Fieldnote Feb 21 2023 - 10:55pm

Observations: 

Narrow streets running along the coast. Houses on one side, a concrete wall on the other side. Probably to protect from the sea and wind. Behind the houses were some storages and some gardening before the highway with loud heavy traffic framed the area. 

The elderly in the tribe had a workshop in the activity center located in the newly built concrete house financed by the government. We were told that they are decorating the bare walls with their own art and that this is important for them to make it more homely. Anso other handicrafts such as braided baskets and light lanterns out of rolled papers and pringles packages. 

Specific data:

The Naluwan tribe has been here for the last 40 years and have experienced and witnessed everything that has happened in Hsinchu for the last 40 years. 

The Hsinchu City government wants the tribe and this area to be a part of the tourist area that is created with biking roads in the area. They will therefore  demolish the houses that are there today and replace them with new constructions. The members of the tribe will be able to buy a house according to the 3-3-3 principle where they will pay only for the price for the house or else they have to move somewhere else. 

A fishing factory at one end of the street provided some of the people with work opportunities. 

Personal reflections:

The concrete building which I would describe as some kind of new brutalism architecture style didn’t seem to fit into the environment.  The architecture of the building was not adapted to the origins of the tribe. The hard concrete created a strange dynamic in the area next to the spartan homes that tribal members live in today.

I can’t think about who would ever want to live in a tourist attraction? That question came to me even stronger when we were to leave and this big group of people from Taipei came. It must have been a whole bus load. I think it will be very interesting to hear about the tribes feeling about this part of the plan for “their” area.

Questions:

• Who is leading the initiative of this transformation that will happen in the area and to the tribe? 

• Who has the most to say / influence in this questions?

• For Whom is this change useful? 

• What is the feeling about the transformation among the tribal members? Is it different among different generations? 

• Do the tribe have the right to refuse the transformation?

• What are the pros and cons?

• What is the definition of a tribe and when does a tribe cease to exist? Could a change destroy future generations of the tribe?

• Does this tribe have some special traditions?

• What made the tribe move here from the beginning?

• Why is this change necessary?

• How do you define and agree on what path to take in this transformation?

Information & observations