Introduction

I would like to begin this lecture by expressing my sincerest respect and deepest sorrow for the thousands of people who died as victims of the dreadful earthquake and deadly tsunami in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Aceh, Indonesia. Still, in the midst of the disturbing pictures and reports published in newspapers, and eerie scenes broadcast on television in December 2004, miracles were also told.

A two month-old baby girl was sucked into an undertow and thrown back by a tidal wave alive into her mother's lap. Early in the morning after Christmas, a ten-year-old girl sat beside her father enjoying the beauty of Phuket's beach in Thailand. Upon seeing the water on the beach receding drastically and, from afar, white tidal waves surging one after the other, Kelly told her dad, "A tsunami is coming in twenty or thirty minutes and there will be disaster!" She had learned this fact in a class prior to her vacation. The wise father told the story to a coastguard who ordered everybody to leave the beach immediately and head back to the hotel. This speedy action saved more than 400 human lives; thirty minutes after the announcement the tsunami destroyed everything standing on the beach. Saving the lives of many, Kelly was called the "Angel of [the] Beach." (note 2)

There is still one more miracle to relate. Forty kilometers from the epicenter of the December 2004 earthquake sits Simeulue, a small island in the Indian Ocean 150 kilometers off the west coast of the province of Aceh, on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. According to a tale transmitted by their elders, residents during a 1907 earthquake saw the sea level dip radically and commanded everybody to the hills to save their lives. Following this tale, the current-day residents of Simeulue emulated their ancestors right after the 2004 quake. (Locally this tradition is called smoong, a command to run to high ground for safety in the face of an oncoming tsunami.) (note 3) Returning to the plains after a few days, the residents found buildings and plants destroyed even as they themselves–like their forebears–were unharmed. Interestingly, I first learned this story in Taipei (my second home) from CNN reporter Atika Schubert, who called Simeulue the "Miracle Island." The lesson is that keeping a tradition alive is not always as bad as we used to be taught in schools. But tradition can no longer be protected from outside influences; it cannot be isolated from modern phenomena.