2015 Conference on the Development of Taiwanese Aborigines and China's Ethnic Minorities

Published in Aboriginal Education World No. 65 (October 2015): 94-95.

Talking to Ina

（這是一段和Ina的對話，我永遠都不要忘記。）

This is about one of my conversations with Ina (mom), one which I intend to remember forever.

Last weekend, I attended a two-day seminar called "Revisit Your Childhood"（走訪童年）. The lecture was great, so was the group of participants. In two days, we were shown how formative preschool years may shape a child's personality in the future:

Born~Year 1: Children learn to trust, to love and be loved.

Year 1~Year 3: Children learn about boundary and learn to respect boundary.

Year 3~Year 6: Children learn to tell from imagination to reality, from falsehood to truth.

Year 6~Year 12: Children learn about responsibility and cooperation.

Five books by Jonathan D. Spence

（介紹出生英國、落腳美國、研究中國的史學家史景遷的書。史景遷不太分析，不好道理，但是說了一手的好故事，把過去的人事物，大大小小或重要不重要，說得淋漓盡致，其實是相當了不起的功夫。）

In this interview, 'As luck would have it', the British American historian Jonathan D. Spence said, "History was somehow something that gave me an anchor in, admittedly, other people's lives", but he "wasn't prepared to generalise with no guidance...[he] wanted to have things shapeable...one could really organise these  events of the past in a different way". And he made a wonderful presentation with his one and only case, China.

In An Antique Land (1992)

（1980年代，印度作家Amitav Ghosh還是英國牛津大學人類學博士生，當時他到埃及兩個小鄉村做農業田野調查。他在這本書結合自己的田野筆記以及12世紀興盛的印度洋貿易歷史。同樣的區域，跨越八百年的旅行，又兩種人文學科的對話，被譽為翻天覆地的旅人歷史書。）

"A subversive history in the guise of a traveller's tale", Amitav Ghosh's In An Antique Land beautifully interweaves two types of journey undertaken by the author himself.

One journey leads Ghosh to the country side of Egypt in the 1980s as a student of anthropology. His investigation erstwhile revolved around agriculture, though  in In An Antique Land, readers see more of the villagers across a span of a decade than of the author's research subject per se.

Another journey shows Ghosh traveled from manuscript to manuscript, like a historian, hoping to reconstruct the life of a slave from the Malabar coast of India based on only few leaks from the letters penned by the slave's Jewish master Abraham Ben Yijû and his circle of mentors and friends.

One Week with Carlo Ginzburg

（以下是我聽義大利史學家Carlo Ginzburg到台灣中央研究院及台大歷史研究所演講的感想。）

The 2015 Fu Ssu-Nien Lectures （傅斯年講座） was awarded to Carlo Ginzburg, an Italian historian and a practitioner of microhistory. 

This was his first trip to Taiwan. He stayed for ten days, gave two lectures, joined one symposium and agreed to a conversation with students and faculty from the History Department of National Taiwan University (NTU). Before taking the flight back to Europe, he visited Hualien.

Like a fan, I followed all of Ginzburg's talks in Taipei, at the same time feeding my hunger for knowledge by watching all his talks on youtube. Chances came that I was able to ask him several questions at the conversation about colonial archives and philology, and they not only earned me a pleasant dinner with him and several faculty members from NTU and Academia Sinica on the last day, but also put me into contact with fellow historians that take interest in my research.

How fortunate and grateful! Yes, I take it as a call from History.

Lessons from the National indigenous Languages Survey's Reports in Australia

This brief comparison between the national indigenous languages survey reports of Taiwan (made in 2012 & 2014) and the survey reports of Australia (made in 2005 & 2014) came out in Aboriginal Educational World 《原住民教育情報誌》No. 63 (June, 2015). pp. 58-61.

My article argues that for a language survey report to be really useful, it should contain a detailed analysis of the language's current status based on both quantitative and qualitative survey results; it should generate localized endangerment and vitality factors from the detailed analysis; and it should also propose ways to redress that correspond to each distinct language endangerment case. There is definitely not one miracle pill for all types of loss.

To present survey results alone with numerous tables and statistic formulas is not helpful. Numbers are important, but it is the story of those numbers that truly enlightens.

Celebrate 'Indigenous Peoples' Day' in ILRDC Way

August 1st is Indigenous Peoples' Day in Taiwan.

It celebrates the island's indigenous cultures and remembers how indigenous rights came to be recognized by Taiwan's constitution since the Indigenous Rights Movement in mid-1980s.

1984 - Taiwan's indigenous peoples asked the government to call them by 'indigenous people' （yuan-zhu-min, 原住民 ）instead of the stigmatizing 'mountain tribe' or mountain fellow'（shan-bao, 山胞 ）.

1994 August 1- 'Indigenous People' made it into the constitution of Taiwan and replaced 'mountain tribe'.

1997- 'Indigenous People' became 'Indigenous Peoples', signifying the recognition of each indigenous group as a collective entity.

From 'raw savage', 'cooked savage' to 'mountain tribe' to 'indigenous people', this process marks our continuous fight against the naming power of colonizers. Nothing is by no means granted here.

For ILRDC, a center built to revitalize endangered indigenous languages, how else can we feel the meaning of the day other than speak our own languages and tell people not only do we have our own names, but we also have our own ways of saying them? We have our own languages; they too deserve to be recognized and used more in fact.

With that spirit, ILRDC launched 'Challenge Our Mother Tongues in Ten Seconds'（挑戰十秒說族語）, inviting people to film themselves speaking their own languages in ten seconds. By the end of 31st July, the center has 38 films from 19 language variations. Here they are.

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day.

May indigenous languages continue to strive and stay alive.

kai na kacalysiyan: Report on the Current Situation of Indigenous Languages in Taiwan

Presented at Satellite Event of 13 International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (July 23, 2015, Academia SINICA, Taipei Taiwan).

I prepared the talk in English (with a brief introduction in my mother tongue Paiwan) for my target audience - Austronesian linguists from all over the world - and I intended to take them on a time journey from the 17th century onward, so they may see the language shift on the island.

Generally speaking, indigenous languages in Taiwan are now in the hospital. Policies, including those supporting ILRDC, are the medicines. Treatments have so far been given for two decades.

After the report, Ethnologue showed excitement that it has found a new source of information with which they could revise their website, and they would be happy to keep in contact. Personally, I also think it is time to reevaluate the vitality of Taiwan's indigenous languages. UNESCO Interactive Atlas isn't really accurate in the case of Taiwan; Global Language Hotspots can also use some new data.

But such revision isn't an ode to the success of previous revitalization efforts. Though encouragement intended, the purpose here is, instead, rather to know where kai na kacalysiyan (indigenous peoples' language) truly are, so as to come up with really good plans, feasible and effective, that will keep the languages alive.

Inner Mongolia（內蒙古）

(The following is about my trip to China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in July 2015).

結束了「2015年台灣原住民族與大陸少數民族發展研討會」，去了俗稱「酒吧一條街」的北京后海喝小酒唱山歌，到了天安門廣場和故宮參觀幾小時，也親眼瞧過「鳥巢」、「水立方」，之後就準備前往此行真正的目的地：內蒙古自治區。

內蒙古面積118萬平方公里，人口2,400餘萬，將近四十個台灣大，人口卻只多一點。這趟旅程只鎖定第三大都市赤峰市以及赤峰市下的三個旗及兩個區：翁牛特旗、巴林右旗、克什克騰旗（蒙族詩人席慕蓉的家鄉）、紅山區及松山區。

以上這些地方加起來還是三個台灣大，將近9萬平方公里，因此在名副其實的「大陸」該趕的路，一點也沒有少掉。

2015 Conference on the Development of Taiwan Aborigines and China's Ethnic Minorities

Presented at 2015 Conference on the Development of Taiwan Aborigines and China's Ethnic Minorities (July 4, 2015). My role was the commentator for the third session of the Forum. 

I used two concepts, 'co-management' and 'empowerment', to respond to the presentations on language revitalization and the design of ecological compensation standard and cultural-touristic zone. Whether it comes to developing indigenous languages, tourism, land or civil rights, it is my belief that indigenous peoples and minorities should have a say and a role in any decision-making process. There is no development if the people's very own voice is not heard. ILRDC, which works so closely with indigenous language teachers and villagers via a number of channels, is working towards the goals of comanagement and empowerment.