The China Post
Date: September 5, 2016
By: Chanda JL, Special to The China Post
TAIPEI, Taiwan — “Some things, once lost cannot be returned. Is it worth destroying millions of years
In this undated photo, demonstrators protest outside the Environmental Protection Administration, demanding the government halt the Shanyuan Beach Resort project.
(Photo Courtesy of Citizens of the Earth, Taiwan)
of natural environment and tribal village culture to build a hotel?” the film director Cheng Yu-chieh (鄭有傑) once remarked when asked about the costs of tourist developments on aboriginal land.
Cheng is the director of “Wawa No Cidal” (太陽的孩子), a 2015 film about a woman from the Amis tribe who returns to her hometown of Hualien, only to be taken aback by the spate of new tourist developments.
In recent years, the scenes in the film have been mirrored all along Taiwan’s east coast as companies have built scores of new hotels and resorts in an attempt to attract more visitors.
But these developments have affected the lives of the local indigenous peoples.
The indigenous peoples of Taiwan had lived here for centuries before their ancestral land rights were taken away, first under Japanese rule and later by the government of the Republic of China. [FULL STORY]
