Thursday January 31st, 2013
FIELD TRIP TIME! For three days my Rotary district is taking
its exchange students on a culture tour of eastern Taiwan. This will be day
one! So, onwards we go!
Arriving at Taipei Main Train Station for the meeting place,
all the exchange students were groggy. Many, including myself, fled for coffee
at 7-Eleven. The reason for this is because we were to meet at 6:45AM. Now
factor in waking up, getting ready, breakfast and travel time to get there, you
have to wake up quite early and on winter break too. Easier said than done. XD
Combined with tiredness, I had the displeasure of catching a
worsening cold just before the trip. So nose, stomach and more were all feeling
like crud. Great, just great but there was no way I would skip out on a trip
just because of sickness.
From 6:45 to noon was dedicated to riding two trains to our
destination. Given to all the exchange students, lunch was “biandang” otherwise
known as a Chinese lunchbox. These usually have meat, vegetables and always
rice. They’re pretty good and easily portable.
Upon reaching the location we boarded tour buses that would
drive us around for the next several days. Two of them were needed in order to
fit all the students in. They first drove us to Luyeh Hill for a bird’s eye
view of the farming, mountainous area below. It’s pretty for sure but I didn’t
enjoy it as much as I would’ve due to my sickness inflaming as the day went on.
That’s when I thank the Lord for a camera and I can look back at the pictures
when feeling better.
Next stop was a quite attractive place both in outlook and
theme. Twas the “Aboriginal Bunun Village.” Nearly the entire time was
dedicated to watching a performance done by aboriginals of that tribe within
the age range of young child to teenager, maybe early adult. Dancing, singing
and music were the whole show. An enjoyable show I must say! Of course it’s
enjoyable, it’s the aboriginal culture! (I love those cultures btw. Fun fact:
Native Americans were the first foreign culture I fell in love with as a
child.) It’s not easy to explain what all was seen/heard with words but the few
pictures I have will do most of the talking. Visit me in America and I’ll show
you the videos taken that will give a whole lecture. XD
Not sure what this all meant but the young boys sat down
with the older gents forming a circle around them as the females stood back to
watch. The men swayed from side to side, sometimes rotating the circle with
several steps as well as voicing long monotones that changed pitches now and
then. The design you see on their shirt is a snake pattern, a symbol prominent
in their culture. I believe worship the snake in some way or at least consider
it sacred. And yes, they’re wearing skirts. They manly pull it off though just
like the Scotts can. XD
Throughout the show the performers changed clothing several
times. Here is such an example. The females are pretty straightforward: top,
shirt, apron, etc. For guys I’ll point out something that’s maybe a little
harder to notice. They’re not wearing pants. Now, now hear me out. Indeed they
have something on their legs. Those would be leggings that only cover the front
and leave the back exposed. So how are their bums covered up? Well they’re
still wearing the black skirts. See them now? Bet you didn’t at first. ;P
A highlight, if not the
highlight, was when the performers had all the exchange students (about 47 give
or take a few) squish onto the medium-sized stage in a big circle. We were then
taught an aboriginal dance and soon were prancing around to music, smiles
plastered across faces left and right. So…AWESOME! I LOVE ABORIGINAL DANCING!
Oh I wish I had a video of it because it was truly spectacular. Love, love,
LOVE! <3
A very, very short
time was given to the exchange students to scan through an aboriginal souvenir
store. Boy would I have liked to purchase a vest with the snake pattern that is
such an important symbol in their culture! But $30US bucks for something that
probably cost $7 was out of the question. Everything there was very expensive
but I was so determined to at least buy one thing for memory’s sake. That’s
when the sight of a CD came to the rescue! Its cover had familiar faces from
the performance smiling into the distance. That made it personal since I saw in
person the singers featured on the CD. Therefore it became my take-home
souvenir. Whoo! ^_^
Little bundles of cuteness, that’s what a few aboriginal
girls were when they approached me. They were fascinated with my long hair.
Though it did get awkward when they simply commented to me that it was long and
proceed to stare at me doing nothing else. I guess it’s half cute but half
creepy. XD
Loading onto the buses, we bid the village farewell and
drove off to Papago International Resort where we would spend the night. It was
a very nice place and comfortable too. Slippers for the room were provided, of
course, as to be expected in the Asian culture. The dinner was a very
impressive buffet with all sorts of food choices. The Haagen-Dazs ice cream
section got my interest because I was able to taste test more of this expensive
brand that’s still pretty new to me for free. And it was delicious! The main
course of the meal was pretty good too, usually revolving around an Asian food
style. No one could leave that place hungry for sure!
After dinner the exchange students dispersed and went
exploring around the resort. There was activities ping-pong, arcade games, gym,
swimming pool and a bar/lounge that had two girls singing away in. Their style
of dress and dancing made me feel a little uncomfortable since it seemed all
geared towards men therefore I didn’t stay long. I preferred walking around the
resort with my roommates (Mariko, Mika and Shania), simply taking in the night
air. There was an optional activity held by the tour guides that are
accompanying us through the whole trip of a ghost walk. Really it was just a
simple walk in the night but I managed to get a Native American ghost story of
humans who kill an animal, put on their skin and then gain the ability to
transform into that animal and do evil upon people out of Shania (who is a
Native American from Arizona). It wasn’t a scary time at all despite my best
efforts to get it so. What was surprisingly was that only my roommates and I
showed up. That’s 4 out of about 47 people who came. I find that a little sad
but did doesn’t mean it was any less pleasurable. A walk in the night feels
good.
My roommates and I didn’t go crazy this night and just spent
a chunk of our time in the room chatting amongst each other. So there we were,
friendly happily talking until a phone rang. Locating its ring I tracked it to
the bathroom. Bathroom? Strange since
they usually are on the nightstand. XD But I picked up and soon a rapid chain
of Chinese was shot in my ears. Apologizing to the employee I explained I
didn’t understand everything he said. He flipped to perfect English and kindly
asked if my room could be quiet because other customers were complaining about
the noise. I peeked out the bathroom at my friends who were calming sitting on the
bed talking in a normal voice as we’ve had been doing before. Confused I told
him that it was a mistake and the complaints must have been gestured towards a
nearby room. He apologized and the call ended. Relating the story to my
roommates we soon concluded the reason for the mix-up. Outside our door we
could hear other exchange students in the hallway who weren’t the quietest
people on Earth. Sure my room’s occupants did nothing wrong but in our heads we
were going “Crap. What if the resort tells Rotary and they think it was us?”
(Which didn’t happen thankfully) But it gave us an opportunity to play around
and mock each other how loud the other was being. Things like “you’re breathing
too loud! Be quiet!” XD
Other than the telephone, a for sure difference between
American and Taiwanese resorts was the book available on/in the nightstand.
Instead of the Bible you get “The Teaching of Buddha.” Come on, you know I had
to read a page or two out of curiosity. What did I find you might wonder? Well
from reading a random page and paragraph, I learned how to weight an elephant.
No joke, it taught you that. Something along the lines of put the elephant in a
boat and mark how far down it sinks. Take the mammal out and then pile enough
weight in making it sink down enough to match the marked line. Weigh those
weights and you have the mass of your elephant. Umm…why is Buddha teaching how
to weight an elephant? XD What I want to know is if they actually did such a
procedure back in the day. That’s a fun picture to play with in our mind. XD
Sleeping was quite a challenge to accomplish, almost like a
chore. Shania played her iPod throughout the whole night. Now I have nothing
against sleeping with music because there’s nothing like being lullabied by a
Bach composition or a Beethoven piece. But when rap, rock and rave music are
playing at a loud volume…I have trouble falling asleep even though I was on the
opposite side of the room. After song after song of music that beckoned for me
to get up and party, which prevents my body from switching to knock-out mode, I
slipped out of bed and snuck over to lower the volume. In my mind turning off
the music completely might not be a good idea because of property reasons and a
need-to-sleep-with-it-playing for some. Even with the decreased volume, I had a
strenuous time getting shut-eye. Party music accomplishes its goal for me, it
makes me want to party up a storm. That problem will be solved tomorrow when I
ask for no music to accompany us through the night. Tonight was just a one-time
challenge.
And since I can’t remember anything else to the day, Taffy
end! Peace out!
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