Taiwan 2024 - Alishan, Indigenous Lady

During an early visit to Taiwan I became curious about the indigenous peoples that were driven by the Han Chinese up into the mountains, and pretty much stayed there ever since before the 1940's.  Who are they?  What languages do they speak?  What do they look like?  What do they act like?

One can't help but compare them to the Native Americans that we have here in the U.S. - a population driven from their homelands to settle in the places allotted to them by force.  There is yet another parallel, and that is how they handle alcohol.  Indians here are famously prone to alcohol addiction, something I witnessed firsthand working in the slaughterhouse at IBP; very few of the Navajoes who live in the area worked more than a few weeks because they kept showing up drunk to work, no matter the shift.  And years ago during a visit to Hualien, a coastal city on the East Coast of Taiwan, I was on a morning walk and saw one of their natives sitting on the sidewalk, already drunk at 8:00 a.m.  There are definite similarities.

But I'd never really interacted with one in Taiwan or got to witness much more than that brief encounter in Hualien.  Partly because they live in such remote areas, and partly because they generally don't speak Mandarin...only Taiwanese or another native tongue, leaving me with little hope of understanding anything.  Thus in time the mystique behind their culture grew in my mind, increasing my sense of curiosity about them.

So imagine my excitement when I saw this lady, clearly from a native tribe way up in the boonies.  She was at a train station with all her stuff - the perennial bag lady, Eastern style.

She obviously was used to being gawked at, and very wary of the Bigger Cahoona.  Try as I might to be discreet at a distance, every time it was lifted she turned her head so as not to expose her face to the camera.  I sat on my perch long enough, however, to grab a couple of shots that captured the exotic facial features that you see in the shots below.  My gosh, where did this look come from?  What race were her ancestors?  Are there entire communities nearby that have that same look?  Don't get me wrong - not really bad looking...I thought she was even pretty, if only she would smile.  But she obviously originated from a very different gene pool.

Her visage was always exceedingly sad, never smiling or making eye contact with any of the touristic multitude constantly passing her by (and ignoring her).  Where was this girl from?  Where was she going...was she even going anywhere?  She was at a train station, after all.  Is she smart?  Had she attended school in her lifetime?  Does she have children somewhere? Is she the exception to the rule of her racial makeup, or are her relatives and neighbors as destitute and sad as she appears to be?  All of these questions entered my mind as I stayed in my place, trying to look but not stare.

Sort of reminded me of a time at a church service in Querétaro, Mexico.  There was a lady in attendance, the mother of one of the members, that was from such a remote area that she did not even speak Spanish.  For obvious reasons she didn't talk much, so I didn't get to hear her Maya or Aztec or whatever it was that she spoke.

Of course I didn't get to hear this pretty girl speak either, but think it would have been very interesting to compare it to Mandarin or even Taiwanese.