Hualien Update: Father's Day?
In my family, for some unintentional reason, Father's Day does not receive as much attention as for Mother's Day. Father's Day is on August 8th in Taiwan, because "baba" is father, and "ba" also means eight as many of you may know. It's quite creative, whoever came up with the date to make Father's Day, if you ask me. With the rain pouring, I didn't expect to see so many people come together to celebrate in the bad weather. Yet, the older folk of the neighborhood had come to drink and eat. Once arriving, we ate a warm pork stew that followed with a glass of beer. In Taiwan, it seems there is no celebration without beer. I thought it would be over, but Shialong stated that we needed to thank the people who cooked the food and the shu shu's (uncles) so we began to drink little by little with the elders. During all this, many came together and danced to traditional tribal tunes. Zih Shyuen, the new translator after Julia left (quick update: Julia left after completing the first two weeks of translating for me) decided to join in. Myself, being not much of a dancer, decided to sit out. Haha, I should have just gone and danced. I was given more beer to drink. Afterwards, I was full of more beer than food. The more surprising thing was that, after checking the time it was only 11:45 am. I had thought it would at least past 1:00pm! I think that is the earliest I have had alcohol. It was wonderful to see the elders of the community enjoying themselves.
I also want to share another aboriginal tribe's harvest festival. The sign clearly stated that they did not permit photography or videography. I was slightly bummed, BUT I knew that I was an outsider and needed to respect rules of their tribe. They had similar tunes and dancing with the Jinpu Tribe, I had visited previously. Interestingly, I saw many cameras in action and I asked again, and was told that photos were permitted, but video was not. I saw many videographers asked to stop multiple times. I, on the other hand felt happy enough to take photos. I did secretly take a video, but I won't be releasing that for their privacy.
