Home » Taiwan » Syaman Rapongan » 天空的眼睛 [The Eyes of the Sky]
Syaman Rapongan:天空的眼睛 (The Eyes of the Sky)
in his previous workpublished in English – 天空的眼睛 (Eyes Of The Ocean)we learned a lot about Rapongan’s. life and his people.Unlike that book, this is fiction , presumably based, if not an actual event on the culture of the fishermen on the island where our author lives,
Though Rapongan and his people are Taiwanese, by nationality,personally, culturally and linguistically they They are very much not Taiwanese but Austronesian,i.e. more akin to the Polynesians of the Pacific than to the Chinese. They speak Tao which has no relationship to Chinese.
Their culture is a sea-based culture and fishing is a major part of their life. Our author starts with what can only be described as a colourful autobiography. His father and the other men had gone out fishing for the larger fish late at night, He and the other boys. waited for their fathers on the beach but he fell asleep between two boats. He heard a voice calling to himChekwaga, do you want to travel the ocean and see the beauty of the watery world?. Initially, he declines the then asks to be taken to the Philippines. The fish called Pawong, which means strong. wave does not take him to the Philippines but does take him for a ride through the ocean.
When he returns, his father could not not find him and he is very worried but his youngest great uncle does find him and says was visited by a benevolent fish spirit in his dreams. His parents who had previously been reluctant, now let him go off to study in Taiwan. He returns when they are much older to look after them.
H However, we now have a fish story. We have of course seen other books about fishing, famously, Hemingway’s. the Old Man and the Sea. However, I doubt that there can be all that many books in which we see not only the fisherman’s point of view but also the fish’s point of view.
Fishing is complicated in that area as there are a wide variety of fish, including flying fish which seemed to be food for both humans and predator fish. We follow a a ciliate which is a predator fish, eating, flying fish amongst others, but also apparently a delicious fish for humans. We are following Pawong who is now over thirty He is not as successful as he had been when he was young in catching the fish that he wants to catch but he gets overconfident when a human fisherman is using the head of a flying fish as bait. This has happened before where he gets the bait of ff the line and escapes. However, this time he is not quite so successful though he is not caught by the human.
We now change to the story as told by the human called Syapen Omalam , though his name will change as, with other cultures, someone’s name is often how they are related to someone else. We first meet him when he’s helping his father get grass from the uplands which they use to rethatch their houses. They take the grass down to the beach and then carry it over to their houses in their canoe. However, they are caught in a very sudden and severe typhoon .d Syapen’s father s foolishly tries to rescue his canoe which risks being torn away and he is injured in the process. His son saves him but he refuses to use Western medicine and consult the.shaman. He eventually and suddenly dies. We follow the story of Syapen, including the premature death of his siblings and other issues. Like our author, he has been away and come back in has managed to relearn fishing canoe building a and the like. He starts a family. His grandson loves to eat a ciliate and complains because his grandfather never seems to catch any. He is determined to satisfy his grandson and sets off to catch one. Of course we know what is going to happen because we have seen it from the fish’s point of view. The story is somewhat different from the humans point of view, not least because his canoe capsizes, something which has never happened before but he does manage to recover it.
but there is another story going on. Syapen Omalam and his wife have a daughter. He has already lost two siblings and now further tragedy awaits. The daughter goes away to school in Taiwan, but he’s very bitter towards her parents who do not visit her, do not seem to contact her and, in particular do not give her any money so she is struggling while the other students are enjoying themselves. She was quite bitter towards them about the whole business.She has a boyfriend, she calls her husband, who is ethnically Han Chinese. Things go wrong for both of them and a child is left who is Omalam, hence his grandfather’s name, which means grandfather of Omalam. The boy understandably wants to see his mother.but hat is not going to be possible. There is one other thing that he likes.- to eat ciliate, and his grandfather struggled to catch one. His grandfather may fail at catching the fish but finally when the boy is a bit older he gets him involved. in building a canoe and also involves some of of Omalam’s classmates, a couple of whom are related to him and they really enjoy the activity and there is a course a lot of grandfather and grandson bonding.
But Pawong is still there and the grandfather cannot catch him. Tagahan, a younger man is also trying to catch the fish. So Who will win? The fish or the humans?
This was a wonderful book and a fascinating introduction to a culture which is unknown to most westerners and with excellent stories made even better by having a large fish as one of the heroes of the book I was of course favouring the fish but you may have different views. W Whatever side you choose I can thoroughly recommend this book.
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h3>Publishing history
First published in 2012 by Lianjing Publishing Company Co.
First English translation in 206 byColumbia University Press
Translated by Kyle Shernuk