Tiway Sayion-Taiwan's First Aboriginal School Principal

Shuilien is a small village that sits beside the East Coast Highway in Hualien County. The small and wiry Tiway Sayion sometimes drives there in his white Ford to visit with his tribespeople, but he spends most of his time in his small cabin in the mountains. The cabin, located about one mile off the main road, lacks both a telephone and even a number on the door. There, Tiway Sayion spends his time looking at the scenery, reading and thinking about the future of his tribe.

Coming home

When Tiway Sayion retired from his position as principal of Hualien's Tafalong Primary School after a teaching career that spanned 45 years, his first act was to realize a long-cherished dream-he returned to the tribal community where he was born and built a cabin in which to live.

Tiway Sayion's simple 20-ping cabin is laid out with the kitchen and bathroom on the right and the bedroom on the left. The center is his living room, furnished with only a sofa and bookshelves. In one corner stands a small blackboard on which he has romanized words and expressions he has heard the elders of his tribe use, words and expressions from a language on the verge of being lost. A Dalmatian with gleaming fur welcomes us by standing up and planting its paws on our chests. A tiger-striped cat plays with a similarly patterned kitten, bounding through all parts of the house, prompting Tiway Sayion to joke that he has "four mouths to feed."

The view outside the sliding glass door is of forest-covered hills. To the left, the blue of the Pacific Ocean contrasts with the green of the trees. The site provides a clear view of the hills opposite, where another hundred-odd members of the Shuilien community live between the mountains and the sea. The cabin's location reveals the solicitude with which Tiway Sayion regards his tribespeople. He says simply, "This was my grandfather's home."

Sitting in his living room. Tiway Sayion reminisces on the last 60 years. He recalls that there used to be a constant flow of tribespeople through the living room of his family's home, with folks gathering for meetings or just to chat. Although Japanese colonial rule extended deep into the mountains at the time of Tiway Sayion's birth in 1931, the tribal leader's family was still held in high regard.

Commenting on that period, Tiway Sayion says, "The Japanese brought three things with them wherever they went-post offices, Shinto shrines and primary schools." He notes that the Japanese Imperial education of those days was very thorough. All the children who lived in the mountains attended primary school and spoke only Japanese in class. Tiway Sayion says he never questioned his identity as a citizen of Japan's "China Island."

Tiway Sayion began his studies at Shuilien Elementary at the age of nine, and was a member of the last class to graduate under Japanese rule-in that year Japan lost the Second World War and returned Taiwan to Chinese rule.

Bopomofo

How did the return to Chinese rule affect Taiwan's aborigines?

"We children were distraught because our teachers had always told us-sobbing while they spoke-how bad the US was, how bad Chiang Kai-shek was, and how wonderful our lives would have been if one day the Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere had come into being. . . ." This political doctrine, presented to the children by their teachers with sincerity, seriousness and even refinement, resonated deeply within them. Tiway Sayion feels teachers in Taiwan today lack this power to stir the hearts of their students.

So how did Tiway Sayion, who did not know a word of Mandarin until the age of 14, enter the field of education? He laughs and says he was fortunate in that his father was a leader of broad experience and knowledge who was willing to let him stay in school for one more year even though he had already received a Japanese diploma. Tiway Sayion thus was among the first students to nominally graduate from primary school after Taiwan's return to the ROC. During his "extra" year, Tiway Sayion relied on his slight knowledge of Taiwanese and the few Chinese characters that he had gleaned from his Japanese education to get by. Then, after a year spent struggling to understand his teacher's heavily accented Chinese, Tiway Sayion passed the Hualien Normal School's entrance examination and began his studies there.

"The examination tested mostly mathematics, so it wasn't hard. The portion which tested our Chinese consisted of only a few questions: 'What is the pronunciation of the characters for the Republic of China?' 'Which province do you live in?' 'Who is the provincial governor?' 'Which country are you now a part of?' 'Who is the president?'" Tiway Sayion laughs and asks how you could not pass when that sort of thing was being beaten into your head everyday.

Six years later, Tiway Sayion graduated with a teaching degree and began teaching in remote mountain areas of the island. At the age of 27, he returned to Shuilien Primary School as its principal, becoming the ROC's first aborigine to serve as a school principal. The event caused quite a stir in the village. Unfortunately, formal notification of his promotion to principal came too late for his father, who passed away two months before it was announced. Tiway Sayion has regretted this his entire life. Also regrettable is that in the half century since the ROC government moved to Taiwan, only five or six aborigines have served as principals at Hualien's more than 100 primary schools, in spite of the fact that aborigines make up some 24% of the county's population.

Ami songs echo through Tafalong

Success at a young age did not translate into a high position for Tiway Sayion. Although he worked at nine schools during his career, and served as principal of six of these, with only one exception, all of his work was at primary schools with limited resources in impoverished mountain areas. Of the nine, Tafalong-the last school at which he worked before retiring-was the largest, with a staff of 27 teachers.

"Sometimes, seeing my classmates from Hualien Normal settling into positions in the city, I could only cry on the inside." Tiway Sayion speaks frankly about the still widespread discrimination against aborigines, and says that his lack of an "old boy" network, inability to engage in backroom intrigues and relative disinterest in aiding election campaigns meant that he could only watch as jobs went to less qualified and less experienced persons.

But during his tenure at Tafalong, Tiway Sayion set a number of precedents and became a focus of local media attention. Today, Tafalong remains a shining star among primary schools with a largely aboriginal student body.

Tiway Sayion says that when he arrived at Tafalong-then known as Peifu Primary School-in 1993, he was 62 years old, very experienced and mature in his thinking. In addition, the trend towards more liberal educational methods had begun, allowing him to break free of the old ways. After years of seeing aboriginal children lose confidence in themselves because they were overwhelmed by coursework, after seeing them supported with one hand while being knocked down with the other, Tiway Sayion felt that he had to find a new way to teach them.

Peifu Primary School is located in Tafalong Village in Hualien's Hsiulin District. More than 90% of its 300-plus students are members of the Ami tribe. As principal of the school, Tiway Sayion not only maintained its tradition of baseball excellence, he also pushed ahead with a program of collecting and teaching traditional Ami songs, to the surprise and delight of many parents. In addition, he vigorously promoted Ami pottery, woodcarving and dance at the school, which won three consecutive national championships in dance at the primary-school level.

Interestingly, Tafalong's renowned woodcarving program had humble origins. Tiway Sayion recalls that aboriginal children were often called in as "extras" for the performance of "The Eight Generals" during temple festivals because of their strength and their obedience to their elders. Tiway Sayion says the children were easily coached if given something nice to eat.

Recognizing that the children needed outlets for their energy, he went along with the recommendation of one of his teachers and established wood-carving classes. To encourage the kids, the school's enthusiastic young teachers put the children's names on their carvings and put the carvings on display. The teachers take the approach that "everyone wins a prize, everyone gets applause," and even invite the students of other schools to view the carvings. Woodcarving gives the children their first taste of feeling important and appreciated. Whether the children ultimately become artists is unimportant. What is important is that in their woodcarving, they recover their confidence in themselves and their interest in their studies at school.

Taking back his mother's name

Tiway Sayion is most proud of the school's four world championships in girls' soccer. "We won the nine-year-olds' championship in Canada, the 12-year-olds' in the United States, the 11-year-olds' in Finland." He recalls that after they won in Finland, the Ministry of Education paid for a tour of Europe, which took the girls to Notre Dame and the Louvre in Paris, and to the castles of Germany. What an encouragement that short eight-day tour must have been to children who grew up in a remote mountain area!

Tiway Sayion feels strongly that: "An ethnic group will strive on in the face of adversity and refuse to bow its head to fate only if it has respect and confidence in itself." To rebuild the Ami's respect for themselves, Tiway Sayion, who had never before studied the use of romanizations, put his nose to the grindstone and produced Taiwan's first curriculum for the Ami language.

Then in 1994, Tiway Sayion applied for and received permission to change his school's name from Peifu Primary School to Tafalong Primary School. To date, it is the only school in the country that has received permission to change its name, and the only one with a name comprised of three Chinese characters-Ministry of Education policy mandates that all primary and secondary schools on Taiwan have names comprised of only two Chinese characters. That Tiway Sayion received this permission is a source of amazement and envy to the members of other tribes and tribal communities.

The year before his retirement, Tiway Sayion himself changed his legal name from the Chinese Lee Lai-wang to the Ami Tiway Sayion. "Tiway" means old tree and was his father's name. "Sayion," meanwhile, was his mother's name and means "to lead the way." People who don't know much of Ami culture sometimes make a guess as to which part of Tiway Sayion's name is his surname, calling him "Principal Tiway" or "Principal Sayion," to the amusement and dismay of those "in the know." In fact, Ami society is matriarchal and traditionally has no surnames. In order to conform to Han-Chinese custom, however, Tiway Sayion and his children have conferred and decided to adopt his mother's name as a surname which will be passed down to future generations.

Family ties lost in translation

The fact that Tiway Sayion was over 60 before he was able to use his "proper" name is emblematic of the difficult road the aborigines have walked for the last 100 years. Tiway Sayion's Japanese teacher gave him a Japanese name when he was 12 years old. Two years later, Taiwan reverted to ROC rule. The new government decreed that all aborigines had to adopt Chinese names within two years. Responsibility for registering the new names was given to a non-Ami town clerk. But when the clerk visited their community to register people's new names, no one knew what names to take.

"The clerk said, 'I'll give you the surname Lee, OK? And the name Lai-wang, alright?' So I said OK." Tiway Sayion laughs, saying that because his father's four brothers all lived in different tribal communities, they were all registered with different surnames-Lee, Kao, Hsu and Chou-by different clerks. To the Chinese, the familial relationships of the Ami were "complicated," and the Ami were at a loss to explain.

Tiway Sayion hopes that the changing of his name will encourage children to take pride in their Ami names. But so far only a couple of children have followed his example. Most aborigines have become accustomed to using Chinese names. In fact, in most families, when a child is born, the family consults with a Chinese fortuneteller on the choice of a name and to ask about the child's fate.

As the names of the Ami become sinicized, can their culture help but follow? Lee sighs and points at his blackboard, filled with his romanizations of Ami words. Aboriginal languages have been under pressure since the Japanese ruled Taiwan. For years after Taiwan's return to ROC rule, those who spoke something other than Mandarin in school or in public were punished and humiliated by being forced to wear a card around their neck. Moreover, while the Ami are the largest of Taiwan's nine aboriginal tribes, they are also the only ones whose communities are dispersed along the entire east coast and are sometimes intermingled with the Chinese communities of the coastal plains.

"To advance in their studies, our children must do their utmost to forget their own culture. They must empty their minds to make room for abstruse Chinese characters." But even then the results are not good. Last year, for example, only 200 or so aboriginal children eked out entrance-exam scores high enough to get them into college, even with the extra points they receive as aborigines.

To aid in the preservation of aboriginal culture, the Ministry of Education has recently considered introducing rules which would require that aboriginal children pass an examination in their mother tongue in order to receive extra points on the university entrance exam. The more highly educated aborigines of all the tribes have opposed such rules, however, for the surprising reason that their own children have no grasp of their mother tongue.

In contrast, Tiway Sayion's children understand most conversation in their mother tongue, and can speak some too. Additionally, his eldest son's wife, also an Ami, is very conscious of her ethnic identity. But his children live in Taipei, where it is difficult to avoid assimilating into Chinese culture. "I can only hope that my younger son, who is studying at the National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Agricultural Economics, will find a job at the Tz'u Chi Buddhist University or Hospital in Hualien." Noting the difficulty of living where one can be a part of traditional Ami culture and getting a good job, Tiway Sayion admits it's hard to "have your cake and eat it too."

Racing against time

As a descendent of the tribal leader, Tiway Sayion is particularly unable to put the last 100 years' destruction of aboriginal culture out of his mind. Recently, while lecturing on "tribal leadership culture" to urban aborigines in Taipei County, Tiway Sayion explained that in his grandfather's day, the tribal leader was the "president" of the tribal community, and held both military and civil authority. But when strict Japanese colonial rule came to Taiwan, the tribal leader was slowly turned into a puppet. "You could only speak when the authorities wanted you to. You could only act when they told you to." The tribal leader lost both his autonomy and his self-respect. When the ROC took over, it pushed still harder for assimilation. The tribal leader was made into a sort of mascot for the annual harvest festival and a political lackey at election times. Meanwhile, longstanding tribal mores were collapsing.

Today, non-tribespeople are known to comment that aborigines lack a sense of morality and self-control, but Tiway Sayion points out, "Outsiders destroyed the culture and social structure of the aborigines. Now these same outsiders turn around and wonder whether aborigines have a culture. That's not fair."

When Tiway Sayion, who has dedicated his life to the primary-school education of aboriginal children, looks back on the last 50 years, what does he see?

In a low voice, he says, "I feel a great weight on my heart." On the surface, the rapid modernization of society as a whole has greatly improved the standard of living of aborigines. But when one looks closely, one notes that there is an even greater disparity between the standard of living of the aborigines and the Chinese than there used to be. Worse, the advances in the standard of living have come at the price of their beautiful waters, their independence, their culture and their ethnic identity. Fortunately, in the years since the lifting of martial law, once-downtrodden ethnic groups have begun to gain political clout and a sense of self-determination. The view that aboriginal culture must be preserved has become "politically correct" and mainstream. But social benefits to the aborigines cannot depend on some fuzzy sense of charity. The aborigines need more thoughtful and efficacious aid.

After a hundred years of repression, the thread by which aboriginal culture is transmitted across the generations has been frayed to the breaking point. Aboriginal culture is fighting for its life against time and against the commercial mechanisms which dominate today's mainstream culture. What chance of success does it have? When Tiway Sayion looks out at the distant mountain forests, all he hears is silence.

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Leafing through a thick photo album, Tiway Sayion recounts his experiences during the many trips he has made over the years to visit ethnic minority communities in other countries and investigate those countries' policies towards minorities.

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Though Tiway Sayion had never studied the use of romanization, as principal of Tafalong Primary School he wrote Taiwan's first set of teaching materials for the Ami language.

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The old principal gives a moving explanation of how the feather headdress, representing the sun, symbolizes the mother's central status in the Ami's matriarchal society.

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In the dark of night, a lone light shines. The playful Dalmatian brings warmth to the mountain cabin, and the brightly polished nameplate on the door glitters in the lamplight.

Though Tiway Sayion had never studied the use of romanization, as principal of Tafalong Primary School he wrote Taiwan's first set of teaching materials for the Ami language.

The old principal gives a moving explanation of how the feather headdress, representing the sun, symbolizes the mother's central status in the Ami's matriarchal society.

In the dark of night, a lone light shines. The playful Dalmatian brings warmth to the mountain cabin, and the brightly polished nameplate on the door glitters in the lamplight.