Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Award Winning Documentary on Taiwan on the Web

H-Asia advises on Taiwan documentary:

H-ASIA
January 2, 2006

Award-winning Taiwan documentary on web

From: Ryan Dunch

Some readers will recall the post last month announcing the winners for 2005 of the Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA) awards (crossposted from H-Japan, Dec 20, 2005). One of them was The David Plath Media Award to Mr. Futuru Tsai for the DVD "Amis Hip Hop." The
citation was: "This fascinating DVD contains both historic and ethnographic material that contributes to theoretical debate and is additionally designed to enhance teaching. The film presents the visible results of globalism, of deconstructing forms of modern performance, questioning mutated meanings of tradition and adaptation, and illustrates both cultural continuity and change."

In response to that post, Dr. Charles Hayford asked where the video might be found. I am pleased to report that Mr. Tsai has found a web server in Taiwan willing to host the video, and has made it available there as a free download. The site is

http://www.oz.nthu.edu.tw/~d929802/amishiphop/index.html.

He writes,
"Please feel free to download it. Any comments, please let me know." His contact information is:

Futuru C.L. Tsai
Ph.D. Student
Institute of Anthropology
National Tsing Hua University,Taiwan
MSN: futuru.tsai@msa.hinet.net
TEL(O):886-3-5715131 Ext.2833
(m):886-937-930-099
http://www.futuru.idv.tw
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/futuru

3 comments:

Tim Maddog said...

Approximately 4 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, you can see a Taiwan aborigine pulling the equivalent of a Navajo calling himself and his people "British." WTF?! The KMT sure did a helluva job of brainwashing the people of Taiwan, didn't they?

Anonymous said...

Hi, I am the director of Amis Hip Hop. Futuru.

I'm sorry that you feel this way. Actually, I don't think the Amis youth used British names is the result of brandwashing by KMT (although my political position is generaly "Green"). You should think what was the context they used the british name? It made people "laught", only on the stage they would call themslves like that..It's a joke..maybe the phenomenon do have relations to the KMT , however, the evdience is quite vague in my documentary Amis Hip Hop. Instead, I want to discuss their cultural agency. Please tread my paper on Amis Hip Hop, you may have a different perspective. Peace! Once more, I don't like KMT since I could understand the world. And Thank you for your comment.

PS. I love to discuss with anybody, I made the documentary free online for more discussion.

Tim Maddog said...

Futuru, 請別誤會.我不是反對你的影片.我沒有說更清楚的原因就是要讓其他的人自己去看.

我的意思是這樣:我聽到你的記錄片裡面有一個原住民說到那個中國的太空人和[我們中國人...]的時候讓我覺得很奇怪.這個對我來說好像一個在美國的所謂[印地安人](譬如說:納瓦伙族)在說[我們英國人(怎麼樣)...]的這種感覺.

根據我讀到的歷史原住民應該是從南洋島嶼來到台灣的,而非是從中國來的.難道是我錯了嗎?

請看看 [links exist on the original page]:
- - -
In order to legitimise its own power on the island and to unite Taiwan’s people against the communist mainland, Taiwan’s national government KMT had tried to suppress any expression of local or ethnic culture after its succession to the Japanese colonisators in 1945; instead, it cultivated the myth that all inhabitants of Taiwan originated from the legendary yellow emperor. Considered as ethnic Chinese, Taiwan’s aborigines were not only vested with the same rights as all other Chinese on the island, but were also forced to compete in a cultural and political climate that was totally dominated by the Han. They had to learn Chinese, were educated in schools together with Han and had to give up their traditional living styles. It was mainly due to the cultural disadvantages resulting from this ethnic policy in Taiwan after 1945 that Taiwan’s aborigines as a whole societal group soon developed major problems in their socio-cultural adaptation to Han society: Alcohol abuse, girls prostitution (have also a look at Chinese paper with Internet Explorer), a high divorce rate and and a high rate of criminal behaviour belonged to the most visible manifestations ((Rudolph 1993; Hsu 1991) –> Literature).
- - -

Last, but not least, the link to the film is unfortunately not working at the moment.