1 Liao, Hsin-tien, “The beauty of the untamed: exploration and travel in colonial Taiwanese landscape painting,” in Kikuchi, Yuko (ed.), Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007), p. 50Google Scholar.

2 See Bird, Michael I., Hope, Geoffrey and Taylor, David, “Populating PEP II: the dispersal of humans and agriculture through Austral-Asia and Oceania,” Quaternary International, No. 118–119 (2004), pp. 145–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://palaeoworks.anu.edu.au/pubs/Birdetal04.pdf, accessed 1 December 2008.

3 See, for example, Brown, Melissa J., Is Taiwan Chinese? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stainton, Michael, “The politics of Taiwan aboriginal origins,” in Rubinstein, Murray A. (ed.), Taiwan: A New History (M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1999), pp. 27–44Google Scholar; Cheng-Feng Shih, “Legal status of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan,” paper presented at the June 1999 International Aboriginal Rights Conference in Taipei, http://www.taiwanfirstnations.org/legal.html, accessed 28 November 2008.

4 See Geertz, Clifford, “‘From the native's point of view’: on the nature of anthropological understanding,” in his Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (Basic Books, 1985), pp. 55–70Google Scholar, and Clifford, James, “On ethnographic authority,” in his The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 21–54Google Scholar. For a discussion of self-representation of indigenous people in ethnographical works, see Bill Nichols, “The ethnographers' tale,” in his Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), pp. 63–91.

5 See Dachuan, Sun, “Yuanzhumin wenhua lishi yu xinling shijie de moxie: shilun yuanzhumin wenxue de keneng” (“Representation of indigenous culture, history, and psychological world: on the possibilities of indigenous literature”), in Taiwan yuanzhumin hanyu wenxue xuanji:pinglun juan (An Anthology of Chinese-Language Indigenous Literature in Taiwan: Commentaries) (Taipei: Ink Books, 2003), pp. 17–51Google Scholar.

6 See Wei Yijun, “Zhanhou Taiwan yuanzhu minzu de wenxue xingcheng yanjiu” (“A study of Taiwan aboriginal literature formation after World War II),” PhD dissertation, Cheng-kung University, Tainan, 2007, pp. 420–22.

7 The nativist movement which emerged in the mid-1970s started out as a critique of the foreign-influenced Modernist movement of the 1960s. It quickly developed into an identity politics movement which challenged the political status quo set up by the Kuomintang after the war. See Chang, Sung-sheng Yvonne, Modernism and the Nativist Resistance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 149–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Boyijernu, Basuya. “Taiwan yuanzhu minzu de guoqu xianzai yu weilai” (“The past, the present, and the future of indigenous literature in Taiwan”), in Linghua, Huang (ed.), Ershiyi shiji Taiwan yuanzhumin wenxue (Taiwan Indigenous Literature in the 21st Century) (Taipei: Taiwan yuanzhumin wenjiao jijinhui, 1999), p. 13Google Scholar.

9 For a definition of “indigenous literature” in the Taiwanese context, see Sun Dachuan, “Yuanzhumin wenxue de kunjing” (“The dilemma of indigenous literature”), in Anthology, pp. 66–68. For a discussion in the context of Native American Literature, see Weaver, Jace, Other Words: American Indian Literature, Law, and Culture (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

10 Sun Dachuan, “Representation,” pp. 32–33.

11 Ibid. pp. 22–23.

12 de Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. xix–xxiGoogle Scholar.

13 For discussions of the use of the Chinese language in indigenous literary writing, see Walis Norgan, “Taiwan yuanzhumin wenxue de qu zhimin” (“The decolonization of Taiwan indigenous literature”), in Anthology, pp. 27–151. See also Fu Dawei, “Bailang senlin li de wenzi liezen” (“Word hunters in the jungle of Bailang”), in Anthology, pp. 211–46.

14 Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1973)Google Scholar.

15 Rapongan, Syaman, “Langtao rensheng” (“Life in waves”), in Hailang de jiyi (Recollections of the Waves) (Taipei: Unitas Publishing Co., 2002), p. 45Google Scholar.

16 See Chen Zhifan, “Yuyan yu wenhua fanyi de bianzheng” (“Between language and cultural translation”), MA thesis, Tsing-hua University, 2006.

17 Dachuan, Sun and Rapongnan, Syaman, “Zhiyou hailang zuiaiwo: Sun Dachuan duitan Syaman Rapongan” (“Only waves love me best: a dialogue between Sun Dachuan and Syaman Rapongan”), Yinke wenxue shenghuozhi (Ink Literary Life Magazine), No. 19 (2005), pp. 32–45Google Scholar. Translation mine.

18 Arif Dirlik noted on a trip to China in 1993 that instead of “the Wall,” the Yellow River and the Silk Road were being promoted as symbols of “China's openness to the World – past, present, and future.” See Dirlik, Arif, “Looking backward in the age of global capital: thoughts on history in Third World cultural criticism,” in Tang, Xiaobing and Snyder, Stephen (eds.), In Pursuit of Contemporary East Asian Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 183–215Google Scholar. The new self-representation of China stresses the notions of “extrovert” and “open-ness.”

19 For the Democratic Progressive Party's promotion of Taiwan as a “country of the ocean,” see http://www.wretch.cc/blog/FrankCTHsieh&article_id=6317268.

20 For discussions of Taiwan literature and the so-called “oceanic literature,” see Nian, Dong, “Haiyang Taiwan yu haiyang wenxue” (“Oceanic Taiwan and oceanic literature”), Lianhe wenxue (Unitas: A Literary Monthly) Vol. 13, No. 10 (1997), pp. 166–68Google Scholar; Dai Bao-cun, “Dao zhi guo hai zhi min” (“Country of islands, people of the ocean”), http://www.ocean.org.tw/mag/003/003005.htm, accessed 25 December 2007.

21 See Schad-Seifert, Annette, “Constructing national identities: Asia, Japan and Europe in Fukuzawa Ukichi's theory of civilization,” in Stegewerns, Dick (ed.), Nationalism and Internationalism in Imperial Japan (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), pp. 45–68Google Scholar.

22 For an understanding of the promotion of the Chinese legacy associated with Zheng He, see Liu Xinyuan, “Taiwan xuyao fazhan zenyang de haiyang wenhua?” (“What kind of oceanic culture Taiwan needs to develop?”), posted 4 October 2007 on the website of the National Policy Foundation, sponsored by the anti-independence party: http://www.npf.org.tw/particle-3064-2.html, accessed 31 December 2007.

23 For information about the celebration of Cheng He as a sea adventurer, see http://www.chiculture.net/0115/html/a01/0115a01.html.

24 Xiaofeng, Li and Fengsong, Liu, Taiwan lishi yuelan (An Overview of Taiwan History) (Taipei: Zili publisher, 1994), p. 25Google Scholar. For a useful discussion of the relation of indigenous peoples to the new identity narrative in Taiwan, see Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? pp. 134–65.

25 Ibid. p. 3.

26 Ibid. p. 25.

27 See Stainton, “The politics of Taiwan aboriginal origins,” pp. 29–32. For Japanese anthropologists' work on indigenous cultures in Taiwan, see Ryuzo, Torii, Adventurous Trips to Taiwan (trans. Nanjun, Yang) (Taipei: Yuan Liu, 1996)Google Scholar and Nobuto, Miyamoto, Indigenous People in Taiwan (Taichung: Chen Xing, 1992)Google Scholar.

28 Alternatively, Taiwanese may reject the idea of themselves as heirs to the indigenous culture by insisting on their Han identity. In that case, the Japanese colonial legacy would remain inactive.

29 Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? p. 2.

30 Hsieh, Shih-Chung, “Yuanzhumin yundong shengcheng yu fazhan lilun de jianli” (“The establishment of a theoretical framework for the birth and development of the indigenous movement in Taiwan”), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan minzuxue yanjiusuo qjikan (Essays Published by the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica in Taiwan), No. 64 (1987), p. 156Google Scholar; Wei Yijun, “Taiwan aboriginal literature formation,” pp. 16–22.

31 Dong Shuming, “Langman de fanxiangren: Syaman Rapongan” (“Syaman Rapongan and his romantic homecoming”), in Anthology, pp. 177–211. See also Tsui, Yang, “San yu hai de gonggou shishi: Syaman Rapongan zuoping zhong fanfu de haiyang yixiang” (“An epic of sea and mountain: the complexity of ocean images in Syaman Rapongan's works”), in Mingzo, Chen (ed.), Taiwan de ziran shuxie (Nature Writing in Taiwan) (Taichung: Chen Xing, 2006), pp. 207–42Google Scholar.

32 Sun Dachuan, “Representation,” p. 39.

33 Wei Yijun, “Taiwan aboriginal literature formation,” pp. 101–04.

34 Bevis, William, “Native American novels: homing in,” in Swann, Brian and Krupat, Arnold (eds.), Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1987), p. 582Google Scholar.

35 Ibid.

36 Rapongan, Syaman, “Preface,” Smitten with the Ruthless Sea (English version, published by Taiwan Culture Innovation, 2006)Google Scholar, no page numbers.

37 http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?CtNode=119&xItem=23752, accessed 4 February 2008, italics added.

38 See Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? pp. 150–53. See also Li and Liu, An Overview of Taiwan History, p. 25.

39 The practice of using mixed languages in literary creation actually started as early as the 1920s when Taiwan was still under Japanese rule. Since then, the resuscitation of the spoken mother tongue has always been associated with political and ideological resistance in the history of Taiwan literature.

40 For a useful discussion of the nativist movement, see Chang, Sung-sheng Yvonne, Modernism and the Nativist Resistance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 148–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Chiu, Kuei-fen, “Empire of the Chinese sign: the question of Chinese diasporic imagination in transnational literary production,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 67, No. 2 (2008), pp. 598–601CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Shih-Chung Hsieh, “Theoretical framework,” p. 156.

42 In fact, there has been a very uneasy tension between these two discourses as the risk of co-option of the indigenous movement by the growing Taiwanese identity movement is warily kept in sight.

43 Armstrong, Jeannette C., “Land speaking,” in Ortiz, Simon (ed.), Speaking for the Generations: Native Writers on Writing (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1998), p. 197Google Scholar.

44 I would like to thank Professor Chaoyang Liao from Taiwan University for calling my attention to Jacques Derrida's theorization of “inheritance.”

45 Derrida, Jacques and Stiegler, Bernard, Echographies of Television: Filmed Interviews (trans. Bajorek, Jennifer) (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), p. 69Google Scholar.

46 Ibid. p. 25.

47 Ibid. p. 86.

48 Ibid. p. 26.

49 Derrida, Jacques and Roudinesco, Elisabeth, “Choosing one's heritage,” in For What Tomorrow – A DialogueGoogle Scholar (trans. Jeff Fort) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 3–4.

50 Rosalyn Diprose, “Derrida and the extraordinary responsibility of inheriting the future-to-come,” Social Semiotics, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2006), p. 442.

51 See Fabian, Johannes, Time and the Other (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 31Google Scholar.

52 Ibid. p. 155.

53 Derrida and Roudinesco, “Choosing one's heritage,” p. 4.

54 Ibid. p. 3.

55 Diprose, “Derrida and the extraordinary responsibility of inheriting the future-to-come,” p. 440.

56 Haddad, Samir, “Inheriting democracy to come,” Theory and Event, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2005)Google Scholar, accessed 12 December 2008.