Transforming Taiwan Aboriginal Cultural Features into Modern Product Design: A Case Study of a Cross-cultural Product Design Model

Taiwan is a multi-cultural blend of traditional Chinese culture with signifi cant East Asian infl uences, including Japanese, and such Western infl uences as American, Spanish and Dutch. This blend has allowed Taiwan, over time, to gradually develop its own distinct culture, mostly a variation of Chinese culture from Southern China. In addition, the Taiwanese aboriginals also have distinct cultures (Chang, 2006; Taiwan Aborigines Art Studio, n.d.). Taiwan’s cultural variety and distinction offers potential application in the fi eld of design, especially as designing local features into products appears to be more and more important for the global market, where products are losing their identity because of similarities in function and form. Cultural features are considered to be unique characteristics that can be embedded into a product both for the enhancement of its identity in the global market and for the enhancement of the individual consumer experience (Handa, 1999; Yair, Press, & Tomes, 2001; Yair, Tomes, & Press, 1999). The increasing emphasis on localized cultural development in Taiwan already demonstrates an ambition to promote a Taiwanese style in the global economic market. For example, aboriginal music from the Bunun tribe played at the 1996 Olympic Games brought that form of music to the global arena. Additionally, martial arts movies from Bruce Lee to Jacky Chan to the fi lms of the Oscar-winning movie director Ang Lee have promoted recognition of Taiwanese culture at the international level (Hsu, 2004; Cheng, 2005).