Aborigines brilliantly respond to Tourism Bureau

Aboriginals pulled off a brilliant stunt to show the Tourism Bureau how obnoxious -- and deeply racist -- their plan is to commodify aboriginal lifeways for Chinese tourism...

Aboriginal activists yesterday organized a “tour group” to visit the Tourism Bureau headquarters in Taipei to protest the agency’s proposal to encourage Chinese tourists attend Ilisin festivals and other traditional events held in Amis Aboriginal communities along the east coast.

“Okay, everyone, look over to your right. We have now arrived at the Tourism Bureau and you can see that the staff here are performing the act of working,” Hualien County resident Namoh Nofu, a member of the Pangcah Amis Defense Alliance who acted as the tour guide, told a group of activists acting as tourists.

“Now, look, there’s a lady on the other side of the office showing us how to make a telephone call,” he said.

“Wow, so this is what the Tourism Bureau people wear at work,” one of the members of the “tour group” said.

“Is there free Wi-Fi here?” another one asked.

.....

Several bureau employees seemed to have been bothered by the demonstration and tried to stop the activists by saying: “This is the place where we work, not a tourist attraction.”

“Our villages are places where we live, not tourist attractions either,” the activists said.

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