Taiwan's Glory

Lulu Shur-tzy Hou

油紙傘《美濃紙傘的匠師技藝》 by 侯淑姿

Excerpt from 越界與流移─亞洲新娘之歌 , 侯淑姿攝影展 by 清大藝術中心

侯淑姿，台大哲學系畢業，美國Rochester Institute of Technology影像藝術碩士，作品曾於台灣、日本、香港、中國大陸、美國、英國、義大利、維也納展出。侯淑姿是知名的中生代影像藝術家，作品探討自我、性別認同、身份認同、第三世界的女性勞工等議題，深具社會批判性。此次第三屆台灣聯大清華校園的攝影展，她將以亞洲新娘為題，深入探索這些新移民的處境，正視其自我意識與認知。

侯淑姿的代表作品有1996年的《窺》系列作品，探究男性觀看女性身體的視覺感觸，以八組自拍、自導、自演的攝影作品從事藝術的社會批判，是對父權式的觀看的批評，也是發掘自我內在與社會的對抗關係的身體經驗。《青春編織曲》(1997)是對台北市的衛星城市新莊市的產業婦女所做的生命史之視覺創作，過去曾經是台灣主力產業的紡織業，創造了女性的就業機會，卻也埋葬了青春的希望。試圖凝聚呈現台灣經濟奇蹟背後新莊等地紡織女工的身影，反思第一世界跨國貿易如何剝削第三世界的女性勞工，凸顯亞洲女性紡織工在全球經濟連鎖鍊下的勞動生命。《猜猜你是誰》(1998) 是以古都台南地區的族群為議題，透過口述訪談掌握台灣多元族群的生命價值，用影像切入在地的歷史脈動，並討論身份認同在政權更迭下的一種多重弔詭與內在衝突的現象。2000年發表於橫濱美術館的影像作品《Japan-Eye-Love-You》，旨在批評與嘲諷日本情色文化泛濫，亦是針對情色與欲望在兩性關係中的另一個面向的觀察。《快樂是什麼》(2002)為設置在台北市一所國中之內的公共藝術作品，透過與建成國中師生的藝術教學、深度對話，勾勒一個都市學校的快樂形貌，影像、語言、出版品與互動性，創造了一個貫常學習之外的自在情境。

數年來，侯淑姿所秉持的女性主義者的創作方向，漸漸地擴大為對階級、族群、社區等台灣社會政治議題的省思，此次清大的創作發表亦延續了她一貫的社會性關照。

Excerpt from Great Expectations, Absurd Revelations by Diana Yeh

Lulu Shur-Tzy Hou works in photography, producing both humorous and chilling images that seek to question representations of male and female bodies. Challenging popular conceptions of gender, she explores the effect of traditional perceptions of men and women upon their appearance. Her work also points to the hiatus between women’s own perceptions of their bodies and the way in which they are seen in society.

Using her own body, Hou often takes the role of a subject whose gendered identity changes as the work unfolds. Her black and white photographic series ´Peekaboo´ (1996) provides a comical commentary on gender, through play on expectation. Each work consists of a sequence of five self-portraits. Only the lower half of her body is caught in the frame, her face and thus identity effaced.

The first photograph in each series shows the artist’s skirt; sometimes her thighs and arms are just visible too. Each subsequent image shows different stages of the artist’s revelation as she proceeds to lift her skirt. In the first work, the black skirt lifts over white fringes to reveal a big pom-pom. In the second, Hou shows off her knickers in which she has placed two spherical objects. In the final work, a large banana wedged between the ´balls´ emerges from her underwear. Charting our facile conceptions of gender, she shifts from exaggerated depictions of womanhood through to emasculated manhood and finally to masculinity. Despite the humorous slant to this work, it has generated considerable controversy. Playing with conceptions of gender it seems remains a serious matter.

Excerpt from Sociopolitical Art: A happy marriage? by Blake Carter

Look Toward the Other Side — Song of Asian Foreign Brides in Taiwan III presents a heart-wrenching look at the lives of Vietnamese-born women who married Taiwanese men. The artist details her Asian Cultural Council-sponsored trip to southern Vietnam last summer in digital prints and videos. Hou spent three weeks talking with the parents of immigrant brides through translators, recording their conversations and taking photographs.

Each of the 36 pairs of images at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts includes an enlarged photograph and a duotone duplicate with overlain Chinese text transcribed from Hou’s interviews. While some of the pictures speak strongly enough — she honed her photography skills at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York after majoring in philosophy at National Taiwan University — the juxtaposed text elevates the works to something beyond a mere photojournalistic view of rural Vietnamese families.

The text in Tieu Thuy’s Mother begins: “Our daughter Tieu Thuy married through a broker and moved to Taiwan in July 2006. When we saw our son-in-law, we thought he seemed like a good person, so we didn’t worry about it. Only after she was married and in Taiwan did we learn he wasn’t a good person.”

Excerpt from 侯淑姿攝影展：越界與流移─亞洲新娘之歌 by 張國宣

侯淑姿表示，「越界與流移─亞洲新娘之歌」的作品是前年(2005)8月至10月間，經由屏東外籍配偶中心及美濃南洋姐妹會的協助的創作，該創作訪問了10位來自越南、柬埔寨、泰國、印尼的亞洲新娘，以影像與訪談的方式，試圖呈現她們移民台灣、嫁為台灣婦的心聲，並將這些飄洋過海、離鄉背景遠嫁台灣的亞洲新娘，與號稱「新台灣之子」的外籍新娘所生子女的生活樣態，以訪談的文字，如實呈現，民眾可由對照並置的照片中，了解她們真實世界的存在與內心的告白的對照。

侯淑姿說明，創作該作品的動機，源自於行車經驗，看到路邊許多看板上不時豎立著「外籍新娘，三十萬」等令人觸目驚心的看板，因而起了拍攝這些作品的發想，外籍新娘來到台灣生活非常不容易，不僅在生活方式的適應是一個負擔，也會面臨許多難以想像的挑戰與質疑。本系列作品能回到屏東展出，希望能成為外籍配偶與國人之間的一個橋樑。

她也希望能為台灣社會標籤化的外籍配偶發聲，雖然她們的聲音隱微不明，她們無助與弱勢地處於社會邊緣；然而，她們的存在與生命的價值尊嚴仍有待重視，而這個系列僅是一個對話的初始。

據統計，文化局副局長陳淑倩表示，民國七十六年至九十三年三月底為止，非本籍配偶已經接近三十二萬人，其中女性佔了二十八萬多，十八萬來自大陸，十萬來自東南亞及其他國家。此外，由外籍配偶所生的子女也快速成長，九十二年已經增加到百分之十三，每7.5個新生兒就有一個是外籍或大陸配偶所生。

外籍新娘與子女所佔的人口比例，將來還可能繼續增加。外籍新娘因經濟或地緣關係嫁到台灣，且生育率比本地新娘高，正逐漸改變台灣的人口結構，長此以往，侯淑姿建議，政府應有責任介紹這些外籍新娘的國籍的歷史，建立雙向溝通的管道，貼近新台灣之子的未來。

Look Toward the Other Side — Song of Asian Foreign Brides in Taiwan

Look Toward the Other Side — Song of Asian Foreign Brides in Taiwan III

Migrant Brides in Taiwan

Recently, statistics have shown a sharp increase in the number of marriages between Taiwanese men and foreign-born brides. As of 2006, out of Taiwan’s large immigrant population of approximately 428,240 people (up from 30,288 in 1991), eighteen percent were comprised of females who had relocated to the country through marriage. Out of this population of foreign-born brides, about eighty-five percent originated from the Southeast Asian countries of Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, with the majority hailing from Vietnam. It is estimated that between the years of 1995 and 2003 the number of Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men skyrocketed from 1,476 to more than 60,000 individuals, making the Vietnamese the largest non-Chinese immigrant group habituating the island.

The Migrant Marriage Process: Marriage migration between Vietnam and Taiwan has been made into a procedural and efficient process. Taiwanese men seeking a Vietnamese wives pay a fee of between US$7,000 and $10,000 to a broker. This is followed by a visit to Vietnam where they view and are introduced to a number of potential brides. The man selects a bride from the women that he meets and if it can be arranged, they marry and the bride moves to Taiwan. Most of the matchmaking takes place through intermediaries. Usually there is a local sub-agent who the Taiwanese man approaches in Taiwan. The sub-agent usually works through a larger organization that has some sort of counterpart operating in Vietnam. At the Vietnam end a similar process operates with local sub-agents and matchmakers. Travel agents, brokers, travel providers, officials, and interpreters are usually also involved in the process as well. The TECO in Ho Chi Minh City reported in 1999 that they deal with around 250 matchmaking agencies. The popularity of Vietnamese brides has reached such a height that there is now a prime time television show that broadcasts photographs and information about prospective Vietnamese wives.

Reasons for Becoming a Migrant Bride: The circumstances of the Vietnamese that go to Taiwan as brides are depressingly common. Most brides originate from the remote countryside of Vietnam. It has been observed that more than half of the Vietnamese women recruited into migrant marriages come from the rural Mekong Delta region. As is also common in labor migration, the primary motivation in most migrant marriages, from the female perspective, is economy and security. The majority of Vietnamese women come from families that suffer from unpaid debts, bad seasons of crop, or jobless family members. Marriage brokers who promise a life of prosperity overseas lure women to Taiwan. While a Taiwanese man may pay up to $10,000 USD to arrange for a migrant marriage, the woman’s family may only see as little as $100 USD of that money. The broker absorbs the rest. Nevertheless, most women, in agreeing to marriage, are under the impression that they will be able to find work in Taiwan and send money back to their families in Vietnam. In one survey of origin households in Vietnam, researchers asked the parents of marriage migrants why their daughters chose to migrate to Taiwan. The top three answers reported were “To help the family” (61.6%), “For a better life” (10.8%), and “To make parents happy” (6.3%).

Reasons for Choosing a Migrant Bride: Taiwanese men who marry women from Southeast Asia are typically drawn from a less educated and disadvantaged population. While Taiwanese husbands tend to have more education than their Vietnamese brides, they still fall below the average levels of education in Taiwan. Many times a man can be more than a decade, or possibly two to three decades, older than his migrant bride. Seventy percent of Vietnamese brides are under 23 years of age, while over eighty percent of their Taiwanese grooms are aged over 30. All of these factors (lack of education, disadvantage, and advanced age) typically contribute to trouble in finding a bride locally and thus increase the desire to enter a migrant marriage. For many Taiwanese men, migrant marriages can seem like an easy solution to their household troubles, as a wife can act as a reproductive unit, a housekeeper, and a nurse to his parents. In one study, the percentage of women who reported “housework” as their primary occupation rose from 16.7% while located in Vietnam to 52.4% after being relocated to Taiwan. As can be seen in a woman’s primary motivation for marriage (“To help the family”), the Vietnamese have strong familial ties and practice high subservience to a patriarchal structure. This trait is highly prized by some Taiwanese men who feel that Taiwanese women are beginning to wrest away from the constraints of a patriarchal society.

Acclimating to Taiwanese Society and Culture: Because of their remote, rural origins, Vietnamese migrant brides often lack basic knowledge of what their life will be like in Taiwan. Despite increased resources and amenities, migrant brides often find it difficult to deal with cultural and other issues, some of which include large age gaps with their husbands, demanding in-laws, and difficulties with the language barrier. Although Mandarin language classes are available in Taiwan, many men are not willing to pay the fees for such education, and others seem to prefer their wives continue to be isolated through language.

In the Public and Private Spheres: In Taiwanese society, all migrant brides are often stigmatized for their poor class, gender position, and the commodified nature of their marriage (Wang 2008). In the nation's mainstream media, they are often portrayed as either "passive victims" or "materialistic gold diggers," and their husbands are often seen as being morally and intellectually inferior. Migrant brides are also seen as unfit to bear legitimate Taiwanese citizens. In 2006, out of every 100 births, 12 were the product of an migrant marriage. Though in recent years public officials in Taiwan have increasingly promoted fertility, in 2004 the Vice Minister of Education Chou Tsan-Te expressed his concern about the "low quality" of immigrants and remarked that "foreign brides should not have so many children."

It can also be very difficult for Vietnamese and other migrant brides to acclimate to their own household. Taiwanese men tend to look at their brides as a financial investment, and expect to be repaid for their monetary loss through reproductive and domestic work. Migrant brides are often expected to work long hours in the household, constantly serve their husband's parents, and prove their worth by bearing healthy children. As in most patriarchal societies, boys are always preferred. If a migrant bride cannot become pregnant or fails to produce a male heir, they run the risk of their husband divorcing them and often face unbearably abusive behavior from both their husband and his parents.

HIV/AIDs Stigmatization: Foreign brides are also often stigmatized for being seen as a contributing source to the growing HIV/AIDS presence in Taiwan. Taiwanese society often treats migrant brides as a threat to public health and a large burden to the nation, despite the fact that the highest point of infection among foreign brides peaked in 1998 with 1.31% of incoming brides testing positive for the HIV/AIDs virus. Any foreigner who tests positive for the HIV/AIDs virus in Taiwan must leave the country immediately.

"Taiwan Disillusionment": Many brides experience what is known as the "Taiwan Disillusionment," where due to their inferior position in their own family and in Taiwanese society in general, they attempt to obtain divorces. In the years of 1999 to 2000, there were 170 cases of divorce concerning a migrant individual. While some brides who obtain divorces return home to Vietnam, others, realizing some of the amenities they have grown accustomed to would be loss to them, often stay and try to find work in Taiwan. This can often be very difficult due to their poor education and language skills. Also difficult to cope with in the event of a divorce is the almost certain loss of custody of any children the couple may have had together, as under Taiwanese law, they belong to the father.

Human Trafficking/Abuse Concerns: Because a migrant bride is often extremely dependent on her husband upon arriving in Taiwan, it is easy for her to fall victim to abuse or human trafficking. Although many claim incidents of extreme abuse are exacerbated by the media, the matter is by no means unheard of. Many women report being held in isolation by their husbands, who control the monetary funds of the household and often take control of their IDs to stop them from traveling long distances. Taiwanese men often bar their foreign wives from making friends or phone calls, and migrant brides are often unaware of the local laws they can use to assert their rights. For those who do not speak Mandarin, getting help is almost impossible, and furthermore, those who do know the language claim that local authorities and shelters treat them as second-class citizens and often refuse to listen to their stories.

Legal Action Against the Migrant Marriage Practice: In Taiwan, a new law that forbids women from marrying Taiwan men more than 10 years their senior has hurt business for brokers. In early April of 2007, police in Ho Chi Minh City broke up a matchmaking ring and arrested two suspected marriage brokers. A subsequent raid on a home turned up more than 100 women seeking husbands.

Peekaboo

“Japan-Eye-Love-You”-Mr. Suzuki’s Medical Intervention

美濃鎮（客家話：瀰濃）位居台灣南部，以濃厚的客家文化聞名。行政隸屬高雄縣。地形上為山區平原地形，東鄰高雄縣六龜鄉、東南鄰屏東縣高樹鄉、南鄰屏東縣里港鄉、西鄰旗山鎮、北鄰杉林鄉。是荖濃溪出山口所在，全鎮水文系統豐富，有荖濃溪與其支流美濃溪貫穿全境。

美濃鎮全鎮南北長15公里、東西寬9公里，面積約有120.0316平方公里。氣候上屬於熱帶季風氣候，高溫多雨，年均溫為攝氏23度，全年降雨量約1,500-2,000公釐，丘陵與山地則在2,000公釐以上。年平均最低溫為攝氏21.6度，平均最高溫為攝氏28.4度。美濃境內主要居民為客家人，全鎮人口近幾年來外流嚴重，在1994年年底人口共50,512人；1999年7月底，降為47,345人；至2008年10月底人口為43,785人。

Taiwan's Glory * 台灣之光 * Taiwan's Glory