Paiwan aborigines and Okinawans meet to close old wounds

Paiwan historian Valjeluk Mavalju speaks on the victimization of Ryukyu sailors in 1871 and the 1874 Mudan Incident. (Courtesy of ROC Council for Cultural Affairs)

By June Tsai

In 1871, a ship from the Miyako Islands of the Ryukyu Kingdom, modern-day Okinawa, encountered a severe typhoon on its return from a tributary trip to the kingdom’s capital, Shuri, and ran aground on the eastern side of the Hengchun Peninsula at the southernmost tip of Taiwan.

Three crewmen drowned in the shipwreck, but 66 survivors made it ashore and stumbled into the territory of the aboriginal Paiwan in today’s Mudan Village, Pingtung County. Although initial contact was peaceful, in the end 54 of the Okinawans were beheaded. On the basis of this episode, along with similar subsequent events, Japan deployed troops to Taiwan and invaded Paiwan settlements in 1874.

The invasion, historically known as the Mudan Incident in Taiwan, and the Taiwan Expedition of 1874 in Japan, marked the first overseas deployment of the imperial Japanese army and navy.

Historians believe the expedition marked the beginning of the new Japanese empire’s attempts to weaken Chinese sovereignty in East Asia while deflecting domestic issues. It led to a Sino-Japanese agreement in which Japanese sovereignty over the Ryukyu Islands, which had formerly paid tribute to China, was legitimized.

Following the agreement, the Qing court started to proactively manage Taiwan, finally realizing its strategic importance. It also began to develop the eastern and mountainous regions of the island, which were mainly aboriginal territories, after its claim that aborigines were “uncivilized people on the outer fringes of civilization” had been used by Japan as justification for deploying troops to Taiwan in a punitive expedition on behalf of the Miyako islanders.

At a symposium Nov. 26, scholars from Taiwan and Okinawa revisited this history, paying special attention to the aboriginals’ beheading of the Ryukyuans, which has often been seen as merely incidental to later geopolitical developments.

“Its consequences have been grave for the people of the Ryukyus and Taiwan aboriginals, but relatively little attention has been given to it, especially from the perspectives of the victims,” said Yang Meng-che, an associate professor at National Taipei University of Education.

Yang, a specialist in Taiwan and Okinawa cultures, said the incident elevated Japan into the lineup of international colonial powers, as the previously isolated nation gradually brought the Ryukyu Kingdom, Taiwan, the Korean peninsula and historic Manchuria under its control in the following decades.

Along with colonial power, Japan gained dominance over historical discourse on the episode. “In history written by Japan as colonizer, neither Okinawa nor Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, who have no written language, have a voice,” Yang said.

Seikiyo Matayoshi, professor of East Asian studies at Okinawa University, who began field research on the 1871 incident in the 1970s, said his studies were nowhere near completion, “due to the inadequate attention given by both the Japanese and Taiwanese governments to the affair.”

Matayoshi went on to say the lack of attention had to do with the suppression of Taiwan aboriginals and the Ryukyu regime by Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as Taiwan’s failure to examine its colonial past.

But both scholars’ dedication to recovering truths from the perspective of the victims has recently been boosted by rising awareness among the descendants of those involved in the incident.

In their eyes, the story of the beheading offered by the historic rulers over Taiwan—Japanese or Chinese—does not do justice to the aborigines.

“For a very long time I was afraid of admitting I’m from Mudan, and thus a descendant of ‘the bloodthirsty barbarian tribe,’” said 39-year-old Lianes Punanang of the Paiwan Kusukut subgroup.

“Reading descriptions of the incident made me really indignant, because I know from my immersion in aboriginal culture that events would not have happened in that way,” she said.

While in graduate school, encouraged by her advisor, Lianes Punanang began to dig into the victimization of the Ryukyu people and the role of her tribal ancestors. Field studies in her home village convinced her that cultural shock on both sides, miscommunication and attempts at self-defense were at the root of the violence that occurred.

“The true cause of the headhunting in this case was mutual misunderstanding, rather than a propensity for killing,” said Valjeluk Mavalju, local historian and former head of Mudan Township, whose ancestors helped defend Mudan against the Japanese invasion.

According to Valjeluk Mavalju, the Ryukyu tributary boat ran aground off Bayao Bay in today’s Manzhou Township in December 1871, and the survivors, making their way westwards in search of help, blundered into the Kusukut settlement the day after the shipwreck. The natives, outnumbered by the intruders and stunned by their sudden appearance, nevertheless saw the unarmed men as guests and provided them with food, water and shelter.

The next day, however, possibly frightened by the unfamiliar circumstances, the
shipwreck survivors stealthily left the village in separate groups while the Kusukut men were out hunting. Village women soon alerted the men to their departure, which to the aborigines was inexplicable.

“In Paiwan tribal tradition, drinking water offered by a stranger means agreeing to peaceful engagement between equals. But the abrupt disappearance breached that agreement, turning guests into enemies,” Valjeluk Mavalju said.

The Kusukut teamed up with members from the Botan settlement in hunting down the Ryukyuans, killing most of them.

Documents from the period say Han Chinese settlers intervened and rescued 12, sheltering them for 40 days while the Qing administration arranged for them to be sent home via Xiamen in mainland China. These settlers also buried the dead in a nearby field.

Claiming to be seeking reparations, Japan sent a contingent of 3,600 soldiers to the aboriginal territory in May 1874. In a seven-month offensive, they faced fierce resistance from around 200 Kusukut and Botan warriors, eventually burning their villages and killing several adults, including Botan chieftan Alok and his son.

“On the whole, both my people and our Miyako counterparts were victims,” Lianes Punanang said. “But the sad thing is that their descendants have had to wait for 140 years to be able to talk about what reportedly happened.”

Mutual visits between Mudan villagers and descendants of the Miyako victims began in 2004, stimulated by studies carried out in Okinawa and Taiwan over many years. This year, Yang and Matayoshi helped arranged a memorial event Nov. 25 in Mudan’s Tongpu Village, where the bodies of the 54 sailors were reburied.

The memorial, along with the symposium, represented the culmination of such exchanges, participants said.

Invited to Taiwan for the event, Koei Nohara, whose forefather was among the crewmembers who died, said his feelings were complicated as he attended the event and shared memories.

“My forefather was 31, and in his prime, when he had the great honor of joining the elite of Miyako on board the tributary ship, but it ended with mortal tragedy.”

The tragedy was never forgotten, Nohara said, but his family had not been able to learn more about it until Matayoshi contacted his father and the families of other victims in the course of his research.

Family members were perplexed by the killing, while unaware of the similarly tragic implications for Taiwan’s aborigines, he said.

Matayoshi described the memorial ceremony as a way of comforting descendents of both groups of victims. “It is hoped their suffering will thus be relieved.”

While the ceremony was marked by harmony and reconciliation, efforts to allow the victims to speak for themselves and rediscover the truth must continue, organizers said.

In retrospect, Nohara said, the consequences of the incident remind him of Okinawa’s history under Japan, with severe discrimination and the assimilation of its unique culture. “Textbooks descriptions of the incident are still the simplistic, prewar version, and there is no contemporary interpretation.”

In Taiwan, academics have been examining historic artifacts, documents and textbooks to present a more accurate record of history. As Yang said, “This chapter needs to be rewritten from the perspective of Taiwan aboriginals, to do justice to those who suffered from ensuing political developments.”

As an example, he added, the inscription on the tombstone set up by Japan in 1872 in the cemetery contains anachronistic errors and a Japanese-centered view. “Such errors, resulting from ignorance of the actual history, must be corrected or explained.”

Other scholars suggested that research be dedicated to setting up a museum on the incident, which could be integrated with other historic, cultural and tourist resources in the area.

In November, Taiwan’s Control Yuan completed the first-ever official investigation of the related events from 1871 to 1874, requesting that government agencies act in the directions suggested by researchers.

Control Yuan Member Huang Huang-hsiung, who spearheaded the report, said the incident is an overture to Taiwan’s colonial era that has influenced generations of people on the island. “Present history books represent this period largely from the perspective of the Japanese, whose views were carried on by the postwar government in Taiwan in its disregard for indigenous culture.”

Huang said he would help create a platform where civilians and experts from both Taiwan and Okinawa can exchange their views and research.

“Let’s work toward peace, justice and reconciliation—while remembering that these are not possible without dialogue in the truth-finding process.”

This article first appeared in online Taiwan Today Dec. 26, 2011.

One-time activist dons renewable energy hat

A2peak Power’s building-integrated PV at the Taipei European School provides power and serves as a shelter for children come rain or shine. (Courtesy of A2peak Power Co. Ltd.)

By June Tsai

Japan’s recent crisis has shaken the myth of safe and clean nuclear energy. Appalled that such a catastrophe could occur in one of the most technologically advanced nations of the world, governments are re-examining the safety of this power source as citizens press for greater transparency on relevant policies.

In the midst of this emergency, Hu Shiang-ling, CEO of Taiwan’s solar panel manufacturer A2peak Power Co. Ltd., looks to Germany, where in regional elections at the end of March, voters responded to the Fukushima disaster by putting the anti-nuclear Green Party into power in coalitions with the Social Democrats.

This blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats came despite her recent reversal on pro-nuclear policy, when she temporarily closed down seven of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants in the aftermath of events in Japan.

In Hu’s view, the citizens of Germany, where she has lived for 15 years, cast their ballots to tell politicians what kind of future they want. “Democratic elections are not about lending support [to a candidate]. They are tools to monitor a government, and the Germans did just that,” she said.

“It is indeed up to a country’s people to decide whether they want nuclear power,” she said in a recent interview with Taiwan Today. “It is not a matter for experts to decide, whether they are pro- or anti-nuclear. It is a matter of politics in which citizens should have a role,” she said.

It may seem unusual in Taiwan for a business figure to make comments such as these, but Hu has gone from a concerned intellectual to advocate for renewable energy to active player in the photovoltaic (PV) industry.

Hu was a student of the sociology of science and technology in the early 1990s when the Taiwan government’s plan to build the fourth nuclear power plant on the northeastern coast, where two plants were already in operation, met strong civic resistance from Taiwan’s increasingly democratized society. Her graduate research focused on the nuclear debates of the time.

Hu was involved in the anti-nuclear movement, but also tried to understand the arguments of nuclear engineers and policymakers in their context. “As a researcher, I would not say which of the opposing sides was more persuasive scientifically for me as there was a basic incommunicability between nuclear engineers and opposing scientists,” she said.

Taiwan’s government eventually approved the budget for the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in 1994. Hu and her husband went to study in Germany around the same time.

Living in Germany, she began to realize what saving power really means and, gradually, how a nuclear-free homeland could be possible.

“You feel the pinch every time you switch on the power because of the high price of electricity,” she said. In Taiwan, a kilowatt-hour of electricity costs less than US$0.09, in comparison to Germany’s US$0.3. “The impact of one’s chosen way of living, that is, whether it was power-saving enough or not, is very real,” she said.

In 1999, shortly before Hu received her doctorate from the University of Bielefeld and assumed a teaching position in Bochum, the Taiwanese couple bought a 160-year-old farmhouse, a government-designated historic building, and began to repair it.

They took note of the local government’s rebates and low-interest loans for buildings that optimize energy supply and follow traditional building methods.

Having renovated their house in accordance with German law, they learned how traditional wisdom works in keeping a house warm. “Building materials and methods, down to details such as which way the house’s doors open, play a critical role, helping reduce energy consumption,” she said.

“We developed a brand new feeling about what an environmentally friendly way of life means, and finally understood that saving energy doesn’t mean we have to compromise the comfort we want in a home.”

Indoor lighting and air conditioning normally take up the lion’s share of a country’s total electricity consumption, Hu said. “But a comfortable life doesn’t entail consuming lots of energy to keep interiors warm, in Germany’s case, or cool, in Taiwan’s case. What we need is to follow nature’s way and provide a sensible support policy.”

Encouraged by their house restoration experience, Hu rallied dozens of people in January 2003 to build houses in an aboriginal village in Taiwan’s Nantou County for victims of the Sept. 21, 1999 earthquake.

A few months later she brought Taiwanese volunteers together with a German initiative constructing homes for victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Belarus.

She then collaborated on reconstruction projects in tsunami-devastated Ache province, Indonesia, in 2004, and a southern Taiwan aboriginal settlement damaged by Typhoon Morakot in 2009.

Rebuilding homes by bringing many people together and sourcing local materials and techniques became a kind of social movement for Hu, leading her out of school and into the life of the people. Her later involvement in the PV industry, one that embraces hope for the earth’s sustainability, has been a similar experience.

As she pursued her own path toward sustainable living, Germany’s spearheading of the movement to reduce dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels and provide incentive programs for alternatives, as well as the results it has achieved in the past 20 years, continued to impress her.

Germany launched support for solar energy development with its 1,000 solar roofs program in 1991, followed by the 100,000 roofs program in 1999, both offering loans for photovoltaic installments. The Renewable Energy Sources Act of 2000 enticed more individual investors and companies to PV through low-interest loans and buy-down programs, combined with a mandatory purchase requirement by public utilities.

The latest statistics show that renewable energy now provides 17 percent of Germany’s electricity, with 2 percent coming from solar PV. “The figure is expected to reach 50 percent by 2050, with 20 percent from solar energy,” Hu said. “Government measures help increase installed PV capacity, create demand, bring down costs and boost Germany’s PV industry development.”

Observing events in Germany, she realized that renewable energy combined with efficient and conservative energy use in houses and construction would be an ideal solution for her home country, which in 2009 relies on nuclear energy for 13 percent of its power and fossil fuels for almost 75 percent.

The opportunity to put her German experience into practice in Taiwan came when a German PV enterprise with technical expertise proposed a joint venture, eyeing Taiwan’s quality manufacturing capacity and prospective market. Thus A2peak Power was established in December 2006.

The PV modules produced by the company are highly regarded in the European market. The firm weathered the global economic recession of 2008 relatively unscathed, installing more production lines in 2009. Today, the company has 252 “green collar employees,” as Hu refers to them.

In a recent development, A2peak began supplying custom-made modules for building-integrated PV, or BIPV, and participating in local solar housing projects.

Regarding the local market, Hu pointed out that “six of the world’s top 10 solar cell suppliers are Taiwanese, but solar applications are few and far between on this subtropical island.” Although the Taiwan government passed its own Renewable Energy Act, it fails to provide supplementary measures and infrastructure to encourage investment or entice bank loans, she added.

Yet Hu is determined to demonstrate through her business that green energy makes both sense and money. “Economic development and environmental protection are compatible,” she said. “The PV, construction materials and architectural sectors would all benefit from policies such as those implemented in Germany,” she added.

“The harnessing, conversion and distribution of solar energy produce no noise, no waste, and require no potential or kinetic energies,” she said. In contrast, nonrenewable energies involve processing and waste disposal costs that have been constantly overlooked by policymakers, who argue that nuclear is the cheapest form of power, she said.

The most understated risk is the threat to human life and the environment. “I believe the safest technologies are those that the average person can understand without experts’ persuasion,” she said.

In the wake of the disaster in Japan, “it is no longer a matter of whether we are for or against nuclear power,” Hu said. “We just need to decide what consequences we can live with.”

This article first appeared in online Taiwan Today April 8, 2011.

Chiayi struggles to unlock prison history

By June Tsai

Japan’s colonization of Taiwan (1895-1945) brought with it the idea that prisons punish and rehabilitate, leaving a legacy of penal institutions and policies still influencing society today.

“Before the Japanese came, the most common penalties facing a convict were death or exile. The modern prison system is based on the practice of stripping a person of his bodily freedom, but focusing more on education than punishment,” according to Yang Meng-che, a comparative cultural studies specialist at National Taipei University of Education.

Japan copied the modern European penal system during the Meiji period in the 1880s, as part of the country’s modernization. “Prisons built on this new model were quickly reproduced in its colonies, Taiwan and South Korea, in the beginning of the 20th century,” Yang said.

Today Taiwan’s only surviving Japanese-era penitentiary is Chiayi Prison.

Built in 1922 and located in the center of Chiayi City, the now defunct institution is undergoing restoration. Under a Ministry of Justice plan, the structure will be transformed into a prison museum in the near future.

Everything about Chiayi Prison, from its spatial design and rehabilitation policies to the initiative to preserve it, speaks of Japanese influence.

Japan began constructing correctional facilities on the island in 1899, Yang said. The major prisons in Taipei, Taichung and Tainan were completed in 1904. In the following years, branches appeared in all parts of the island.

Chiayi Prison, completed in 1922, was affiliated with the Tainan complex. It continued to serve as a prison after World War II under Kuomintang rule.

Tracing the genealogy of Taiwan’s prisons, Yang pointed out similarities between the Chiayi facility and Japan’s most famous penitentiary, today’s Abashiri Prison Museum, on the east coast of Hokkaido.

The museum, on the Sea of Okhotsk, is a replication of the original penitentiary nearby, erected in 1890 to house inmates moved there to help build a road traversing Hokkaido and fortify the defenses of Japan’s northern territory.

Both prisons have a radial layout, with a central tower in the middle and cellblocks branching out from it. A guard standing watch in the tower commands a view down each corridor.

Abashiri Prison Museum Curator Hisayo Konno explained that the five-winged radial design was introduced after Meiji builders inspected the prison in Leuven, Belgium.

Another innovation was to surround the prison with farmlands. “During and after World War II, inmates were put to work at agricultural tasks, and Abashiri was so productive it even supplied food for prison populations throughout the country,” she said.

Japanese-built prisons in Taiwan were similarly designed to fulfill educational, correctional and production functions.

Factories and farms encircled the three cell wings of Chiayi Prison, Yang said. The design was intended to demonstrate the colonizers’ ability to institute civilized and constructive incarceration.

Yet there were differences, Yang noted. One was that prisons in Japan were required by law to be located at least four kilometers away from city centers. “But in Taiwan, for the convenience of the colonial rulers, new prisons were built within the precinct of official buildings and train stations.”

This choice of location, incidentally, led to latter-day conflicts between urban development and the preservation of local cultural heritage.

Most Japanese-era prisons have been demolished over the past 50 years, making way for public buildings, shopping malls and restaurants, while new prisons have been built outside of urban districts.

Chiayi Prison almost went down the same path. The MOJ put up a new facility in Lucao Township, Chiayi County, in 1994, and by 2000 the old prison had fallen into total disuse.

While some development-minded locals lobbied to demolish the penal complex and construct an international conference venue, some resident activists opposed the idea, calling on the government to turn it into a museum.

Yang helped invite experts from Abashiri Prison Museum and similar institutions in mainland China and South Korea to a conference in 2001 to discuss the preservation of Chiayi Prison. He also organized an art festival the next year showcasing inmate artwork.

The penitentiary was designated a national heritage site in 2005. Restoration work began in 2009 and is expected to be complete in September.

Chiu Ru-huei, a retired corrections officer with 30 years experience at Chiayi Prison and a participant in the local movement to preserve it, is optimistic about the historic, cultural and tourism value of a penal museum.

The four prison factories operated busily for many decades, making bamboo furniture and artifacts, as well as wool clothes and jeans for export, Chiu said. “They also supplied chairs, desks and notebooks for all elementary schools in Chiayi, and printed forms for the government,” she recounted.

“We hired the best local teachers to train inmates, hoping they would learn a skill to help them start a new life when they were released.”

Chiu said the Abashiri Prison Museum was made possible mainly because local people appreciated the inmates’ contribution to the development of the region.

“And Chiayi Prison is as storied as its Japanese counterpart,” Chiu said. “The prison structure and all the people associated with it are potential museum assets.”

Konno said the future Chiayi museum would be special in that it preserves the original location and apparatus of the prison, unlike the Abashiri museum.

“With the appropriate exhibition design and a well-researched narrative about the development of Taiwan’s prison system, it would be a successful museum,” she said.

The problem is that Taiwan realized the importance of preserving historic documents too late, said veteran Chiayi Prison official Lin Feng-tsai.

Though a thick book of documents from 1946 regarding Japan’s transferal of the prison to ROC government agents has survived, many more such papers from around the country have been lost or destroyed.

“In preparation for establishing the prison museum as the first of its kind in Taiwan, we have been making systematic efforts to collect and digitalize whatever materials are still available from Taiwan’s 43 prisons,” Lin said.

However, it is not yet clear who will run the prison museum once the restoration is complete, prison officials said.

Yang remarked that the Japanese prison museum has drawn millions of visits to Abashiri, a city of 42,000 people, since its establishment. “The keys are citizen awareness, government vision and museum professionalism,” he said.

The Chiayi Prison Museum could unlock the evolution of Taiwan’s penitentiary system, revealing its relationship with local industry and bringing the facts about life in the big house out from behind bars, Yang concluded.

This article first appears in online Taiwan Today March 4, 2011.