A bamboo sailboat constructed using traditional shipbuilding techniques is to begin its maiden voyage off the coast of Taitung County next Monday, Amis activists from Taitung’s Farangaw Village announced yesterday.
The boat — named the Farangaw Autonomy — is to undertake a voyage to inspect the village’s traditional maritime territories, which activists hope will promote autonomous rule for Farangaw, as well as rally support for Aboriginal autonomy nationwide.
Villagers in Farangaw ceased production of traditional bamboo sailboats in the early years of Japanese colonial rule about 100 years ago, Council For Farangaw Autonomy chairperson Raranges Hoki Na Tungaw said.
Photo: Council For Farangaw Autonomy
“Through this voyage, we hope not only to reaffirm our traditional territories on land, but also to lay claim to our maritime territories,” Hoki said.
Five village elders in their 70s and 80s, although never having seen or built a bamboo sailboat themselves, led the project by relying on oral accounts of traditional shipbuilding they heard when they were young.
Bamboo from hills close to the village was harvested to construct the hull, while the ship’s sail was weaved from the leaves of screw pines found in coastal areas.
The villagers were once summoned to the police station for questioning after being accused of stealing the bamboo, which local authorities regard as public property, Hoki said.
Blasting government policies and laws which he said were “stifling” Aboriginal cultural development, Hoki called for Aboriginal sovereignty over traditional territories.
One of the main organizers of the event, National Taitung University professor Jesse Liu (劉炯錫) said access to the land and its resources was integral to the livelihood and cultural integrity of Aborigines.
Legal amendments to grant increased local autonomy should not be difficult as long as consensus is reached in Taiwanese society, Liu said, referencing as an example the Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections, which were modified in May to include the elections of Aboriginal district representatives and district council members.
Several other Aboriginal activists and representatives from around the nation also showed up to express solidarity with Farangaw’s cause, including Su Ching-chen (蘇金成), a Rukai Aborigine from Taitung’s Tarumak Village.
As Tarumak is located in Beinan Township (卑南) — home to a Han Chinese majority — Aboriginal voices are often unrepresented in local government, Su said.
Su demanded a redrawing of township boundaries to establish a new autonomous Aboriginal township, which would include Tarumak and some other Aborigine villages from neighboring townships.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
Opening-day ticket sales for a horror exhibition at the Tainan Art Museum were suspended twice on Saturday as the show attracted too many visitors. Titled “Ghosts and Hells: The Underworld in Asian art,” the exhibition runs until Oct. 16. It is the local version of a show that debuted at the Musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. It was planned and curated by Julien Rousseau. The Tainan museum said that within an hour of its doors opening, more than 1,000 people had entered the exhibition. By noon, 3,000 physical and virtual tickets had been sold, while the museum had more than 4,000