Upon arrival in Kaohsiung I knew this city was going to be awesome. From day one it has already proven that to me. Today we started with an entertaining presentation from the Chair of the Department of Geography at NKNU with a surprise appearance from rapper Drake, who clearly has a preference for Kaohsiung over Changhua. We were also given some reminders regarding the unpredictability of mother nature, the dangers of mosquitoes and how crossing the intersection is a constant risk of life and limb. Be careful out in these streets (Seriously)!

As we transitioned from the beginning pleasantries to the more serious topics we spent some time reflecting on our previous learning in Taipei and Changhua. After a moment of discussion, students shared their opinions on our favorite lectures or trips from the previous weeks. For the first week, students raved over the trip to Treasure Village and fondly remembered our eccentric tour guide Nick. Who is now friends with many of us on Facebook. We also enjoyed the presentation on circular economy and the insights it offered. It also helped that we had lovely viewing material *winks*.

Reflecting on the second week, it appears many people enjoyed the urban beekeeping lecture during the second week and have a newfound respect for bees. While I spent most of the time indoors as I am still scarred from childhood trauma involving them. *Shudder*. However, learning all of the new facts about bees, bee imposters and the enthusiasm exuding from the speaker, this trip seemed to have been one to remember. Everyone also seemed to enjoy the trip to Pinglin later that week. Dressed in straw hats and grass crowns, we weeded that tea field like champs and had fun doing it! Also low key made me contemplate dropping everything to become a tea farmer. This trip also had the cutest pictures of everyone.

Week 3 had us all bent as most of us were sick or in some kind of pain. But, from what was shared in class, many people seemed to like hearing the multiple perspectives on the impact of renewable energy. We got the side of maintaining company interests and the environmentally concerned side. Personally, I enjoyed these lectures too since most of what I learn about alternative energy generally depicts it in only a positive manner, and heavily focuses on the job creation/deletion aspect. So it is refreshing to hear the other side of the debate. I came out of week 3 feeling more informed. As we head into our fourth week there are more memories to be made and things to learn during our time in Kaohsiung. I am excited to hear what we liked most about this last part of the program.

After our trip down memory lane, we were introduced to Pingtung through serene photographs that look as though they were taken straight out of a National Geographic magazine. Beautiful sweeping landscapes, intricate indigenous patterns woven into traditional garments, amazing aerial shots of the central mountains filled the screen to spark our interest in Pingtung. It worked for me. We have not even gone yet and I am seriously considering moving there. Then we went from 0 to 100 real quick starting off our introduction to Aboriginal communities with the heavy questions. Who are you? Where do you belong? To be serious for a second, I encourage you to actually think about these questions. Kinda difficult to answer, right? As the lecture progressed we were made to contemplate these questions to experience the predicament Indigenous groups are currently faced with. They are forced to define themselves or risk being lumped into the same category as those distinct from them. On the one hand they may want to stand together as Indigenous people. On the other hand, one would want to be recognized for their differences in practice and tradition. This grouping together raises issues of identity and leads to those big questions of “who are you and where do you belong?”.

I know I’m asking a lot of questions in this blog but I would like to add one more to the previous questions regarding belonging and identity. How did your identity/community you belong to play into your decision to participate in this program? This week’s topic and discussion really made me realize why I chose to participate. Though I personally am still trying to find the answer to these questions myself, I know that one part of me is passionate about social justice for marginalized groups. And that part of me has influenced my decision to join because I know that environmental justice is just as important, yet not as prominent in social discussion, as other sociological topics. This program has been important to me in educating me on information that I severely lacked that is useful for broadening my perspective to make me a better advocate. As well as instilling a motivation for advocating for the environment. After being surrounded by its beauty and learning about its greatness, I’ve come to realize how important it is to protect nature and its inhabitants. I know, hella cheesy but for real. I’ve never had such an eye opening experience and am sincerely happy to have been a part of this and to have learned so much. This trip has been a truly important part of my learning and aid in helping shape me into a better global citizen. What has this trip meant for you?

Our first lecture of the day was by Professor Lih-Der Ho who is a geomorphologist and, as we got to learn, a sports maniac. Dr. Lih-Der Ho is involved in really interesting work which ranges from the geo-heritage of Shoushan Nature Park to environmental monitoring on limestone caves, a topic I found extremely interesting.

To start off our lecture, we learned that what makes Shoushan a unique nature park is that it has a coral reef limestone landscape in addition to natural springs as well as a tropical forest ecosystem which brings about a lot of human-nature conflicts. Shoushan is located right next to the city, making it a prime location for tourist activities such as hiking, bird watching, and other nature-related activities. The formation of the park’s landscape was really interesting to learn. In summary, when there was sea level rise, coral reef developed on the edge of hills and when the sea level dropped, limestone covered the mudstone on hill topics, giving it its unique features. Yet another unique feature of the park is its caves which were formed as a result of rock fractures and landforms.

Even though these areas have formed over millions of years, they have been threatened by the cement industry which requires mining (for digging out limestone). As a result, the Shoushan Nature Park became a National nature park in 2010 so that these areas could be protected from the military and mining companies.

A central topic we were introduced to is the idea of “urban protected areas,” to which this nature park fits into due to the proximity of wildlife and the city. Urban protected areas receive a large number of visitors and are important to protect endangered habitats and species, in addition to promoting human health and well-being, among many more reasons. The major problem that faces these urban protected areas is that as the population keeps increasing, it calls for more urban development. More urban development threatens the natural environment. Such threats come in the form of wanting to modify the natural environment, such as closing a spring outlet, or even the interactions between macaques and humans.

The topic of the week is about tourism and aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. We are staying in Kaohsiung City for this week. Kaohsiung City is one of the earliest developed cities in Taiwan. In comparison with other cities in Taiwan, even Taipei, it is fairly sophisticatedly planned with broad roads and a grid street plan. Though Kaohsiung’s natural environment preservation is not as advanced as that of Taipei, where the latter holds a wetland and dozens of park areas, the former houses only a National Park called the Shoushan National Park.

Shoushan is a natural geographical barrier of Kaohsiung City to the coastline, the mountain itself is mostly comprised of coral reef and limestone. There are plenty of natural limestone caves in this mountain. The Shoushan mountain park is located on the Chai Mountain range. Around 1998 the Kaohsiung City government built the walking and hiking trails along the mountain to burst tourism. The Shoushan National park hosts a natural park, many temples, a memorial hall, and a zoo. At the top of the mountain, it is also a natural vista point of the City’s view. It is one of the only high ground around Kaohsiung City.

Shoushan National Park is famous for its Monkey, in fact in Chinese, ShouShan means Shou Mountain. Shou = Monkey, and Shan = Mountain. So, in Chinese, Shoushan means the mountain of Monkey. I am very surprised by this mountain area because monkeys, tourists, and hikers are sharing this mountain together. At first, we visit the visitor center and watch a sophisticated introduction on monkeys in the mountain area. The video is in good length and describes all kinds of monkeys found in the mountain and their behaviors and history in this place.

After lunch, we received gifts from the National Park. It was a bag with a beautiful Shoushan themed head band. We all put the head band on because we are entering the mountain to observe monkeys and the limestone caves.

The hike up to the mountain was very hot and humid and very informative. One of the guest speakers who came along with us to the hike helped identifying birds and insects for us, he even caught a butterfly for us to observed.

After that, we prepared to enter a limestone cave. The cave was very dark and cool and deep. We needed to wear helmets and professional gloves. Inside the caves, it was very slippery and dark and very cold compared to the outside because of the lack of sunshine. The NKTU students that came along with us needed to switch the battery pack of the equipment inside the caves. The equipment can detect many physical movements inside the caves. The guest speaker said that, when the caves have visitors, the Carbon Dioxide concentration will be skyrocketed and decline to normal concentration on its own after 1 to 2 hours.

After the caves, we head out and head down the mountain and went to a cold spring. By that point, everybody was draining hot and exhausted. The cold spring is very refreshing and relaxing. After the cold spring, we all headed out the mountain area and headed back to the hotel.

This place is very interesting because it is a mountain place that monkey and hikers can live in harmony. This kind of tourism site is very advanced and environmentally friendly.

Liudui Hakka Cultural Park

For the first part of our day, we visited the Liudui Hakka Cultural Park, where we were not only introduced Hakka culture and its cultural practices and traditions, but also their hospitality. The women who showed us around the museum radiated warmth and were more than willing to answer all the questions we had about Hakka culture, which I think is as indicative of who they are as a community as the park itself was.

Differences in Beliefs

One of the most interesting things I learned about Hakka culture was their large range of superstitions, which reminded me of the NTU tour we had our first day in Taiwan. The first, and what I found most intriguing, was that they do not give shoes or umbrellas as gifts. This is because both signify breaking up or a sense of departure, shoes because one walks (away) in them and umbrellas because they are made to be used outside of the house, which denotes leaving. Maybe because shoes are such a common gift in the United States or because the significance of shoes in America as a highly commercialized status symbol is so pervasive, but I was initially surprised by this fact. I wouldn’t have even considered the characteristics of these objects as serving a larger, symbolic meaning. The difference in what we practice as a society, even through the simple difference in what constitutes an appropriate gift, made me feel extremely displaced, or at least, made it more evident. But it also showed me how intricate and complex every culture is. I find it beautiful that in a world that places such extreme value on material things, this simple Hakka tradition evades that societal norm by continuing to practice and follow their own, unique beliefs.

Hands-on Understanding of Culture

Another aspect of the tour that provided insight into the Hakka culture for me was making the indigo pouches. Although it could be easily written off as a fun activity and break, I appreciated what our speaker had to say about the significance of the color blue and why it’s Hakka’s representative color (it was also the color of their traditional shirts and blouses). She said, like how the US refers to a lower class, unskilled manual laborer as a blue-collar worker (generally), the Hakka do as well, and therefore use the color blue to unify the community and to represent them as a whole, as a people. Instead of it serving as a distinction, as it’s a classification, as it does in the occupational world in the US, the Hakka community has used the color to be one of consolidation. The continued emphasis on the sense of community in their culture is something that I think is very commendable, and I had a great time learning about their culture.

Reflection

The trip to the Liudui Hakka Cultural Park was very impactful for me, not only because I learned a lot about who the Hakka people are and the ways they are uniquely special as a community, but because I experienced such a large amount of warmth from everyone I encountered. In the United States, there is a large debate over when one is simply appreciating a culture and appropriating a culture, and a lot of people are (reasonably) reluctant to have others learn about their culture in the way we did for our field-trip. I found myself uncomfortable with wearing their traditional blouses when asked, although I was constantly encouraged and the lady even seemed to be disappointed that I kept declining her request, because in the US that could be something that could be taken as very offensive. I don’t know if it’s because of their willingness to share their culture or because it is a government-subsidized museum (there could be pressure I’m not knowledgeable about as it’s commercialized [?]), but there seemed to be an emphasis of the museum as educational and breeding/cultivating a sense of respect for the Hakka culture, one where one could wear their traditional garments out of curiosity and not exploitation, which I found very interesting. All in all, I really enjoyed this field trip, which surprisingly taught me a lot about how I can personally learn and appreciate a culture, and I’m very happy we were able to go.

Wugoshui Community

Following our visit to the Liudui Hakka Cultural Park, we made our way to a current Hakka Village, stopping for lunch on the way. The tour took us through a variety of living spaces within the community of Hakka people, and showed us the various ways in which the culture still existed and was preserved within the space. Despite stormy weather looming overhead, we explored houses and yards of various statii, gardens and rivers weaving their way through the area, and the minute details which make such villages special. I found the design of the spaces particularly interesting, drawing on what we learned within the cultural park to better understand the significance of what we were experiencing.

How Hakka Culture Embraces Fengsui

Though spelled and defined differently than in many other cultures, Hakka people take on Fengsui remains a pivotal consideration in the design of space within a village. As we learned at the cultural park, a higher and stronger back and lower front helps to define the order of respect within Hakka architecture. This was interesting to see as many, if not all of the spaces that we visited were very open at the front and became denser the further in that one moved. I was particularly interested in what drove the beliefs, and what similarities existed between Hakka Fengsui and other iterations, such as Chinese feng shui.

One similarity, for example, identified the importance of water as a signifier of career success in Chinese culture and money within Hakka culture. This was represented by water being placed at the front of a residence as a source of luck and to improve spatial flow. Similar considerations are made in other cultures, with water serving as the reception for all those who wish to enter. I ultimately enjoyed seeing the importance of Fengsui within the architecture we visited, particularly because each detail had such significance, and remained a strong and identifiable component of the culture today.

Reflection: What Can We Learn from Hakka Culture

There are a lot of interesting ideas that culminate in the architecture of Hakka people. However, something difficult about the prevalence of Fengsui within Hakka culture, in my opinion, is the difficulty that it poses in translation to more urban settings. When touring the Hakka village, we saw examples of how the culture’s designs exist within a rural to suburban range. We passed by a more recent development, akin to an apartment building, which the tour guide shrugged off. It seemed to me that there were complications present in maintaining the values and traditions of Hakka people while continuing to develop as a community. I would be curious to learn about how such practices could be integrated into a more urban setting, if at all, and whether existing restrictions have encouraged people to live sustainable and environmentally conscious lives in turn. Ultimately, I found it fascinating to see such thoughtful design in daily life, and think the world could take away a great deal from the values held within Hakka architecture alone.

Today’s activities were focused on Taiwan’s aboriginal communities. We have had a lot of lectures on the aboriginal communities, so I was very eager to finally experience it firsthand instead of looking at pictures on projector. We started off our day at the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Culture Park, which is an 8-hectare area consisting of natural areas and many buildings dedicated to showing and preserving aboriginal culture.

We were first shown a short film that introduced us to the important aspect of the park and got us more excited to explore the area. We then headed over to an aboriginal art exhibit, titled ‘When Kacalisian Culture Meets the Vertical City,’ that feature 16 artists of different regions, generations, artistic styles, and backgrounds. There was a mixture of artwork that we looked at including paintings, carvings, short films, shadow art, and sculptures. One of the artists that stuck out to me was Etan Pavavalung, whose vibrant carvings channeled inspiration from the land and mountains surrounding him.

We then took a shuttle bus to view an aboriginal house. On this shuttle ride, we were able to see the beautiful lush mountains with clouds draping over them and the river below in the valley. If I was surrounded by this beautiful scenery all the time, I would probably be inspired to make beautiful carvings like Pavavalung. Due to the rain, we were not able to cross the glass bead bridge and tour the traditionally built houses on the other side. The building that we were able to see was a modernized slate stone house. Traditionally, slate stones are stacked on top of each other using no concrete or mud to secure them. It is really cool that the buildings are so sturdy, I’m surprised that these buildings don’t fall down in the slightest gust of wind.

Our next activity was going to see the Atayal tribe perform. Their hour-long performance was a mixture of dancing, singing, and drumming. I feel like their performance taught us a lot about the Atayal culture, from the way men and women interact with each other to how they pay respects to the gods. We even got to participate ourselves when they taught us a few dances! I was really bad at the dances, but I had so much fun and laughed a lot. Although I really enjoyed this experience, I felt like Atayal people were exploiting their culture for our entertainment. I was so conflicted the whole time we were participating in the dance because I did not know whether that was an appropriate way to explore a culture or it was being offensive. Also throughout their performance I found myself wondering whether they actually enjoyed and wanted to show us their dances and drumming, or if it was all just a show.

Next, we visited the glass bead making facility where we had the opportunity to make our own glass beads. This was easily one of my favorite activities of the day as I personally love glass art. It took a lot of concentration and slow movement but going home with our very own piece of artwork was well worth it.

Following the bead making activity we headed to Rinari village where we listened to a thought-provoking presentation on aboriginal relations and identity. This discussion addressed some of the heavy questions that we talked about earlier this week. As a refresher, at the beginning of the week Dr. Chen’s lecture on rebuilding the Indigenous community’s identity after disaster, we were encouraged to think about belonging and identity. We discussed the challenges indigenous groups are faced with in regards to rebuilding their individual group identities. As well as how they establish a working relationship now that they reside in such close quarters.

What learned from the presentation was that they now offer educational homestay opportunities. They use this as an opportunity not only to gain income, which they divide among the groups, but to also educate their visitors on each group’s culture and promote respect for each tribe’s uniqueness. Through these measures they are able to earn money and represent their individuality.

I thought this program was pretty cool since it encouraged elder involvement and was a good example of ecotourism. In Spring we talked about ecotourism as a better alternative to traditional tourism as it centers around education, and community improvement. With the homestay experience visitors gain both. They are encouraged to learn about and respect the different tribes and are exposed to their culture to various meaningful activities. Rather than the cheap, entertainment focused traditional tourism.

From the speech we also learned that they maintain cultural heritage through the generations by going to the schools to teach students about their histories. As for creating positive relationships we learned that after they were relocated they used each tribes knowledge to build the neighborhood. I feel like this was symbolic for them laying the foundations for a future of collaboration and positive cooperation. However, we were also reminded that though it appears that everything is perfectly harmonious, issues still remain. Primarily, the fact that the relocation process disregarded the cultural traditions of the individual tribes. Preventing some from fully practicing their tribe’s rituals. So it seems that while much progress has been made between them, there is still much work to do in gaining the government’s full recognition.

With that we ended the day with some self-guided exploration of the village to look at the architectural style of the houses, do a little shopping before saying goodbye to our friends from NPTU. Overall, it was a fun filled day in Pingtung.