I am never one that has been good at arts n’ crafts, but I think I just wasn’t doing the right crafts before. A school director at 關山國小, the large public elementary in school that is more than five times the size of both my schools put together, was kind enough to invite us to learn more about the Rukai tribe by visiting their village in the south of Taitung county. It sounded like so much fun, but when I was originally told we would have to scooter from 關山and it was south of the city, close to a two hour scooter ride I gave up on the idea that I would get to participate. Here comes Wallace, the Director and my saving angel solving my problem by offering to pick up the ETAs interested in 關山.
At 9 o’clock bright and early Wallace picked us up from our apartment and we started our road trip. I was given Wallace’s go pro, one of two go pros he has, to film the trip down. The only problem was given the light difference I could only shoot out the right-side back window because the second I wanted to get the front windshield, or the left side of the car with the mountains the video would become to overexposed to show anything. Alas I had fun just being able to look around. When I have made the drive to the city before on my scooter (which rarely happens because I usually opt to take the train) I don’t have the opportunity to look around and sightsee. The mountains are glorious and once you get south of the city all that’s left of one side of the car is the beach stretching out for miles. The ride was over before it truly began and we were given the traditional Rukai tribe welcome.
The welcome consists of holding a special kind of leaf in your mouth and staying silent. One by one we would be asked forward and the brother of the museum guide would swipe a branch of the tree the leaves were from in front of you and then behind you, before also whacking you on the back with it. I would’ve been surprised to be whacked in the back if I wasn’t one of the last people to be asked forward. Following getting swiped with the branch you take the leaf out of your mouth skewer it on a stick and place it in the fire. The last person to be “welcomed” is required to be a woman. They didn’t embellish on why that was the case, but Angela was handed the branch instead of being swiped and asked to break it in half before placing the whole thing in the fire. We were all seated at a large table under a canopy following the welcome.
I was expecting a lot more to be said in English, or for Wallace to translate into English. However, most of the discussion on the Rukai tribe was in Chinese. At times, it was hard to follow and I have gaps in my understanding. I understood that the tribe’s colors are yellow, red, and green, with no understanding of the symbolism of such colors. We were given string of each color along with piece of grain that is used for ornaments as well as cooking and making drinks. As a group, we made a Rukai ornament given to those you love. Each ornament contained three strands of the grain and then the three colors. It was similar to a hair wrap you would receive at the Wisconsin Dells on Spring break. Halfway through the stalks of the grain started to break under the pressure of me pulling the strings so tight so in order to keep it from fully breaking my ornament has a pin hidden in it to keep it straight otherwise it was looking like something out of a Dr. Suess book. I did understand that the three strands of grain symbolized something bigger than a good harvest. When the grain is in threes like our ornaments it means that you wish to the person you give it to that you miss them, you love them, and that you like them. The grain is also incorporated in what they wear on their wedding day with each grouping of the grain symbolizing another child you wish the married couple has in their future.
During our class learning about the crafts of the tribe there was a super loud bang and the entire wooden sign that had painted men dancing on it fell on the hood of a somewhat new car’s hood. The hood was clearly dented by the weight of the solid wooden sign. I felt bad, but was really happy that wasn’t Wallace’s car who was in front of the car that was wrecked. I would’ve felt awful if Wallace, who drove us all, ruined his car in the process.
Following the craziness of taking pictures of the sign and helping to remove it from the hood we were taken up to a patio for lunch. There was such a spread of food, and I only recognized two of the options. There were these banana leaf wraps that are also common in the Bunan and Amis tribes (the aboriginal groups at my two schools) so I have had this dish before. They also had congee which is pretty much a mix between rice and grits. Everything else was fairly a mystery, but you always feel pressured to take some of everything especially when the old lady who fixed the feast for us was watching us take food. We loaded up bowls made out of coconuts with the food and sat down with glasses of millet wine (not a fan- I can’t tell if its because I don’t like wine or that I don’t like the millet) and my personal favorite this flower drink. The flower is called Clitoria ternatea and is a blue flower that is used in teas and drinks. My school even has its own flower plant to dry their own leaves for tea. Another name for the drink is Butterfly pea, if you don’t believe me look it up. I thought the other ETAs were joking, but they weren’t that’s the translation of the name. We had the flowers as more of a drink so instead of the juice being blue they added a lemon juice to it to turn it purple. It tasted like a flowery version of lemonade. They served it in these shot glasses so I kept having to get up to get more. This is one drink I am going to miss especially because it’s really in my county.
As for the rest of the feast I ate a lot, more out of feeling pressured. The congee was good and whatever the green stuff was on the table, but some of the meat options were really fatty. In Taiwan, no matter what you really have to finish everything on your plate. I made a small exception and spit an entire piece of fat that was in my banana leaf wrap and hid it in the discarded banana leaf because I couldn’t stomach eating the texture of just fat for no reason. Everything else was everything interesting as most aboriginal food differs somewhat, but is very similar in other aspects. I have taken to enjoying comparing the different cultures together.
The old lady who cooked our lunch thanked us for taking the time to learn about her culture and gave us hand-made keychains. Originally the style of keychain we were given was actually an ornament that typically adorned the knives and swords used in battle. Each one used to take a week to make because you would take the time to die the strands of rope and knot them together in the pattern. We were then led to the aboriginal village’s museum depicting their traditional clothes, weapons in the past, and jewelry. I was fascinated with the jewelry and how it developed as they had old pieces and pieces that people from the community now could go in and purchase. What struck me as interesting was these three necklaces of white circles because we couldn’t figure out what they were made of. I just assumed it was shells because we were pretty close to the beach. Our tour guide’s brother than began to introduce each piece to us in Chinese using exaggerated hand motions to help our understanding. Within ten minutes of his speech starting I was flabbergasted. The necklaces I had been looking at were pieces of human skulls of victims. The different shapes were a result of the archer’s or warriors aim. The better the warrior the more perfect the circle was with the oval and crescent shapes being because the rest of the skull was too shattered to make a perfect circle. They then would wear these necklaces of human remains, even putting the hair of their victims on the ends of their swords. I was taken aback to say the least I didn’t think I heard right, but Crystal, who has stronger Chinese than I do, agreed with my understanding of what he said. It sounded similar to our history of Native Americans, but I had never seen anything like that out of human remains that’s condition looked fairly new. That was the scary part the pieces looked like they could’ve been made yesterday. Before you start saying it was a replica, none of the museum pieces were. They were all family pieces and originals. That is one of the reasons I wasn’t able to get a picture because photography was banned in the museum, even a picture without flash.
After the museum visit we were on our way back to 關山. It was around 4 o’clock at this time and I thought Wallace would want to get rid of us at that point. Instead, Wallace took us around showing us places form his childhood having grown up in the neighboring village. We took a detour to see a new red bridge in the mountains, pulled over to grab some Roselle flowers for a snack, and even went to a Tamali train station that is supposedly a “tourist attraction” which I thought was completely overrated. Nevertheless, it was fun to go around more with my friends and to be able to get to know Wallace better. Wallace was even nice enough to drive us into the city and stop for dinner before driving us back to 關山 which was an hour out of his way seeing as he lives in the city. He wanted ice cream so I insisted that we stop and I would treat him to some to thank him for the trip. So McDonald’s was the last stop before we went home and I’ve got to say it was worth it. Yes, the time has come where I enjoy McDonald’s ice cream is good ice cream because my god Haagen Dazs is out of my allotment for dessert at this moment being the equivalent of getting dinner for a cup of Haagen Dazs that’s maybe four spoonful.
Overall, it was a fun day trip and I love how I’ve been here for months and am still learning so much about the community I am a part of.
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