Aboriginal group decries "bias" in TV commercials

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on March 17, 2006. It reports that aboriginal civic group representatives in Taiwan recently complained about the promotional commercials produced by the Council of Indigenous Peoples. They said that the television commercials depicted the aboriginal peoples in a biased fashion and their airing should be immediately stopped.

Representatives from the Croh Culture Workshop, an organization that promotes aboriginal tribal cultures in Taiwan, said that the promotional commercials reflected the bias of the Han people. For example, the aboriginal people in the commercials were referred to as "they" and "them". It was questionable what "we" and "them" meant in sentences such as "we call them the Saisiat Tribe". It was an attempt to segregate indigenous tribes from other Taiwanese people, according to the aboriginal representatives.

From the viewpoint of these representatives, they were tired of conventional portrayal of the aboriginal people as being always singing and never speaking. They found it difficult to accept the fact that the narration in the promotional commercials referred to the aborigines as "dark-skinned, shiny-eyed people". The narration should be done by indigenous people who can talk about their own tribes, rather than allowing themselves to be "introduced", they complained.

Other inappropriate comments included in the promotional commercials included the reference of the Idasau people as "a tribe that is about to disappear, with only 300 people left". The introduction of the Saisiat people as having "weird surnames derived from nature" and that they were "rarer than pandas" were equally inappropriate, the aboriginal representatives complained.

The promotional commercials have been running for more than three months and more than 50 times per day. It is time that they stop being aired, the aboriginal representatives argued. Officials from the Council of Indigenous Peoples have promised to re-evaluate the commercials.

Currently, there are 12 aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, which are the Saisiat, Thao, Tsou, Rukai, Paiwan, Tao (Yami), Puyuma, Bunun, Amis, Atayal, Kavalan and Truku. The promotional commercials were made for only nine tribes.