Being Tsou

Modernity and tradition within Taiwan's indigenous communities

affiche être tsou

Film screening & round table

Date : Friday 23 October 2022
Location : Amphitheater François Furet, EHESS, 105 Bd Raspail, 75005 Paris
Programme:
2:00pm: Film screening
2:30pm: Round table with Catherine Capdeville (Inalco), Jérôme Soldani (University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3), Wong Jun-fa (CRH – EHESS) & Caroline Mouangvong (Inalco).
Mandatory registration online: evenementtsp@ehess.fr

Attend the event online
We had to enforce health measures which required us to limit the number of participants in person” As a result, the event was simultaneously broadcast online. Watch the video below.

The film

About the film

Alishan is a mountain range located on the island of Taiwan. It is a traditional territory of the Tsou people. We went to meet them in the heart of the Tapangu village, to interview some members of the Tsou tribe about their role in preserving their customs, and their contribution to the local economy.

Direction

Marine Giangregorio

Marine Giangregorio has a degree in Cinema. She practices film photography and directs documentary films. Her first solo exhibition Énigme du désir, which brought together photographs and poems, was held in May 2019 at the Galerie L’oeil du Huit in Paris. Her poems were published in various magazines.

Yu Zhang

Yu Zhang has a degree in Cinema. He is currently a doctoral student in sociology under the supervision of Isabelle Thireau, in the China, Korea, Japan laboratory of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. His thesis is entitled: “Sociology of mental illness in rural China”.

The Project

It was during a trip to the Alishan mountains that we discovered the village of Dabang (Tapangu). We had come there to have lunch in a restaurant renowned for its Tsou cuisine. The road had been long and difficult; the sudden fog, frequent in this early spring, had forced us to stop the car several times. When we arrived, we were very disappointed: the chef had been called in for an emergency and had to interrupt service and close his restaurant. Looking for another place to have lunch, we set off on a tour of the village, where we discovered a particularly active population. From the street restaurants to the handicraft stalls and the local coffee and tea tastings, a whole local economy opened up to us. Respectful of their environment and their traditions, the inhabitants of Dabang seemed to be as attached to their roots as they were to their desire to be part of a modern economy and society.
Then and there, we were inspired to us to reflect on the dynamics of transformation in Taiwanese indigenous societies and, more specifically, on the tension between modernity and tradition that seemed to us to be at work in the Tsou community of Dabang.
In addition to this reflection, the event “Être Tsou” also proposes – through a documentary, a round table and an exhibition of photographs – to go further in the meeting with this community.

Samia Ferhat for TSP