4/16 Atile’i/Island

by | Apr 16, 2019 | keywords

WU Ming-Yi, The Man with the Compound Eyes
  1. island
  2. Sea Sage & Earth Sage
  3. facing the sea vs. facing away
  4. the fate of a second son
  5. Rasula (Ursula Kroeber Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle)
  6. the True Isle
  7. sperm whale
  8. imprisoned in a world [of being forgotten]
  9. The Vortex on the Sea (Chapter 11 title)
  10. Panai’s song “Maybe Someday”
  11. “Nobody has ever seen the forest she now beholds, like a forest in a novel that has grown into a real novel.” (p.119)
  12. “What about Mummy’s headband?” (p.123)
  13. Another Island (Chapter 12 title)
  14. The Story of Atile’i’s Island (Chapter 17 title)
  15. At first she couldn’t understand anything I said, but gradually we have come to recognize the scales and tails of speech, to realize the fish eyes of what the other is saying.
  16. “What are you writing a story for?” “I am writing a story to save a life,” she said, I guess. (p.164)
  17. I don’t think it really matters if she understands me or not, because to Wayo Wayo islanders words can be smelled, touched, imagined and closely followed with your gut the way you follow an enormous fish.
  18. one was blue-eyed, while the other’s eyes were dark brown

SUN and XIAMAN, “Ocean Tide Loves Me Best: A Dialogue Between Sun Dachuan and Xiaman Lanpoan”
  1. indigenous literature
  2. taxi driver and packaging worker in Taipei
  3. Lanyu Island [i.e. Orchid Island] and the Dawu [i.e. Yamis] tribe (clip 1) (clip 2)
  4. nuclear waste
  5. sweet potato, taro, and crab
  6. You must imagine yourself building houses and remember that houses have souls.
  7. When I was young, each time my father shot a fish, he would invite my uncles to eat it, and then they would start singing poetry. That scene brought me back to the present, when they were singing songs and telling stories about the past. As they recounted the stories, I watched their body language and facial expressions. I couldn’t help but think, “So there is this kind of literature!”