David on Formosa

I spent last week visiting Marqwang and Smangus, two communities in the houshan (後山) area of Jianshi Township (尖石鄉) in Hsinchu County. The visit was to conduct field work for a research project about the management of the Shimen Reservoir Catchment following the implementation of the Shimen Reservoir and Catchment Area Remediation Special Act (石門水庫及其集水區整治特別條例) [...]

On Sunday and Monday I attended a conference in Smangus. The conference, organized by National Chiao Tung University (國立交通大學), brought together a small group of anthropologists to discuss the topic of “Rethinking environment, localisation and indigenisation.” While it poured rain on the Sunday afternoon the cafe at provided a great refuge for the presenters gave [...]

I visited Smangus this week to continue the research for my thesis. There were some significant changes in the village since my visit last year. The major one was the new classroom building near the main entrance to the village. Construction began in July last year and was completed in April. There are currently 12 [...]

Before attending the Pasta’ay in Wufeng I spent the day in Qingquan village (清泉). I met Sandy early in the morning in Zhudong and she drove me up to Qingquan. Sandy is my classmate at NCCU and she is a teacher at the Taoshan Primary School (桃山國小) in Qingquan. Qingquan is an Atayal village located [...]

Pasta’ay (巴斯達隘; 矮靈祭) is the biennial festival of the Saisiat people (賽夏族; also spelt Saisiyat). The Pasta’ay is held in two locations. One in Wufeng and the other in Xiang Tian Hu (向天湖) in Nanzhuang. I visited Xiang Tian Hu which has a Saisiat Museum in May last year, although it wasn’t the time of [...]

After last year’s grill party, Taiwan bloggers again turned out in numbers for another big night out in Hukou (湖口), Xinzhu County. The Bushman’s Blogtoberfest, hosted by MJ Klein and Hui-chen, brought together a great bunch of Taiwan bloggers along with their partners, friends and children. The children deserve a special mention because there seems [...]

On Saturday I went on my second trip to Smangus. The weather was perfect and it was a great day to travel in the mountains. This time I travelled with my NCCU classmate Sandy and her husband. Sandy has worked as a primary school in some of the villages in this area. We stopped at [...]