August 2, 2009
Translated by Lydia Ma

There is an ironic story that goes like this:

During one vacation trip, a businessman visited an island and discovered that aborigines living there spent two or three hours every day catching three fish before heading home to play and rest and enjoy the day. The businessman asked one of them why they only caught three fish every day and the aborigine replied, "Well, three fish is enough to feed our families for one day."

Upon hearing this, the businessman said condescendingly, "If you would spend ten hours fishing every day, you could catch ten fish and then sell seven of them. With profits from the sale, you would be able to buy fishing equipment to catch even more fish. When you sell even more fish afterward, you would have money to hire people to work for you and they would take care of everything so that you wouldn't need to work."

"I wouldn't need to work? What would I do then?" asked the aborigine. The businessman replied cockily, "Well, you would be able to go fishing by the sea!" To this, the aborigine asked with a confused expression, "Just like what I'm doing now?"

In this story, the environmental-friendly aborigine is a sharp contrast to the businessman. The businessman thought that the most important thing in life was to earn money by catching as much fish as possible, but his perspective was challenged when he had a conversation with the aborigine. From a different angle, this conversation is a great example of how wonderful and fulfilling exchanges between people of different cultures can be.

Taiwan is a multi-ethnic society and we ought to learn and appreciate the conventional wisdom of every ethnic group. We must not be like the businessman in the story who felt superior to others and wanted to impose his views on others. When feelings of superiority and conceit get out of hand, they can easily lead to conflict, and history is replete with examples of such instances.

When people from different cultures live together, they experience other cultures and this sets an important foundation for their lives because they learn to appreciate every culture and get rid of their self-righteous attitudes. Such experiences also teach people to live and flourish together.

The United Nations passed the "Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries" in 1989 and set aside August 9 as the "International Day of the World's Indigenous People" in 1993 to remind every country to remember the contributions made by aborigines to contemporary society, culture, and environment, and protect the rights and benefits of aborigines.

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) led the way in Taiwan by recognizing the identity and status of aborigines as an ethnic group. During its 36th General Assembly Annual Meeting in 1989, the PCT decided to rename all "Mountain" churches to "Aboriginal" churches and issued a public apology to all aborigines and churches for failing to respect the identity and human rights of aborigines in Taiwan in the past.

The PCT's actions had a ripple effect and prompted the national government to amend Taiwan's constitution on August 1st, 1994, so that "Mountain People" would officially be known and changed to "Aborigines" from that time on. The Executive Yuan later declared in 2005 that August 1st would be remembered as "Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Day."

Recently, the Siraya people have actively lobbied the central government to recognize them as aboriginals but their requests have repeatedly been denied. The reason cited by the government for turning down this request was that any ethnic group desiring to be recognized as "aboriginal" must first obtain approval from aboriginal tribes that are currently recognized by the government, otherwise, no ethnic group can be recognized as an aboriginal tribe. On the eve of "Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Day," such a response is truly ironic.

However, when the government coldly brushed aside the identity of Siraya people, other aboriginal tribes responded instead by opening their hearts and welcoming Siraya people to become part of the aboriginal family and recognizing Siraya's God-given identity. The warmth and openness displayed by these aborigines when they embraced Siraya people is truly a beautiful example for all to see and follow.

Taiwan Church News