Fwd: Taiwan's Siraya people in need of help

[Huang,Chun]

Dear friends on ILAT,

If you know me already, yes this concerns my people - the Siraya in 
Taiwan.
I have been too distressed to write, but Prof. Oliver Streiter has put 
down some words, which I am forwarding to you here.

Chun (Jimmy) Huang
Tainan Pingpu Siraya Culture Association
postdoc, Thakbong

---------- Forwarded message ----------
 From: OLIVER STREITER
  Date: Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 11:48 PM
Subject: Taiwan's Siraya people in need of help
To:

Dear Friends, dear Colleagues,

A university in Taiwan, the National Chung Hsing University in 
Taizhong, is going to destroy the homes of Siraya people of the Khau-pi 
community, using as a legal base for its claims on the land the 
"acquisition" of this land as forest area in 1920 by the Japanese 
government, which then was transferred, or confirmed to be transferred 
by the ROC government to the National Chung Hsing University. The last 
poor Siraya that have been overlooked through all that time are now to 
be forcefully removed, their houses to be destroyed. Why can't the 
administrators of this university understand that what might be legally 
right is morally a no-go?

Letting legal issues aside, why would that leading university want to 
oust some (old) people out of their homes, although the land the 
university already has at its disposal is not fully used for research, 
but for recreation, including ice and noodle consumption, or tea 
drinking. A fat pig is raised and circus performances organized for 
people that arrive on the territory in huge coaches. I have been to that 
area probably 30 times. I have seen more tea-puddings than microscopes, 
more karaoke singers than students, more tourists than bees.

Why is it so hard for this university to accept the current social 
situation, with Siraya people living on the ground it manages, and to 
turn this situation, as it is, into a win-win situation in which the 
Chung Hsiung University and the Siraya people work together on language, 
culture, music, architecture and biology?  And in times that people 
talk about ethno-biology, the need of linguists, anthropologists and 
biologists to work together, wouldn't the presence of Siraya people on 
this land not be a rich source of information, also in biological, 
botanical and geological questions? How much could students learn by 
walking with the Siraya people through their land? I think a lot. Pay 
them, don't take their homes.

After all, it seems to me, that WHAT we are doing getting less 
important after a while and the only thing that matters is HOW we have 
been doing it. I am not proud of what I have done, I only am proud, or 
feel sorry, about how I have been doing certain things. The WHAT might 
be the acquisition of some acres of land. The HOW, however, will remain 
in the hearts of all, bitter or sweet, until the last day of each.

If you are interested in this matter, visit the web-sites below and 
feel free to share information with interested friends of colleagues.

regards, Oliver

  http://savingsiraya.blogspot.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_215460051810521

  http://exp-forest.nchu.edu.tw/forest/html/english.html

  http://www.nchu.edu.tw/en-index.php

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraya_people

  http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraya [35]

  http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraya_%28taal%29