Indigenous Culture Park with Cynthia, Moowah and WanWan Followed by Dinner with I-Heng's Family!

Saturday night, as we came home from seeing the film, The Reader (powerful!) at the Dream Mall, we stopped and sat a while listening and watching a group of students on the campus doing some traditional indigenous culture dances of the various aborigine tribes that were the original inhabitants of Taiwan.

Then, what a busy day today(Sunday). It began with the exhausting task of figuring out Ted's chances of winning
Chris' NCAA pool, as we sat with
our laptops watching the Villanova/Pittsburgh game and UConn against Missouri! They were close games, esp the Nova game and it took a lot of energy and self-control to watch these games. Ted, aka Taiwan Slick, is still in the running with nine others out of an original field of 90!



After that exhausting hard work, Ted and I met Cynthia, Moowah and WanWan for an hour plus car ride to a WONDERFUL village, the Indigenous Culture Park in Pingtung , a neighboring county to Kaohsiung. Here, we were guided through an amzing set of experiences by our fun tour guide, Isei (sp?)in a variety of ways,-a well stocked library, two theater performances, an exhibition hall displaying many of the tribes crafts and/or ways of living in the past,a series of small spots where one could learn how to play with some of the original tribes' toys or eat some delicious berry off a nearby tree or purchase boiled eggs that have been marinated in tea and the juice of lotus flowers, and so on. Thus,we began to learn more than we had already from a much smaller exhibit in Taipei about the aborigines of Taiwan.
(By the way, the eggs were very tasty!)



In an exhibit in Taipei two weeks ago, we learned there were 9 or 10 aborigine tribes; here, the count is 14. When we asked Isei, he said that reclassification is going on, with discussion about whether to separate, in more than a few cases, two close but distinct tribal entities or keep them identified as one the way the Japanese did during their occupation of the island during the war years.

Our guide is a member of the Paiwan tribe ; they are known particularly for excellent handicrafts and tools. We also saw the sampan canoe-type boats of the Yami people who lived on an island near Taiwan, Orchid Island; the Atayal live on the terraces of mountainsides and we saw how adult males and females wear tattoo marks, as marks of distinction: for men, once they have achieved hunting prowess; for women, weaving skills. Bamboo tubes stuffed with rice are the specialty of the Tsou as is the making of special wine for ceremonies. Each of the 14 tribes had an exhibit to display their cultural traditions.

We saw two theater performances in which representatives from the 14 tribes danced and sang songs, including new ones expressing unity and coming together, something which did not occur in the far past. Yet, while stressing the value of peoples working together and acting in peace, each tribe today struggles also with trying to maintain some of their original culture traits,something discouraged during the Japanese occupation.

As part of our learning experience, in addition to Isei's explanation and in addition to the dramatic dancing and singing, we also got a chance to play with an aboriginal toy, akin to our tops! Dad and
Moowah both did get theirs going!






And WanWan was great at the blowing bubbles category! Go to the end of this blog for two VERY short mini movies on their successes! (For some reason, I cannot seem to get the video of Moowah's success to work:sorry, Moowah!

We returned from that fun but tiring experience to go straight away to I-Heng's for dinner. He, his lovely wife Ping and their bright daughter Ariel treated us to dinner at a wonderful Japanese restaurant. We asked I-Heng to order for us all and did he ever! Delicious sashemi, with salmon, tuna, shrimp, squid etc came first with a real Wasabi accompaniment (not the paste served typically in Western restaurants, we were told!). Then came tongue and a very tasty sauce; that was immediately followed by platters galore: warmed spinach and egg; warmed salad, cold cucumbers and red peppers; very tasty spicy chicken wings; delicious fried dumplings stuffed with pork; soup; and I could go on and on! The food was scrumptious, our hosts were wonderful, and all in all we were treated to a fabulous evening!