Sean Akizuki's Personal Blog

  One of the most interesting Taiwanese folk songs that got into popular culture is the song "High Green Mountain" or alternatively called "Maiden of Mt. Alishan". Granted, it's a tribal dance so it's only normal that the Taiwanese aborigines dress up similar to the Ifugaos in Nueva Ecija.  Below would be the English lyrics of the tribal song: Tall green mountain, blue mountain stream The Alishan girl is as beautiful as the water The Alishan youth is as strong as the mountain   A, a, a, oh, oh, oh The Alishan girl is as beautiful as the water The Alishan youth is as strong as the mountain   The tall mountain is forever green, the mountain stream forever blue The girl and the youth will never be apart Just like the blue water that ever flows around the green mountain   Tall green mountain, blue mountain stream The Alishan girl is as beautiful as the water The Alishan youth is as strong as the mountain   A, a, a, oh, oh, oh The Alishan girl is as beautiful as...

Pinyin is used in every Chinese dialect. Though, the one I'm familiar with is Mandarin though I'm afraid that ethnic linguicide is affecting Cantonese, Hokkien, and other Chinese dialects. Mandarin is still used in Taiwan as the national language even though their shows would sprinkle the Taiwanese dialect in some instances. Although I'm having issues with China as a political entity - I still sympathize with the people who are but victims of the Chinese Communist Party. Taiwan or the Republic of CHINA still uses Chinese pinyin even if they have declared themselves independent from the People's Republic of China. A lot of people are actually reading pinyin wrong. It's pretty much much how J and Que are misread by foreigners. A lot of people unfamiliar with the Chinese language misread it. So, what's the big point? If j in Tagalog is actually read as a softer h where Juan is read as Huan with a softer h - z is read as tsai or a softer chu. That means Ken Zhu ...

Ethnic costumes do kinda attract me and well, glad that ethnic dances can still be enjoyed in the modern age but in a modern way. Though it would feel more "genuine" to go to Mt. Alisan to see these dances since that's the place where the aborigines though faced by modernization, managed to mix the old and the new in such an amazing way.  

Here are some tribal dances... I'd like to compare the Taiwanese aborigine tribal dance with that of the Filipino Ifugao dances... both dances are kinda similar and different in their own ways: First the Ifugao dance from Banaue... A welcome dance of the Taiwan aborigine dancers... they also perform the dance in their mountains called Mt. Alishan...