Menno Goedhart has been a chemist and a diplomat, however, he is also the Rukai chieftain Daganau and a friend of the Tsous, who have named him Menno Voyu. After completing his service as the Netherlands’ representative in Taiwan today, he will be staying in Taiwan to discover more about Taiwan’s connection to his home country, a relationship which began four centuries ago.
“I’ve led a strange career,” Goedhart said in an interview with the Taipei Times in Taipei on Thursday. “What I am doing now and what I plan to do aren’t something I’ve expected at all.”
After receiving a master’s degree in organic chemistry from Leiden University in the Netherlands in 1972 and serving two years in the military, Goedhart began working as an engineer at a chemical company and was quickly promoted to a management position.
PHOTO: HUANG MING-TANG, TAIPEI TIMES
In 1979, Goedhart began working for Dutch government agencies involved in foreign trade and eventually he was appointed as head of the Dutch representative office in Taiwan in 2002, a country which he said he didn’t know a lot about at the time.
“Of course I’ve met many people from Taiwan, read about Taiwan before coming, but I had only been here [Taiwan] once for a week [before the appointment],” Goedhart said, adding that at the time he knew there were connections between the Netherlands and Taiwan in the 17th century, but wasn’t aware of how close the ties were.
Taiwan was a Dutch colony from 1624 to 1662.
In 2004, a Dutchman who helped organize an exhibition at the National Palace Museum about the Dutch period in Taiwan went to the Netherlands Trade and Investment Office to ask for some help and Goedhart was rather amazed by the materials that were to be exhibited.
“So we decided to do the exhibition ourselves and brought it to 10 counties across Taiwan,” he said.
It was these exhibitions that opened the door for Goedhart to Taiwan’s Aboriginal cultures.
“This exhibition was on the life of Taiwanese in the Dutch period, from the indigenous point of view,” Goedhart recalled. “Everywhere we opened the exhibition, indigenous people would come out with what they knew about their tribes’ interaction with the Dutch.”
“They would come to tell us: ‘You know, I’m Dutch too, because I have Dutch blood,’ and that’s how everything started,” he said.
The more Goedhart talked to Aborigines — especially those living in the south since Tainan was the Dutch colonial capital — the more he became interested in Taiwan’s Aboriginal cultures and the history that the Dutch left in Taiwan from that period.
From then on, Goedhart spent most of his weekends and holidays hiking in the mountains and visiting Aboriginal villages.
It was for the friendship he has shown that he was bequeathed the name Menno Voyu by the Tsous in Alishan Township (阿里山), Chiayi County.
Last year, he was recognized by the Rukais in Wutai Township (霧台), Pingtung County, as a chieftain and given the name Daganau since the chieftain’s family has Dutch blood.
According to tribal elders, one of the daughters of a Rukai chieftain was married to a Dutchman and the husband later inherited the chieftainship. “Daganau” was the Rukai name of the Dutch chieftain.
In May, Goedhart visited the Rukai village of Taromak in Taitung County to perform a ritual to officially terminate a 350-year-long hostile relationship between the village and the Netherlands.
“According to the elders in the village, their ancestors once spotted ‘men with red hair’ in the tribe’s domain ‘with smoke coming out of their mouths,’” Goedhart recounted.
Rukai warriors from the village then killed all but one of the “men with red hair” they had encountered. The remaining one was set free as a warning, but his tongue had been cut off so that he couldn’t reveal what he had seen in the village, Goedhart said.
After hearing the story, Goedhart checked Dutch archives and found the village was actually marked as a “rival tribe.”
He believed the “men with red hair” and “with smoke coming out from their mouths” were a group of Dutch soldiers on an expedition and were smoking while taking a rest.
Although Goedhart still intended, as recently as summer last year, to return to Europe after retiring, he changed his mind because he felt “frightened by the idea of retiring” and of not having enough to do.
“You cannot play golf everyday,” Goedhart said explaining his decision. “We intended to stay in the south of France like many retired diplomats. Well, you live in a nice house with a swimming pool, then what do you do?”
“I’m not ready to do nothing. I could easily imagine what I can do here, which is fun and makes sense, that’s why I decided to do so,” he added, smiling.
Goedhart recently purchased a house in Tainan County’s Sinhua Township (新化) where he will reside.
At the moment, he’s working to create a center for Dutch heritage — most likely at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City — as a project in collaboration with Leiden University to discover more about Dutch heritage in Taiwan.
“I’d like to find out where the Dutch had been, what they did, and probably set up monuments,” he said. “Many local governments have shown interest in the idea because they think it could be a good idea for promoting tourism.”
Besides the project, Goedhart will also continue to help the Rukais in reconstruction efforts after Typhoon Morakot devastated many Rukai villages last year.
This is not the first time Goedhart decided to extend his stay in Taiwan. He originally signed a six-year contract with the Dutch government for his posting in Taiwan. When the contract ended in 2008, he asked for a two-year extension.
Looking at the work ahead and numerous invitations for speeches, Goedhart said he may be busier after retiring.
“Right now, I’d be happy with some shanzhurou [mountain pigs] on an open fire, some xiaomijiu [millet wine] and some singing,” Goedhart said. “What else do you need?”
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