The first in a century
Three years ago, this associate professor with National Dong Hwa University (formerly Hualien Teachers College) became the first woman in 100 years to lead the offerings at the Hsiao Family Ancestral Hall in Shetou Township, Changhua County. While that memory remains important to many, Hsiao and her associates see it as only a small (though critical) milestone on the road to a hoped-for revolution in customs and culture.
When Hsiao received her PhD in education from Indiana University in the United States, her doting father, who worked for the Taiwan Railway Administration as an assistant driver, rushed to ask the head of the ancestral-hall management committee whether his daughter could someday lead the ancestral offerings. "PhD's can, but women can't," was the reply.
In 2006, Hsiao tried "discussing" the matter in person with a member of the Hsiao clan on the committee.
"Ancestral-hall sacrifices are without exception manifestations of patriarchal culture," explains Hsiao. Only men "of good moral standing and reputation" may make the offerings. Women are barred from participating in any capacity at all, and their names don't even appear on the gravestones or genealogies of their own natal family. (While married women are registered on the ancestor tablets of their husband's family, unmarried women belong to no one.)
Married but with no children of her own, Hsiao has a strong sense of justice and is not the kind of person to pull her punches. She decided to fight because she believed gaining women the right to participate in ancestral offerings would earn them a mention in family histories via the plaque hung inside the ancestral hall inscribed with the names of those who have led the ancestral offerings.
Taking things a bit further, having a woman lead the offerings would "open up the prospect of 'disenchantment.'" Hsiao explains that the people who control the "interpretation of ritual" have never considered its bias against women. Instead, they have often used fear that "if we don't do it this way, disaster will befall our children and grandchildren" to ensure that particular rituals are maintained unchanged. Most women are unable to bear such an accusation and unhappily submit. Hsiao wants to demonstrate through action that "anyone can ask the gods for good fortune, that the gods' blessings don't discriminate based on gender, but, like the rain, fall upon all."
After a year of struggle and study in which she learned how to walk on a stage and read ritual language, and became familiar with the ritual itself, Hsiao led the offerings on the 12th day of the first month of the lunar year in 2007. Because it marked the first time that a woman had led the offerings, many people not from the Hsiao clan came to watch, as did reporters from each of the major media outlets. The atmosphere was frenetic.
To help maintain the momentum, Hsiao and her partners in the Gender Equity Education Association shot a documentary film entitled Women's Light Shines On last April and have been screening it at schools around Taiwan ever since. To date, the film has been shown some 30 times.
Hsiao was encouraged when three elderly Hakka men from Puxin, Taoyuan County, each of whom has been the head of the ancestral offerings committee and executive director of their clan association, came up to express their gratitude at the end of the documentary's first screening. The old men said that Hsiao's actions for the public good had given them the courage three years ago to persuade reluctant clan members to support making offerings to an "auntie" (a term the Hakka use to describe an unmarried woman) who had passed away many years ago after making enormous contributions to their clan.