Thoughts on Techo Sam Thà Tsú (the Third Prince)

The sensation the Techo Sam Thà Tsú made in the World Games in Kaohsiung was a great success in promoting local culture in Taiwan.
Personally, I do not think very highly about this innovative way of presenting local culture. I prefer the original way the deity is. To me, this way it looks more like a deity than an entertaining thing. Because of the success in the World Games, other places begin to perform Techo Sam Thà Tsú. Sometimes the background music may be other contemporary songs such as "Sorry Sorry" by a Korean group. This phenomenon shows that people become more acceptable toward this invention.

Even though I do not like it very much, I try to think otherwise. To appeal to people who are not familiar with one culture, this kind of performance can effectively attract their attention and interest. I cannot deny that this invention works very successfully.

I learn from this experience that change is not a negative thing. Through renewing tradition, we may inject new energy and meaning to those old things. I hope that after this class, I can try to create something new from our cultural heritage.

Sharon Zheng

My reflection on the course "Chinese Culture in English"

From the course I discovered the beauty of Taiwan and learned more about our culture. However, what I've learned from the course conflicts with what I've known. When we are talking about the beautiful scenery and tourist spots, I thought about the constructions and pollutions the factories and companies brought. For example, we learned that Yunlin (雲林), Changhua (彰化) and Chiayi (嘉義) counties are famous for its wonderful sceneries and the agricultural culture. However, the plan of Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區計畫) is actually ruining all these beauties. Farmers are being evacuated away from the land their rely on. Fishermen can't make their livings because the water is polluted. The Highest Court has already announced that the environmental assessment of the Central Taiwan Science Park is invalid. But the Environment Protection Department didn't use its power to stop the construction. There are hundreds of thousands of reasons to stop the program but our government departments ignore the declaration of the highest court, despite the law of our country and the happiness of the people of the nation, continuously work on the illegal project on Science Park.

And when we are talking about the various and abundant cultures in Taiwan, I thought about the suppression of aboriginals and the disadvantaged ones. For example, once we talked about the groups of people in Taiwan, we mentioned the aboriginals in Taiwan. The seemingly wonderful aboriginal cultures are actually invaded by us (I mean most of the Han people and other cultures). Indeed, they used to do hunting, singing and dancing. Their culture involves a lot of ceremonies for different time periods and they have special dressings and decorations.

But today these are all just something for sale. The unique dressings and decorations have become products in the souvenir stores. The ceremonies have become parts of some tourist programs. Today the aboriginals have to leave their hometown and come to big cities such as Taipei or Taichung to make their livings. Most of them become the labors who build the skyscrapers and the mass transportation systems. These labors work hard and are exposed to dangerous working environments but they received small amount of money, which is just right enough for them to make the ends meet. With insufficient salary, these workers can't rent a place to live and they have no spare money to send back home. This become a cycle for them: they can't earn more money because after their own living expense, there is no more for them to use; they haven't earned enough money to go back home, thus they stay at the cities for a longer time to earn more.

If we take a look around us, we might found that there are plenty of aboriginal tribes living at the countryside around Taipei county. I've been to a tribe of A-may under the bridge between Sanshia(三峽) and Yingge(鶯歌). The experiences and discoveries I had there really struck me and influenced me a lot. If possible, I would like to invite our classmates to visit the tribe.

For me, it is really a suffer to take the course because every time I learned something precious in Taiwan, the reality keeps bothering me. It is really pathetic that at the same time we students are figuring out methods to promote Taiwan, but at the same time people are damaging the beautiful island. If we can have the chance to discuss about what is really happening in Taiwan, we can understand what kind of problem we are facing and come up with some solutions to make Taiwan better.

The followings are the links to some article to what I've mentioned. If you are interested in the issues, please take a look.

中科四期精選懶人包
http://antictsp.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/中科死四期，精選回顧-懶人包/
撒烏瓦知、崁津、三鶯部落後援會
http://support-sanying.blogspot.com/

Judy Chou

Reflection on the Food Presentation

This experience of undergoing a presentation regarding Taiwanese food gave me a good lesson. In the course of selecting representative foods, I discovered that Taiwanese foods included a variety of origins. That made the selection much more difficult than ever. Now, as the diverse people of diverse ethnic groups emigrated to Taiwan, different cooking elements from other cultures affected Taiwanese food culture. Thus, we have restaurants with Tai-style, Mexican style, and etc. Besides, sometimes Taiwanese people integrate different cooking and added their creativity. One of the famous example is the pizza. We try to put fruits into it, which is not the original style. Some Italian people react negatively against pizza with pineapple. However, I love it very much. Once I heard one French exchange student saying that she loved this kind of pizza more than the original one. Taiwanese people are really talented in cooking. Personally, I like Chicken soup with some Chinese herbs. Though some combination of herbs taste bitter, my mother makes soup sweet by adding red dates and fructus lyciis. This kind of soup is beneficial to body. I especially love to drink chicken soup in winter. After drinking this soup, I always feel warm and energetic.

Sharon Zheng