The Return of Martin Guerre (1983)

When I was doing my Research MA in history at Leiden (2010-2012), the type of history that I was trying to write brought my supervisors to recommend Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (1929-, French), Carlo Ginzburg (1939-, Italian) and Natalie Zemon Davis (1928-, American/Canadian Jew) to me.

History people would probably spot why now. 

Le Roy Ladurie wrote a fantastic book about a rural village called Montaillou in the early fourteenth century (1973); Ginzburg's book on the religious beliefs and world views of a miller Menocchio from the sixteenth century is equally inspiring (1976); and Davis's Martin Guerre from another village Artigat in Southern France of the early sixteenth century remains a popular read ever since its publication (1983). 

What their craftsmanship commonly celebrates is the possibility for a historian to, in Davis's words, "recreate...reinvigorate...and give back...name" ("Being Speculative is better than not to do it at all", 2015) to the people or individuals who are often otherwise passed by, if not silenced, in the history of mankind. They have worked on Europeans to show that; perhaps, as my supervisors thought, it would be nice for the novice, me, to attempt the same for indigenous peoples. 

Indigenous Language Teaching Methods in Indigenous Language Revitalization Projects

Published in Taiwan Educational Review Monthly (Vol. 5 No. 9, 1st September 2016):16-20.

A Few Comments on Translating Western Literature into Formosan Languages: The Case of The Little Prince

Published in Indigenous Peoples Quarterly (Summer, No. 2), 2016: 60-63.

Badai (Pinuyumayan): Part I

I've been meaning to write about Badai for a while. The plan got stalled kind of because he is one of the most prolific indigenous writers in Taiwan, publishing often two or three times a year since his debut in 2007.

The books I've been reading recently, for example, all came out in 2009. All of them, too, were either about or directly developed from the art of traditional healing or shamanism he studied first-hand between 2000 and 2008 in Tamalakaw, his birth village. The Pinuyumayan word for that art is 'taramaw' (or spelt as daramaw). 

Taiwan als Ursprungsort vieler indigener Sprachen

Taiwan als Ursprungsort vieler indigener Sprachen (also available in audio) on 13th January 2016 by André Zantow from Deutschlandradio Kultur.

FestPac Day 5: Unexpected islanders

FestPac Day 5: Unexpected islanders on 27th May 2016 by Johanna Salinas from The Guam Daily Post.

12th Festival of Pacific Arts (22nd May - 4th June, Guam)

This is by far the most emotionally-charged official trip I've ever been on: my first time at FestPac and Taiwan's fourth time (as for as I know) since the 9th in 2004 on Palau, the 10th in 2008 on American Samoa, and the 11th in 2012 on Solomon Islands.

I know I can consider myself lucky, being often invited to international events such as FestPac as part of the indigenous delegation from Taiwan. My function is often that of interpretation. But for those who've been on the same trip with me, they would know why I am invited.

I always deliver much more than what is asked of me. This is certainly also the case in Guam this time. My roles were many, including

Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982)

First published in 1982 by Methuen & Co. Ltd, Jesuit scholar Walter J. Ong's classic study of the development from orality to literacy has been a constant reprint for the past three decades.

This cover (photo left) is from the edition of 2002. Amazon is selling a yet new edition celebrating the book's thirty-year anniversary.

Ong premises that primarily orality society is a society "totally unfamiliar with writing" (p. 6), whose "oral university of communication or thought" (p. 2) is very difficult for readers like us born in the age of 'secondary orality' to conceive.

In order not to mistaken oral societies for being inferior or secondary to chirographci (writing) and typographic (print) societies, which is absolutely incorrect too, it is essentially approach them diachronically or historically. That is what Ong did in this book by contrasting "orality with alphabetic writing...as used in the West" (p.3).

The Website of Indigenous Language Research and Development Center

Published in Aboriginal Education World 68 (2016): 22-25.

野的巴冷美

原文是那瓜在2013年4月5日寫的，我今晚才看到。謝謝那瓜。

明信片畫冊的故事 (5) Yedda Palemeq與開往布拉格的夜車

今天要跟大家分享的故事，是以排灣族的Yedda Palemeq為主角的『開往布拉格的夜車』。

在去荷蘭之前，我跟Yedda並不認識。等在Leiden認識了，才知道Yedda在台大外文系及外文所時，曾跟鮑曉鷗教授（José Borao）學了六年西班牙文，而我則是花了兩年時間，才把鮑教授的大作《西班牙人的台灣體驗 1626-1642：一場文藝復興時代的志業及其巴洛克的結局》譯成中文，說來，也算是有點淵緣。後來我們一起上荷文課及其他課程，Yedda都表現得很好，而且是『穩定的很好』。不像我，因為bipolar的關係，有時大腦會突然shut down，然後就這個也聽不懂，那個也看不懂了。我向Yedda解釋我的狀況，因此當我有這『症狀』發生時，她就會代為解釋：『There is nothing wrong. She’s plugged out. That’s it.』

Satellite Event of the 13th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics

Published in Aboriginal Education World 67 (February, 2016): 82-85.

Sequoyah and the Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet （2012）

Writing Systems for Taiwan Indigenous Languages （原住民族語言書寫系統） are announced officially in 2005 by Council of Indigenous Peoples and Ministry of Education. These symbols are developed by linguists, indigenous language experts/teachers and authorities based on Roman letters, though it must not be ignored that both Mandarin phonetic symbols and Japanese scripts were once candidates promoted by different forces at different times.

Sometime during the early decades of 1800 (circa 1809), a man remembered by Washington Post in 1899 as 'Cadmus of Cherokees' (Note: In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the founder of Thebes and the creator of Phoenician alphabets) single-handedly created a writing system  for his native language.

With the help of his six- to ten- year old daughter Ahyokeh, who was his best pupil and assistant, he completed the syllabary in 1821 and convinced the Cherokee Council as well as his people by demonstration of the truth of his invention.

This man was Sequoyah or George Guess (Gist). According to a Cherokee writer and a self-claimed descendant of Sequoyah in 1971, Traveller Bird, the name Sequoyah was Sogwili in Taliwa and it meant 'horse' (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 78).

Return to be Paiwanized-A Work in Progress

Passed. 

"The Little Prince" in Fifteen Taiwan Indigenous Languages

Among ILRDC's annual research projects, "Edit and Translate Indigenous Texts"（編譯族語讀本）is one that inspires creativity and broadens the scope of as well as deepens the depth of written indigenous languages in Taiwan.

As commonly known, most indigenous languages in the world do not subscribe to a writing tradition, and those that do now have less than a century for a continuous and steady development.

Briefly in Taiwan, Formosan languages from the western plains were put into written form as early as in the 17th century by Dutch missionaries who sought to evangelize the people through translating the Bible, tenets and creeds. This trend was stopped in the 18th and 19th century as native communities were largely ignored by the ruling Qing Government. It was after the Japanese Occupation that educated Formosans started the movement of writing in their own languages with a mixed script of Japanese, Mandarin and Roman letters. Intellects wrote journals; missionaries translated Bibles; teachers compiled teaching materials; and song writers produced beautiful yet sentimental music about the disappearing peoples.

After WWII, Taiwan was reconstructed under the Nationalist Government of ROC. As opportunities arose in the 1980s to improve indigenous rights, activists seized them and initiated changes for the island's indigenous society. One change was the standardization of writing script for indigenous languages in 2005. Now, every publication in indigenous language in whatever form has a criterion to resort to.

Background to Discovery: Pacific Exploration from Dampier to Cook (1990)

This collection on European exploration in the Pacific from the late 17th century throughout the 18th century was edited by Derek Howse (1919-1998) in dedication to Harvard Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, John Horace Parry (1914-1982).

As Howse explained in the "Preface", Horace, then invited as the Clark Library Professor for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the academic year 1983-1984, orchestrated the original series of seminar about the exploration in the Pacific during the 18th century. However, his sudden decease in 1982 brought the plan to a halt.

Howse accepted the invitation from UCLA and succeeded as the next Clark Library Professor. To remember Horace's lifelong work on maritime history, Howse decided to continue with the original plan and published six of the original eight seminar lectures in this collection via University of California (1990).

Though the book is already out of print, a digital version from cover to cover is made available by UC Press E-Book Collection 1982-2004, starting here with the "Preface".

Sauljaljui Pinevar (Paiwan)

Sauljaljui Pinevar, otherwise known in Chinese as Chou Shu-chin（周淑琴）, was my classmate at Shimen Elementary School. She was the leader of the class; the captain of our school handball team; and a constant winner in exams or competitions of sorts.

Now, she works as a teacher at a primary school near our hometown, a mother of three children, and a writer whose writing is motivated by none other than a desire to pass down the knowledge about the past to younger generations and in one word, Love.

Watch her interview: Motivated by Love.

"The Story about the World Under the Water" (Taipei: TIPI, 2013)《水世界下的故事》and "cunuq's Summer" (Taipei: TIPI, 2014)《佐諾的夏天》are the results of her love-driven hard-work.

Honey, who were there at your birthdays? (Gregorian Calendar)

Indian intellectual Amartya Sen talks about many different calendars followed by different cultures in the second to the last chapter of his The Argumentative Indian (《好思辨的印度人》Allen Lane, 2005).

It seems as if the Gregorian Calendar prevails nowadays; however, from what I read from Sen, it is more of a lack of knowledge of other calendars or even of how one's own culture used to register the passing of years. For example, the mixed effect of the Gregorian Calendar and the Chinese Lunar Calendar is rather obvious upon the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. So, we become rather busy.

As a result of the influence of Christianity, we celebrate the crossing of New Year and Christmas; in fact, some villages are so famous in their celebration that they've become a seasonal tourist destination.

Also, as a result of the influence from Chinese culture, we celebrate lunar new year worrying where to come up with the red-envelop money for younger kids, sweep tombs of bygone family members and eat Zhongzi (sticky rice) on Dragon Boat Festival and moon cakes on Moon Festival. What is missing are the many types of rituals and ceremonies that used to direct people's way of life because the environment has changed dramatically.