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.