Centuries Past: The Dutch Educational Legacy in Asia
⛪✨ The Dutch Christian Education in Taiwan back in 1636 ✨⛪
In 1636, the Dutch set up a somewhat earliest primary school in Sinckan, nowadays Tainan. That’s right – Taiwan’s first little red schoolhouse! 🏫 Johan van der Burg, the new head honcho, writes home bragging about his visit to the school where about 70 kids are learning the ABCs of Christianity in their own Siraya language. 📖
The number of students is on the rise, parents are all in, and even the girls – about 60 of them – are getting schooled in prayer and more. 👧👦
Fast forward to 1645, seven to eight schools are up and running, with 600 students learning not just to read and write, but also getting the 411 on the Christian faith. 🙌
The old-school Dutch education wasn’t just a fad. It laid the groundwork for a 200-year streak where the indigenous folks of southwestern Taiwan rocked the alphabet to write their languages. This wasn’t just a lesson plan; it was a cultural marathon that sprinted all the way to the 19th century at least.
A throwback to when the Dutch laid down the educational roots in Taiwan. Who knew they were setting up a legacy that would last centuries?
#Tainan400
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The clip is an AI-enhanced image based on "THE LATIN SCHOOL and BRICKWORKS NEAR BATAVIA", illustrating a local school in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1744, serving as a reference for what a local Dutch school in Taiwan might have looked like in the 17th century.
[Cry with a Flute]
The indigenous Paiwan diva Sauniyau is performing the famous nose flute for us.
Nose flute is a common musical instrument among the world's Austronesian people, and so it's not surprising that it plays a very important role in Taiwanese indigenous cultures.
But it would have sounded odd if the singer played the flute a century ago, as according to Paiwan tradition, only men could play nose flutes.
They say Paiwan people were so reserved that a man were not supposed to cry. Even if he felt inconsolable, he could only express her deepest sadness with the sobbing sounds of the nose flute.
Indigenous Bunun Elder Playing Bow
[Bow is not only for Hunting, but also for Melody!]
A Bunun elder from Laidazuan community (潭南部落) in Central Taiwan is playing a bow for visitors -- not for hunting, but for melody!
Bow can be a musical instrument in many cultures worldwide, including Bunun, one of Taiwanese indigenous peoples.
Bow is called "latuk" in Bunun language and is actually one of the most important musical instruments of Bunun. It's said there used to be tens of different musical instruments in Bunun culture Japanese occupation period in the early 20th century. However, many of them have been lost during the two major migration of Bunun people in the past 100 years and only six of them are still played by Bunun people: bow (latuk), jew's harp (honhong), five-string psaltery (banhiratuk), pestle (dudur), pig's bladebone clapper (lahlah), and clapsticks (kipapa).
When playing bow, the player holds the bottom end of the bow in his left hand, bites another end to fix the instrument, and fiddles the string with the fingers of his right hand. Usually people play bow for amusing themselves as it cannot make loud sound, but sometimes a bow can be performed with a jew's harp or a five-string psaltery, two other common musical instruments of Bunun, as well.
Now let's watch the clip and listen to the bow performance of this Bunun elder!
Group Song & Dance of Taivoan People
[How to hold hands while dancing with an indigenous Taiwanese?]
Visitors are learning how to dance a traditional group dance of Taivoan people.
Many non-indigenous people would make a mistake while learning traditional round dance of Taiwanese indigenous people -- They would hold the hands of the people next to them, or, even worse, cross their arms with their right hand holding the hand of the person of the left side, and with their left hand holding the one of the person of the right hand, and eventually tumble and fall down together.
From the video, we can clearly see that, while dancing, one should hold hands with the second person next to him or her. In this way, one can stretch his both arms and dance more easily, no matter it's a group dance of ten people or 100 people!
Let's rise, Kavalan!
[Dance for Nostalgia]
Last evening the indigenous students of NTU performed the dances of Kavalan ('Kebalan' in the language of Kavalan).
The original name of the song is "Qasengat pa ita na Kebalan", wherein the indigenous people sing:
Qasengat pa ita na Kebalan / Let's rise, Kavalan!
Aita na Kebalan / We are Kavalan!
Nayaw a kita, nayaw saizi ya Kebalan / This is our way, this is why we are Kavalan!
The homeland of Kavalan people was Yilan, a county located in Northeastern Taiwan. Since the Chinese people arrived to the Plain of Yilan in the late 18 century, the land of the indigenous Kavalan people had been gradually occupied. Many Kavalan people eventually migrated to Hualian to the south of Yilan and set up their first community there between 1830 - 1840.
The homeland has never been forgotten by the people, though.
In 1989 when the Kavalan people had not yet been recognised by Taiwan's government as a unique indigenous people, some of the elders went back to Yilan to celebrate in a local indigenous event, where Mr. Jin-Rong Pan made the song "Qasengat pa ita na Kebalan". Later some people change "qasengat" (rise) to "qataban" (dance) as the version the students sang.
Birdcall before Hunting
[Twitters, where are you?]
A Taivoan hunter is playing the tweets of bamboo pheasant -- And if the birds respond, they would be in a very dangerous situation tonight!
Before going hunting bamboo pheasants, an indigenous Taivoan hunter usually birdcalls or plays bird calling machine to lure the response of the birds at dusk. As soon as the birds responded with their tweets, the hunter will know where they are and go hunting them after dinner when they are sleeping.
To tweet in the wilderness could be fatal!
[The Barn Dance of Taiwan Version?!]
Okay, I know it's not like the Scottish barn dance at all, but the joyous mood spread from the dancing indigenous Thao people really struck me of the happiness I found from the foreign one, which is quite rare from that of the rest of Taiwanese indigenous dances (as most of which are related to serious ceremonial rituals).
The dance of Thao is for their ancestral spirits for sure as well, but they would change the mood of the songs with same lyrics until it became an exciting and amusing one as you see in the clip.
Somehow some elders still miss the old time when every tribal man could still understand the lyrics of the songs thoroughly and deeply feel the sorrow of Thao's history of losing the land and the completeness of the community as an independent nation.
To sing in front of the ancestral baskets for the ancestral spirits is one of the routine duties of these Thao media......
What amazed me during my visit to the Thao community Ita Thao this time is that the songs sung by the old media were not boring at all -- what a pity it would be if the culture of these some 700-people Thao would disappear in ten years!
For everyone who cherishes the rich culture and heritage of the Taiwanese indigenous people.
