Results from the 2000 Second National Community Website Design Competition were made public on September 9, 2000. The winner of this special honor-in their first year of participation-was the Piyouma tribe of Paiwan, indigenous people living in Pingho Village, Taiwan Rural Township, Pingtung County.

Success on the first try

The sponsoring organization, a foundation called the Youth Community Development Center, or UCOM for short, relates that more than 400 community websites entered the competition. Of these, about 100 passed through the preliminary screening. In the finals, the organizers selected one winner, with four runners-up and five honorable mentions.

Reasons given for awarding the prize to the Piyouma site were that "it actively reports on the daily lives of community residents and has a great vitality to it!" Judges pointed to the fact that the website shows new information every day, has a high level of interactiveness, is very effective in fulfilling the functions of a community website, and focuses on the practical daily lives of residents.

UCOM project specialist Jamie Chang says that websites were scored on five criteria: content, interactiveness, creativity, home page design, and user-friendliness. The Piyouma website particularly excelled in the content category, getting uniformly enthusiastic reactions from judges for its combination of traditional Paiwan culture and reports on church, community, school, and tribal activities.

The first competition was held in 1999, and this year there was a sharp increase in participation. Jamie Chang points out that the total of 439 entries this year is more than double the 200 or so the first year. There was an even more impressive improvement in quality. Lu Ping-yi of the Mama Tsuei Housing Service Association, who was one of the judges, states that this year website operators were generally more thorough and the content of the websites had improved greatly. The sharp increases in both quantity and quality were very gratifying to the sponsors.

"The only disappointment," says Jamie Chang, "was that websites that looked particularly good in the first year of competition had changed hardly at all by the second year." She says that the most difficult aspect of operating a community website is maintaining enthusiasm.

Cegaw, who started out with no particular computer skills but unbounded enthusiasm, single-handedly completed the Piyouma website.

What's it all about?

So what after all are community websites?

The answer involves dividing the term into its two component parts: community and website. Starting with the latter, any good website must meet the generally accepted technical standards for the genre, such as sharpness of images, clarity of options offered on the home page, attractiveness of design, and so on. Key criteria for evaluating a website include content, relevance and timeliness of data, as well as interactivity.

When "community" is added to the mix, the primary "design formula" becomes the display of the special characteristics of the given community. Many of this year's award winners, including Piyouma, Wantan, and Wukou, are aboriginal or Hakka websites. Such communities have the innate advantages of rich non-mainstream traditional cultures, and can feature novel or unusual local customs. Therefore, these communities have more raw material to work with in constructing a website.

Jamie Chang says that it is difficult to find much community character or solidarity among residents in anonymous and densely populated city apartment blocks. In contrast, in the countryside and the villages of indigenous tribes, the community already has a number of unique characteristics, and the lives of its members are mainly quite similar, so it is more likely that the websites for these places can successfully serve as a focal point for a sense of community consciousness.

The nightly church-sponsored activities are at the heart of village life, and are the focal point around which residents socialize and communicate. The photo shows a discussion group for tribal elders.

The birth of the Piyouma site

If you go to the Piyouma website (http://paiwan.tacocity.com.tw/pm-0.htm), you will find that it could take you a very long time to get through the more than 30 pages available, not to mention the "current events" news on the home page. No wonder competition judges were so knocked out by the richness of the content!

Text and pictures cover everything from Paiwan culture and the history of tribal relocation to computer education updates and school, church, and community development. So who gets the credit for creating this amazing website? How much time did it take to create?

The answers are that this is the work of a single man, who began operating the site only in October of 1999. This man, who has become a legend in his own time among his people, had virtually no specialized computer knowledge at all when he started out. He relied upon only a deep love for his tribe and culture to transcend his limitations and accomplish the task on his own.

In April of 1999, Cegaw (Lai Yueh-han), a teacher at the Wutan Primary School in Pingho Village, taking advantage of a program offered by the Ministry of Education, began taking classes in website management and web page design at the Pingtung Institute of Technology. Over his three months of study, Cegaw discovered the addictive quality of the Internet, and was inspired to use the Net to speak out on behalf of tribal culture. Cegaw created his very first website-called Paiwan Millet Field-at the end of a gestation period that coincided with the course.

Soon thereafter, in October of 1999, Cegaw applied for free website hard-drive space at taconet. Then he began to key in data, one Chinese character at a time, which included cultural and historical materials he had been collecting over a long period, a study of the Paiwan indigenous people written by his younger brother Vuluk, and numerous photographs of village life taken over the years by Lampaw (Kung Teh-hsing). The website opened in mid-October of 1999. Cegaw relates that "in order to put things that happen in the village every day online, it was common for me to be at home working on the website until one or two in the morning." He reveals that he spent at least NT$3,000-4,000 a month staying online.

In order to share the website with other village residents, Cegaw decided that the Pingho Presbyterian Church, the institution in the village with the most financial and human resources, should manage the website. As he explains: "The Presbyterian Church is the main focus of faith for 95% of the tribe. The people trust the church because of its efforts over the years to preserve Paiwan culture and for its open and tolerant attitude." Thus, this February, after Cegaw explained his reasoning to them, the villagers unanimously voted to formally convert the Piyouma community website into the church website.

Stone houses are a unique aspect of traditional Paiwan culture.

Three students, one machine

After the opening of the site, Hung Chih-ching, principal of the Wutan Primary School, generously offered use of the Pingho branch-school computer lab so that Cegaw could offer a three-month class in computers. Through the course, members of the Piyouma tribe, young and old alike, learned how to use the Net and became familiar with the tribal website. Cegaw relates: "In class some of the older people broke into big smiles when they saw their own pictures on the website, while at the same time they were beginning to develop understanding and acceptance of the Internet." The class was so popular it was common to see three students at a time on each of the ten or so computers in the lab.

In addition, every Sunday at church, Cegaw began delivering a "website work report." In this report he tells those who don't have much chance to go online about the progress of the latest pages, about messages left on the site, and about reporters who have come to inquire about the site. Cegaw says that people leave messages about all kinds of things: "Children who have left home to study want to tell everyone they are doing fine; people get married or have children; students go on trips; the media carries some report of local interest... and there are pictures as well. Not only can people receive this information immediately, everyone can share in others' happiness all at the same time."

"Ever since I started up the site, people have been calling me 'site leader,' 'site leader'!" says an amused Cegaw. He also tells us that many young people, having taken the Internet class, now visit nearby Internet cafes to go online.

The children running about on the playing field of the branch primary school in the Piyouma village of Pingho can enjoy the fun of the outdoors as well as absorbing modern culture.

Live to the world

The people of Piyouma perhaps only really understood the "incredible power" of the Net when the tribe held their "Authentic Paiwan Song, Dance, and Arts" event. This was when the practical life of the village was first linked directly into the virtual world.

The Presbyterian Church, working with Cegaw and the Pingho Community Development Association, aiming to further exploit the possibilities of the Net, held the Authentic Paiwan event in mid-June. Activities focused on local handicrafts, scenery, traditional culture, and individuals of interest. For example, there was a traditional foods walkabout fair in the fields, a display of handicraft articles, an introduction to the local kapok tree, and "field opera." "When tribal elders saw the performance, they said that this was really the way our life used to be, and they were moved to tears," says Cegaw.

The event was heavily promoted through the website, and on the day of the event (June 11) more than 1,000 people came to the village to attend. Mayor Vikun (Sun Hsin-yung) was impressed that this little community, which had never done anything to promote itself as a tourist attraction, could attract so many people, strengthening his conviction that through the Net, as he says with a smile, "a small village can speak to the world."

The enthusiastic response to the Authentic Paiwan event prompted the Piyouma tribe to take the further step of holding another event of the same type, this one scheduled for December 24 and 25, when the flowers of the kapok trees will be blossoming like snow-white cotton. This will be another chance for friends from around the world to experience the richness of Paiwan culture and the enthusiasm of the Piyouma people.

The Presbyterian Church has long been the center of faith in the community, and now is also a center for cultural extension and Internet information.

Village matters large and small

"This website gives me the feeling of being back home again!" Many young people from Piyouma who have moved far away from home to work or study have left messages like this on the website.

Luwan (Sun Kuang-chao), daughter of the mayor, says that it is possible for people from the tribe to get up-to-the-minute information from home through the site, so that "even if they are far away, now that we have the website, it is like being in the village, without any distance separating them!" She says that many people have been moved to tears by the website.

The mayor says, in all seriousness: "I advise Cegaw not to get carried away. We don't have any aspirations to use the Internet to do great things. Sharing the latest news is already the best thing for us!" The Piyouma site stood out from the crowd in the competition largely because of this simple, homey, human focus on ordinary life in the community. For Cegaw, winning an award for something so close to his heart and home is "something I'll never forget as long as I live."

In fact, though members of the tribe were enthusiastic about participating in the competition, even Cegaw thought that many other sites were better, and that the chances of a prize were remote. Residents were astonished by the news that the site was named as one of the 100 to get through the preliminary round. When they made the final ten, a sense of excitement began to permeate the village. Cegaw could hardly wait to tell everyone that they had won the top prize. "When I reported the news, everyone was delighted and laughing, and some elders were so moved they even wept. The mayor killed a hog and invited the whole tribe to a celebratory feast."

In 1941 the forestry bureau of the Japanese colonial government planted 2000 kapok trees here. Nearly sixty years later, you can see the forest from the trees.

Cegaw, "you are a man"!

Lamayaw (Wen Hsin-lin), minister at the Pingho Presbyterian Church, says that the site "makes it possible to spread the word about tribal culture." In fact, the church, which plays an important role in the village, has long been working to preserve and spread Paiwan culture.

In church activities, people worship using the Paiwan language and consume traditional foods. There is a Paiwan-language Bible, which, Lamayaw explains, "has always been the focus of efforts to preserve and extend tribal culture." Now, "it will be possible to extend and promote traditional culture through the Internet." He hopes to truly put technology to the service of culture.

"Because no Han Chinese have settled here, and the location is very remote, village life has changed very little since the relocation in 1968," Lamayaw relates. But given the dramatic changes in the larger environment, young people from the tribe who are conscious of what is going on have begun to worry about the cultural development of the tribe.

"Old people always just say, 'that's the trend of the times,'" says Cegaw, "but we don't want to let our culture disappear. Indeed, we want to make it more competitive." This desire to preserve traditional culture that went for so long unarticulated is finally being aired through the Internet. "You could say that the website is the crystallization of hopes and efforts over the years."

"Cegaw, you are a man!" This sentence is the highest form of respect for the Paiwan people, and is an address of honor that village elders have used with Cegaw ever since he single-handedly created the community website. In our interview, Cegaw repeatedly expressed his gratitude for the unreserved support that the tribe has given to the website, and says that human contacts are the key to a successful community website. Watching Cegaw happily introducing the website to one Paiwan person after another, I decided to include it among my "Favorite Bookmarks." From time to time, through this little Paiwan website, I can remind myself that the virtual world is not without real warmth.

For Paiwan people, there is great glory in returning from the hunt with a hoofed animal, especially a fierce wild boar. Wild boars are a serious problem for villagers, because the animals trample and eat the crops, causing considerable losses. （photo by Lampaw）

Millet has special significance for the Paiwan. Millet bound into long dumplings, called avai a kinpelj, is considered the most elegant of foods. No occasion is complete without food made with millet.

Taro is a traditional crop in the Piyouma community.

The famous anthropologist Hu Tai-li filmed the documentary "Love for the Paiwan Flute" in Piyouma, recording the moving music created by Lavuras （Chiang Chung-hsin） on the nose flute. Lavuras' grandson Kapituwan （Chiang Chun） performed on this traditional instrument at the Sydney Olympics. Cultural treasures like this one are free for all to see on the Piyouma website.