Smangus - Wendy Yun-chia Lo

Chapter 2: Literature Review
Smangus - A backpack honouring Aboriginal Taiwanese Culture
2.9 Conclusion
In conclusion, as people pursue the experience of living in the
wild, it has changed the original purpose. There are three main
things that have changed; one is the original motivations (escape,
nature and learning) of camping, another is the meaning of
camping, and the last is producing camping gear that has an
impact on the environment. These factors are connected to each
other. People go camping to escape from the city and to get close
to nature. However, as the camping activity becomes increasingly
popular, more and more luxury camping gears are created, and
some of them are designed with plastic materials. Moreover,
camping has developed into ‘glamping’ that is concerned with
only comfort, which is contradictory to the original motivation
and distorts the meaning of camping. The modern camping
equipment has been designed with no connection to nature nor
meaning and it offers an unreal camping experience. Thus, it
results in environmental pollution, which betrays the original
meaning of camping. The commercial, cited in the film: Broken
- Recycling Sham, the crying Indian advertisement explains
that some people still respect and care about the natural beauty
of these natural resources. As an example, there are some
Taiwanese Aboriginal crafts or modern design crafts designed
through learning traditional skills and knowledge of nature
from Taiwanese Aboriginal people. It presents an excellent
example of designing camping equipment with natural materials
to break this cycle, stop the impact on the environment, and
reconnect with nature. Taiwanese Indigenous have lost tradition
that should be preserved, not only to pass on the fundamental
knowledge about nature and the skills of creating crafts, but also
to teach people the spirit of giving, as well as an expression of
humility and respect to the land.
Overall, this research aims to solve the problems that modern camping causes and
to design camping equipment with the Taiwanese Aboriginal crafting style of using
natural material. It provides the environmentally friendly benefits and the tremendous
meaning of Taiwanese Aboriginal culture, history and the reconnection to nature.
Figure 29: Taiwanese Indigenous people.
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