Episode 39 Taiwanese Instruments

Taiwanese Instruments

Indigenous Taiwan Instruments made by Labaga Taru of the Truku Tribe

📍Taiwan

Thoughts and Reflections

Origins and evolution of culture are endlessly fascinating to me. I knew that it would be incredibly important to visit an indigenous instrument maker when visiting Taiwan, to get a glimpse of this culture that, frankly, has been massively dwarfed by the Han Chinese culture. It is a culture that has existed on the island for thousands of years, with rich histories that were systematically dismantled over hundreds of years. One study showed that most of the Han Chinese inhabitants of Taiwan have a little bit of Indigenous blood, testament to the intermixing over centuries, like my father, who has 5% indigenous blood (according to a DNA test).

It was great to have Scott come with me; he was a friend that I made while he briefly lived in Japan. He lives in Taiwan, so it was great to catch up with him. Incidentally, this was the episode where I've had to speak the most Chinese, which was definitely tough. While I speak fairly natively, ironically, it is Scott who likely has the wider vocabulary, as he lived in China/Taiwan for about 12+ years, studied the language pretty intensely, and of course, writes fiction and non-fiction about China. So, anyway, I could really maybe only understand 80-90% of what was spoken to get the gist. There were so many moments that I did not react appropriately. For instance, Labaga was talking about the history of beheading (which I had no idea about before he mentioned it), but he used a word that (understandably) I don't understand, and I just kinda reacted like :) "okay sure".

Incidentally, I just came back from a big trip to Indonesia, mostly to film videos to make a huge mega-Indonesia video for my channel soon. Especially the area I visited was primarily settled by the Austronesians (which ultimately originated from Taiwan). So a few of the instruments and customs still persist in these Indonesian cultures, such as making the same exact 4-tone xylophones, and the beliefs surrounding headhunting. I wasn't expecting these connections, but it made me realize how persistent traditions are even after likely thousands of years. 

Anyways, it was a pleasure to visit Labaga and it's amazing the work that he's doing; I think it's incredibly important that people recognize their heritage and culture, and making the effort to uncover and appreciate it. In this example, the majority of the Taiwanese people having some indigineous blood needing to appreciate part of their culture.