2021/05/12 16:04 Call me by my real name group members outside Ministry of the Interior. (Facebook, Call me by my real name photo ) Call me by my real name group members outside Ministry of the Interior. (Facebook, Call me by my real name photo ) TAIPEI (Taiwan News) Savungaz Valincinan, a member of the Indigenous group Call me by my real name, on Wednesday (May 12) pointed out the double standard in allowing people to legally change their names for a sushi restaurant marketing campaign but forbidding native people from using their given names. The group held a press conference outside the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) on Wednesday and pointed out that some group members had gone to various household registration offices to apply to use only their traditional names as their legal ones, but their cases were rejected. As a result, Valincinan said she filed a petition in the (MOI), according to a group Facebook post.
Aboriginal advocates demand name rights
By Chien Hui-ju / Staff reporter
Aboriginal rights advocates yesterday protested in Taipei, demanding that their names be written in the Roman alphabet on identification cards and official papers, and that Chinese versions of their name be dropped.
At the protest in front of the Ministry of the Interior, demonstrators urged the government to amend regulations that require a Chinese name and an Aboriginal name in the Roman alphabet on identification cards and official documents.
A restaurant chain recently had a big promotion for people whose names contained “salmon” (鮭魚), “but when we want to use only Aboriginal names with our own script system, we cannot do so, because the law does not permit it,” said Savungaz Valincinan, a Bunun graduate student at National Dong Hwa University.