Women on the March--Hsiao Jau-jiun Pushes for a Revolution in Customs and Culture

Hsiao Jau-jiun, a university professor in her early 50s, visits first and second grade classes at Hualien's Jia Li Elementary School every week to practice talking to young children. Today, her topic is: "When do your parents use vulgar language?" The kids raise their hands excitedly, telling her "when they oversleep before work," "when they get into a car accident," "when they stumble while drunk," "when they argue with someone...." She then asks the kids to write down curse words they are uncomfortable saying and pass them to her. Next week, she says, they'll talk about what the words really mean.

The short-haired Hsiao has been a teacher for nearly 20 years, has a good rapport with students, and has a particular objective in mind with these weekly sessions. She explains that in spite of hearing vulgar language from childhood, we don't really understand it. Instead, we absorb and internalize it long before we begin to study vocabulary or develop thinking and reasoning skills. We therefore have to deconstruct the myths perpetuated by vulgar language at an early age. "Just as the patriarchy uses the punishment and denigration of women to establish its core customs and rituals," says Hsiao, "it uses vulgar language in the form of mockery and the disparagement of women-even self-sacrificing mothers!-to arouse men's sense of solidarity and superiority."

Hsiao encourages everyone to talk to family and friends. "Life can't be lived entirely in accord with rules and customs," she says.She's also learnes that one of the good things about being a daughter is that no matter how old you are you can always play the little girl with your parents, allowing you to broach difficult subjects such as death. Seated in the photo is one of Hsiao's graduate student.

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.

Having heard and collected innumerable stories about women in relation to custom and ritual, Hsiao's strongest feeling is that though the diligent work of many individuals has enabled passage of the Gender Equity in Education Act and the Gender Equity in Employment Act, the denigration of women is a custom and worldview that is beyond the reach of the state. It follows women from birth to even beyond the grave.

One woman, the eldest of three sisters, related a painful personal story after a screening of the documentary. When her mother passed away, the funeral home insisted that the transfer of the urn is traditionally the responsibility of the eldest son or grandson; a woman could not do it. The woman was therefore compelled to ask a cousin who lived far away and had never met her mother to carry the urn. Still more infuriating was that she was obligated to give her reluctant cousin an NT$600 honorarium for his help. Schooled by this painful experience, the woman said that when her father passed away, she made clear to her clan, "This is my father. I'm making all the decisions myself!" As a result, she transferred the urn herself while her husband held an umbrella and her daughter stood beside her during the very dignified ceremony.

"One of the most important functions of a [funeral] ceremony is to ease grief," says an angry and sympathetic Hsiao. "But this custom cruelly ignores women's needs and deprives them of their rights."

Hsiao usually encourages audiences and students to learn to communicate more effectively with their family members and to work to bring about a state of "disenchantment." For example, one of her students had a matchmaker change the "take leave of your parents" part of the marriage ceremony to "thank your parents." "Women shouldn't have to cut ties with their natal families when they get married," she argues. "The marriage ceremony should be a time to express your love and gratitude to them."

"All customs are human constructs," says Hsiao. Though she vows to be active in the women's movement even into the afterlife, Hsiao has always enjoyed open dialogue with men and women from all walks of life. And when an audience member (usually a man) asks: "If your ancestors really do curse you [resulting in sickness or an accident], what will you do?" she tells them, "It's OK. I've got health insurance!

Whenever someone asks Hsiao about the fallout from a woman leading the ceremonies at the Hsiao ancestral hall, she tells them, "So many non-Hsiao have come to see the place the it's become even more prosperous!"