Bekah, now Baihe: Being Atayal

Fake pearls hung down in strands from her red and purple headband, milky arrows pointing down to the black lines tattooed on her cheeks. Beneath, stripes of red and purple weave intermingled down her torso; then, after a break for a pair of pale knees, down her legs, to the terminal point: a pair of black Converse. I looked in the mirror at the strange, confused apparition looking back, blonde hair strangely camouflaged with the headband that surrounded it; pale complexion not quite meshing with the garishly bright colors of the costume. I was no Atayal. But it was fun to try to look like one.

Today consisted almost entirely in moments like this, moments of fun and cognitive dissonance as I learned about Taiwan's aboriginal cultures and pondered my own mixed colonizer-and-colonized heritage at the Taiwan Indigenous Culture Park in Pingtung.

Heavy historical identity notes aside, though, it was a lot of fun! James, Margaret, Emily and I watched a singing and dancing performance in the style of the Amis people; we wandered around looking at the many traditional architectures of Taiwan (my favorite is that of the Rukai, which features stacked slate, though the Amis' raised bamboo great rooms are pretty cool as well); we (okay, I) swang on a swing designed way back in the day to keep kids from messing up traditional ceremonies; we made music on traditional instruments; we laughed about the fact that every single replica house had a modern fire extinguisher inside and in easy sight; we tried on chime backpacks and danced around with them on; we saw and heard traditional firecrackers be set off; and, yes, we put on temporary tattoos and traditional clothes and took pictures.