Autobiography
Hello!
My name tauwan (Jennifer), and my Chinese name is Siang-Yuan, Zhang.
I am a college student from Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan, and I major in Foreign Languages and Literature in my third year.
I am indigenous people from Pingtung. My tribe is Payuwan, and my community, Kaviyangan, is located in Taiwu county, Pingtung.
My father is also Payuwan people, but my mom is Han people. Coming from this cross-culture family, I am more aware of indigenous culture, issues, and language. When I was about 5 years old, I lived with my grandmother from my mother’s side for 3 years. At that moment, I acquired Hokkien (Taiwanese). When growing up, I started to notice the lost of Payuwan language in my generation. Since last semester after taking a class about the preservation and E-learning of Austronesian language, I started to learn my father’s language with the grammar knowledge of Austronesian language, which is a novel way to learn Payuwan language than I used to do. Recently, I attended a forum and post an article with my professor about the combination of digital too, language learning, teaching, and future development. As for my bachelor study, besides English, I also learn Spanish for 4 semesters.
I live in Taiwu mountain but studied in other bigger counties since elementary school. I assume that is the reason I am aware of indigenous culture because the majority of my classmate is Han, Hakka, and some nun-indigenous people. My hometown is actually a new living place after Japanese colonial time. More than 100 hundred years ago my people still lived in a deep mountain, the original Kaviyangan. Even though we are not living in our original place, the youths in my community still often go back to the original village to live there and maintain the environment. Thus, most of the youths in our community are familiar with the history, mythology, and customs of our culture. There is a gorgeous ancient palace in our original village, and our community is recently having lots of projects and programs to rebuild, maintain, and preserve the original village. We hope that in the future, people can come and learn the culture of Payuwan people.
For my future life plan, I will exchange in Spain the next year. And when I return, I hope to work in Southeast Asia. For the further future, I hope I can return to my own community, live and work for the future.
For my escort experiences, I was a guide in a co-exhibition with Academic Sinica about the antiques in my community in August and September 2020. In 2021, I attended “Aboriginal biodiversity and culture workshop for international students in Taiwan” as an interpreter for 3 days in Namasia District, Kaohsiung.
Here I post some of my works in Escort English Course.
Feel free to browse them and leave some comments!
Thank you so much!