The Last week in Taiwan

The last cultural class at Tamkang University was learning about Chinese opera mask (臉譜). Students first read a handout about the color scheme of the good and bad characters. For example, red, black and purple are good people's color; and white, yellow and green are for bad guys. There are other distinctions among good and bad people.  Then they watched a film about face-changing performance before hands-on making their own masks.

We had a special occasion on Tuesday (1/14) because Erica turned 20 years old. The group went to a gourmet vegetarian buffet restaurant and a KTV place to celebrate her B-Day. Students also learned that traditionally, birthdays are not celebrated until a person is over 50 years old. Instead of celebrating, younger people are supposed to treat their mother on this day because that is the day when one's mother suffered to give birth. 

It has been a pleasure teaching a group of motivated young students in Taiwan for the past three weeks. This is the very first UMD group that came to Taipei to study language and culture. Student are flying back to the US tomorrow morning and have to finish their paper for this course in one week. I look forward to reading their essays due to the diversity of their topics, including Taiwanese economy, history, education, food, the maturity of the young people, Taiwan's relationship with China, public mannerism, foreign influence to Taiwan, and public transportation.

Students blog sites at CHIN268/HORN258MTaiwan: Exploring a Different Chin... will stay as memorable record for them and valuable resources for future students' references.    

Second Excursion to Yi-Lan (宜蘭) and HuaLian (花蓮)

The main purpose of this excursion is to explore agricultural industry, two of the indigenous populations, and the scenic east coast of Taiwan.
 





                                                      

                                                            Students under the Golden jujube (金棗) trees



We arrived in Yilan on Friday evening and stayed in a DIY farm, where we went on a tour on the 100 acre homestead. Before dinner, we appreciated vegetable and flower gardens, walked over a rice field; picked fruit from trees; observed butterfly caterpillars, fed the water buffalos; and made leave prints on a T-shirt or a tote bag. Kumquat (金桔) and Golden jujube (金棗) trees were the main attraction for the class because several students are under the waether, and these two fruits are good in treating colds. After hot-pot dinner, we enjoyed a Wu-Shu performance, made a lantern that flew to the air with all our good wishes, and watch a short fire work display.

We also visited an orchid farm and one Winery in Yilan before heading to Hualian on Saturday afternoon.







The Mountainous eastern coast of Taiwan is famous for tourism. Taroko National Park (太魯閣國家公園) and Yushan National Park (玉山國家公園) are the two main attractions. Due to the time constrain, our class could only visit one spot of the Taroko National Park and watch a film about the park ecology. Nonetheless, the bus ride to Hualian itself was a great adventure with so many twists and turns on the road, and the sceneries of the Pacific Ocean from high mountain were simply stunning!

 

 

 

Aboriginal cultural villages and statues are mostly distributed in the area. We went to a performance, where the life of Indigenous people were demonstrated through dances and songs.  In today's class, we compared the Taiwanese natives and the American Indians and found that there are many similarities. Both groups have oral tradition, under economical competition with the main stream and gradually losing their languages and identities. The differences are that Taiwanese natives are mostly protestants or Catholics and are quite successful in pop music and ecotourism areas, while American Indians sell firework and have their own religions.

 



 

 

The weekend was full of activities, and now students' immune systems have been in challenge. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they all can stay healthy to pull through the last week of the course because hey still have tests, closing ceremonies, and other interesting culture classes ahead of them.

The Second Week in Taiwan

 

 

The winter study abroad to Taiwan is a collaboration between UMD and Tamkang University (淡江大學) in Taiwan.  Since students are taking classes in the Taipei campus, they haven't seen the main campus in Dan Shui (淡水) until this Wednesday (1/8). The Dean of International Affairs received us warmly with a lunch. After changing gifts, the Director of the Chinese Language Center gave us a campus tour. We also visited Fort of San Domingo (紅毛城) that went through Spanish, Dutch, and Britain eras, and saw how the structure of the buildings was a combination of Western and Taiwanese elements.

On Tuesday (1/7), the class visited Mangka (艋舺), the oldest part of Taipei City. The name Mangka was originally the name of boats that transported sweet potato by indigenous people. LongShan Temple (龍山寺) was the main attraction that was built in 275 years ago. Its principle god, the Goddess of Mercy, was brought to Taiwan from Fu Jian (福建) Province of China. We also explored the historical district of Bo-Pi-Liao (剝皮寮). Bo-Pi-Liao is a collection of old houses that were built at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries. Students got a chance to how the old clinic, hospital and school all looked. They also played games from way back, such as puppet show, rowing steel circle, primitive bean-ball game and writing wish-prayer posts in Chinese.  We stopped by a refreshments store to enjoy shaved ice or red bean soup in a store that was established in 1920. The pictures on the wall displayed the family of three generations who have kept the prosperity of the juice and shaved ice store.

 

 

 

The class also learned how to sew fragrant sachets on Thursday (1/9). Chinese parents usually dress their children up with a sachet on Dragon Boat Festival on May 5 of lunar calendar.  Students first sew little bags with colorful cloth, then fill the bags with cotton and perfume particles, instead of herbal medicines（草药）, and finally string them with threads. The sachet will be hung around the neck or tied to the front of a garment as an ornament. They are said to be able to ward off evil and insects.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is our second weekend excursion to Yi- Lan (宜蘭) to visit some factories, such as wine brewer, orchid nursery, and preserves manufacture. We also will go to Hua Lian (花蓮) to observe the natural scenery in the east coast of Taiwan. Stay tuned to read more about what students will learn from the second excursion.



 

First Excursion to Tainan and Kaoshiung

Fort of Provintia (赤崁樓)

The class studied the history of Taiwan last week and are learning about the religions in Taiwan this week. To enforce the learning of these two topics, the first excursion was to Tainan (台南) and Kaoshiung (高雄). 

                             

Although the Portuguese sailors gave Taiwan its first name Formosa (beautiful island), there was no written history until the Dutch people colonized part of the island in 1642.Tainan (台南) is the port, where the Dutch colonists erected  Fort Provintia to defend anti-colonial uprising. Due to its red roof and being built by foreigners, the building obtain a Chinese name 赤崁樓. One can see the statue where Dutch surrendered to Cheng Cheng Gong (鄭成功), a general of Ming Dynasty.

We also visited a battle field castle built by Shen Baozhen (沈葆楨 ), the governor sent by Qing Dynasty court, in 1874 to defend Japanese invasion.

Eternal Golden Castle (億載金城)

Kaoshiung is the second largest city in Taiwan. We visited the two important religious sites, Dragon and Tiger Pagodas (龍虎塔) and Buddha Memorial Hall (佛陀紀念館), to represent Taoism and Buddhism, respectively. Both religions are polytheism. The main difference of the two is the goal of the belief. Buddhism is to attain enlightenment and be releases from the cycle of rebirth and death, thus attaining Nirvana, while Taoism propagate to be one with nature.

Dragon and Tiger Pagodas (龍虎塔)

Buddha Memorial Hall (佛陀紀念館)

Today in the class, we discussed the internal political situation in Taiwan and how the Green and Blue parties flight like Republicans and Democrats in USA. We also touched upon the relationship between China and Taiwan and how Taiwan is struggling under China’s political and economical pressure.  “Confucianism” will be the theme of the next week. The class will learn why Taiwanese people are proud that Confucianism has kept Taiwan in an unbroken line to the greatness of China’s past.

Calligraphy and Seal Arts

The word "calligraphy" in Chinese (書法) means "the rules of writing characters" -focus on writing well. However, it is also a discipline for writing beautifully. According to the art of calligraphy, there are at least 9 script in this art, such as the word "horse" can be seen/written in the following scripts: Oracle script, Bronze script, Seal script, Clerical script, Cursive script, semi-cursive script, and regular script .  UMD students learned the regular script on Tuesday, Dec. 31 before going to watch the new year's eve firework. What they wrote on the red paper were all good wishes for the new year that can be displayed on the house door as Spring Posts (春聯;春联).

 On the New Year's Day, the class had an excursion to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石,1887-1975) was a political and military leader, who unified China and led China in WWII against Japan. After WWII his KMT party lost the civil war to communist party and retreated to Taiwan. Chiang was a dictator in Taiwan where he imposed the martial law and created a "White Terror" period. During that time, people would be prosecuted if found critical to his regime. The Memorial was built by Chiang Junior, who was the president three years after his father's passing. It is now famous monument, landmark, and tourist attraction in Taipei, Taiwan.

The seal carving  is a "sister art" of Chinese calligraphy. The hands-on class took place on Jan. 2, and students really did a wonderful job putting their Chinese in use. Their works can be seem as below.

We are heading for a weekend excursion to Tainan and Kaohsiung to visit sites that representing the Taiwanese history and religion. Stay tuned until next Monday!