The film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale has not only been a huge hit at movie theaters, but it has also attracted much attention in the nation’s college classrooms.
The epic tale, which depicts events surrounding the Wushe Incident in 1930, when the Sediq tribe rose up against Japanese rule in Nantou County, has attracted huge numbers of Taiwanese to cinemas.
In addition, interest in Aborigine culture has started to blossom in higher education institutions. The Department of Ethnology at National Chengchi University has seen a surge in the number of students attending its long-standing Aboriginal languages course.
Although the department has offered the course since 1997, student registrations increased threefold this year. Course lecturer Iwan Nawi, an ethnic Sediq, said most students taking the course used to come from the ethnology department, but this year there has been an influx of students from other departments and universities.
Nawi, wife of the movie’s artistic director Chiu Ruo-lung (邱若龍), said many students had told her they signed up for the class after seeing the movie. One female student said she came to learn the language for her boyfriend, who is Sediq.
Nawi plans to integrate some of the phrases and content used in the movie in the two-semester course to help students get to know the language and culture of the Sediq.
Meanwhile, the Technology and Science Institute of Northern Taiwan held an “Aboriginal Day” on Tuesday to showcase how its students practice what they have learned about Aboriginal cultures.
The institute’s department of tourism devised a Seediq Bale travel route, enabling participating students to practice drafting travel plans and arrange an authentic Sediq experience.
Students and teachers from the food and beverage management department wore traditional Sediq clothing and demonstrated how to make a Sediq style mochi — glutinous rice cake.
Tu Chia-ying (杜佳穎), a student from a Pingpu tribe, made an experimental dessert that combined mochi and a popular local pastry — pineapple cake — with millet wine flavor.
Another student, Lee Chao-yi (李昭儀), an Atayal, said she plans to open a restaurant that features Aboriginal food and that encourages guests to eat with their hands like her grandma does.
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