Taiwan Today

Nearly 100 foreign students attended the 2016 Joint Aboriginal Harvest Festival hosted by Hualien County Government in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Tzu Chi University July 23-24. Hualien in eastern Taiwan is home to members of six major indigenous tribes, namely the Amis, Bunun, Kavalan, Sakizaya, Sediq and Truku. Each tribe has its own rich culture, heritage and language, and they all hold harvest festivals from around mid-July to September every year to express gratitude to their ancestral spirits and Mother Nature through song and dance. This year’s festival was designed to give foreign students a glimpse of Taiwan’s many cultures while helping them further their Mandarin studies, and included many aspects of each tribe’s unique festivals. The foreign students participating in the event attend 16 colleges in Taiwan, and come from countries as varied as Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Panama, Poland, St. Lucia, Thailand, the U.S., Uzbekistan and Vietnam. On the first day of the festival, the foreign students learned basic phrases in Mandarin and various tribal languages, watched educational videos about local cultures and customs, and played a series of games. One of the most popular activities was called “Great Reporters,” and involved the students interviewing participants on camera and streaming the footage on Facebook. The second day involved a visit to the aboriginal lands around Mukumuyu, a breathtaking valley with steep walls of rock hovering over a river of crystal-clear water. The students learned the basics of aboriginal archery techniques, weaving and knife making. They also attended presentations on the local ecology. In 2013, the MOE launched the “Eight-year Plan for Mandarin Chinese Education.” According to the ministry, 18,645 foreign students came to Taiwan to study Mandarin in 2015, up from 15,526 in 2014. Moreover, the U.S. State Department has selected 20 elite students for its Critical Language Scholarship Program to study Mandarin for eight weeks at the Language Center of National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City, southern Taiwan. (WF-JG) Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw