Week 2
Discussion and reflection on first week's learning.
July 1 - Discussion and Documentary: "Beyond Beauty"
by Seung
On the first day of Week 2, Dr. Yen-Chu Weng (翁彥筑) and students of Program on the Environment Taiwan: Exploring Environmental and Social Resilience visited the Department of Geography of National Taiwan University, to continue of participating a class. Learning proceed by Dr. Weng, first class in the morning was reflection of week 1 course that conducted classes in campus or outside of campus with students from the Department of Geography of National Taiwan University. Dr. Weng asked students from both the University of Washington and National Taiwan University about which activities such as in campus lectures or field trips were impressed that most strongly and engaged students to divide into small discussion groups to understand the important issues in activities of Week 1.
Because the program not only provide academic knowledges of scholars and students of National Taiwan University with a regular lecture or seminar to meet and exchange intellectual ideas, but also allow participants of environmental studies and beyond to receive dynamic feedback and broaden participants academic horizons. Moreover, we believes the Republic of China (hereafter Taiwan) is not just an area to be studied, but also a way to expand the current understandings of environment, geographical features, human societies, and enable a more complex reflection on individual of participants’ personal experience that brought understanding sincerely in various things in different fields.
Three of the most famous and most talked-about activities of Week 1 by participants from the University of Washington was National Taiwan University campus tour, Minzu Junior High school tour, and lecture of Taiwan Circular Economy Network by Grayson Shor (邵世涵). On the first day of schedule, our participants impressed when they were had an opportunity to explorer the campus that full of Neo-classic or colonial era architectures that rarity in Seattle. Also, visiting university where designated as public place is common in tour, but visiting a junior high school was a very rare opportunity to have, so all participants were expressed by writing letter to thanks for the invitation from Minzu Junior High school. In addition, most of our participants were evaluated Grayson Shor’s lecture that he suggestion was contains structures and directions based on statistics for business model of Circular Economy for the next future generations.
Dr. Yen-Chu Weng (翁彥筑) from the University of Washington presenting a lecture of reflection for Week 1 activities in Taipei.
Charlie Chung (鍾元岐) from the University of Washington, majoring in computer science, gave a reflection of his activities in Week 1.
In the afternoon, our participants had a film screening time to watch Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above directed by Taiwanese documentary filmmaker, photographer, and also environmentalist Chi Po-lin (齊柏林). This film screening was proceeded by Dr. Po-Yi Hung (洪伯邑) from National Taiwan University while Dr. Weng was absent. Since we visited Chi Po-lin Foundation (齊柏林基金會) in Tamsui (淡水) on June 29 of 2019, our participants has some background knowledge of director Chi Po-lin’s activities as an environmentalist, but watch the full film of his film work Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above was the first time for most of our participants. Chi Po-lin was intends to place a spotlight on emphasize the environmental issues in the Republic of China (hereafter ROC) such as deforestation and the need for eco-friendly renewable energy sources for the next future generations on Mother Earth. Chi Po-lin’s film also pointed out the geological beginnings of Taiwan Island as well as the origins of those who first called the island home. As we humans depend on Mother Earth for our livelihood, his film work was made we look back on our government’s policies for balancing the development of natural recources with environmental preservation. Also, we were aware that the necessity of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) like Chi Po-lin and his crew members has been active in keeping the earth peaceful and the environment safe.
Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (2013)
Dr. Po-Yi Hung (洪伯邑) from National Taiwan University, point out that there is a dearth of proposals or solutions in Chi Po-lin’s film work Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above for solve an environmental issues in Taiwan.
However, Dr. Hung and students from both the University of Washington and National Taiwan University criticized Chi Po-lin and his film work Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above. Indeed, the Chi Po-lin’s film was the start of favorable thinking for encourage Taiwanese people to protecting the environment of their fatherland; by showed the contamination of environment in Taiwan by human society and economy activities such as coal plant or mining that ruin the beautiful place in Taiwan. In fact, Chi Po-lin did not suggest any solution of concrete action, no details of accusation that who or which corporation of businesses is currently ruining the nature of Taiwan, and no conclusion, according to Dr. Hung.
Overalls, the point of film Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above is there is an indictment on Taiwan society that the people, the government and the local communities are allowing destructive to the environment to happen by economic prosperity and rapid industrialization of Taiwan, so this is the time to think about environmental sustainability. Because achieving sustained development is necessary for many vulnerable people in the future of Taiwan may be hurt by damage to environment of Taiwan. Thus, politicians and environmental scholars must creating an efficient economic system that is environmentally sound has became the challenge.
Guest lecture by HUF Chairperson Ms Lai about Food and Agriculture Movement in Taiwan.
July 2 - Food Justice and Sovereignty
by J. T.
Today, we had a variety of lectures and discussions that all centered around the topic of food justice and sovereignty. Coming off of a busy and walking intense week, we were able to enjoy the air-conditioned environment provided by our classroom at NTU while listening and participating in the lectures and discussions. All of the information covered in the variety of lectures throughout the day falls into the field of food justice and sovereignty in Taiwan.
To begin, we engaged in a lecture given by Hsiao-Fen Lai, a chairperson to the Homemakers United Foundation (HUF). Lai's lecture was centered around the history, purpose, and the current state of HUF in Taiwan and the goals that they are aiming to achieve, all targeted specifically towards women throughout all parts of the country. Put simply, HUF is working to empower both rural and urban Taiwanese women through bridging the current gap between the two groups. This entails educating urban women to become more conscious consumers about their products and food by connecting them more personally to rural areas. For urban women, they aim to encourage them to become mentors and managers to help them to start building more connections with urban communities. Although their education for urban women seemed quite successful, focusing on creating a circular economy, I continued to focus on this striking gap that existed in the first place. It saddened me how women in the same country of significant prosperity could be living such different lives. What's even worse is that this a strong phenomenon across the entire world, including here in the United States. Will education be enough to securely bridge this gap, or will more structural change need to ensure? What movements, if any, are currently in place in the United States to help educate consumers in these fields and help bridge the gap between rural and urban Americans?
The logo for the Homemakers United Foundation (HUF).
Hsiao-Fen Lai, The Chairperson of Homemakers United Foundation (HUF) giving a lecture on women and climate change in Taiwan.
One reflection that came to mind overarching the whole presentation is the HUF's logo concerning that of its purpose. Lai mentioned how the organization intentionally incorporated a woman into the face of the earth in its logo to be reminiscent of mother nature and hint at its purpose revolving around women. I thought this imagery was quite powerful considering that we are treating mother earth quite horribly while simultaneously women are receiving a disproportionally adverse impact due to that. However, another way to look at it is in an ironic sense. Mother nature theoretically has the most power and is connoted with be uncontrollable and powerful. Therefore, it would be ironic that a force so powerful, that is correlated with a woman, is adversely impacting women due to our entire societal impact on the earth. Either way, this logo sparked a lot of reflection inside of me and I believe is quite powerful in itself.
This lecture was our entire morning activity and then it was time for lunch! We had a delicious lunch and then Yi-Ting so generously bought some of us some red bean popsicles! It was the perfect sweet treat to get us prepared for an afternoon with two more shorter lectures. From there we moved into our afternoon lectures from our professor and TA at NTU, Po-Yi Hung, and Cindy.
Kai, TJ, Yi-Ting, and May enjoying some red bean popsicles that Yi-Ting generously bought for us during lunch! (Thanks again Yi-Ting!)
Dr. Po-Yi Hung giving a lecture on Taiwanese tea.
Hung taught us about the globalization of food and then moved into food and agriculture more specifically within Taiwan. Within his lecture, I was specifically intrigued by the topic of globalization. While discussing one of the major drawbacks to food globalization, the spread of foreign companies to the extent that new foods become "normal" and commonplace in a different culture than where they began, Hung gave a powerful example. He mentioned how this phenomenon is already occurring both with American companies like McDonalds and Starbucks coming to Taiwan and vice versa with ShareTea and other major bubble tea corporations becoming common in America. During a lot of these lectures we have regarding environmental issues, it can be easy to distance yourself from them and trick yourself into believing that they aren't already underway or going to affect you just yet. However, being able to see both of these trends heavily present in both of our home countries in this program already really struck me and put things in perspective. What other companies and foods have become so commonplace in foreign countries that they are now changing a culture? To what extent can we justify food globalization as economic or inevitable? To what extent are we altering foreign cultures through the influence of our own?
Learning about urban beekeeping with Urban Beekeepers at Yuanshan Expo.
July 3 - Urban Beekeeping & "Return to the Farm"
by May
Disclaimer: Anything written in italics is a bee joke.
Bee prepared because this blogpost will take you on a journey through urban bee keeping and the revitalization of agriculture.
What We Did
Bright and early, we headed off to the Yuanshan Expo Dome to visit the Urban Bee Farm with Mr. Tsai. First, we went inside the classroom to get settled in. I thought we would be learning about the bees before meeting them, but it turned out that we were just going to put our stuff down before bee-lining out of the classroom. Before we actually met the bees though, the hive was smoked just enough so the bees were calm and sedated. The smoker looked like a watering can or a teapot, but with smoke pouring out from the spout. When we left the classroom, Mr. Tsai introduced us to all of their beehives. He opened the one in the middle and hundreds of bees surrounded us. This was a learning opportunity because Mr. Tsai taught us that bee farmers count their bees by hives and not individual bees (ex: I have 3 hives of bees vs. I have 3,000 bees). There were bees flying all around us and landing on our shirts and hats. Fortunately, most of us had long sleeves and pants to avoid our bare skin coming in contact with the bees. It was also suggested that we tuck our pant cuffs into our socks, so bees don’t crawl up our legs.
Something Mr. Tsai said that stood out to me was how some bees don’t have stingers. That definitely calmed down my nerves because I was really unsure about getting so close to the bees. Another bee fact is that if they wanted to sting us, they would have stung us a long time ago, so we didn’t have to worry. Knowing these two stings(things) changed my perspective on bees a lot because I’ve always thought that bees would sting you if you get close at any proximity. So being around these bees and touching them, helped me see that these insects are not as unpredictable and scary as I thought they were.
The latter portion of the day was spent inside the NTU Geography building’s classroom. We were given an intro to the Sanpuku tea farm by one of its founders and learned what made Sanpuku special. Not only did it not use pesticides in their teas, they also try to farm sustainably. One thing I thought was interesting was the translation of tea names. 红茶(hong cha) is directly translated to “red tea” in English, but in actual English, we refer to it as Black Tea for its color and what we call “Black Tea” in English is 普洱茶 (pu’er cha) in Chinese.
Here, Mr.Tsai is showing us the smoker he uses to calm the bees before we touched them. He also used the smoker to get bees off of people's shirts when we were done with the tour. Behind him is the hive that we visited with bees flying around!
This is the classroom we were in! The tables were wooden pallets which I thought was a really cool way of reusing materials that the farm probably gets a lot of.
Overall Reflections
The biggest takeaway for me from this day was the different way I view honeybees now. Sorry to bee (be) redundant, but I mentioned working as a preschool teacher many times on this trip. This trip to the bee farm really inspired me to approach teaching our kids about bees a different way. Currently, the focus of the lesson we teach them is to stay still around bees and slowly move away. This only shows the kids that bees are something scary, thus creating this constant fear of the species. In the future, I want to more accurately create lessons on the difference between bees and wasps. Not only should they learn how to stay safe around bees, but which bugs they should use caution around, and which bugs they must alert the teachers about (although it’ll likely be that they tell the teachers every single bug they find).
I also want to bring in our own urban bee farm. This way, we can all see this circular economy system where the honey we eat comes from bees that pollinate our flowers. This being said, I plan to plant more flowers and native species in our yard. One problem with the rise of urban bee farm, as Mr. Tsai pointed out, was that there would be more competition for food. To combat this, I would create more food sources for our bees and avoid using pesticides.
After our bee lecture, I went up to ask Mr. Tsai about having bees or wasps in our home. Since they are so small, I can’t distinguish whether the bugs were honeybees or wasps. They particularly like to buzz around the kids which creates a huge problem regarding safety. Mr. Tsai said that it doesn’t especially matter which kind of bugs they were. Having both indicates a healthy garden that attracts pollinators (wasps pollinate too!) so we should take care of both insects.
The bee farm tour definitely had the largest impact on me because I learned stuff I could use on a daily basis. Building solar panels is really cool, but it’s not on a scale of something I can easily add to my life. Protecting bees, on the other hand, is something anyone can incorporate into their environment with a little education. I’ll definitely be using what I learned on this day to teach the younger kids and hopefully generate more buzz around loving bees instead of hating them.
Here is a closeup of the beehive. There are individual frames that holds the honey and larvae.
The queen bee is marked with a red line. We learned that each hive only has one queen and that the queen's job is to keep the hive's population thriving. She also has the responsibility of choosing the next queen.
Visiting Sanpuku eco-friendly tea plantation in Pinglin.
July 4 - Field Trip to Pinglin (Sustainable agriculture and tea) & Mucha Energy Hill
by Seung and Yuxuan
The UW and NTU students were weeding Sanpuku tea farm in Pinglin.
Pinglin
On the second field trip day of Program on the Environment Taiwan: Exploring Environmental and Social Resilience, Dr. Yen-Chu Weng (翁彥筑) with students of the University of Washington and Dr. Po-Yi Hung (洪伯邑) with students of National Taiwan University were participated to visit Sanpuku (山不枯茶園) Taiwanese tea farm and Pinglin Tea Museum (新北市坪林茶業博物館) in Pinglin District of New Taipei, the Republic of China (hereafter Taiwan). The participants gathered at the main gate of National Taiwan University by 7:50AM to travel in two bus. The Pinglin District to explore was just an hour’s drive down the expressway from Downtown of Taipei.
Sanpuku
However, tea farm was not accessible by bus because in the inmost recess of the mountain, so we have to change transfer by small car to destination. Once we arrived at tea farm, the manager and staffs of the tea company Sanpuku (山不枯) began introduce a profound knowledge about tea plants and about growing them. The staffs of Sanpuku emphasized the feature of their tea plants and products. As Sanpuku support the local tea industry in Taiwan, every tea plant of Sanpuku is 100% Taiwanese tea that manufactured by tea masters. In addition, since Sanpuku guide their farmers to eco-friendly cultivation and natural methods for pesticides are popular, Sanpuku’s tea products are pesticides not detected as the lowest standard that certified by third-party institutes. On the others hands, Cindy (張宇忻), graduate school student of National Taiwan University who dedicating research for Taiwanese coffee production in indigenous communities in Pingtung of Taiwan, stated that, in the farming regions of Taiwan include tea plantations, they are short of workers. Dr. Po-Yi Hung (洪伯邑) also claimed that the ageing of the rural population and industrialization has resulted in a great influx of rural population into the cities.
Tea Ceremony
Since then, the participants cleared away weeds for 20 minutes, and moves to Sanpuku’s tea factory by walk through mountains for 30 minutes. In the factory, the staffs of Sanpuku shows a craftsmanship of tea production in Taiwan with a traditional tea ceremony demonstration. As a result, the participants gained a better understanding of the tea production process, learned about the natural environment of agriculture, tea culture, and humanities in Taiwan. Tea is the collaboration of nature and humanities in culturally historic setting.
The UW and NTU students practiced the tea ceremony.
The group of UW and NTU students visited the Taipei Energy Hill in a lightly overcast weather.
Taipei Energy Hill
As a metropolitan area located in a basin, the Big Taipei Area has limited space to develop photovoltaics (PV) systems so that rooftop of buildings as well as idling lands that cannot be easily turned into other uses seem to be ideal candidates.In the afternoon, we visited Taipei Energy Hill, the first solar power plant built upon a landfill at Taiwan. By listening to a presentation and discussions during the field trip, we were able to learn about the project comprehensively, which served as our first lesson about renewable energy in Taiwan.
Facility Site
Taipei Energy Hill is located at a decommissioned landfill (Fude Landfill, 1985 - 1994) and it falls into the category of not being used for city development. After capping, plantations were restored on the landfill by 2004. In 2016, Taipei City decided to devote 3 hectares of the previous landfill (the area totals up to 37 hectares) to a solar power plant.
System design and performance
Taipei Energy Hill solar array consists of more than 7,800 PV panels with 2 MW peak capacity in total. Based on the 1200~1400 hours of equivalent full sunshine of the Taipei area, the system is expected to produce 2 million kWh per year, which is equivalent to the electrical consumption of more than 570 households and reduction of 1,108 tons of CO2 emission. All solar panels were manufactured domestically by the contractor, Tatung cooperation. The system is grid-tied with the convenience of using existing electrical infrastructure (transformers and transmission lines, etc.) for a biogas power plant (built to harvest energy from landfill-produced biogas) on site. During the design phase, the contractor visited a similar site at Massachusetts, the United States and decided to use a ballasted racking system to avoid ground penetration as well as withhold strong wind load during the typhoon season. Due to the landscape, different arrays (12 panels per array) were adjusted accordingly to ensure a due-south orientation for optimized power generation.
Students listened to a talk given by Mr. Chang who are in charge of the PV sector of Tatung, the contractor of the Taipei Energy Hill. Solar panels can be seen on the back.
Business model
Taipei Energy Hill was made possible by a public-private sector collaboration. Taipei City provided the land with no initial cost but claims 10% of the total income of the solar power plant as the rent. Through bidding process, Tatung, one of the oldest appliances manufacturer who have recently got involved in the PV industry, was awarded a ten-year contract (possibly another ten-year renewal contract) to build and operate the solar power plant. According to the contract, the government will reclaim the land and all the equipment on it after twenty years for continuing operation or other development plan. The income of the solar power plant mainly comes from selling electricity to Taiwan’s largest utility company, Taipower. Including the current subsidy provided by local government (15%), Tatung could earn 5 NTD/kWh and the total income could be over 10,000,000 NTD. However, when taking into account Tatung’s initial investment for all infrastructures, 130,000,000 NTD, the Return on Investment (ROI) period is expected to be 14 years.
Environmental impact
Other than the direct environmental benefit of reducing 1,108 tons of CO2 emissions, Taipei Energy Hill also sets a good example for the renewable energy enterprise of the Big Taipei Area. This power plant itself contributes about 10% of the total solar generation capacity currently installed at Taipei. Together with the biogas power plant nearby, Taipei Energy Hill serves as an important environmental education site for local students. In addition, some recreational activities close by (grass skiing, etc.) can bring a fair amount of people and potentially give the solar farm continuous public exposure.
Reflection
First of all, we really appreciated the honest discussion given by Mr. Chang who are in charge of the PV sector of Tatung. He mentioned investing on Taipei Energy Hill was a risky move since the ROI is relatively long compared with typical business practices. He also did not support the practice of building solar farms in Taiwan and selling them to foreign investors after a short time simply to make quick money. In the current stage, the revenue of the solar power plant heavily relies on the subsidy provided by the government. However, I believe it can never be a long-term solution for a healthy industry which requires enough space for profit by itself. The main reason is that the utility fee in Taiwan is relatively low (around 2 NTD/kWh). One booster for renewable energy market could be taxing the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels, so that electricity generated by coal-fired power plants is likely to increase to the point that renewable energy generation starts to make more economic sense. Last but not least, disposal of the decommissioned solar panels remains challenging. There is no particular measurement to deal with solar panels beyond their lifespans yet. Taiwan at least took the first step by setting up regulations for new installations to pay certain amount of fees for establishing recycling programs in the future.
Playing a harvesting game at the NTU Farm.
July 5 - Research Case Studies: Coffee and Tea & NTU Farm Tour
by Idan
Here is an image of our TA's, Cindy and Shiu, providing our lunch from Mos Burgers. They're always so attentive to ensure that everyone's dietary needs are accommodated!
Today was more relaxed in comparison to yesterday’s eventful and inspiring field trip. We remained indoors for the majority of our class time listening to our TA’s, Cindy and Shiu, reflect on their graduate research on coffee and tea in Taiwan respectively. I found this to be very appropriate for this week’s theme: Food and Society in Taiwan.
First, Cindy recalled the history of coffee in Taiwan, explaining that the indigenous people were originally asked to grow coffee in order to satisfy the Japanese market during Japanese occupation in 1910 through 1945. This led to Taiwan being one of the first to produce coffee. It was intriguing to learn that the indigenous people had no coffee drinking culture themselves, so once the Japanese left Taiwan, many were surprised to find that the coffee industry did not. With that in mind, Cindy expressed her desire to study the challenges that indigenous people faced regarding the relationship between production of the cash crop and a sense of belonging among the tribes, as well as why they never abandoned the industry.
For me personally, I felt as though the reason why they did not abandon the coffee industry came from an economic standpoint. I figured that if the Japanese had already introduced the indigenous people to a successful market, and the coffee plantations were already in place on indigenous land, they might as well continue their work and profit from exporting coffee beans. However, once Cindy mentioned the 2009 typhoon Morakot, I began to agree that maybe there was something more to this cash crop. This typhoon destroyed nearly all the coffee plantations of the Taiwu tribe (a popular local coffee plantation area as of 2000) and resulted in the death of many locals. My heart ached as Cindy recalled her memory of the elder grandmother who had lived in the area for nearly 70 years and then said she never wanted to return to the mountains after that summer. But regardless of the 1.5 hour commute from the new settling site of the tribe to the location of the plantations, people kept coming back to tend to their farms. Cindy explained to us that this made her realize that coffee was a way to connect the environment, economy, and culture of Taiwan and I completely agree. Her observations of informants who extended their efforts to return and work on the farm was inspiring and most definitely made me consider the interconnectedness of food and society in Taiwan. I would say more so here than in the United States, where local and smaller businesses struggle to compete in the large markets.
This image highlights the main research sites that Cindy visited while studying coffee plantations. She emphasized that most of this area is mountainous, which serves the belief that coffee grown in higher altitude tastes better. Most of the indigenous tribes live here and highlighted in bold is "Taiwu," where Cindy conducted most of her research.
Cindy also shared the story of one informant named Lou who took courses in specialty coffee production and worked at a café during his student years. However, upon returning to his family’s coffee plantation, his knowledge of new and less traditional coffee production methods was frowned upon by his father and they argued, resulting in Lou leaving the tribe. This story was heartbreaking to me because it made me realize how the strict social norms such as the taboo act of correcting elders can result in serious social disputes within tribes. With more young people moving from urban to rural areas, the age gap within tribes is already large and instances like these can widen it even more. Nevertheless, Lou eventually went from refusing to sell his family’s coffee at his café, to closing the shop and returning to his family farm after his wedding where he and his father reconnected.
This concept was strange to me because it seemed as though their life was suddenly painted into a fairytale story where everyone lives happily ever after. But Cindy was quick to emphasize that the members of Taiwanese society recognize that while the elders have money and land, the young have knowledge of specialty coffee and marketing skills, so they need each other in order for this industry to survive.
Upon conclusion of the presentation, we learned that coffee is all about mobility, bringing people either closer or farther to home, yet regardless of where it may take individuals, they always obtain a diverse meaning of home through an ever-changing sense of belonging.
After hearing Cindy speak so passionately about the relationship between coffee and the indigenous tribes, I came to realize that food and society in Taiwan are extremely unified and Shiu’s research solidified this even further. His presentation about the Taiwanese culture towards Vietnamese tea was eye opening in that it made me aware of the social issues that Taiwan struggles with.
Upon arrival in Taipei, I was shocked at how nice everyone seemed to be towards one another. Socially, it truly seemed like a fairytale; of course, the abundance of lush greenery on our way from the airport helped the location fit seamlessly into my fairytale-like interpretation. However, coming from the United States, where social conflicts and controversial issues could be outlined in a book larger than the English dictionary, it seemed to me that Taiwan was a very friendly and optimistic place. While this opinion has not changed – it still fits a very fairy-tale like image – there are definitely social conflicts that I have only been recently made aware of. Shiu described both Taiwanese tea plantations located in Taiwan and Vietnam, with a big difference being the size. Whereas tea plantations such as the one we visited in Pinglin grow to be 0.3 acres, the Taiwanese tea plantations in Vietnam – owned by Taiwanese farmers – are nearly 200 acres! This is quite a dramatic difference. Nevertheless, it was surprising for me to learn that Taiwan’s government saw it as a MASSIVE controversial issue, since the local farmers were no longer producing locally. This led to negative propaganda of Vietnamese tea beginning in 1995, portraying the Vietnamese tea as poisonous, mixed, and overall bad.
Shiu went on to explain that the constant unconvincing perceptions of the taste of Vietnamese tea led him to travel and conduct his research in Vietnam where he discovered that the variation in taste was less about where it’s grown and more about the technique. Whereas most people saw tea as a symbol for Taiwan and a preservation of local identity, he set out to discover the truth about having Taiwanese farmers grow tea outside of Taiwan.
His various images from his travels made it very easy to follow his claims and one that stood out to me particularly was the lotus machine, which shapes tea into a tight sphere. This is often described as a strenuous activity, but we learned that it has a serious impact on the quality of tea. I didn’t realize there was so much physical effort put into the creation of tea, and I most definitely have fostered a newfound appreciation for the delicacy I enjoy so much back home. There’s nothing like cuddling up with a warm cup of tea and learning that somebody had put so much of their hard work into the quality of it will surely make me feel even warmer inside. I can’t wait to share the tea that I purchased here with my family back in Washington state.
Here are some fellow classmates, Barbara, Shuo, Brandi, and Paula (bottom left to bottom right) engaging in the crop harvesting game that we played prior to touring the NTU farm.
This is the adorable entrance to the NTU Experimental Farm. Once again, it captures the picturesque fairy-tale like image that I assume when thinking of Taiwan's landscape.
We concluded the day with a tour of the NTU farm which was one of my favorite parts about today. The farm is completely pesticide-free and beautifully structured. The tour began with an indoor game about harvesting plants and randomly drawing upon various situations which affected our harvest and overall profit. This made me realize how difficult farming in Taiwan can be with the somewhat unpredictable natural disasters. Of course, typhoon patterns can be predicted over time, but I can understand how it may be difficult to strategically plan and invest time, money and land into growing a crop, only to have it be destroyed right before harvest.
After the game, we moved outdoors where I was surprised to discover that NTU farm was filled with foreign species from all over the world (South America, Australia, etc.) as well as native ones. I noticed that there were various species of pine trees scattered around and immediately felt closer to home. As we all know, Washington is the evergreen state and much of its greenery is comprised of pine trees. Therefore, seeing, touching and smelling these pines was nostalgic in a way and made me realize that at NTU, any student can feel at home.
This is what I believe food and agriculture does for our societies: provides a sense of home. I hadn’t given it much thought before, but simply being around nature that looks, smells and feels familiar is comforting. I can’t wait to discover what other simple but impactful things connect our beautiful planet to our own sense of belonging and home!