and Taichung, is 100 minutes’ travel from Yilan City and Luodong Township (羅東) and 1,165m above sea level.
It is jokingly known in Chinese as zui gao xue fu (最高學府). The term is usually used to describe the most prestigious school in the nation, but zui gao can mean “tallest” or “highest level,” depending on the context.
The 13 graduating students received personalized messages, with some receiving encouragement to chase after their dreams, while others were reminded to think before acting.
According to the school’s dean Chan Nien-feng (詹念峰), the letters all adopted Western-style dates to symbolize the school’s connection with the international community, adding that each letter also bore the Atayal word Lokah.
“The word symbolizes encouragement,” Chan said.
Yilan County Government Department of Education official Lin Yu-hsin (林郁欣) attended the ceremony and shared photos of the hand-written letters online.
“We hope the letters encourage the students, as they are set to face more competition when they leave the familiar environment of the village,” Chan said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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