FIELDNOTE_0426_NALUWAN_CHARMAINE

We had a very engaging time this week at Naluwan with our grandmas. Together with the grandmas, we made seashell hanging ornaments using the shells we collected last week. Molly from our class led the activity, and she recounted how this reminded her of her parents back home in Sweden. It was a very heart-warming activity to 

I was sitting together with two of the grandmas of my assigned family and together we learned how to tie the seashells together and piece them together for our final product. During the activity, we were all very focused on making our pieces. But I remember asking grandma 溫秀妹 if she was having fun and she without any hesitation replied saying “no” in Chinese. I laughed out loud and went on asking why, and she said it was “too difficult and tiring” for her. I reckon she was not interested in handicrafts, as she previously was a fisherwoman and frequently is out at sea with her husband, and now owns a grocery store in the tribe. However, asked the same question to grandma 蘇阿金 who was sitting beside her, and she happily replied “yes!”. She shared that she does handicrafts during her free time, so it was evident this was of her interest too. 

What was also interesting was at the final step of making the handle for the seashell ornament, Grandma 蘇阿金 did an extra step of tying an additional string and twirled it around the handle, which seemed to me to make the handle stronger. This step looked familiar to me, as it reminded me of my first time visiting the community space and when I saw the grandmas busy making straw bags, and this technique looked similar to then. In which I went ahead and asked if this technique was used in her tribe's handicrafts, and she nodded. It was a heartening feeling to witness her incorporating and integrating her art techniques used for crafts in the Amis tribe into other modern crafts.