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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

Part of the series: Exploring Nanao

Exploring Nanao, part 1
Exploring Nanao, part 2: hot springs, waterfall, and beach
Exploring Nanao, part 3: sports day, hot springs, Sayun’s bell, and 高峰

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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White Protestants and Catholics don’t frequently attend religious services

mitcho — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:27:34 +0000

Breaking news from the Potomac Primaries:

White Protestants and Catholics backed Mrs. Clinton, but Mr. Obama was strongly supported by voters who frequently attend religious services.

Seeing as backing Mrs. Clinton and supporting Mr. Obama are, in terms of votes, mutually exclusive, this sentence entails that white Protestants and Catholics (the majority of ) are not a part of “voters who frequently attend religious services”, as is demonstrated by the infelicity of the following sentence:

“Group A did A, and Group B did not do A — but Group A is part of Group B.”

Well, that just settles it then.

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北京 Part 2: Summer Palace, bargaining, The Tree, and fried apple pie

mitcho — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:51:04 +0000

Part of the series: K80, mitcho (+Magi!)'s haphazard trip to China

Going to China just got more expensive
Hong Kong
北京 Part 1: Fulbright love, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and Houhai
北京 Part 2: Summer Palace, bargaining, The Tree, and fried apple pie
北京 Part 3: The Great Wall of China! and noodles

Day 3: The Summer Palace

Day 3 begins with the Summer Palace. After Magi, K80, and I finally met¹ in the morning, we hit the (new) Summer Palace (頤和園). The Summer Palace is way out north-west, past Tsinghua University (the Beijing one), but well worth the trek. In retrospect, I would recommend going earlier, as I could have spent more time there.

The Summer Palace is built around a lake which, apparently, is quite shallow, as it was covered completely in ice on our visit, making for some great skating/sliding.

Much like the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace houses a museum-style areas, with various cultural relics on display. Again like the Forbidden City, however, the architecture and gardens are the reasons to visit.

The main attraction is probably the Tower of Buddhist Incense, which involves going up stairs after stairs, moving up this small mountain. At the top is a beautiful Guanyin.

Behind this tower is a little temple with many beautiful Buddhas on the walls.

We had a great time at the Summer Palace, with one exception…

Suzhou street: a warning

I must warn any potential travelers away from the part of the Summer Palace known as Suzhou Street (蘇州街). But first, an aside on park ticket pricing.

In some parks, such as the Summer Palace, you can buy two types of tickets at the door: a “gate ticket” (門票) and a “through ticket” (聯票). The gate ticket will let you into the park, but it doesn’t include the separate tickets for a number of “special sections” of the park, while hte “through ticket” includes these. You can also just buy a gate ticket, enter, and pay the 10 yuan or so for each special section. The Summer Palace has four such special sections. If my memory serves me right, the gate ticket was ¥20 and the through ticket was ¥50. Each special section was ¥10 if you paid as you went. So the through ticket is a great deal!

So if you’re cheap like me, you’ll buy the through ticket, and then make sure to go to each of the places listed on your through ticket. After all, you paid for them, right? One of these was the Suzhou Street. Suzhou Street is on the north side of the Palace and is a little hard to get to… many signs make it seem like you’re just a few steps away, when in reality it is still at least a 15 minute walk. Once you get there, it’s the definition of a tourist trap… it does look nice and you must pay or have the through ticket to enter but, once you’re in, you must walk around this lake (it says one-way, so you can’t get out quickly), along which there are stores with touristy junk and little tea places. There are no exhibits or anything of real cultural interest here. You have to walk around the lake, at least half way, in order to leave.

In conclusion, the through ticket is convenient, the other three “special sections” were great, and you won’t be wasting money if you get one and don’t go to the Suzhou Street. Just don’t waste your time finding or visiting the Suzhou Street.

Bargaining

After the Summer Palace we went back into the city and to the Hongqiao Market (紅橋市場), a mall in the city famous for pearls, which the girls were interested in. I realized I just don’t have the attitude to bargain properly—I’m just too soft. I tried, and I believe we did get a fair price, but I’d definitely need more practice to get good at it, and it’s not the kind of practice I particularly enjoy. At least the price did immediately drop to half or so once they saw that I spoke Chinese. Funny how things work.

The Tree and fried apple pie à la mode

Finally we met up with Magi’s friend who took us to The Tree, a great pizza place in the Sānlǐtún bar area. Magi reminisced about darkly-lit bars like this in Germany, and we enjoyed the conversation and hearth-baked pizza. I highly recommend The Tree.

Finally, we went over to another bar called Rickshaw for desert, and I had the deep-fried apple pie. I felt like I was back at the state fair.

A warning for all of you traveling to Beijing: transfer stations can have multiple different Exit A’s, one for each line. This is not immediately apparent, given that you can transfer for free between lines at these stations, and that each Exit A outside has a pole saying, for example, “Exit A: line 5 and line 1.” ↩

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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 am not a Nazi

mitcho — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:33:50 +0000

Even though this is hanging on my door. Recall that the swastika is a common sign in Buddhism… In Japan the symbol is used to mark temples on maps—I remember putting a swastika on a map of a fictional city we created in 8th grade social studies and my teacher Mr. Stevens not knowing what to think of that, until I explained it. Here in Taiwan, you often see it to mark 素食 (vegetarian cuisine).

Jennifer, my co-teacher, told me to keep anything I want that was left in my dorm room, and throw away anything I don’t need… I’m still not quite sure what to do about this one.

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