Unforgettable Days in Chashan (茶山) Tribe
Last semester, I took two general courses about “the culture of indigenous people in Taiwan”, because I was very interested in different cultures and indigenous people’s life. After learning the distinctive cultures of each different ethnicity, I was deeply impressed by their special festivals and thought-provoking oral stories. Therefore, at the end of November, my friend and I went to participate in their festival, “Chashan Hufu Festival” (茶山涼亭節). (Hufu in Tsou (鄒) means gazebo in English.)
Hufu in Chashan
People can get the bananas freely.
Furthermore, I signed up for the volunteering services which were held by the “HOME YAYA” club in our school. “HOME YAYA” in Tsou means “the harvest of millet” (小米豐收), and it is also one of their important festivals during July and April every year.
In the first week of this winter vacation, I went to Chashan Tribe to experience Tsou people’s life and also engaged in volunteering services for 4 days. Chashan tribe is in the southern part of Alishan (阿里山), and it is located at the half hillside of Alishan, so the weather here is quite warm and comfortable.
The beautiful sceneries and the church in Chashan.
In the morning, my friend and I went to buy breakfast, because this breakfast shop is the only shop that sells breakfast, we had to be as early as possible to get our breakfast. To my surprise, the breakfast shop didn’t provide the regular menu, so it was quite interesting to come up with what to eat every morning.
The cat kept by the breakfast shop always wanted to jump on to the table to eat our breakfast, so we have to be very careful in protecting our food.
After finishing eating the breakfast, we went to do the appointed works including painting walls, cleaning up streets, and planting flowers. For me, the most interesting work among all is to paint walls around the main square since I haven’t painted walls before. Although I was really tired after working all day long, I got a great sense of achievement and pleasure to see the clean and cute drawings made by our own hands. Besides, these paintings may remain for 2 years, so the tourists are able to see our works while they join the “hufu festivals”.
Our final painting works!
However, I also encountered many difficulties in working and adapting to the living style on Chashan. Because of lacking water, there was no adequate water for us to use. It is quite hard for me to quickly get used to the place where was no water while opening the faucet. Thus, we had to be carried from where we lived to another place to take a bath, but there is cold water only. Not to mention my shoes and several clothes and pants were dipped by the paint, and it seemed unable to wash it off.
Nonetheless, after experiencing these special situations, I could really immerse in Chashan people’s life. Thanks to these experiences, now I often remind myself to cherish what I already have and become more open-minded to embrace different difficulties in life.
The memories of Chashan are still so vivid and unforgettable. I really like the tranquil and serene scenes and atmosphere in Chashan, and I especially like the hospitality of the Tsou people. (They always like to invite us to have a drink with them.) Hopefully that one day I will go back to Chashan to visit the cute grandpas and grandmas, eat delicious barbecue, and take a glimpse of the graceful landscapes again.
Beautiful sunset in Chashan as if the time was frozen at that moment.
In addition to working, we also tried to make handmade bamboo bow in person, and we also made Mochi (麻糬) and ate barbecue by using Tsou people's traditional barbecue grill.