Getting married in Alishan

Lynette Goh
Oct 16, 2014
2 min read

Alishan is second home to me. In 2012, I went to Alishan on an AIESEC Project to Saviki, one of the villages there. During my 5 weeks there, the aboriginal Tsou people in Saviki treated me as part of their family. I am really thankful and grateful to have met such nice people who very selflessly offered me their house and was so willing to share their culture with me, without expecting anything in return.

I decided to return to Alishan for 4 days (16-19 October) to visit the people who I have missed very much. During this time here, there was a big event called 生命豆季 taking place at Dabang village. Basically, everyone who wants to get married in the village would get married together on the same day at this event! There are also a lot of dance performances, food and drinks. Renee, who was on this trip together with me,and I decided to try on the Tsou traditional costumes and also experience going through the wedding ceremony! They got random guys for us to get married with haha. It was quite an interesting and fun experience!

Renee and I also eplored the other areas around Alishan. I have been to many of these places before but was happy to accompany her around! During our stay in Alishan, we stayed at Huishan and Jiaching's house. Huishan and Jiaching are 2 of the local Tsou people that I knew from my previous experience in Alishan 2 years ago! I'm super grateful to both of them for allowing us to stay at their house and also driving us around.

We also visited Tefuye, another village nearby. The village landmark is the Kuba Meeting House. Women are not allowed to go inside the meeting house.

Me with Huishan

As we had some extra time, we went to Ah Jiang's Coffee Shop. Ah Jiang actually built the entire house and garden by himself, brick by brick! It was really nice!