My Opinion toward Betel Nut Beauties

When you drive along the street, you would probably see some spicy girls wearing bikini and sit in a transparent store. They are not prostitutes who try to use their charming appearance to attract man to sleep with them; they are Betel Nut Beauties who sell betel nuts and some drinks or cigarette.

These Betel Nut Beauties use their shining stores and charming image to attract the possible customers, who are mostly trunk drivers or workers, to come to their store and buy their products. They actually don’t do anything illegal, however, their wearing sometimes cause them some troubles.

For instance, some men with bad intention might go to the betel nut shops to molest these betel nut beauties. Some police officers might go to these betel nut beauties and ask them to wear more clothes since their spicy wearing and the way they greet the customers might have negative influence on the passing by teenagers. What’s more, it is the betel nut beauties’ actions and wearing that make the parents or other conservative groups of people in this society see them in negative points of views.

I believe that most of these betel nut beauties simply try to use their charming body images to attract more customers to go to their shops. They don’t do anything to disturb others’ lives. Sometimes these betel nut beauties can even be helpful for those who lose their way when driving.

In my opinion, there’s noting wrong for these betel nut beauties sell betel nuts with their attractive appearance. However, they need to keep in mind that their actions can be seen by not only the customers but also the teenagers or even younger generations. If the betel nut beauties only wear few clothes, they might get themselves into dangerous situations since some criminals might see them as easier attack targets.

It’s hard for those who have prejudice toward betel nut beauties to change the way they see these spicy girls. However, they need to keep in mind that their actions can be seen by not only the customers but also the teenagers or even younger generations. Perhaps they can try to put on more clothes and avoid doing some controversial actions so that they won't get themselves into great trouble.

Feedback toward the Cross-Cultural Experiences of Expatriates

2010/5/26
International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF國合會) is an organization that strengthens international cooperation and enhances foreign relations by promoting economic development, social progress and the welfare of the people in partner nations around the world.

The guess speaker Mr. Shih briefly introduced the ICDF (國合會). He told us what the organization did for our countries and those countries which have diplomatic relations with us. I think what the people in ICDF do for the countries which don’t have strong economic power or have great problems of people’s livelihood were very touching to me. These volunteers not only need to sacrifice their time of being with their family but also need to try their best to get involved in the foreign culture within a short period of time.

What’s more, these expatriated people might also encounter some difficulties or dangers such as the attack from the civil strife of the foreign countries they go to. Even though there are so many possible dangers or inconvenient things that they might encountered during the process of expatriate, these volunteers still devoted themselves toward the people who are in need in those developing countries. I think their attitudes and actions really worth admire from the public.

Throughout the speech, I think the part that related to Mr. Shih’s living experience in other countries were the most interesting parts. The pictures that were shown by Mr. Shih gave me a vague idea of the living environment and living experience toward those countries.

I think I might not be able to experience what Mr. Shih had experienced before since it’s hard for me to tolerate the loneliness of being alone in foreign countries. Besides, it’s hard for me to bare the environment of the Africa countries mentioned by Mr. Shih. However, I will introduced the projected mentioned by Mr. Shih to my friends in case that some of them might have interest in such kind of voluntary works in the countries which have diplomatic relations with us.

ICDF Website: http://www.icdf.org.tw/english/e_about_bg.asp

Taiwanese Puppetry as a sub-culture

Many of my friends are infatuated with the Pili Puppetry series. Two of them draw drawings featured with characters that have appeared in the Pili series. I love to watch those series as well. Personally, because I have watched Pili puppetry with my father since I was seven. I had deep affection to it, which has accompanied my childhood till now. To me, the pronunciation of Taiwanese is very different from the use of Taiwanese I use in my life. It sounds more scholarly and educated. Sometimes, I really wonder how the script-writers come up with diverse use of vocabulary and complex plot. It is very fascinating to me because listening to the utterances from each character is one enjoyment. For different groups of characters the pronunciation differs. There are different word choices for characters to indicate the same thing. By listening to the conversation, you can simply identify which group the character belongs to.

For my friends, they adore the design of the puppets. For them, each puppet is a piece of art. The delicate clothing, weapon, and hairstyle of each character show how creative the production team is. They also invent different poems, theme songs, names for attacking skills for their characters. Thus, creating a new character is not an easy job. And the successful establishment of a character makes my friends crazy. They all adore the creativity and originality of the production team. When there is a comic expo, many people dress themselves like characters in the puppetry series to pay tribute to the characters and their makers.

I think Pili really does a great job in making the puppetry appealing to younger generations. I have heard from my father that Pili employs college students to write scripts and perform theme songs for characters. With the employment of young generation, I think Pili can keep absorbing new energy and create more fascinating plot, songs, and characters.

Sharon Zheng

My thoughts over Chinese Calligraphy

Each student in Taiwan must have the experience of practicing calligraphy in class. To me as an elementary school kid, it was such a torture that I wanted to escape. To write a good calligraphy, posture was extremely important. We were asked to hang our wrists up in the air and move our arms steadily, which for me was a task. My right arm got sore in several minutes. What’s worse, if I wrote bad calligraphy, the teacher would punish me by hitting me on the hand with a strict. That was the reason why I was afraid of practicing calligraphy. Writing a good calligraphy requires plentiful patience and practice. I still remembered that I envied classmates who could write beautifully. It was an honor if someone could be picked by the teacher to represent the whole class to attend the competition.

However, my attitude changed. Somehow, as I grew up, I found calligraphy artistically beautiful and worth practicing because it could train my concentration on things. I adored the structure of each character and develop my interest in imitating the strokes and the structure of characters with ball pan. Even though I still wrote bad calligraphy, I could write beautifully with ball pans. I even tried to buy models for calligraphy for myself to imitate with ball pan. In the course of imitating, I found much peace within myself and could concentrate more on what I was working on. Each character has to be balanced and you have to be steady enough to write characters properly.

Now, I do think that writing calligraphy is a good way to train oneself to be concentrated and stable. It takes efforts to memorize the whole structure of a character. I feel very peaceful and sharp when practicing writing. When I finish duplicating one model, I often feel a sense of achievement. Whenever I feel upset or anxious, I will sit down in front of my desk and start to write something until my handwriting becomes steady and straight. It is said that you can judge one’s disposition and mood by looking at the handwriting. I often look at my own handwriting. If it is very careless, I would take one model out and start writing. To me, practicing writing calligraphy becomes one way to cultivate my patience and disposition.
Sharon Zheng

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