Culture festival, Czech national day and everything else

Friday is here, and it seems like a good time for my weekly review of current events around here.

Last Saturday, 2 of the Chinese tutors and volunteers from the Campus caring groups organized a cultural trip in and around Taipei for the foreign students. Joining the trip were: 4 students from Russia, 4 from Chile, 2 from Mexico, 1 from Paraguay, and I - fortunately, everyone was eager to speak Chinese, so I was not left out among all the Spanish and Russian languages.



First, we went to see the changing of the guards at the Martyr shrine. It is rather similar to changing of the guards all over the world, except the Taiwanese soldiers make the show more interesting by performing a variety of tricks with their rifles - spinning, juggling, throwing the up in the air, throwing them to each other and such. They must spend a lot of time learning this. In my eyes, they look a lot more like circus performers, rather than soldiers.





Next stop was the Taipei Grand Hotel. The hotel is built entirely in the Chinese style, is one of the main Taipei landmarks as well as one of the most luxurious hotels, where all the official visitors stay.



Ultimately, we ended up at the Kuandu Festival, taking place at the Taipei Arts University. The highlight of the festival was a series of shows of traditional Chinese performing arts. The performances took place throughout the afternoon and evening and we only saw a fraction of them, but even the little was more than worth it.

Few pictures and videos from the shows:

Everybody is excited to see the foreigners, even these young actors.



I don't know what this performance is or means.. people walking around and dancing wearing these huge costumes.. Probably about 3 meters tall.



Similar ones, except a lot smaller, waiting for their performance



Now, a few videos: Drumming and dancing..



The lion dance. I saw a similar performance in Hong Kong, this is said to be a very traditional Chinese show. At first, there were two lions, just running about, playing with each other and all. Then one of them proceeded to do the following performance. As you can see, there are two men doing each lion.. one is the front, the other one is the back. I love especially love the facial mimics.



Then, the lion proceeds with an acrobatic part.



After, there also was a show of children, doing the lion dance. Although they didn't do these more complicated things.

I don't really know what is the following performance. All I know is that this is a group from Tainan (southern Taiwan), the show was very entertaining and the male part of the audience couldn't take their eyes off these girls.



There was an elderly man sitting next to our group. Soon after he arrived, all eyes started turning on him. Then the cameras came out. Then some of the bolder people asked this man to take pictures with him, and seemed extremely excited about this. I had no clue who he was. After a little research, I found out that he's an actor, who appeared in the hottest Taiwanese movie at the time, 海角七號. This is the guy:



So now, I guess I and the rest of our group can be seen in the background of many pictures of this guy, that the visitors to the festival took and proudly show around.

There also was a photo exhibition at said arts university. Parts of it were great, parts of it were awful. What I enjoyed the most was the fact that the background music was Vltava, a part of a symphony the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. I was quite surprised to hear it this far away from home.

I also ate a very big, and very cheap (10 NTD) ice cream.



On Tuesday afternoon, as I was walking home from class, I realized it is October 28, a national (foundation) day of Czechoslovakia. I also remembered hearing that the Czech Economic and Cultural office in Taiwan always organizes something on that day. It is strange I didn't hear about anything, I thought. Just then, I met Lenka who told me that indeed there was a reception taking place that evening, in the Grand Hyatt Hotel. I made a few calls and decided to attend, even though I wasn't officially invited (only then I realized that the Czech office has no idea that I'm actually here). Fortunately, I was able to just walk in the reception, no trouble with guest lists or anything. I got to meet many Czechs living in Taiwan (they all seem to be either students, or people working at the Czech office), including the head of the office, as well as many "friends of the Czech Republic" from various countries. The best part was of course the Czech food and beer.. It was very appreciated after 2 months of the local food and Taiwan beer (that's what it's called.)

Few days ago, I was walking back to the dormitory, and observed a rather interesting scene. I snake climbed up the fence of the basketball courts, right by the entrance (so nobody dared to walk in or out). The students were just standing away, looking at the snake with respect in their eyes. Then, this elderly lady came in with a long stick. Without hesitation, she started ferociously beating the snake with the stick, until it was rather obvious that the snake is dead. Poor animal. But I guess this is a perspective of a Central European, where all snakes are protected by law and killing one could possibly bring at least a hefty fine. Not so in Taiwan.

My hairstyle poll finished! The winner is the 1956 James Dean look, followed by the 1984 almost-afro, and 1990 mullet. Thanks to all those who participated. I thought, now that I have the results, today would be a good day to overcome my fear and go get the haircut already.. To the famous '100 NTD a cut' place where "Human comes in, monkey comes out", no less.

Here's the result.


.....What I wanted ............. How it turned out .......

Could have been worse I guess.