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Austronesian voyaging from Taiwan: Cultivating Amis folk songs on the international stage

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Austronesian voyaging from Taiwan: Cultivating Amis folk songs on the international stage

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AUSTRONESIAN VOYAGING FROM TAIWAN:
CULTIVATING AMIS FOLK SONGS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE
by
Christian Alan Anderson
A Thesis submitted to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY)
May 2002
Copyright 2002 Christian Alan Anderson
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UMI Number: 1411775
Copyright 2002 by
Anderson, Christian Alan
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY RARK
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA S 0 0 0 7
This thesis, written by
XL riS rli& t* AU* A m terScn
under the direction of h is.— Thesis Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been pre
sented to and accepted by the Dean of The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
D m
THESIS c o m :
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ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Funding for initial research on the cultural politics of tourism among the
Amis communities o f the eastern coast of Taiwan in summer 1995 was provided
by California State University, Northridge, Student Projects Committee. The
Association for Asian Studies' China and Inner Asia Council sponsored a
subsequent research trip to Taiwan in the summer of 1999.1 was a Foreign
Language and Area Studies fellow at the University of Southern California, East
Asian Studies Center, during the summer of 1998 and the 1999-2000 and 2000-
2001 academic years. The Center for Visual Anthropology at the University of
Southern California provided video and audio recording equipment during
fieldwork in Seattle (in 1997) and Taiwan (in 1998-99).
I am grateful to the many people who helped in carrying out
ethnographic fieldwork in the United States and Taiwan, including Wang Hui-ji,
Lee I-chih, Tsai Cheng-Liang (Futuru), Liao I-Hsin, the Kao family, Wu Song-
Fu, Liu Chiafen, Lee Chang-I, Li I-Chin, Lamuro (Hu Mei-Li) and the Kuo
family. Inspiration to conduct research in Taiwan came initially from Mari
Womack in Los Angeles. David Blundell in Taipei provided an introduction to
Amis culture as lived on the eastern coast of Taiwan, advised me and made this
research possible in many ways. I extend my sincere gratitude to Professor Li
Thai-Kang, who embraced me into his family, provided an introduction to Amis
culture and the Amis Folklore Great Singers group, and without whose
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participation, this research would not have been possible. Professors and fellow
graduate students at the Department of Anthropology at the University of
Southern California provided invaluable discussion and cultivation of further
insight, including Chiu Shih-Ching, Dr. Eugene Cooper, Dr. Deirdre Evans-
Pritchard, Dr. Janet Hoskins, Dr. Dorinne Kondo, Chad Abraham Minnich, and
Jean-Paul Popoff. Also, my family has supported me throughout this research—
and, I am grateful for their help.
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CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements ii
Figures v
Abstract vi
Introduction: An Amis “Return to Innocence” 1
Ethnic Frontiers: The Construction of “Austronesian” in Taiwan 7
Exoticism at Home and Abroad: Voices in a Discourse of Indigenousness 12
Rehearsing: Amis Identity at Home and Abroad 24
On the International Stage: Language, Race, and Neo-Colonialism 33
Performing: Amis Identity Abroad and at Home 40
Discussion and Conclusions 46
Bibliography 49
Appendix: Lyrics to “Return to Innocence” by Enigma 52
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FIGURES:
Figure 1: Taiwan’s Ethnolinguistic Boundaries.
Figure 2: Austronesia.
Figure 3: Poster of the Amis Harvest Festival, 1995.
Figure 4: Amis Folklore Great Singers, stage performance,
Tokyo, Japan, 1997.
Figure 5: Taiwan Arts Festival Poster, 1997 (with detail).
Figure 6: Amis Folklore Great Singers in Vienna, 1997.
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VI
ABSTRACT:
This explication of contemporary issues facing Austronesian cultures in
Taiwan is based on analysis of the links between the construction of ethnic
identities (e.g.; “Amis,” “Austronesian”) and discourses on (auto)exoticism,
indigenousness, language, race, (neocolonialism, and performativity in daily
life. It is at the intersection of these “discourses” that the prospect of
contestation and symbolic subversion arises. Through investigating the links
between a global political economy and a local politics of ethnic identity, this
essay aims to contribute to a dialogue on contemporary issues in Austronesian
Taiwan. The specific aim is to expose the reigning ideologies confronting
Austronesian cultures in Taiwan at this moment, to demonstrate how the
practice of anthropology has been tied to discourses on indigenousness and
(neocolonialism, and to write the history of one particular intervention,
exemplified by the formation and concert tours o f the Amis Folklore Great
Singers cultural performance group.
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1
Introduction: An Amis “Return to Innocence”
I first became interested in Amis culture during a 1995 trip to Taiwan.
While there, I learned that an Amis folk song called “Zacatusa” had been mixed
into a top ten world-wide hit song called “Return to Innocence.” After Michael
Cretu o f Enigma produced and released the song in Europe and the United States
in 1993, it had traveled back to Taiwan via the radio airwaves, and was being
widely celebrated around the world as a Top Ten Billboard Hit. It even became
CNN’s theme song for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Yet, not one
mention of the singer or the folk song was found in the album notes, and neither
any money nor respect was paid to the Amis people or to the man and woman
whose voices were recorded, Mr. and Mrs. Kuo Ying-nan of Taitung, Taiwan.
This essay narrates and critically assesses what followed (from 1995 until 2000)
among a group o f Amis elders who were recruited to form an Amis cultural
performance group based on their newfound, yet unacknowledged, worldwide
success. It covers several international concert tours (to Japan in 1997, to
Belarus in 1997, to the United States in 1997 and 1998) and two local
performances (to a tourist group in 1995, and in Taitung’s Austronesian Cultural
Festival in 1999).
What follows is the written component of a master’s thesis project in
visual anthropology at the University o f Southern California. While An Enigma
in Taiwan (Anderson 2001), a documentary video produced as the visual
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2
component o f the master’s thesis in visual anthropology, uses footage o f the
concert tours and interviews with the group members to give an impression of
the tour and what it meant to the performers, this essay aims to provide a critical
socio-historical context by identifying and analyzing the reigning ideologies
confronting Austronesian cultures in Taiwan at the present. These include the
quality and force of international relations involving China, Japan, and the United
States as experienced on Taiwan, and the implications of the practice of
anthropology as it connects with discourses on indigenousness and
(neo)colonialism in the case of Austronesian Taiwan, and specifically Amis.
This essay also explores the ways in which the politics of representation
as exemplified in contemporary indigenous Taiwanese cultural performance have
operated to construct ethnic boundaries, have been used as tools to define social
groups, and have been applied to make conscious and strategic interventions. It is
through a “case study” of the cultural practices o f the Amis Folklore Great
Singers performance group that I hope to convey what contemporary
Austronesian consciousness and Amis identity on Taiwan mean to the people
themselves, and how they are negotiated in relation with other identities.
Taiwan is an island where Austronesian cultural roots subtly permeate the whole
society, even as “Austronesian” is used as an “other” category by which the
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3
Taiwanese majority defines itself.1 Before 1600, Taiwan had a great variety of
Austronesian languages and cultures, to the extent that some archaeologists and
linguists consider the island the homeland o f Austronesian language and culture
(Bdlwood 1995). Indeed, only in the mid-seventeenth century did Chinese
colonize the western side of the island, while Austronesian cultures continued to
flourish in the high central mountain range and along the eastern coast, which is
the homeland o f Amis culture. In the mountains, hunting o f large and small game
and horticulture were practiced, while along the eastern coast, fishing and the
exploitation of the coast were combined with horticulture and some hunting.
Because o f their inaccessibility and also because o f the feared headhunting
traditions o f the Austronesian people who lived there, the mountains and the
rugged eastern coast kept the agriculturally oriented Chinese away for over 300
years.2
The colonization of Taiwan went through three phases: Qing Dynastic
(Chinese), Modem Japanese, and Nationalist Chinese. The early, or Qing
Dynastic, Chinese occupation of Taiwan was mainly concentrated in the western
seaboard, now Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Taichong, and in the northern basin that is
1 See Chiang Bien (2000) for a noteworthy exception to this trend in a recent research project
that suggests all Taiwanese are, biologically speaking, Austronesian. Studies regarding
Austronesian cultural influence in contemporary Taiwan are lacking, however, my larger
research project on how a national identity is constructed in relation to Austronesian-ness will
look into how the notions of primitive, indigenous, or aboriginal culture are used in popular
mainstream Taiwanese urban culture.
2 Headhunting was still practiced well into the twentieth century.
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4
now Taipei.3 Then, in 1895, the Japanese occupied Taiwan and applied strict and
total martial law. Organized efforts were made to survey the entire island and
bring every person under the command of the new government. Roads were built
into the mountains and along the rocky eastern coast to penetrate every hill and
valley o f the island. A rigorous relocation program forced whole communities to
evacuate their ancestral homes and move to more accessible areas.
The Japanese colonial government was on Taiwan from 1895-1945, the
period that covers the rise o f the modem Japanese nation-state, building up to
and including the Second World War. This incidentally explains much of the
relatively faster pace of economic modernization in Taiwan (and South Korea)
compared to China (and North Korea). During that time, research into Taiwan’s
Austronesian languages and cultures was conducted in a salvage documentation
manner with the expectation that the future was assimilation to Japaneseness.
Then, following the war and the Japanese retreat, the Kuomintang (KMT,
or Chinese Nationalist) government fled Mainland China in 1949 and continues
to claim to rule the whole o f China, including Taiwan, from its headquarters in
Taipei. Since 1949, the United States has also been heavily involved in Taiwan,
first in political collaboration with and support o f the KMT in the Cold War
3 When an official Taiwan romanization is already accepted, for instance, in the case of city
names, I employ that style. Otherwise, all romanizations o f Chinese words are in Pinyin.
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5
years, and both economically and militarily after the United States’ formal
recognition o f the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1972 (Johnson 2000).
Ethnic dynamics on Taiwan are therefore very messy. The ethnicity of the
minority, yet ruling, KMT party is Mainland Han Chinese, having no historical
connection to the island whatsoever. The majority, or mainstream, group calls
themselves Taiwanese, having a mixed heritage of Han Chinese and Taiwan
Austronesian, and claiming many generations of heritage on Taiwan (back to the
1600s in some cases). This group sometimes includes the Hakka (kejia), yet at
other times Hakka ethnicity is clearly marked. The Hakka, some o f whom took
Taiwan as their homeland over the past three centuries, have a long history of
migration within China, and have been known as merchants.
There are also between nine and eleven different Austronesian
ethnolinguistic groups making up only 2% of Taiwan’s population of 21 million
that are considered as separate ethnicities or “tribes” at some moments, as well as
a collective indigenous ethnicity at others. Figure 1 shows the geographical
extent of Taiwan’s indigenous population covers more than half o f the island, and
is concentrated in the central mountains, and along the eastern coast. Amis is one
Austronesian language-speaking group, whose members live along the eastern
coast of Taiwan, and who have a matrilineal age-grade coastal culture, with
inheritance o f lineage status running through the female line, and male age-grades
organized for political and ceremonial activities within village communities.
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Figure I: Taiwan’s Ethnolinguistic Boundaries.
The research was conducted over a five-year period from 1995 to 2000,
both in the United States and in Taiwan. Traditional ethnographic fieldwork
methods were combined with visual anthropology methods based on video and
photographic documentation, presentation, and further commentary by the
subjects, creating a feedback loop of dialogue. Interviews were conducted in
English and Chinese languages. When subjects spoke only Amis language, a
translator helped in communication between Amis and Chinese languages.
Fieldwork in Taiwan was conducted during the summers of 1995, 1998, and
1999, primarily in the counties o f Taitung, Hualien, and Taipei. In June 1997 and
August 1998,1 joined the Amis Folklore Great Singers as an ethnographic
filmmaker during their United States concert tours. The first tour was to Seattle,
Washington as part of the Taiwan Arts Festival. The second tour, sponsored by
the Kaohsiung Indigenous Migrant Workers Society and the Kaohsiung Office of
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7
Indigenous Affairs, covered six cities, including San Antonio, Los Angeles, Santa
Fe, Colorado Springs, Denver, and Honolulu and headlined only the Amis
Folklore Great Singers.
The present essay is intended to go along with the visual component,
though it provides sufficient contextual and theoretical insights into the topic
such that it can be understood without necessarily referencing the video. Ideally,
however, the video and the writing would be presented together. The essay is
organized into five sections, the first o f which provides a context o f Austronesian
Taiwan in the anthropological literature, and situates indigenous Taiwan along
sociohistorical lines. The second section explores indigenous Taiwan in terms of
exoticism. The third section deals with the problematics of Amis identity in a
Taiwanese and in an international context. The fourth section explores how the
international concert tours engaged issues o f language, race, and the
consequences o f (neo)colonialism. Finally, the fifth section evaluates the results,
both local and international, of the Amis cultural performance group’s
intervention.
Ethnic Frontiers: The Construction of “Austronesian” in Taiwan
While Austronesian cultural roots subtly permeate everyday life in
Taiwan, the concept of “Austronesian” itself was conceived and applied from
outside, in the context of Japanese colonialism. Western European and American
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8
efforts to categorize and analyze human languages resulted in the construction of
“language families” as one o f a variety of ways o f talking about the diversity of
human languages. The concept “Austronesian” (which means “south islands” in
Latin) refers to such a theoretical “language family”. And so it follows that the
concept “Austronesian” has an ambiguous and unstable reference with respect to
the historical, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds o f the contemporary people
who are the “Austronesians.” While the scientific “proof” o f the existence of an
Austronesian language family has depended upon language speaking traditions, it
has also, more recently, been approached through biological and cultural
definitions largely derived from initial linguistically based assumptions.
Historically, the intellectual construction o f “Austronesian” is based on
linguistic field research among the indigenous populations o f Island Southeast
Asia and Oceania (see Figure 2). In as much as it is the product o f academic
generalization based on case material, it is not necessarily a meaningful term for
“Austronesians” themselves. It has been deduced from a wealth of field research
data, and accorded authority based on the socially accepted methods o f linguistic
investigation, as those data, in turn, result from methods borrowed from the
natural sciences (i.e., taxonomic structures).
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9
Figure 2: Auslronesia.
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10
Academic concepts are inevitably appropriated for use in the
governmental and popular realms, especially as they tend to have convenient
political implications. Perhaps the most obvious evidence o f governmental
appropriation in Taiwan is the notion of “nine tribes,” along with the social
categories of ethnic identity to be found on “identity cards.” Historically,
however, the highest level o f political organization among the Austronesian
population of Taiwan was at the village, or community, level (Shepherd 1995,
1993). The notion of “nine tribes” (sometimes referred to more accurately as
“nine ethnolinguistic groups”) owes its birth to Japanese colonial efforts at
controlling and re-educating its new subject population during the half decade of
Japanese colonialism on Taiwan (1895-1945). These categories have remained
politically useful to the Kuomintang (KMT) from Taiwan’s 1949 “return” to
China into the present. The Japanese colonial government on Taiwan needed
some way of classifying its indigenous population to more effectively govern the
island. Noting language variation was the first step to imposing a hegemonic
policy of social and cultural change. The Japanese government had to learn
enough about Austronesian languages in order to implement their policy of
destruction of the traditional ways and conformity to the Japanese way, forcing
the acquisition of Japanese language. The consequences o f this colonial policy
are still evident today among the elders of Austronesian cultures on Taiwan.
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11
While governmental appropriation o f academic concepts has occurred in
every nation, resulting in part from the fact that academic research is funded
based on its potential relevance to governmental agendas, some unprecedented
political situations have arisen from the local re-appropriation and utilization o f
academic concepts.4 In this analysis o f the popular, or “folk,” appropriation o f
academic concepts in terms of ethnic identity, issues o f authenticity, precedence,
continuity, and social and cultural change come to the fore. In negotiating a
contemporary Austronesian identity on Taiwan the following questions arise.
How to successfully navigate the politics of forming, changing, and
m aintaining ethnic identity? What are some o f the obstacles encountered when
entering a new political economic context—one which is mediated by an
economic elite, including multinational corporations, who in a real sense govern
access to global and increasingly local social and political influence (see, for
example, Bourdieu 1991)? How to conceive of traditions as valuable cultural
assets in the transnational political economy of commodity capitalism (such as
Appadurai 1986)? And, what is the prospect o f translating international prestige
into national and local respect?
4 Creative ways of negotiating ethnic and tribal identities in the politically charged context of
commodity capitalism are related by Clifford (1988), Fusco (1995), Savigliano (1995), and
Kondo (1997) among others.
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12
Exoticism at Home and Abroad: Voices in a Discourse of Indigenous
The voices o f two members o f the Amis community ofMalan, Tahung
were used by the German rock group, Enigma, as the recurring chorus and
melody o f their hit song, “Return to Innocence”3 The song enjoyed a nine-month
stay on Billboard’s International Top Ten in 1993 and 1994. Young people
around the world have heard this song enough times to sing along with the Amis
voices, if not with Michael Cretu’s lyrics (see Appendix). Although the song was
released in 1993, it was not until 1995 that the song made its way back into the
community from which it originated.
The song’s path across the globe began in Malan, Taitung, Taiwan in the
mid-1980s. After an ethnomusicologist made some recordings of local Amis folk
songs, these recordings eventually landed in an archive in Europe where they
were subsequently “discovered” by Michael Cretu o f Enigma, inspiring the idea
for the popular song.6 The song was recorded, and credits paid to the museum,
which provided the samples o f the Amis voices. The album The CROSS O f
Changes (EMI) was then released in 1993, including the hit song “Return to
Innocence.” In the album notes there is no mention of the source of the voices
nor is there any mention o f Taiwan, or Amis. This has resulted in consumers
freely attributing the chants to the particular “primitive” cultural group with
5 The journalistic “fects” of the story are reported by Renata Huang (1995).
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13
which they are most familiar. In the United States, people tend to associate the
chants with Native Americans. In Northern Europe, the chants tend to be
associated with the Lapps of Norway.7 While Cretu’s motivations cannot be
clearly ascertained, the effects o f his appropriation are clear enough. Enigma
(Michael Cretu) made millions o f dollars from the sales of compact discs and
cassette tapes and brought to itself international fame, while the man and woman
whose voices were used as the chorus for the song received neither monetary
compensation nor credit on the album. To understand how such a situation could
be not only profitable, but also legal, benefits from understanding the
appropriation o f “indigenousness” by the international travel industry and the
entertainment business more generally.
In terms of the international travel industry, an urban demand for scarce
rural simplicity enables the transformation o f (wealthy) urban desires into
economic profit. The urban longing for escape and retreat: a search for
inspiration to be found in “other” (non-urban) ways o f life, ways that are more
intimately connected to the natural environment, and thereby more directly linked
6 Western aesthetic inspiration has often come from explorations of “primitive a rt” The most
notable of all cases is Picasso’ s use of African craft in is “invention” of cubism.
7 One review of the album, written in Germany: “This track [Return to Innocence] cleverly
blends the joik (Lapp chant) with modem rhythms and song structure. The joik is used as the
chorus. This track gives me a feeling of pleasure and happiness, and some of the reason is that
Enigma has turned to the ancient Nordic musical culture, the Lapps living in the northern parts
of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.” [Grimstvedt 1994]
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14
to human nature. Robert Redfield (1941) was one o f the early voices to
propagate the notion o f an “urban-folk” continuum. Since then, advertising
campaigns that promote international tourism have translated Redfidd’s
continuum into their own essentialized dichotomy. “Folk” communities are happy
places filled with good-hearted, eager to please, locals who have no experience
with urban “problems” of alienation or anonymity, but instead represent all that is
good in human nature. Although this notion has continued to be deployed in the
travel industry, it was an early assumption within the discipline o f anthropology
as well. James Clifford (1988) goes so far as to call anthropology “professional
tourism.”
City dwellers have always looked to the countryside for recreation and
refreshment—something to break the contrived monotony of life in an urban
center. Well aware o f this, transnational business interests tailor their advertising
campaigns to capitalize on this demand through the appropriation o f urban
notions o f rural “folk life,” and its most extreme manifestation is represented as
“indigenousness ” In the domain o f“world music,” part of the transnational
entertainment industry, the relationship between appropriator/ Western/capitalist
and appropriated/non-Westem/subject exemplifies the power dynamics inscribed
in the contemporary international political economic system. Power and prestige
are created and subsequently disseminated from capitalist urban centers. Yet, in
constructing the locus of power, urban centers continually draw on the
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IS
authenticity and vitality they lack through appropriation and re-presentation of
the non-Western and non-urban domain.8
Marta Savigliano (1995), in mapping the historical and geographical
travels of the tango, brings further insight into the connections between
transnational capitalism, what she calls ‘exoticization’, and ‘the politics of
desire’:
The geography o f pleasure and the spatial economy o f capitalist
production and consumption are strongly intertwined. What was
pleasurable and valuable, for whom, and how were my main questions as
I saw the tango immersed into the traffic of the exotic. The manufacture
of exotic sounds and steps and the promotion o f markets receptive to
these exoticized, pleasurable trends have been analyzed in the context of
“core’ Vcolonizer and “periphery’Ycolonized relationships - relationships
in which the colonizer and the colonized (the providers o f pleasurable
experiences) negotiated issues of representation and identification within
a “libidinal economy.” [p. 205]
Savigliano makes a critical distinction between passion/emotionality and
primitive/exotic versus desire/appreciation and distance/civilized, which derives
from the imperialist political economy of capitalism.9
An entertainment industry motivated by a transnational capitalist
economy, and masqueraded behind a veil of democracy, remains among the most
powerful transnational commoditizing forces in the world at this historical
8 See, C o r example, Edward Said (1979), Raymond Williams (1%1:66-67,1958:376) on the
relations between East and West in terms of the Western academic enterprise, Dorinne Kondo
(1997:Ch. 2) on the extension of Orientalist doctrine and its subversion in the Japanese fashion
and American film industries, and Marilyn Ivy (1995) also on Japan.
9 See also Walter Benjamin (1969) on the “mobilization of desire.”
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16
moment. The force o f the entertainment industry has readily transformed
intangible elements o f tradition into commodities for sale in an international
market. Often based on the rhetoric o f authenticity, “world music” has done the
most to introduce musical traditions from various parts o f the world into the
Western, and also “international,” popular mainstream (Keil & Feld 1994).
However, along the way it has ushered the appropriated material through a shift
from folk music by and for a local community, to a more detached and universal
“world music,” mediated through a commoditizing politics of representation, to
serve “universal”—Western market-driven—demands and desires.
In this particular instance o f Enigma’s appropriation of Amis folk songs,
however, the appropriated have challenged the appropriators, and claimed
ownership of their own cultural tradition as expressed in song and dance. The
following examples of other indigenous responses to and critiques of neo
colonialism provide a context for analyzing the Amis Folklore Great Singers
particular response. When applying strategies of intervention from the point o f
view o f the “periphery”, there are a variety o f issues that show up in the domains
of international tourism, government policy, and cultural performance
Frequently in the realms of tourism and performance, because o f their
association with entertainment, there is less reliance on communication and
understanding than there is on gratification and relaxation. For instance, in 1993
performance artists Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena staged a world tour
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17
of their performance art called “The Last Two Undiscovered Amerindians
Visit. ..” (Fusco & Gomez-Pena 1992, Fusco 199S). Dressed in mock Indian garb
and painted in bright colors, Fusco and Gomez-Pena could be seen sitting in a
cage, intermittently dancing to rap music blasting from a boom box, playing
video games, and sewing voodoo dolls. The various impromptu audiences in
urban museums around the world, to the artists’ surprise, largely believed the
mockery to be actual fact, and entirely missed the point o f the critique. This
reaction recalls Edward Said’s (1979) critical distinction o f the “fact” o f
Orientalism vs. the innocent “representation” o f “the oriental,” where the latter
becomes an impossibility.
The majority o f audience questions and comments tended away from the
colonization, appropriation, and ultimate destruction of indigenous culture,
toward practical nit-picking of how the two “natives” were able to learn to use a
computer, play video games, or had access to various Western products without
Western cultural knowledge. While the artists hoped to activate discussion on the
appropriation and colonization o f indigenousness, audiences’ responses
addressed the subject only in a peripheral manner. For example, one woman was
shocked and ashamed to see humans in a cage, but conceded that it was probably
the safest place for these “primitive people” who would not be able to function in
the wider society without assistance o f some kind. O f all the people interviewed
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in the film, only a Spanish man, an American woman, and a Native American man
saw the critique.1 0
This chauvinistic and patronizing attitude shows up in Taiwan as well.
Urban Taiwanese notice the beauty of the mountains and eastern coast - the only
areas on the island not yet developed into large metropolitan centers. They are
drawn to these places to refresh themselves, to take refuge from the everyday
business of the cities, to experience a connection to “nature,” to feel a different
approach to the daily routines o f life, to discover themselves, or create
themselves anew. Even if transformed immediately once back in their daily
routines in the city, stepping out for a weekend has a refreshing feel. The notion
that people living an agricultural life are worse-off than city dwellers was, of
course, bom in the city just as the romantic imagery was. Consequently, when
city dwellers tour to the country, they often show this mixed attitude toward their
local hosts, if not in words, then in gesture.
Eco-cultural tourism has recently started among Amis communities of
Taiwan’s eastern coast. This type o f educational adventure tourism is becoming
increasingly popular around the world. The organizers o f one specific tour in
1 0 Shaking his head in disbelief; a 60-year-old Native American man commented: “It startled
me when I first came up to the exhibit... How distorted we have become! Through the
economics and through some o f the philosophies of life, I could see my own grandchildren in
that cage. It portrays and it really brings home to me exactly how our people were treated. And
[weeping] I don’ t know that we’re any better off today.” [Fusco and Gomez-Pena 1993]
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19
which I participated in 1995 made every effort to address these issues in the
context o f daily interactions.
The tour began at the East Coast National Scenic Area’s new
headquarters, just north o f Taitung. The first stop was at an Amis community
called Makalahay, near Chiangping, where a pig was butchered and cooked upon
arrival, by “traditional” means. Various folk dances and songs followed into the
evening, culminating with a performance by the elders of the community. While
riding the tour bus, the group was entertained to the music o f Enigma, including
of course, “Return to Innocence” played time and again. In this context, the
meaning o f the song and o f the exploitation involved became immediately
relevant.
The next day, the group set up camp at a beach near Malan, Taitung.
Later that evening, a local performance group called the “Amis Folklore Great
Singers” provided entertainment, singing folk songs dressed in “traditional”
clothing. It was on this eco-cultural tour, in the summer of 1995, that the Amis
Folklore Great Singers group made one of their first performances to tourists.
The members o f the tour group, mostly Taiwanese from Taipei, but also a few
from Australia and the United States (including myself), all had personally
meaningful experiences on that tour. That the eco-cultural tour organizers set a
meeting specifically to discuss not only the issues surrounding Enigma’s unethical
use of the Amis folk song but also what each person learned as a result o f
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participating in the tour provided a venue for discussion o f issues which are
largely “unspeakable” in Taiwanese society at large.
Approached from this different angle, city dwellers go to the country to
learn about that “other” way o f life, and can relate as students. When this style is
implemented, more intimate communication becomes possible, enabling mutual
learning and understanding. It was in this way that the Amis Folklore Great
Singers were introduced to the eco-cultural tour group in 1995. The organizer of
the group, Li Thai-kang, gave an introduction to the unique style o f Amis folk
songs, and talked about the local origins o f the songs the group would sing that
evening. He stressed that the value o f hearing these elders o f the Malan Amis
community singing was in the age o f the songs, and the voices that sang them,
ripened as they were with decades o f “rehearsals,” textured voices that created
meaning in nuance rather than words.
In Taiwan, the Amis Folklore Great Singers are one o f many ethnically
oriented performance groups who have organized in the past decade. What
makes them a noteworthy example is their link to folk traditions still very much
alive in the daily activities o f the members of this group. They did not go to
school to learn to sing or dance. Living in Taitung practicing an agricultural and
fishing way of life, following the folk customs of their Amis ancestors, and
drawing inspiration from other Austronesian speaking groups to the south
(Puyuma, Bunun), their history o f Japanese contact, and recent Taiwanese
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contacts all combine to create a matrix o f possibilities for the expression of
contemporary folk culture. Dancing and singing have been one o f the most
important aspects o f this group’s life — which now creates the possibility to enter
the post-traditional world o f modern consumer capitalism, with a valuable
cultural asset as symbolic capital.
Drawing on the songs that grew out of their ancestors’ musings and have
since been embellished with the vigor and immediacy o f contemporary life as
Amis in Taitung, the group has the chance to represent not only their local Malan
culture, but even Amis and Taiwan Austronesian culture more generally. That the
group leader should use the name “Amis Folklore Great Singers” demonstrates a
conscious appropriation of an Amis identity on Taiwan, and a folk-not
professional-status. The group leader’s respect for his elders is not apparent in
English translation. The Mandarin “ a-mei zu min-ge da ge shou” is translated as
“Amis Folklore Great Singers,” but would literally be translated “Amis folksong
experienced elder singers.” There has been no contention in Taiwan regarding the
performance group’s use o f the name “Amis,” even though all o f the folk songs
and dances come from the local Malan community o f Amis, located in what is
now Taitung city. The group’s artistic director, Li Thai-kang, has pointed out
other performance groups who use names of Taiwan’s Austronesian speaking
cultural groups even though their members have no cultural training, only
learning dances through school instruction. He is quick to point to the
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“authenticity” o f his group’s folk songs and performance, taking pride in their
demonstrable connection to the source of their folk songs and dances.
Authenticity, while a difficult concept to pin down out o f context, has
been the source o f many legal cases in arguments over tribal property, including
everything from archaeological artifacts to land rights. James Clifford’s (1988)
discussion about the Mashpee Tribal Council’s law suit against the United States
federal government regarding American Indian land claims exemplifies both the
value of maintaining a continuous identity through historical processes, and the
near impossibility o f doing so in the context of colonial conquest. The judicial
case depended on the plaintiff (Tribal Council o f Mashpee) proving to the court
that it had a continued historical existence documented from the arrival of
European colonists to the present. As this case could not be made without
recourse to oral history, the jury decided in favor o f the federal government of
the United States, resulting in no awards of land title to Mashpee. While the jury
believed there to exist a contemporary Mashpee tribal identity, and various
historical Mashpee tribal identities, they could not be convinced, based on the
documentary evidence, that an unbroken line of continual existence was
achieved. The value o f demonstrating a continuous “tribal” identity would have
translated into reclaiming the land taken from them by the United States
government.
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In Taiwan, historically “tribal” identities were maintained at a more local
level than the currently identified “language speaking communities,” or
“ethnolinguistic groups ” There was plenty o f inter-village warfare defining the
boundaries of groups. Pitted in a colonial situation, these groups o f former rivals
were thrown together vis-a-vis a more powerful entity which now controlled the
economic base o f daily life. Once forced into this new economic situation, at the
level of laborers working in a system with a different set of cultural values,
Austronesian speaking cultures in Taiwan began to feel a camaraderie of
situation, but not identity. The similarity in situation among Austronesian
language speakers in Taiwan involved the irony o f being exotic in their own
country. For how can they become otherwise? Symbols of the “exotic” are
necessarily mediated through a politics of colonialism and conquest. Their
“exoticness” must first be commoditized through a discourse of desire and
passion.
Marta Savigliano (1995) traces the cultural history of the Tango, noting
how its voyage out o f Latin America necessarily implicated a discourse on
“exoticism” and eventually what she calls “auto-exoticism,” that is, when the
Tango as symbol is re-appropriated and tied again to local ethnic identity:
The Exotic is not an hem exclusively for the delight of the imperial West;
it is in turn exported, in hs new, colonized package—once modern, now
post-modernized—to the Rest. When exported to the (neo)colonies o f
“origin,” practices o f autoexoticism develop conflictively as a means o f
both adjusting to and confronting (neo)colonialism. Through these
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complex activities o f auto-exoticization carried out in the periphery’s
internal political settings, the exotic/ exoticized representations end up
becoming symbols o f national identity, [p. 2]
It is in this context—consciously representing themselves as “exotic” in their own
land, mindful to bring out an “innocent authenticity” which their competition
lacks, cognizant o f the value of a deeply rooted “folk culture” in the
contemporary political economy of commodity capitalism—that the Amis
Folklore Great Singers sing and dance into the postmodern world and create a
national identity as Amis, Austronesian, and Taiwanese.
Rehearsing: Amis Identity at Home and Abroad
Within the Austronesian language family, and the subcategory Formosan,
which is a second order category and covers all Austronesian languages in
Taiwan, the following nine languages are currently spoken: Amis, Atayal, Rukai,
Paiwan, Puyuma, Bunun, Tsou, Saisiat, and Yami. These ethnolinguistic
categories are all ripe for appropriation among the referenced “imagined”
communities themselves, yet they had no meaning prior to academic study of
Austronesian languages. An exploration of how particular strategies are
employed among Amis language speaking communities offers additional insight
into the process. As Dorinne Kondo (1997) suggests, the most salient aspects o f
ethnic identity are demonstrated in the daily appropriation o f symbols, dress,
speech, performance, and social interaction:
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25
...the world o f representation and of aesthetics is a ate of struggle, where
identities are created, where subjects are interpolated, where hegemonies
can be challenged. And taking seriously that pleasure, that life-giving
capacity o f aesthetics, performance, bodies, and the sensuous is, within
our regime o f power and truth, an indisputably political act.
[Kondo 1997:4]
From this perspective, Amis identity is what comes out o f interaction and
negotiation with others, not some essentialized static category existing
independent o f the daily efforts o f specific people. It then becomes possible to
trace Amis ethnic identity from a context o f the colonial initiation o f
Austronesian on Taiwan to the present state o f ethnic identification. The focus
shifts from what is the essence of Austronesian identities on Taiwan to what are
some strategies o f appropriating particular Amis identities by governmental
structures, academic research, popular opinion, and within Amis language
speaking communities themselves to address the cultural production o f Amis
identity within Taiwanese society, and subsequently respond to and effect social
change.
During the summer of 1995, when I asked about the Austronesian, native,
or indigenous cultures o f Taiwan, urban Taiwanese told me about a romantic
connection to nature exemplified by “aborigines,” or “mountain people.”
Responses stereotypicaUy placed indigenousness in Taiwan as something owned,
for instance, “our aborigines,” or “our mountain people” [women de
yuanzhumin], as well as something colorful and beautiful. Following this sort of
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semantic reference, a stereotypical list o f behaviors associated with “mountain
people” inevitably includes drinking a lot o f rice wine, chewing betel nut, dancing
and singing [tamen dou he jiu, eta binlang, chang ge, tiaowu d e\ Often a lament
for the loss o f their heritage entered the responses among the attendees o f the
Eco-Cultural Tour. For example, “It is sad that their culture is now gone, but we
have an opportunity to see the last of their traditions,” “Many o f the young girls
have been sold into prostitution by their own parents, a shameful situation,”
“They used to be headhunters, but they are becoming more civilized, thanks to
the Japanese and Taiwanese.”
Generally, assessments o f the overall value o f Austronesian culture in
Taiwanese society echo a sentiment derived from the culture o f urban life, one
intent on encapsulating pure authentic primitiveness in which some conceptual
balance can be achieved between urban/po st-industrial/detached culture and
rural/folk/connected culture. The Taiwanese urban imagination longs for a more
simple, less polluted, more natural existence and subsequently collects these
images o f Austronesian lore and blends them together with a scant knowledge of
the colonial history o f Taiwan (as recounted in official textbooks heavily biased
toward Chinese Nationalist ideology) and identifies the referent for their
longings, hopes, and fears as the most convenient and susceptible “other,” the
Austronesian population of Taiwan. Thus, alcoholism, prostitution, primitiveness,
dancing and singing become symbols o f Austronesian Taiwan. Afforded these
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27
options, the ripest symbols for exploration among Austronesians themselves are
dance and song.
The primary challenge facing Taiwan’s Austronesians today is how to
effectively negotiate a complex, politically loaded, identity as “native” or
“indigenous,” as a particular '‘ village” or “community” member, as a particular
“tribe,” and as Taiwanese within a sociopolitical environment which has always
already defined them for its own purposes. Austronesians in Taiwan inevitably
confront the mainstream Taiwanese stereotype of “aborigines” as backwards
barbaric “mountain people.” If not dealing with ostensibly “indigenous” issues as
defined by the mainstream, Austronesians in Taiwan are forced to become
invisible. Thus, asserting an Austronesian identity in Taiwan necessarily leads to
cultural and political stigmatization. Many Taiwanese youth are ashamed to admit
their Austronesian roots to their Taiwanese friends and colleagues, especially
when they are in the context o f the larger urban centers. For those who can
“pass” as Taiwanese, that is, those who are not racially or culturally “marked”
(Kondo 1997:23), it is especially convenient to not mention—or even to
explicitly deny—this “problematic” aspect of their Austronesian cultural identity
(fieldnotes, 1998).
Issues of “speaking up” or “coming out” in social spaces where it is much
easier to silently assume the mainstream (straight) identity have been a focus of
the gay and lesbian movement (Butler 1990, Sedgwick 1990) in the United States
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and elsewhere. In the case o f ethnic identity in Taiwan, however, racial markers
such as skin color, language, and cultural practices often make the “coming out”
process unavoidable. It is in this context that the younger generation of
Austronesians on Taiwan find themselves dealing with the “politics of the closet”
in their daily interactions with the Taiwanese mainstream, especially if they can
“pass” as mainstream Taiwanese.
To avoid an unresolved discourse on racialization and the colonial history
of Taiwan, of course, is preferable for those currently in power; it makes for
seemingly smoother interactions between Taiwanese and Austronesians. One
recent attempt was to theoretically eliminate the category of Austronesian
altogether. It is clear how this necessarily merely perpetuates the very power
relations that generate and maintain the oppressive situation in the first place.
Indeed, proposed solutions have already been suggested. One way is for
everyone living on Taiwan to be called “New Taiwanese” [xin taiwanren], a
blatantly Taiwan nationalist project suggested by the state that aims to erase
difference, define Taiwanese identity in opposition to Chinese Mainland identity,
and discard Austronesian altogether, emblematic o f how the state deals with the
“problem” of cultural pluralism.
There are, however, a few areas of contemporary social life where
engaging in a dialogue on race and ethnicity is not only socially approved, but
actually encouraged: aesthetics, performance, art, and tourism. And, not
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29
surprisingly, these are areas ripe for effecting social renewal and transformation
through aesthetic experience, or what Victor Turner (1969) called “communitas”
and “liminality”
In the context of tourist performance, Austronesians are afforded an
outlet to perform their traditions while they (necessarily) activate discourses on
commoditization, colonization, and racialization (see Figure 3).1 1 Numerous
recent examples offer eloquent testimony to the complex political forces
activated in the appropriation of representations o f indigenousness in Taiwan,
while engaging various opportunities for subversion by all groups involved in the
dialogue. The very act of engaging these images leads to their recontextualization
in a new cultural and historical moment.
Amis communities invite tourists to come and experience their “authentic
cultural traditions” each year during the harvest season. While tourists have
opportunities to examine their own emotional reactions, the “host” communities
find opportunities to directly encounter the force and substance of mainstream
stereotypes. Frederick Barth (1969) described three potential strategies of
minority responses to mainstream stereotypes embedded in neo-colonial
situations:
1 1 For other popular international tourist propaganda on Amis in Taiwan, see Thompson
(1985), Zach (1995:88-92).
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Figure 3: Poster of the Amis Harvest Festival, 1995.
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31
(i) they may attempt to pass and become incorporated in the pre-
established industrial society and cultural group; (ii) they may accept a
‘minority’ status, accommodate to and seek to reduce their minority
disabilities by encapsulating all cultural differentiae in sectors o f non
articulation, while participating in the larger system o f the industrialized
group in the other sectors o f activity; (iii) they may choose to emphasize
ethnic identity, using it to develop new positions and patterns to organize
activities in those sectors formerly not found in their society, or
inadequately developed for the new purposes. [Barth 1969:33]
The formation of the Amis Folklore Great Singers group demonstrates the
tactical appropriation o f all o f these various strategies.
For the members o f the group, all fanners, the advance o f technology has
aided the pace of their agricultural production. Working fewer hours, if possible,
is a welcome situation for any farmer. In this way, many rice cultivators and betel
nut farmers in Amis communities have acquired various machines to help ease the
heavy labor necessary to maintain their fields. Li Thai-kang, the organizer and
artistic director of the group, however, does not cultivate wet rice fields; rather
he is a professor of music in Taipei. His mother’s side o f the family is Taiwanese
with Austronesian ancestry, while his father’s side is from the Amis language
speaking community of Malan, Taitung. Throughout his life, he identified with
both his Austronesian and Taiwanese heritage. From his perspective, the advance
o f modem machines for use in the rice fields has been only detrimental. It has
eliminated one style of singing—calling in actiphonal response across the fields.
While working in the fields, the workers in the rice fields o f Malan would pass
the time by singing across the distance in response to each other. But, with the
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32
interference o f engine noise, this practice did not continue as in the past. For one
thing, the engines are so loud that people would not be able to hear each other
across the fields. But, also the introduction o f various cultivation machines led to
fewer people working in the fields at any one time.
Being marginal in both the Malan community and in Taiwanese society
geared Li Thai-kang towards his contemporary position as cultural broker,
translator, and entrepreneur. His love o f music naturally led him to that domain.
His change in “strategies” from one of “passing” for Taiwanese in Taipei, to a
hyper-active/reactive ethnic Amis leading a cultural and ethnic renaissance had its
roots in the exploitation, appropriation, and annihilation o f Amis tradition, as it
personally touched his own life.
After the eco-cultural tour of 1995 where the group performed for
tourists for the first time, Li Thai-kang arranged for a performance in Taipei at
his university. Upon arrival at the hotel, the group was asked by hotel officials if
they had passports—surely they were not Taiwanese. Even in their home
country, they are inevitably rendered “exotic.” The performance was billed as
“authentic Amis folk songs,” in efforts to separate this group from other
“professional” dance ensembles comprised o f various Chinese or Taiwanese
dancers who studied the folk dances o f Taiwan’s Austronesian population,
mastered the steps, and then performed for Taiwanese and Chinese audiences.
Professor Li had identified a unique niche for his group based on authenticity.
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These “performers” are not professional. They are rice and betel nut farmers who
sing the songs o f their ancestors in their daily lives. They sing because it is part o f
their contemporary culture. So, the group of elders found themselves in a novel
situation, performing their everyday lives for a group o f foreigners in their own
country.
The performance in Taipei was a success, the first concert tour outside of
Taiwan—this time, to Japan. An old friend of the director, Professor Li, was
visiting from Japan that week, and had attended the concert at the Institute of the
Arts in Taipei. He was so impressed with the group that he invited them to his
university in Japan, pending budget arrangements. At that point, neither the
singers nor Professor Li had plans to perform outside o f Taiwan. But, as the
occasion arose, all were ready to voyage abroad.
On the International Stage: Language* Race, and Neo-Colonialism
Both prestige and monetary compensation were readily available to the
Amis Folklore Great Singers from the Japanese government for their first
international tour. The politically charged colonial history o f Japan’s relations
with Taiwan’s Austronesian population had made for a situation ripe for Taiwan
Austronesian cultivation. The Amis Folklore Great Singers’ Japanese concert
took place in December o f 1997 (see Figure 4).
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Figure 4: Amis Folklore Great Singers, stage performance, Tokyo, Japan, 1997.
In reflecting about the tour to Japan, one middle-aged female singer,
Lamaru, had the following to say:
Because we can easily communicate with Japanese, we are more
comfortable there [than in the United States], even though we are
nervous to perform. For example, fifty years ago Japan took over Taiwan,
so we know Japanese language. Also, some Amis people emigrated to
Japan. So, we can see our relatives there, too. Because of war, some
Amis men moved to Japan.... We feel familiarity, comfort, and kindness
with Japanese because some Amis live there. For example, my uncle’s
class-mate lived there during Japanese occupancy. He was in the Army
school during Japanese occupation. Now, he has a Japanese wife, and
they treated him very well in Japan.... We went to Japan and met 30
people there from our area [Malan]. Even though they didn’t speak the
same language, we felt more comfortable [than in Taiwan's cities].
That the group should define itself against other “indigenous performance groups
in Taiwan” (or, “Chinese Amis”) based on its ethnic authenticity, demonstrates
the weight of the claims being made on an Amis identity, cultural tradition, and
the potential power of such a response. From a neo-colonial perspective of the
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transnational entertainment industry, authenticity is highly desirable. Marketed in
terms o f “muhicuhuralism,” world music becomes the politically correct neo
colonial context for representing non-Westem peoples and cultures to the West.
Of course, all o f the familiar power dynamics o f the colonial situation persist.
Those who are representing are in the position o f colonizer, while the represented
are positioned as colonized. My own position in this dialogue, as representer,
arises from the geopolitical situation of the United States, and the practice of
anthropology. I am necessarily implicated along with the colonizers. In using my
position to serve the interests of this specific group o f colonized, however, my
aims are to cultivate their agenda through whatever means are available from my
position, as a citizen o f the United States, and as a student o f anthropology. Of
course, anthropology is intimately tied into the politics o f authenticity. In the
following discussion o f the Taiwan Arts Festival in Seattle, the position of
anthropology as an authoritative discipline entitled to evaluate the authenticity of
others in this contemporary debate becomes clearly articulated.
It was in the summer of 1997 that the Amis Folklore Great Singers group
was invited to perform at the Taiwan Arts Festival in Seattle, Washington.1 2 The
event was funded through the Taiwan National Endowment for Culture and Arts,
1 2 During the conceit tour to Seattle, from June 5-13th, 1997,1 had participated in the group’s
first trip to the United States as ethnographic videographer. 1 interviewed various members of
the group, and made video recordings of rehearsals, performances, publicity ventures, and the
numerous attempts at cultural exchange during the tour. Some of the footage has been edited
into a documentary film An Enigma in Taiwan (Anderson 2001).
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36
and locally organized by the Chinese Cultural Association of Washington State.
The organizers, acting out the interests o f the funding agency, made efforts to
select the best representative for each o f the various genres o f musical production
in contemporary Taiwan. The funding agency identified Taiwan’s Austronesian,
or indigenous music as one o f the domains o f musical production in Taiwan. It
was in this context that a search for an Austronesian representative began.
Other “indigenous” performance groups, some considering themselves
“professional,” were comprised o f Taiwanese, or sometimes Chinese, dancers
who performed the folk traditions o f Taiwan’s Austronesian cultures based on
study from a distance, but without any personal historical involvement in daily
life. The fame generated by “Return to Innocence” had served to confirm an
Amis group to represent Austronesian Taiwan; organizers made the decision to
invite the Amis Folklore Great Singers group in consultation with an
anthropologist from National Taiwan University, Dr. David Blundell, who
recommended the group based on its “authenticity.” From ten years traveling to
the east coast of Taiwan as an anthropologist and being involved with the Malan
community (and also with Li Thai-kang in terms of organizing eco-cultural
tours), Professor Blundell was clearly in the position to assert that the members
o f the Amis Folklore Great Singers group are active participants in the daily
cultural life of their community. Acting on this authority, the organizers selected
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37
the Amis Folklore Great Singers to invite to the festival, representing indigenous
Taiwan’s musical production.
Constructing a comfortable atmosphere for the Amis group in Seattle was
no easy task. The language differences (elders speaking Amis and Japanese
languages, middle-aged speaking Amis and some Mandarin) made commun
ication with the rest of the Taiwanese group, and especially Americans, a
troublesome endeavor. Their social position in Taiwan also made for
uncomfortable interactions with the other performers, all “professional
musicians” who had extensive experience in performing abroad.
Representing Amis culture in a foreign country requires astute attention
to what Erving Goffinan (19S9) called the “presentation o f self in everyday life.”
The social position of Amis in Taiwanese society is always one of the strongest
ingredients in coloring self-presentation abroad, and one o f the means by which
such presentations are evaluated. The members of the Amis group were charged
with representing their own traditions, and also those of Austronesian Taiwan,
within the neo-colonial context o f the festival. The politics o f neo-colonialism
were everywhere evident throughout the tour. For instance, Professor Li, the
director o f the Amis group, was furious upon first seeing the Taiwan Arts
Festival promotional concert poster (see Figure 5). He spoke to the local
organizer, “Why do they look like monkevs? This is not right! All of the other
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38
people are standing or sitting up straight, yet the Am is are crouched in a position
like monkeys!” While the director was certainly correct, it was, of course, he
who sent the photograph to the organizer for use in promotion. Nonetheless, this
instance activates insights into the nature of neo-colonial relationships.
a *f t t m t
U lin /J a w l R l>
bunded By
T he Taiw an National Endow m ent for C u ltu re a n d A rts
And Organizer! By
T he C hinese Cultural Association o f W a sh in g to n State.
W ith >p»)iixirship t'Tirii
S eattle (.'e n te r P ro d u c tio n s. l h e Seattle A rt M useum . »r-l T h e O ly m p ia A r e a C hinese Fellow ship
jrui T he loiw anesc Associattivn.
T hese p erfo rm an c e works
Dt to u r Taiw anese a r tis t, w hose wur
Figure 5: Taiwan Arts Festival Poster, with detail on lower right, 1997.
There is always an argument available to the colonized such that the
colonizer has mis-represented the colonized and thus re-inscribed an inferior
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39
status. The critique is already present in the social system, inscribed in official
documents, and propagated through popular media. Even the possibility o f the
Amis group’s participation in the concert tour hinged on this situation. The
Japanese tour, o f course, most blatantly demonstrated the reality o f post
colonialism. Perhaps out of a sense o f post-colonial guilt, the Japanese
government funded a series of performances from a group of people that
represented Japan’s former colonial subjects, the “Formosan Aborigines,” to
travel out o f their homeland to Japan where they would perform the remnants of
“Formosan Aboriginal” traditional songs and dances—colonized subjects
performing the remnants of what was left o f their culture after the colonial
relationship had supposedly ended. Ambiguities about Japanese paternalism and
colonial domination definitely bear on the politics of “cultural exchange” through
performance between Taiwan and Japan. Contrasting with the Japanese
experience, when the Amis Folklore Great Singers were invited to perform in
Seattle, they found themselves negotiating in the different neo-colonial context of
Taiwanese and American societies.
In this context, appeals to exoticism through indigenousness are
paramount. American audiences, o f course, had little trouble associating the Amis
with Native Americans. One Native American (Navajo) couple who witnessed a
spontaneous performance noted the behavioral and also physical similarities
between the elder members of the Amis group and their own elders. The Navajo
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40
woman mentioned the bare and weathered feet o f the Amis elders as activating in
her memories of her grandparents. The couple also noted the similarities in
singing styles between her ancestors and the Amis in terms of vocal styles. A
meeting between the Amis group and local Northwest Coast indigenous peoples
on the Suquamish reservation further highlighted the centrality o f the American
discourse on indigenousness. Representatives from the Amis group and the
Suquamish exchanged gifts, and danced each other’s circle dances, after a
demonstration of Amis singing prompted by the Amis group’s organizer,
Professor Li. When one Amis man asked through translation about Suquamish
language, an elderly Suquamish woman replied that the White men had taken
away their language and much of their culture. Even on this reservation, Native
Americans from various tribal identities other than Suquamish gather together,
resulting from the disruption caused by American colonial domination. Not
surprisingly, it was in the context o f indigenousness that the Amis received the
warmest welcome—definitely not vis-a-vis their Taiwanese fellow performers,
who largely ignored them, occasionally confusing them with the Filipino maids at
the hotel.
Performing: Amis Identity Abroad and at Home
The goal of the director o f the Amis Folklore Great Singers group, in
terms o f keeping Amis culture alive in “modern society,” is both noble and
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41
patronizing. His attempt to construct stage performances based on a pre-existing,
“authentic” aesthetic o f Amis daily life makes sense only in terms o f the politics
of neo-colonialism, as a strategic response:
The problem is that I want to keep the indigenous society culture alive in
modern society, rather than preserve in a certain model, in a certain thing,
in a certain manner, you know? [hands making cage in the air] It’s just for
all kinds of people to see, you know, museum or puppet. “Aah, ha! That’s
indigenous culture in a museum!” But, I want than still alive. Alivel That
means if I bring their aesthetic, alive culture, out o f that, you know, living
in modem society. That’s what is my attempt, [smiles] [Li Thai-kang,
interview, 1998]
Li Thai-kang’s efforts exemplify what Dorinne Kondo (1997:227) calls “a
strategic deployment of authenticity” as he takes his primary concern with Amis
aesthetic production, riding this authentic aesthetic into modem performance. In
applying this tactic, he instigates a situation, which exposes contemporary and
historical political power structures, thus allowing for their interrogation. The
group organizer himself never mentions ideas of subversion, but approaches his
goal through dealing in symbols o f Amis culture in Taiwan, and indigenous
cultures worldwide, song and dance. When asked what is the greatest
accomplishment in terms o f the international concert tours, Li Thai-kang
responded:
I think so far after we visited Tokyo, Seattle, Minsk, Vienna, and now
this time, the United States, I think the great accomplishment is th at,...
we have obtained our passport to traveling internationally... You know
what I mean? Modem passport, although they are simple men. But, we
have ova passport'. That’s, yeah, I think that’s the biggest
accomplishment for us. [Li Thai-kang, interview, 1998]
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42
Of course the passport symbolizes incorporation into the modern international
political economy, and the ability to freely pass between nations.
The elders o f the Amis Folklore Great Singers group see their
international concert tours as a way to find respect for their traditions, if not only
an opportunity to travel abroad. Indeed, the recognition they gained in Japan and
the United States has boosted their sense of a unique and important identity—in
relation to other ethnic groups in Taiwan, and to foreign indigenous cultures as
well. What remains to be seen is how this cultural performance group is received
within Taiwan, especially among other Amis communities, and how Amis in
Taiwan will use the efforts o f the Amis Folklore Great Singers group in terms of
constructing an Amis, and Austronesian, identity in Taiwan.
The youngest generation o f Amis in Taiwan has the difficult responsibility
of translating the traditions o f their ancestors into the present. Issues o f language
difference and cultural distance are prevalent among three generations raised in
different colonial contexts. If continuity is shattered, the strength of appeals to
authenticity is disrupted. If full continuity is to be sought, then the result is
maladjustment to Taiwan’s mainstream society. What is required is a strategic
manipulation o f authenticity that takes into account both the continuity of
tradition and the embracing o f the social context o f Taiwanese, and now Western
society.
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43
Only in May o f 1992 were “aboriginal rights” enacted and officially
incorporated in the Republic of China on Taiwan’s Constitution. In the past
decade, Austronesian, or indigenous, peoples on Taiwan have come together to
find various means o f asserting their neglected presence in the island’s historical
and contemporary society. As Taiwan’s indigenous peoples search for useful
political tools to assert their identity, they find that by drawing on their cultural
history and traditions they ignite the spark of attention they need from the
Taiwanese mainstream—only then can they cultivate international support for
their cause by drawing on an increasingly popular discourse on “indigenousness.”
In linking themselves to a politically oriented international quest for indigenous
peoples’ rights, Taiwan’s Austronesian cultures hope to gain the respect they
lack in their own nation. Only time will tell if these interventions are successful.
One early indication can be found in the 1999 Austronesian Cultural
Festival, which took place in Taitung, Taiwan. The event was to be the first of an
annual festival that would bring together representative performance groups from
various Austronesian cultures throughout the Pacific and Southeast Aria and the
scholars who study them. Events lasted for seven days. The first three days,
during the week, were devoted to mainly Taiwanese, but also Malaysian and
Australian, scholars discussing Taiwan’s Austronesian culture and (pre)history.
These meetings were poorly attended, and not publicized as much as the cultural
performance events and demonstrations that followed over the weekend.
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44
Representative cultural performance groups were invited from all o f Taiwan’s
various Austronesian cultures, and from five different foreign Austronesian
cultures, including Hawaii, Fiji, Maori (New Zealand), Borneo (Malaysia), and
Palau. The whole event was sponsored and financed by the Taitung county and
Taitung city governments.
For the opening ceremony, Taiwan’s famous music composer Li Thai-
hsiung was invited to conduct a chorus o f Taiwan indigenous singers from each
of the “nine tribes.” Li Thai-hsiung, himself Amis, is the elder brother o f Li Thai-
kang, the organizer o f the Amis Folklore Great Singers group. Li Thai-kang’s
performance group was also invited to perform in the festival, but for an
embarrassingly low honorarium o f only S1600NT ($50US) to split among the
nine members o f the group. Li Thai-kang and the members o f the Amis Folklore
Great Singers group considered this an insult, and refused to perform in the
festival.
On the final day o f the Austronesian Cultural Festival, Li Thai-kang
organized a press conference in Taitung City Hall to protest the insulting “offer’ ’
by the festival organizers. He also protested the exclusion of Amis on the
promotional posters, flyers, and program pamphlets (Lian He Bao 1999). Mr.
Chen Zheng-rey, the Taitung Indigenous Affairs representative, replied that he is
sony for the oversight that resulted in the name “Amis” being left out o f all
primed material to do with the festival. He blamed the error on a “hurried
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45
printing process” and reassured the protesters that it was not intentional. As for
the miniscule “honorarium,” Mr. Chen suggested that there must have been a
miscommunication, but that he would look into the matter.
It is, perhaps, more than just ironic in view o f the experience with Enigma
that the Amis name was again omitted on the program materials. Li Thai-kang
went so far as to suggest that there was an outright conspiracy towards erasing
the Amis from the world: first Enigma, then this. The press conference he called
in response to the latter slight, however, had little effect outside of the particular
group in attendance, over half o f which was the Amis Folklore Great Singers,
their friends and family. So it happens that even in their own hometown, six years
after the Enigma controversy, within the rubric of a festival organized to
celebrate their own culture, the Amis and the Amis Folklore Great Singers were
not treated with basic civil respect. Since they have been mistreated, they have a
platform upon which to proclaim their situation, and make a plea for the respect
they now feel that they deserve.
When I asked Lamuro, one o f the Amis Folklore Great Singers, what she
had learned after returning home from the concert tour to the United States in
1998, she replied, “If we don’t respect ourselves, how can we expect others to
do so? What I want for all Amis is to learn to respect our own culture. Only then
can other people appreciate and respect our culture.” This is a powerful lesson if
applied in daily life; and people like Li Thai-kang are doing just that, if not
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46
holding press conferences and talking with government officials, then with his
family together in Taitung cultivating the daily practice o f Amis cultural heritage
through music.
Discussion and Conclusions
In writing on Amis cultural performance, I hold the overall goal of
contributing to the tradition o f ethnography as cultural critique, as espoused by
Marcus and Fischer:
In all of these efforts, three kinds of critical thrust are important: the
critique o f ideologies in action, the critique o f social-science approaches,
and the identification o f de facto or explicit critiques “out there” in
society, among ethnographic subjects themselves. It is, of course, the last,
facilitated by the former two, which constitutes the most powerful appeal
that ethnography as a mode of cultural criticism offers. [1986:156,
original emphasis]
In this essay, my attempt has been to expose the reigning ideologies confronting
Austronesian cultures in Taiwan at this moment, to demonstrate how the practice
o f anthropology has been tied to discourses on indigenousness and
(neo)colonialism in the case o f Austronesian Taiwan, and to write the history of
one particular intervention, exemplified by the formation and concert tours o f the
Amis Folklore Great Singers.
From this historical vantage point, there are various paths open for the
negotiation of Amis and Austronesian identity in Taiwan. Recognition of
indigenous peoples everywhere and of issues o f human rights are currently
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47
popular topics o f interest in the media and entertainment industry. Venues such
as the Austronesian Cultural Festival provide a neo-colonial setting in which the
“neo-colonized” represented receive international exposure. While it is up to
these “neo-colonized” to actively assert their identities in these arenas, the
politics o f the colonizers still determines the possible venues, and in this case
included the practice o f erasing the Amis from the program. In voyaging outside
of their geographical and cultural climate, the Amis Folklore Great Singers hoped
to effect an internal transformation in the land o f their ancestors and the land o f
their children—one that embraces change but at the same time pays respect to the
integrity o f their cultural heritage on its own terms.
At one level, the mere fret that the group received funding, passports,
and completed international tours, is itself a sign o f success. If success means
integration into Taiwanese society while retaining a sepa/ate sense of identity,
interventions such as this one are necessary. Performing Amis culture on stage, to
foreigners but especially within Taiwan, remains vital at this historical moment.
In voyaging outside their own country, new possibilities for solidarity based on
Austronesian-ness and indigenousness, become clear. The work of the next
generation will be to integrate the aspects of tradition that resonate with the
demands of contemporary life in Taiwan. The Amis Folklore Great Singers
concert tours have demonstrated the value o f emphasizing Amis song and dance.
Future interventions will have the benefit of looking back to this example o f how
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one group made a difference in their own lives, and the importance o f mobilizing
traditional aesthetics through appeals to authenticity.
The notion of cultivating recalls reclamation, harvesting, edifying. It is a
return based on hard work, not merely “innocence.” Now is the time for Austro
nesian cultures in Taiwan to cultivate their own traditions, to reclaim them from
both their ancestors and the mainstream, to renew a sense of shared identity, to
retain a sense o f separate identity, and to forge a place on the international stage.
As the Amis Folklore Great Singers travel the world, their stage performances to
others remain powerful performances of themselves.
Figure 6: Amis Folklore Great Singers in Vienna, 1997, photograph by Lee Chang-I.
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49
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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1986 Introduction: Commodities and the Politics o f Value The Social Life o f
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Lian He Bao [United News]
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52
APPENDIX: Lyrics to “Return to Innocence" by Enigma
Love — Devotion
Feeling — Emotion
Don’t be afraid to be weak
Don’t be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don’ t hide
Just believe in destiny.
Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence.
That’s not the beginning of the end
That’s the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
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Asset Metadata

Creator Anderson, Christian Alan (author)

Core Title Austronesian voyaging from Taiwan: Cultivating Amis folk songs on the international stage

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Visual Anthropology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anthropology, cultural,Music,OAI-PMH Harvest,political science, international law and relations,sociology, ethnic and racial studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Cooper, Eugene (committee chair), Hoskins, Janet (committee member), Seaman, Gary (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-293640

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Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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