The 1095 Southeast Asia Culture Day in Taichung on December 17th

The two-day 1095 Southeast Asia Culture Day will take place on December 17^th and 18^th in Taichung City. The event is a combination of forum, market, cultural experience and thanksgiving feast organized by “1095 Culture of Immigrants Association”. Through the year-end event, the association hopes that multicultural communication can speaks louder than words in appreciation of friends who participate in issues involving new immigrants and migrant workers.

“1095 Culture of Immigrants Association” was formerly known “1095 The Southeast Asia Culture and History Studio”, the Taichung-based NGO founded by Guan An-Ni, Chiang Yan-Jie, and Hong Jia-Li. The three youngers were motivated by the close ties between Taiwan and Southeast Asia; however, Taiwan did not set straight to various stereotypes then. In order to collaborate with immigrants for classes and plan other social participation events to foster more exchange opportunities, they established the studio.

1095 The Southeast Asia Culture and History Studio held a cooking event. Photo provided by 1095 Culture of Immigrants Association.

Chen Han-Tang, the executive director of 1095 Culture of Immigrants Association, devoted himself to the interaction of researchers in the field of new immigrants and migrant workers and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in international politics at National Chung Hsing University. Examining from the perspectives of anthropology and political science how stereotypes about immigrants are formed. “From the standpoint of resources, we might believe that vocational training is sufficient, yet these resources will, in some ways, reconstruct our understanding of foreign friends.”

“1095 stands for the stories of each migrant workers in the past three years in Taiwan. We are eager to create ties between Taiwan and the Southeast Asia, making the engagement mutual rather than one-sided.”

1095 The Southeast Asia Culture and History Studio opens up Mandarin class. Photo provided by 1095 Culture of Immigrants Association.

The theme of visual design of the event this year is “Lóo-la̍t Lóo-la̍t”, which is “appreciation” in Taiwanese. We have invited Chiang Wan-Chi, the writer who specializes on migrant workers, to share her research on the leisure activities that migrant workers enjoy while they are not working. We also invited Hong Jia-Suei, a graduate student of sociology at National Tsing Hua University to present the results of her research on the living conditions of migrant workers returning from Taiwan in Vietnam. We will show you the traditional wedding customs by Indonesian friends. We invite the general public to join us to we explore immigrant life in Taiwan.