When we entered the Shankuang Estate, it was with a sense of curiosity about the urban Ami, and with the journalist's sense of mission to seek facts.
The Ami children with their long, curling eyelashes, their intelligent, artful eyes and their pure, sincere laughter, run about the quiet streets and alleys. Perhaps their innocent little souls have no way of understanding that before their parents came to toil in the city, they once lived proud and confident lives in the wild woods and mountains.
Perhaps their collision with city values has blurred the vision which the Ami brought with them. Although the community still maintains the traditional leadership ranks of tribal elder, headman and the like, their influence is not what it once was. One tribe member who holds a traditional rank in the community did not wish to tell us his profession, and would only say: "I do a bit of everything."
While interviewing residents on the estate, we were surprised to discover that they did not strongly identify with or particularly respect this traditional leadership figure. The main reason was because he earned his living as a taxi driver and formwork carpenter. Tribe members said that in the whole community, they could not find any leaders with the ideal qualities they would have wished for. An old hunter who in the mountains understood the movements of the heavens and the lie of the land and had the foresight to guide the people of his tribe towards good fortune and away from danger, is no longer a hero when transported to the plains. The heroes of life in the flatlands are people like company presidents or general managers, but where on the Shankuang Estate can one find an Ami company president?
It finally became clear to us what Hsu Mu-chu of Academia Sinica, whom we consulted before going to the estate, had really meant when he said: "I no longer have the heart to do research on the urban Ami people and their second generation." It was just that the more problems he uncovers, the more hurtful it is to the Ami themselves.