Classes were canceled for two days. The first, May 19th (which might be the actual birthday?), many highly unusual activities took place. First, there was a parade of all the university programs. That essentially meant standing on the running track in the rain for about 30 minutes, waiting for our turn to walk in front of the seating area of the stadium (where the university president was sitting) - there are many programs and departments here at the university, hence the wait. Some of the programs had prepared fancy greetings, we (mostly foreigners) just sort of waved, thinking "What's the point of all this?" Then we stood on the track for a bit longer, while two songs were played (possibly the university anthem and national anthem), and that was it. The senior students didn't even bother to show up.
After this stylish celebration, several competition were held. The first one involved running around the track, rolling a large ball.
The other one was way cooler - a cheerleading/dancing competition. Apparently, this is a really big event here every year. Many departments strenuously practice all year, to be able to show something really mind-blowing on this one day. I must say - it was exactly that.
The recipe is rather straightforward - very little clothes, colorful makeup, fake eyelashes, elaborate props with very obscure relevance, interesting, albeit pretty random theme (There was the Stone Age, India, Aladin, jungle, Christmas and many others), yelling "WE ARE NUMBER ONE" at least three times during the show, and some dancing to complement it. Overall, it was very entertaining, the tiny tops and miniskirts appealing for the males in the audience, but most of all, possible only in Taiwan. Well, definitely not in Europe. I just can't imagine Czech university students spending all year practicing something like this, painting posters, making costumes...
Noora and I also went to the zoo. It was about time, considering it is just around the corner from where we live and study, yet we've not been there before, after 9 months in Taiwan. The biggest attraction of the Zoo are the two pandas, which I mentioned some time last year. When they arrived here in December, a panda fever struck the island. It was an obsession. Anything and everything had a panda theme. The pictures were everywhere. Public bus drivers wore panda hats, and their buses were all panda-themed. Apparently, the crowds were so big the first few weeks, one had about 3 seconds to look at the pandas, before being mercilessly pushed away. When we got there, the crowds were pretty tolerable (though there were a lot of elementary school children). We did get to see the pandas, who were sleeping (as usual) and barely moved. It would be an overstatement to call it thrilling. But that's coming from someone who went to a panda breeding station in Sichuan in China, where they had at least 30 of the bears, not behind glass but in a huge, open compound, when there were no other visitors and the pandas were happily running around and grubbing on bamboo.
There were also at least 4 souvenir shops, selling nothing but panda memorabilia.
The zoo was very nice, with your standard selection of animals on display. Among the more memorable were:
A show-off monkey
A herd of hippos. Any animal, even one that doesn't look particularly appealing, always elicited one reaction in the visitors. 好可愛, 好可愛!!!
An ostrich with a piercing look
Also, for the first time in my life, I felt like a part of the display of the zoo. People yelling 'Hello!' from all directions, staring at the weird species, i.e. the foreigners! This rarely happens to me in Taipei, but the moment we stepped in the zoo, it was like entering an entirely different world, where the foreigner is a true wonder to behold.
We even had a little zoo right at home, in the balcony. Colorful butterflies making love, all afternoon and evening.
Here's some food at Sichuan, one of our favorite restaurants.
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