Deconstructing the Eldorado

In Yaya's house, up in the mountains, deep in the Taiwanese rain forest, lost in the beauty of the Taroko National Park I thought I found the Eldorado. A utopian parcel of land where humans and nature formed a whole and interacted in an unequivocally dispassionate way. I drifted away into this precious equilibrium representing an idealistic vision of a sustainable environment. But there is this problem with the idea of a utopia. It is not real. Because, as it presented, in the philosophical tale Candide, the Eldorado is a picture of credulity, a perfect mirage where, lost in the illusion, the characters lose touch with reality (Voltaire, 1759). Thus, by seeing Yaya's house as a utopia, I made it untouchable. A singular experience that nobody could repeat. Fooled by a seemingly effortless interaction between Yaya and her environment, I stayed confined into the idea of a space where everything converged toward sustainability. In my idealistic representation, I forgot, for a moment, to place things into perspective and to challenge my vision to a bigger scale.

Right : Yaya's garden. Left : meal at Yaya's House, Skadang

        This concept, the one of scale, take here a real significance. During our first day at National Dong Hwa University, where we would be studying for a couple of weeks, Dr. Kerim Friedman gave us a lecture on the importance of alternating between different scales (Friedman, 2019). According to Friedman, changing the scale of an issue gave us the possibility to alter the nature of the debate. Therefore, fixing a new scale allows us to create new interpretations, to perceive new politics (Friedman, 2019). Hence, to really understand the dynamics between Yaya and her environment, I had to submit my thinking to different dimensions. In a method reminiscing of the “concentric circle method” developed by the Chicago School (Townsend, 1993), I draw around Yaya house, three different areas, each one bigger than the last, each letting me understand deeper the complexity around the natural equilibrium of Yaya's Organic Farm, but each associated with a similar sound.

Yaya's Organic Farm, Skadang

        Early in the morning of May 17^th, I woke up to the sound of thunder. Lay down in the dark, I pondered about the discovery of the day, still fresh from my reading of Kohn’s book How Forest Think (Kohn, 2013) and the concept of the we[1]. Yaya’s Organic Farm is situated in the village of Skadang, in the middle of the Taroko National Park. To get there from Hualien (the closest city), a demanding hike is necessary, the village being located around 1100 metre above sea level. Once the mountain climbed, the rest of the road can be continued either on foot or by small vehicles. When considering only the limits of the village, you can imagine it as a perfect location for a human to form a whole with nature. Yaya’s farm gives us a perfect example of that cohabitation. Here every vegetal product is organic, coming either straight from Yaya’s garden or from the bamboo’s plants surrounding the farm. The meat is hunted nearby. Humans are dependent on nature and make sure to respect it in exchange. By looking only at the immediate surroundings, it is easy to mistake the location with a perfect structure where the specific circumstances of the environment would have incubated a unique system as perfect as irreplaceable. A utopia for the foreigner. But, in looking toward a bigger circle, it creates a totally new perspective.

Top left : sign showing support to Asia Ciments because of the jobs opportunity, Skadang . Bottom left, and right views of the Asia Ciments mine, Taroko National Park

        Lay on my makeshift bed, listening to thunder, I recalled another sound similar to the one a was reflecting on. Climbing the mountains, I got scared hearing a deep rumbling sound far away reminding me of thunder which would forecast a difficult weather for rest of the hike. Confused by the deep sound mismatching with the clear blue sky, I asked Agathe, a PhD student joining us for the ascension, about the origin of the sound. On a following stop, on an area where the forest was a bit less dense, she pointed me toward the provenance of the sound. From our position on the path, you could clearly see Asia Cement, an important cement mine located on indigenous land a few kilometres from Skadang village. The mine is a source of internal tensions between the Truku People, the indigenous tribe from which Yaya and most of the indigenous people living on the Taroko National Park territory originate from. On the one hand, the mine is on indigenous territory and deprives the Truku of their ancestral land (where they used to hunt and to reside). On the other hand, the mine create employment for the indigenous community. If, the monetary support is a great motivation for the Truku people standing up for Asia Ciment, prosperity was not always a incentive for them. Lokign, our guide for the weekend, recounted about a time where the Truku society relied exclusively on mutual exchange and collaboration without caring about their individual wealth. However, times have changed and, following the global trend, capitalism has taken more and more places into the Truku society. For Yaya, the economic struggle is real. If, she could make more money by opening her land a steady flow of tourists, she chooses not to, aware of the disastrous effect tourism could cause on her environment. In short, by enlarging the perimeter of the scale by only a short distance, it is possible to perceive a new economic dimension upsetting the untouchable ideal of Yaya’s Farm House. In opening the area, a bit more, the complexity becomes even deeper.

Some remarkable reminders of Taiwan political situation, various locations, East Coast of Taiwan

        Indeed, there is a third sound, close to the mountain comparable to the one of thunder. This one I heard it a little bit further from the village, mostly on the campus of NDHU. Another rumbling sound, this one associated with the military plane flying over the campus. Those planes are going to a nearby military airport, close to Hualien City. By including it to our scale, to our circle, it allows us to add a political dimension to the initial location, Yaya’s Organic Farm. You see, the military base is a  political symbol and a good reminder of the instability of Taiwan politics. The next elections are fixed for 2020. Its result could have a huge impact on the indigenous population of Taiwan. Effectively, the party that is presently in power the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is mostly indigenous friendly. In facts, since the party is promoting the independence of Taiwan, the indigenous culture procures them an additional particularity justifying the legitimization of a distinct nation. The opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT) is a conservative, pro-China party. Since the position of the People Republic of China is that no indigenous peoples live on their territories (which for them include Taiwan), the election of the KMT could be a step back from the recent advancement in the matter of right for the Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan.  For Yaya and her community, who depend of the territories and the hunting rights that the Basic Law[2] guarantees them, the possible consequences of a change of government could be significant.

Taroko National Park, Truku Land

        In understanding those three scales, we can understand that Yaya’s Organic Farm is not a utopia. Yaya is not blessed with a perfect land where it is easy for her to become a we with her surroundings. On the contrary, by looking at the farm through different scales, we can perceive political and economic dimensions adding a significant pressure on the fragile balance permitting her to connect with nature. By continuing her sustainable lifestyle despite it, Yaya become a model to all. An example of a remarkably strong, kind and stunning woman who is continually contributing to the betterment of the world despite all the struggle she has to face. Yaya’s Organic Farm is not the Eldorado. It is not perfect. It is not untouchable. And that why it is a splendid example of the way humanity and nature can form a we in any circumstances.

Bibliography

Friedman, Kerim. 2019. “Mapping Language Ideology in Taiwan.” National Dong Hwa University, May 6.

Kohn, Eduardo. 2013. How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. University of California Press, 288 p.

Laws and Regulations Database of the Republic of China. 2018. “The Indigenous Peoples Basic Law.” June 20, 2018. https://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=D0130003.

Townsend, Lucy F. 1993. “The Biographer as Sleuth: Using the Concentric Circle Method.” Biography 16 (1): 18–30.

Voltaire. 1759. Candide, ou L’optimisme,. Marc-Michel Rey, 310 p.

---

[1] As explained further in my last blog article  “490 - 573 NM”

[2] Law “enacted for the purposes of protecting the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples, promoting their subsistence and development and building inter-ethnic relations based on co-existence and prosperity.” (Laws and Regulations Database of the Republic of China, 2018)