Where to Meet a Real Indigenous Taiwan!
I visited Taiwan for the first time 5 years ago with my wife, who’s Taiwanese; at that time, I knew next to nothing about the country’s history and people. This has made observing and photographing life here all the more interesting to me. It is also a clear signifier to me that in the West we seem to lack a concept of what a Taiwanese identity is……
“The only thing an Atayal man needs to survive is a knife, a lighter and salt”
I’m sipping some hot soy milk in an Ikari Coffe near Zhongxiao Station and thinking that I would’ve never be caught dead craving soy milk at 10 in the morning before coming to Taiwan……
The ‘Mayasvi’ or Ceremony of War and Triumph is the greatest event in the calendar of Taiwan’s Tsou people. Now only carried out in either Tefuye (Tfuya) or Dabang (Tapangʉ) village in Alishan, the celebration has no fixed day, but instead the date is traditionally fixed each year by village males depending on such factors as how many babies had been born so far that year.
