"Huahu" (Bunun Language)

Text and images by Chen Chi-Hsiang. The French contemporary artist Ben believed in the early 1980s that "the next artistic innovation is to embrace its own language, culture, and race." Ben conceived of the "differences" among these races as indispensable elements. In his view of the relationship between life and total art, the new and the different are primary values; difference becomes a crucial asset and identity in postmodernism, serving as an inexhaustible driving force for artistic creativity. Thus, he wrote: "Messenger of Third World and minority cultures, at the vanguard of global imperialism." "Huahu" (Bunun language) means "cheer up."