952 Vazay Tamo: The Voice of Orchid Island

It’s the end of a summer day, and a cool ocean breeze only heightens the pleasure felt by travelers and tourists. After getting off the boat at Kai­yuan Harbor, we follow the round-the-island highway north until we get to Ira­ra­ley Village. Located at the northernmost tip of Orchid Island, Ira­ra­ley, one of six villages on the island, is the one which has most successfully preserved the cultural traditions and language of the island’s residents, the Aboriginal Tao people.

We walk a short distance to a small house, in which journals and reference materials of all kinds are scattered about here and there, while off to one side there is a stack of Issue #3 of 952 Vazay Tamo.

The title 952 Vazay Tamo is a composite of the postal code for Orchid Island, 952, plus the Tao words “vazay tamo,” which can be translated as “our issues, our job.” This “job” has brought six young women from very different backgrounds together on this small island.

Taking an offshore perspective

After a busy day, the editors, whose own work remains still hanging unfinished over their heads, kindly rush back to the little house to be interviewed for this article. Managing director Jamie Wu, the original moving force behind the magazine, opens the conversation by relating that she got her inspiration from the independent Japanese quarterly Ri­to­kei (which also has a website, ritokei.com).

Wu explains that this innovative publication, which deals with all matters great and small that concern Japan’s offshore islands, has been getting great reviews on Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet platforms. Taiwan, in contrast, had no parallel type of media, but she found that Lanyu has just the right conditions to produce such a magazine. Last winter, when she first brought up her idea to a few friends, they immediately jumped on the bandwagon, and—each bringing her own skill set—formed a full complement of staff for 952 Vazay Tamo.

Editor-in-chief Lu Szu-ying was originally a reporter for a local Orchid Island biweekly newsletter. Si Mat­naw, who handles all the visual representation of the magazine single-handedly, previously worked in a design company. Si Oya­tan is a self-taught illustrator whose drawings meld the traditional and the contemporary, enriching and injecting vitality into the content at just the right moments. Jamie Wu, who came to Lanyu to do research, is tasked with handling all affairs with the outside world. And si Na­met, whose father is an expert on local culture and history and whose mother teaches Tao language courses in school, is the main liaison for connecting the group with traditional Tao culture.

Of the six, Lu, Wu, and Lin Mu­yin are Han Chinese from Taiwan proper, while si Oya­tan, si Na­met, and si Mat­naw, all Tao indigenous people, are good friends who grew up together as children on Orchid Island. With half the crew from Taiwan and the other half from ­Lanyu, 952 Vazay Tamo takes the perspective of both worlds into account. The name of the magazine itself was a flash of light produced by this “rubbing two sticks together” kind of interaction.

When the Tao-language name Vazay Tamo was proposed for this first-ever magazine to speak for Orchid Island, the whole team enthusiastically embraced it without objection. But there was a rather heated debate about including the numerals 952 in the moniker. Jamie Wu felt that the orientation and differentiation of the ’zine was already abundantly clear from having chosen a name in the Tao language, and there was no real point in adding a set of numerals. But for most residents of Orchid Island, says si Namet, “952 is a number inseparably linked to our homeland.”

Since Orchid Island doesn’t have the greatest education system, most young people leave the island after graduating from middle school to pursue further education or find jobs. Because they are living in temporary rented accommodations in these cases, important documents and letters generally get mailed to their family homes on ­Lanyu. “For anyone from Orchid Island, when a letter has your name on it and also the 952 postal code, everyone in the family will know it is something important and will contact you, and when you finally get it yourself, the 952 is like a symbol of where you really live, because that’s where the most important mail goes,” says si Namet. And Jamie Wu adds, “In Taiwan, a postal code is just a number, but for many young people who have left ­Lanyu, it constitutes an important element in the collective memory.”

Keeping it light, focusing on youth

A lot of writing about localities like Orchid Island is dominated by a mood of melancholic nostalgia for a disappearing­ indigenous culture, or focuses on the depressing facts that such remote places are relatively poor, have worse schools, have lower standards of healthcare, are neglected by politicians, and so on, at least in comparison to big cities.

From the fact that the editors of Vazay Tamo chose an Aboriginal name, you might think they also would be focused on sobering, worrisome issues like these. But the members of the 952 team do not want a periodical that is relentlessly somber. “We hope that the composition of the magazine will be one-third culture, one-third perspectives, and one-third devoted to humor, lighter subjects, or positive human interest stories,” says si Na­met. The lives of indigenous people—both those trying to preserve their culture and those focused on succeeding in the modern world—need not always be reported in a grim, stereotypical way.

When the first issue of 952 Va­zay Tamo came out in February, it didn’t have a single image of a ta­tala, the traditional Tao fishing boat that is iconic but also—by now—a tired cliché. Nor were there any traditional artistic or craft motifs. Instead, the editing team boldly chose to go with a bright red color scheme, and they deliberately have given the magazine a youthful vitality. “We want to convey what young people on Orchid Island have to say.”

The first issue’s cover had the question, “What is your name?” The editors asked a dozen or so young islanders to trace the origins of their own Aboriginal names. Si Mat­naw says that your name is the first thing you have to say when you meet someone for the first time and want to introduce yourself. But most young Tao people on Orchid Island—who also all have Chinese names that are used for most official matters like school, health insurance, or military service—are unaware of where their names come from. So the publishers chose tracing Aboriginal names as the entrée for young people to start to understand their own culture.

An example of 952’s mission as the voice of young people is manifested in their coverage of whether 7-Eleven should have been allowed to open a convenience store on the island, an issue that had been much covered by the outside media. Si Namet says that when the news first came out that the chain was planning to open a franchise on ­Lanyu, outside commentators produced a wave of sound and fury, but there was not one story about what local people thought. Not a single voice from Orchid Island itself could be heard in the uproar. Therefore the first issue of 952 includes an article entitled, “About 7-Eleven Coming to ­Lanyu, Here’s What I’d Like to Say….” in which local people could—after the fact—at last express their personal views.

Through rain and sleet and gloom of night….

People have asked, “Is it really viable to run a publication on a small offshore island?” The three quixotic young Taiwanese and the three young Orchid Island natives who love their hometown have proven that the answer is yes.

Jamie Wu says that at the beginning they were just six like-minded friends who thought it would be fun and interesting to do something different and meaningful. Even since they started publishing, they haven’t devoted much effort to marketing; they just rely on Facebook and that’s about it. Yet, amazingly enough, their first print run of 500 copies sold out in a flash, and they have had to rush around getting more magazines printed just to keep up with all the people who are asking them for more.

Besides finding unanticipated popularity with readers in Taiwan, 952 Vazay Tamo has brought out a real sense of pride in Orchid Island residents. Si Namet explains that for many years Lanyu only had that biweekly newsletter as its sole home-grown news source. But the hip and up-to-date style of 952 not only has won over young people with its fresh new approach, “You can see even people who rarely ever read anything at all with a copy of our magazine in hand.”

For people living in Taiwan, it’s not actually that difficult to publish a magazine. But on ­Lanyu, even if you have figured out a way around all the geographic and human-resource obstacles, just coordinating schedules is a real ordeal. In fact, says Wu, “The night we decided to start up the magazine was the only time the six of us have ever been in a room together.” With each of them having their own jobs and coming from scattered locations, “We’ve never once had a repeat of that situation of everyone on the staff being gathered together at the same time.”

During the phase when they were coming up with the first issue, their “meeting places” were the local 7-Eleven, restaurants run by friends, roadside shops…. and despite having no fixed office space they were able to handle all operational decisions via the Internet. But that doesn’t mean that the real world hasn’t affected them. In fact, one of their biggest challenges in publishing on time has been the age-old one of weather.

In July, as they were frantically writing, editing, and doing the layout work for their coming issue, a typhoon hit and all of ­Lanyu lost electrical power and running water. And just in the few days before our interview, they experienced online connection issues because of unstable weather conditions. They had to turn on three computers and duplicate transmitting documents on all three just to make sure at least one would get through, and any activity that threatened to affect transmission speed was prohibited.

Considering how well these friends get along, it’s not surprising to observe that as they discuss editorial issues their conversation often digresses to other topics. But when they do focus on the subject at hand, they are very professional, and take their work very seriously. With three issues under their belts, everyone on the team—all of whom can only do their research, reporting, interviews, and writing during their after-work hours from their regular jobs—is exhausted. “I once heard somebody say that if you want to really squeeze the life out of someone, put them in charge of a magazine. We’re living proof of that,” says Wu.

Recently, local magazines have also popped up in Hua­lien, Kao­hsiung, Tai­nan, and other places, showing there is plenty of vitality in society outside major urban areas. But Wu warns, “To see 952 Va­zay Tamo strictly through the stereotype of the ‘local paper’ is absolutely not the whole story.”

For many young people on Orchid Island, 952 Va­zay Tamo is a call to arms, urging them to pay more attention to the traditional culture of their home island and to the modern issues that affect it. For Taiwanese, few of whom have any depth of understanding of ­Lanyu, the magazine is a start on educating them about not only the island’s traditional culture but, even more importantly, its youth and their contemporary lives. This trailblazing periodical can be a vehicle transcending time and space, bridging the waters that separate ­Lanyu from Taiwan, and giving a voice—for the first time—to the Aboriginal people of this island.

Orchid Island has jade-green ocean water, azure skies, and traditional Tao culture… all that is true. But it also has young people striving to make it in today’s modern world, and 952 Vazay Tamo sees the world through their eyes. Written with a light touch and embellished with creative illustrations, it offers a new take on a traditional indigenous community.

Out of a shared love of Orchid Island, three young people from Taiwan have joined forces with three young locals to create the first-ever magazine that speaks for the young people of the island. Pictured here are four of the half-dozen founders.

There’s an old joke about places with rapidly changing climates: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” It definitely applies to Lanyu. But the publishers of 952 Vazay Tamo have not only defied inclement weather, they’ve overcome the absence of any printing company on Orchid Island to get each issue into the hands of readers on schedule.

Si Tagahan, a young man who has returned to Lanyu, sets out his fishing nets as another day begins.

As the local tourism industry has grown, many young people have been coming to Lanyu during the peak tourist season to work, and indeed some have even chosen not to leave the island at all but to remain here permanently. There is a feeling of youthful vigor in the air on Orchid Island!

Freshly caught flying fish drying in the sun in front of a home, a traditional Tao fishing boat (known as a tatala)… these are iconic images of Lanyu. 952 Vazay Tamo brings a new perspective to its reports on traditional indigenous culture here, eschewing the doom and gloom that dominates so much reporting about Aboriginal peoples.