The nation's Aboriginals should become pioneers in worldwide Aboriginal movements, said a Taiwanese Aboriginal delegation that returned from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPII) yesterday.
Seven Aborigines -- including a professor, graduate students and a journalist -- comprised the delegation selected by the Council of Indigenous People to participate in the sixth annual UNPII conference held in New York.
The mission statement on the forum's Web site said the UNPII is an "advisory body to [the UN] Economic and Social Council," which monitors developments related to indigenous peoples worldwide, including cultural, economic, social, environmental and human-rights issues.
PHOTO: HSIAO SU-MEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The delegation returned to Taiwan yesterday following the close of the two-week forum and held a press conference to share their experience.
Although the nation's Aboriginals are an ethnic minority, the delegation found that the nation's efforts to protect the rights of its Aboriginal population were relatively advanced. As an example, the delegation named the Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV), which it said was of particular interest to the international Aboriginal community.
"Many people asked about TITV, as it's the first TV station in Asia fully dedicated to an indigenous population," said Lisin Payso, another member of the delegation and a reporter for TITV.
After participating in the forum, delegation members felt that Taiwanese Aboriginals should do more than fight for their own rights.
"Although we're a minority, Aboriginals in Taiwan and in Japan are actually better off than indigenous peoples in many other countries," Kao Ching-yi (
The delegation also took action on what it said was discriminatory language used by the UN in its translations of official texts into Chinese.
"The official Chinese translation for `indigenous people' used in UN documents is tuzhu (
Tuzhu implies "uncivilized indigenous people," Awi said.
"Hence, we've filed a petition to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to request the change of the Chinese term from tuzhu to yuanzhumin (原住民)," Awi said.
"We can make Taiwan a stage for worldwide Aboriginals," Kao said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its