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6.3 Why Returning New Tjuvecekadan?
Even though she was physically away from New Tjuvecekadan and spent little time in her hometown, Mika’s connection to it was inherent. “New Tjuvecekadan is always a home for me, [however] there is just a level of liking, more or less.”
Moreover, Mika's experience studying abroad in the United Kingdom was the basis that compelled her to understand more about her culture.
She knew that her family’s responsibility to lead Paiwan traditional religious practices. The practices involved a vinqacan15 located in Mika’s house, all the traditional rituals take place there such as Masalut, and Maljeveq. With the chief as the host, and traditional faith practitioners pulingaw, and parakaljai would conduct rituals. People cannot move vinqacan to elsewhere. Mikal said “It was impossible to move the vinqacan to Chaozhou.” Mika gradually started to know the importance of traditional when she wrote a thesis so her master’s degree in Great Britain.
Mika attributed her returning to New Tjuvecekadan to a dream she had while she lived in the United Kingdom. The dream was of a shiny hundred-pacer snake, the sacred animal of Paiwan culture, which slithered past her. She had not had a dream of that kind since her great-grandmother’s death, when Mika was in high school. Her great-grandmother was a pulingaw16, and also a chief. The dream conveyed a vision for Mika to return home to learn and do things in New Tjuvecekadan.
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“I think perhaps, my vuvu (great-grandmother) is telling me, now that you made it to a master's program and [taking a] master's degree, [after that] it is time to go home.”
From the studies abroad and befriending so many international students in Great Britain, Mika realized she had a lot to learn about herself and her origins. Her then-boyfriend, now husband, encouraged her to return to Taiwan for more studies.
She returned to New Tjuvecekadan immediately after her graduation.
6.4 Before 2015 -- Participant Motivation for Tjuvecekadan Youth Project
For more than two decades, until 2015, Mika identified strongly with her father’s village of Kuljaljau. The dream significantly shifted her sense of place
identity to Tjuvecekadan. “At that time [2015], I strongly identified myself as a person from Tjuvecekadan”. Importantly, Mika was also the heiress, the second in line after her mother, to become the top chief for Tjuvecekadan. She knew her cultural and familial responsibilities were to New Tjuvecekadan.
“At some point when I grew up, I used to worship foreign goods and ideas blindly. Meaning that I wanted to be a
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foreigner, but it was not [necessary] that I liked foreign things; instead, I was trying to avoid my cultural and familial responsibility”.
Meanwhile, her senior high school experiences of being bullied influenced her a great deal. While at a loss as to how the bullies of her high school days might see her, Mika was ready to face her responsibilities and learn about her community, although she did not want to return home alone. Mika said, “[to a point, later] I always seemed not to know to whom to prove that I was good.”
A year before the project began, in 2015, she returned to New Tjuvecekadan.
Several reporters from the local newspaper, Sofia, Sandra, Ricky, and Yusuf, approached Mika. They asked Mika to recount her story of returning home to New Tjuvecekadan. During the interview, Mika told them about the Ministry of Culture’s youth project, which had funds available to pay professional journalists to instruct locals on how to improve their news writing. At the time, Mika additionally wanted to make a film about Masalut if she got the funding.
The local reporters seemed very positive about joining together with Mika on a plan to initiate the project. Thus, she wrote a project proposal and sent it in to the Ministry of Culture, which fortunately accepted it. While Mika does not remember much about the exact discussions with the local reporters, she is sure they discussed doing the project together. However, after the approval the reporters did not show any
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naïve and enthusiastic, and yet again she was left alone.
Mika then began to look for other people who had similar life experiences to hers — young people from New Tjuvecekadan who had grown up, were educated, and lived away from New Tjuvecekadan. These were the so-called urban
Tjuvecekadan youths. Mika first invited her younger brother, Gary. An acquaintance of both Mika and Gary, John, was also invited. Mika recalled she found me who was, at the time interested in doing things for New Tjuvecekadan. Masalut. She also invited two local youths, Grace and Yusuf, to help implement the project together.
These became the core members for the 2015 project. The intent was to cultivate solidarity among the young people, socialize together, and ultimately organize a force to combat challenges facing New Tjuvecekadan. The project also planned to connect and create a relationship among the urban Tjuvecekadan youths. Mika also networked with other urban youths to increase her companions from beyond New Tjuvecekadan, and the group returned to the town together.
“... why do we not [Mika and the urban youths] go home together, no matter what we do, at least when you see
someone you are familiar with [in New Tjuvecekadan] you will not feel lonely, [instead] you will [like to] settle down [there]”
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6.5 Experience of the Tjuvecekadan Youth Project 2015-2016
During her participation in the Tjuvecekadan Youth project, Mika learned that New Tjuvecekadan was not just her home but, like a transfer station, a place with a variety of people. Her accumulating participation in the project deepened Mika’s relationship with its other members and with New Tjuvecekadan. Mika elaborated on the meaning of “transfer station:”
“New Tjuvecekadan is like a transfer station that seems to have inclusion [in people], such a transfer station needs different people to act together, but we need to slow down our pace, and live in this place [New Tjuvecekadan] first.”
One activity during the project that especially impressed Mika was a session where Mika’s younger brother, Gary, designed a map of New Tjuvecekadan after discussions with other members over services and possible attractions within the town.
He then reproduced the map in postcard form to provide tourists with local
information before they traveled to the area’s main attractions, deep in the mountains:
the slate stone house settlement — Tjuvecekadan — and local trails. The postcard information could encourage tourists to spend time in New Tjuvecekadan and promote local industry. When the New Tjuvecekadan map came out, Mika also
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“I feel that there are so many places I have not been to in New Tjuvecekadan. [Although] it [New Tjuvecekadan] is not big, nor do I have thought of trying to introduce it [New Tjuvecekadan] as a specific place to everyone.”
Overall, Mika planned all the activities, sessions, and workshops during the project. Due to her age, as a senior among the members, she was not only a leader but also an “older sister” for other members. Over time, the project bonded the
Tjuvecekadan youths together.
“In that process of this [Tjuvecekadan Youth Project], we [project members and Mika] saw each other frequently. At the start, we did not have things to talk about. And then, until everyone added each other on Facebook, [and], or we invited each other to go out to eat, [and]. We discussed [things] together whether if we were going to make changes [in the future in New Tjuvecekadan]. We revealed our feelings. The process impressed me. It is an accumulation of emotions [with each other].”
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Mika expressed that probably the project was too new for the local young people.
So, they were observant of the project activity, and sometimes, they did not catch up in some discussions in project activity. Urban youth and locals did things differently.
Mika thought contributing factors included differences in education and efficacy.
After finishing a session, the core members would usually gather together in either Mika's granduncle’s house or Mika's house. Mika and the other core members would chat about each other’s current lives, while some younger people, including Kevin and Michelle, would join them.
Kevin was in town for his summer vacation during his gap year before entering junior high school. Michelle was also in town for her summer vacation before entering college. Mika thought at that time that these younger peoples seriously needed her. She felt they saw her as a “big sister,” and that she had to take care of them.
Mika’s place identity gradually changed during her participation in the project.
Initially, before the project, she identified herself as a person from New Tjuvecekadan.
Later on, she developed a clearer and more specific identity as a person from Tjuvecekadan who lives in New Tjuvecekadan. However, she did not exclude those who were not the descendants of Tjuvecekadan.
Mika also received positive feedback about the project from her
Han-Taiwanese friends; her friends constantly follow the Facebook fan page of the project and liked the posts of project activities.