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Exploring Nanao, part 3: sports day, hot springs, Sayun’s bell, and 高峰

mitcho — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:20:48 +0000

Sports day

Three Mondays ago, Nanao had their annual sports day.¹ The sports day reminded me of the years of Japanese school sports days I used to go to, complete with the representative student’s pledge of sportsmanship, a three legged race, and concluding relay, though it was only half a day.² It also was billed as the Nan’ao town and school joint sports day (村校聯合運動大會) and indeed many parents, families, and other miscellaneous townspeople were there to join in the festivities.

The day started with a performance by our school’s very own orchestra (well, after the national anthem, of course). This was followed by a communal running-around-the-track, Atayal dance performance by community members (mostly middle-aged), and the kids dancing to Buklavu.

This was followed by a judo performance. The judo offering is one of the four “special characteristics” (特色) of the school; the other three are the orchestra, aboriginal dance, and reading.

A special event offered particularly for the parents and other community members was the log sawing competition. It took the form of a relay, with teams organized based on the “neighborhood” (鄰), of which there are six in Nan’ao village.

The festivities concluded with the aforementioned relay.

The kids had a lot of fun throughout the day, probably particularly enjoying the fact that school was then dismissed at noon. Kids bought food at the night-market-like stands right outside the school.

Hot spring

We teachers were then invited to a banquet at the head of the PTA’s house. Having the rest of the afternoon off, a few of us teachers decided to go to the Nanao hot springs. There were some major renovations there since I last went and took a bath… there’s even a roof now! The water was, unfortunately, pretty lukewarm, though.

Sayun’s bell (莎韻之鐘)

Special ed. teacher Mr. Cai was kind enough to take us around in his car, so we next stopped by Sayun’s bell (Chinese: 莎勇之鐘, Japanese: サヨンの鐘). The Sayun bell is a memorial to an actual Atayal girl named sayun hayung who died in 1938, located right near a truck stop/gift shop/coffee shop off of the 蘇花公路 (sūhūagōnglù, Suao-Hualien highway).³

The story goes, sayun greatly respected her Japanese teacher and was saddened to learn that he would leave and go back to Japan. She was carrying his luggage for him and was going to send him off when a big storm knocked her off a bridge and into the river, drowning her. The story was picked up by Japanese mainland news (read “propaganda”) as a hear-wrenching story of the Taiwanese indigenous people respecting and loving their Japanese teachers and, by extension, Japanese rule. There was two Japanese songs written about this incident (1941, see lyrics below, courtesy of Chienese wiki) and a Japanese movie (1943) was made as well.

The story was also recently referred to in the popular (in Taiwan) 2007 film Island Etude (練習曲 liànxíqǔ), which has a little five minute segment retelling the story at the bell (complete with historical rendition featuring a guy I know who lives in Nanao!).

The original memorial bell is apparently owned by the family (or was thrown away, according to the Japanese wikipedia article) but this newer bell and memorial was built in 1998. It’s an interesting relic of the Japanese era right in my backyard.

Gaofeng (高峰)

高峰 (gāofēng) in Chinese simply means “peak,” and that’s the only name I know for our next destination. We drove up a steep one-way path up a mountain (an unmarked road off the highway between 武塔 (wǔtǎ) and 漢本 (hànběn) stations) and went up to the top. Along the way we could see some beautiful scenery over the ocean, though it was a cloudy day so we couldn’t see too far.

Up on the peak we first walked around a traditional Chinese-style single-clan courtyard with a few houses around it. There didn’t seem to be anyone home. They seemed to have some fascination with game pieces… there were some dominos scattered in one part of their lot, 象棋 (xiàngqí, Chinese chess) pieces elsewhere, and some 麻將 (májiàng) tiles actually stuck in the concrete in another place. I felt like it would make for a good setting for a mystery novel.

All around us were some beautiful 日日春 (rìrìchūn, Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar Periwinkle)) and not-so-wonderful 檳榔 (bīnláng, betel nut, a kind of palm) trees.

There was a beautiful stream nearby as well as a hose with water from a small man-made reservoir, which Mr. Cai used to clean the car.

Going further into the mountain, we saw even more houses and some beautiful farms, mostly with cabbage. Mr. Cai explained that many of these farmers were actually relatively well off people (and retirees) from Luodong or Yilan who bought this land and come to farm there as a hobby or in retirement. We found a small Daoist shrine as well, as a testament to his statement that these farmers were not aboriginal but of Han Chinese descent.⁴ At this point, though, it started raining more heavily, and we decided to call it a day and head back home. All of us had a wonderful and relaxing day exploring Nanao!

Sorry about the late post. I’ve been busy traveling the world! ↩
There was, however, a distinct lack of teams for students. Two teams (red and white, which are lucky colors) are one of the most important features of a Japanese sports day. ↩
A note on the Atayal language and names: (1) Atayal’s romanization doesn’t use capital letters. (2) Atayals have two names, a first and last. The first name is a given name. The second is the father’s name. It’s an interesting, if degenerate, approach to patrilineal clans. (3) My Atayal name is hayung too. I asked for a good name and my teacher gave me his own.
A note on sayun: apparently the common transliteration of “sayun” (written “sayon” at the time) into Chinese characters at the time was 莎勇, as is used on the Chinese title of the movie, but 莎韻 is more common now, and is indeed used on the memorial itself. Confusing, I know. ↩
Most of the aboriginals in Taiwan (as I understand it, but for sure at least the Atayals where I live) are Christian (Catholic, Presbyterian, or the True Jesus Church)—others may still follow or be influenced by the Atayal traditional spirituality (gaga, “traditions”). Buddhist and Daoist temples are sure signs of a Han Chinese population. ↩

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Co-schooling in Dongshan

mitcho — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:21:40 +0000

The Fulbright program sets up an extra “co-school” to work at for a small period of time in the spring, as a means of giving us ETA’s increased variety and different school experiences, as well as letting us touch more students’ lives. For the month of March, I will be at Dongshan Elementary in Dongshan (冬山).

Teaching at Dongshan every day involves taking the train every day, and I’m fully psyched about that. I was first quite worried as there are, according to the online trip planner, only three trains a day that go directly from Nan’ao to Dongshan but this has turned out to be false. It still does mean at least an hour a day on trains, but I’ve got my iPod with wonderful podcasts, and I’m pretty sure my class schedule lets me avoid transfers.

I’m also excited about taking the train so often as Dongshan has the newest train station in Yilan county. It’s a beautiful new modern design of tasteful glass and steel.¹

The school itself is much larger than what I’ve been used to, with five classes per grade of about 30 students each… therefore about 700 students total. A special characteristic of the school is kites… the school has a kite museum and students make kites and fly them. The English classroom closet was also filled with kites.

On the teaching front, I’ll be teaching grades 2, 3, 4, and 6. I’ll be teaching all of those classes once a week, focusing on storytelling. Today I told Jump, Frog, Jump! to second graders. I’ve never had the chance to really use the same lesson plan over and over, and I already can see that I’ll be able to learn a lot through the iterative process.

The older Dongshan station’s charm involved night-time tube lights on the fence which spelled out 冬山… I assumed the new station would mean an end to the quaint tube lights, but I now see a single string strung across the metal ribs… ↩

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving

mitcho — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:45:40 +0000

Christmas in Yilan just keeps on trucking. Two days ago I wrote about my Christmas lessons and the special event at Penglai. But Christmas didn’t end on Christmas… I’ve continued to take part in festivity after festivity.

Last night we ETA’s put on a Christmas culture show for the public at Yilan Presbyterian Church.¹ I was pretty worried I wasn’t going to make it due to a Chinese presentation, but I was lucky enough to get in on the action. The show involved singing, dancing, Christmas trivia quizzes, and even a magic show. It was all in English but those who showed up seemed to all enjoy it, and we all had a great time putting it on.

Today it was Nanao Elementary’s turn to have a big holiday event: a big orchestra concert. Their orchestra program just started this February, so this was their first concert ever. We met up around 5pm for a buffet with all 100+ kids and teachers.

The concert started around 6:30. It reminded me of all the holiday recitals I went to growing up to go see Naomi perform. Each grade went up and did a little performance first, and then the orchestra went up (mostly 4-6th graders) and played some great tunes. The kids were fantastic, especially considering how long (or not) they’ve been playing.

You really have to see it to believe it, though, so here are some videos:²

There were also many little kindergardeners and little siblings around. You could tell they’d heard their older siblings practicing at home. ^^

And finally, here was one of the big hit songs from the night: La Bamba. I’ve previously mentioned that my kids like to (and can) dance—here’s more videographic evidence. ^^ Keep in mind that these are fourth and fifth graders.

I was sitting in the pews waiting for things to start, and started looking in the hymnal. It was very cool, for me, at least—it had both Chinese characters and the Taiwanese pronunciation in Pe̍h-ōe-jī, and had a first-line index in English as well. I also learned a new character: 祢, another variant of nǐ meaning “you” (like 你 or 妳, male and female, respectively) but for God. It’s the Chinese character for the capitalized “You.” They had Bailey’s favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision, too. ↩
The second song here is 童話 by Michael Wong. I just heard it for the first time tonight, but I really like it. Here’s the music video—be warned, it’s one of those classic crazy Chinese music videos. I couldn’t find one that was just the song.

↩

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I’m Seriously Dreaming of a White Christmas

mitcho — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 11:34:04 +0000

Today we finished up all our Christmas lessons at school, spread over the past week. The lesson involved some basic Christmas vocab, making Christmas cards, and my retelling of The Gift of the Magi.

Christmas Day in Nanao was decisively un-Christmas-like. It was quite sunny this morning, with a fox’s wedding. Personally, I really miss the snow. I saw a picture of someone on a white mountain and was really excited, but it was explained to me that the mountain was covered in salt, not snow.

We had a Christmas event at Penglai this morning so all the class Christmas tree got lined up in front of the school tree.

Some kids performed The Gift of the Magi as a skit, then each grade went up to perform an English song and dance. They were adorable, and they all worked so hard on the performances.

At the end the principal dressed up as Santa and threw candy at the kids.

… and when I say throw, I’m serious.

Merry Christmas!

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Family in Taiwan

mitcho — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:47:50 +0000

As all my visitors leave, I should take some time to document all the adventures of the past month or so: here’s a quick post on my family’s visit to Taiwan last month.

Day 1: Shilin night market

I met my mother, father, and sister at the Cosmos Hotel where we were staying Friday night. I took them out to the Shilin night market, a Taiwanese tradition. We bought t-shirts, ate lots of things on sticks, saw a man pushing a cart full of guava, and people picking up their stands and running from the cops (technically, the “I’m going to set up a table on the street and sell stuff” part of the night markets are illegal).

Day 2: Exploring Taipei

We went on a Japanese bus tour of Taipei, led by this older Taiwanese guy with great Japanese, though sometimes just a bit off (Bailey would have called him “precious”). We visited:

Longshan Temple (龍山寺);

~~Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall~~ National Taiwan Democracy Hall;

a market with various traditional foods;

a Taiwanese tea demo and explanation, which was really interesting;

the changing of the guard at the National Martyr’s Shrine (kind of like Yasukuni Shrine), where the guards aren’t allowed to move or blink (I think) for about 40 minutes at a time, and then a guy comes up and covers their face and says some spell so they can move;

and of course the National Palace Museum, where we weren’t allowed to photograph anything. After the tour we went to the top of Taipei 101 and got to enjoy a great night view of the city.

Taipei 101 features an open view of its tuned mass damper, which they’ve named “Damper Baby.” It’s neat, actually, how they took something that is normally only interesting to engineers and tried to make it cute and sexy. It even has a bio, complete with blood type (O, in case you were wondering).

Day 3: Rainy day in Yilan

On Sunday we went to National Center for Traditional Arts (國立傳統藝術中心) near Luodong. We saw some crazy show with all different sorts of animals which I’m sure made more sense if you understood what they were saying and an exhibit on paper craft of all different sorts, including origami. The main attraction there is the traditional arts street, a red brick street with all sorts of stores selling traditional food and crafts. The leather shop had a pig mask.

We then had dinner in central Luodong: some delicious hot pot while sitting on a glass floor above koi fish.

We got some deserts and took them back to the hotel they were staying at. Naomi was excited by the 苺大福 (traditionally, mochi with strawberry and red bean paste inside) from 85°C.

Day 4: Nanao and Jiufen

On Monday I took the morning off from school and showed them around Nanao a little bit. The weather kept getting worse as typhoon Mitag came rolling through. My family still got to see where I live, one of the schools I work at, and have a nice lunch before heading out.

On the way back out to Taipei, my family (without me) stopped in Jiufen (九份), a touristy town atop a mountain on the northeast coast of the island. The town, originally populated due to a gold rush, has some beautiful mountain alleys and tea houses. The city is now popular with Japanese tourists, as some parts of the city were used as models in Spirited Away. My family went to one tea house and enjoyed the tea and atmosphere.

My family went back to Japan Tuesday (Day 5), with my parents leaving later back to the US. It was really nice to be with all of them, even for such a short time.

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Exploring Nanao, part 2: hot springs, waterfall, and beach

mitcho — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 07:49:46 +0000

Yesterday (Saturday), Katie came over to Nanao and we explored more on my scooter. We first went to the Nan-ao hot spring (南澳溫泉). Wang laoshi took me a while back, telling me you can’t really find it with a map—you just have to go. It really is a hole in the wall—er, ground. There are three “tubs” of concrete and rock built into the ground by this local retired guy in his spare time (whom I only know to refer as “Joe”). While we were there for maybe an hour and a half, three or four groups of people came through to dip their feet in: some college kids from Yilan, some women in their thirties from Taipei, a guy from Taipei who apparently comes often to walk up rivers (?), and finally a group of 15 or so tourists from someplace. And of course a couple locals (you can tell because they come wearing slippers, a swimsuit, and a jacket). Quite the social scene!

We also drove around and found the Jin-yue waterfall (金岳瀑布). There isn’t much of a big drop or anything, but there were some neat rapids and the water was so blue! There was also some construction around, apparently some agricultural engineering.

Finally we stopped to check out the beach. Unfortunately the tide was rolling in and I had a run-in with the waves.

Exploring Nanao, part 1

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Exploring Nanao, part 1

mitcho — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:57:45 +0000

This past Sunday Michelle came to Nanao and we explored some sights together on my scooter. Here’s a beautiful photo of the port of Nanao. It’s a small little fishing port, and you can fish right there too, as Wang laoshi once took me there to do. The building there is a coast guard building.

Right by the port is a small gravely beach, covered with driftwood.

Walking down the beach, there were some interesting and beautiful geology. First, we found a portion of the mountain that was eroded in the recent typhoon. The red dirt had rolled off and solidified on the beach, leaving some interesting ground.

Next, we saw a number of points where the sedimentary rock of the coastal mountain had been cut out over and over by waves, leaving some interesting sheets of rock exposed.

There were also some natural caves here. The ceiling looks kind of like slabs of wood, but it’s all rock! We also found a stream.

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