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was in senior high school. He returned to learn the Paiwan language from his grandmother and had time to observe the local people. John found that there were many teenagers talented in singing and sports, and was amazed by some teenagers’
basketball skills. However, there were some drank, smoked, and chewed betel nut, addictions detrimental to their health and future growth, which limited their athletic, and singing potentials.
During that time, he used to return to New Tjuvecekadan on weekends. However, when he studied in Hsinchu City for college, John could not go back to New
Tjuvecekadan as frequently as previously due to the distance. He would return for Chinese New Year, and Tomb Sweeping Day, and sometimes Moon Festival. John remembered the fun and enjoyable time spent with his family in New Tjuvecekadan.
5.2 Indigenous Identity
John’s elementary school classmates made fun of his indigenous name, but John’s indigenous awareness has not yet developed. He did not feel a particular ethnic distinction from Han-Taiwanese until the fifth grade. His academic performance ranked intermediate-high in his class section, with his best ranking as fifth in his class.
By contrast, John's indigenous classmates ranked poorly. Each year, there were 7 or 8 classes with a total of 14 indigenous and 264 Han-Taiwanese students. The majority of the indigenous students were Paiwan, with a few Rukai students from the
neighboring indigenous townships, of Majia, Wutai, and Sandimen.
He was the only indigenous student during his first and second grade, so he hung out with Han-Taiwanese classmates. During the third and fourth grades, an indigenous
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student who transferred to his class became John’s close friend. However, before entering the fifth grade, the student moved to another school. After fifth grade, he had more chances to interact with other indigenous students while participating in the school’s sports team. Additionally, John and other indigenous students met with each other during after school classes. He enjoyed the time spent with other indigenous students.
“Lots of indigenous students were sporty and joined the tug of war team in school. So, we indigenous students would spend time together during the practice and go to additional classes after school.”
After fifth grade, John attended indigenous language classes. He reflected on his ethnic identity and began to feel an aversion to learning Chinese Mandarin – the predominant language among the Han-Taiwanese in Taiwan.
“I slowly realized my indigenous identity when learning an indigenous language (Paiwan) in school, and I started to feel an aversion to learning Chinese Mandarin. Because why did indigenous people learn Chinese Mandarin?”
The aversion to learning Chinese Mandarin grew stronger as John pursued higher
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identity.
However, in terms of his interpersonal relationships, he did not feel a salient difference between his interactions with Han-Taiwanese students and with indigenous students. When John spent time with his Han-Taiwanese friends, he did not overthink their ethnic differences because it was common to interact with Han-Taiwanese. He also did not feel distinct differences between his hometown indigenous
contemporaries and the Han-Taiwanese. John had close friends who were indigenous and others who were Han-Taiwanese. He frequently visited one very good
Han-Taiwanese friend’s home. While in fifth grade, he befriended a Rukai on the tug-of-war team, whose home he also visited.
In his junior high school in Pingtung city, John was the only indigenous in his 7th-grade class. For 8th and 9th grades, another indigenous student that John had known from elementary school transferred to his class. There were 8 or 9 classes each year, totaling about 270 Han-Taiwanese and nine indigenous students.
During his time in junior high school, John heard a few positive stereotypes from some Han-Taiwanese about indigenous people, such as that all indigenous peoples could sing well (which was not true of him at the time) and were good at sports (which was true). One common stereotype was that indigenous people in Taiwan have dark skin. However, John was light-skinned, and no one talked about that. John’s academic performance during seventh grade was intermediate-low, but he improved significantly during eighth grade. He was usually ranked between second and fifth in his class section. Again, John’s indigenous classmates ranked poorly.
After graduating from junior high school and taking the senior high school
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entrance exam, John entered National Boys’ Senior High School in Pingtung city. He did not need the indigenous educational incentive – a 35% addition to his original scores — to get into the school; his original scores were well above the school’s requirements. In each of John’s years, on average, there was a total of 19 classes, with 35 students in each class. This amounted to over 650 students, including around 20 indigenous.
John ranked upper-medium in his class section, which was adequate, so no one questioned if he had received the 35% addition to his senior high school entrance exam. Moreover, he ranked as high as third in his class section during 10th grade.
Therefore, John did not feel inferior to his Han-Taiwanese peers in academic
performance. However, his indigenous classmates in both 10th and 11th grade ranked badly.
During the 9th and 10th grades, he had one indigenous classmate. By the time John entered 12th grade, he was the only indigenous in his class, as the other
transferred to the social science track. There were several indigenous students in the
“first” track.
However, John socialized with several indigenous students outside his
homeroom class. Significant for him, John joined the unofficial indigenous students' club in school, where he was involved in school performances10. Additionally, he joined the “Ai Association11,” where he picked up the usage of the pragmatic word,
10 The performance refers to indigenous dace incorporation with the indigenous students’ club of a girls' senior high school that showcases traditional music, language, and attire of each officially recognized indigenous group in Taiwan. The performance shows annually and respectively, in both the
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“ai~,12” Club members said “ai~” to express an exclamation or amusement at the punchline of a joke, or repeated it to suggest something funny. John expressed that he had a good time with the association members. They often went to a city library together, not to study, but to spend time and recite jokes. Sometimes the librarian scolded them because they were too loud. Overall, he thought that his indigenous identity enlightenment began with his involvement in the indigenous students' club and the Ai Association.
John found distinctive differences between the ways indigenous students and Han-Taiwanese communicated. For example, each group used different punchlines when sharing a joke. Indigenous students used “ai~~” a great deal, while
Han-Taiwanese did not. John felt more relaxed when speaking to indigenous peoples due to their shared indigenous culture and identity. He felt more formal and serious when associating with Han-Taiwanese, and it was difficult to catch their punchlines and tempo.
“My senior high school experience was crucial to my indigenous identity. We had the unofficial indigenous students’ club and had a dance together [in the school celebration]. I felt proud to be indigenous when I danced with my indigenous club members, which made me want to return to my hometown. From then on, I thought of the slate stone house community [Tjuvecekadan], and wanted to
12 An expression, and pragmatic word, to express exclamation and amusement at the punchline of a
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connect with it in my future development.”
While he was in both junior and senior high school, his father was involved in a project researching and reconstructing traditional Paiwan slate stone houses in Tjuvecekadan. The research motivated John to study architecture. Becoming an architect would enable him to acquire building skills and create a new slate stone house from traditional ones.
When John was in senior high school, he had the idea of studying architecture for college because Tjuvecekadan still had traditional Paiwan slate stone houses.
Therefore, he thought studying architecture while in college could contribute to the development of the slate stone community at his ancestral land, Tjuvecekadan. John made up his mind to gain acceptance to National Cheng Kung University’s
architecture department. Unfortunately, he could not because he did not achieve the required test scores. Instead, he entered the Double Specialty Program of
Management and Technology at National Tsing Hua University.
He was accepted into the program with indigenous educational incentives and was the only indigenous student in the class of 40 students.
There were no indigenous issue-related courses in his department, nor were there any clubs for indigenous students, so he did not have a platform to meet other
indigenous students. There were few indigenous students in the whole college, and he barely knew them, except for Gary. However, Gary only studied there for one
semester before transferring to a school in Kaohsiung.
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his indigenous incentive admission to the program. They ignored his educational incentive and his less than desired academic performance. Moreover, no one in his class joked about his physical features being indigenous – dark skin, big eyes — merely because John did not have stereotypical indigenous physical features:
“Growing up, people did not recognize me as indigenous (by my face), even if I put on contact lenses. I looked just like other people (Han-Taiwanese) when I had my eyeglasses on.”
John conveyed that his Han-Taiwanese classmates found his indigenous
background special. He also could utilize his talents and share indigenous culture with the students in department activities, which impressed him:
“There were department activities like the ‘department’s night’ during my freshman year. And the female seniors made me teach the department members indigenous dance. So, I taught them Paiwan dance, borrowing a lot of traditional indigenous clothes. The experience impressed me.”
Although John’s academics ranked poorly, he had other assets that could provide him with confidence – sports and singing. His prominence in these outshined his classmates. John joined the department's basketball team, and they all competed
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together. He had a good time with them, and his team leader gave him a nickname –
“Little Monkey” — because John was skillful and could run fast.
John spent an extra year finishing college to fulfill the needed school credits.
Overall, he was popular and got along well with his Han-Taiwanese classmates, juniors, and seniors in college. The dance activity he taught increased his indigenous identity, although not enough for him to determine to return home.
While he was in college, John attended church in New Tjuvecekadan, intending to learn more about the town. When in church, he felt connected to the community.
John had relatives among those churchgoers; however, he did not know them well. He registered his distinctive identity as an urban young person. He said, “My mentality may be different from those who grew up and were educated locally.”
After college, he decided to further his education to contribute his learning to the development of Tjuvecekadan. He applied to the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University and was admitted into the program in 2016.
He was the only indigenous in his class, but there was a total of 4 indigenous students in the program. The Tjuvecekadan Youth Project began the same year.