Day 11: Museums and Movies

Mandarin class today was fairly uneventful, though we started with the teacher explaining Taiwan's lottery and today's grand prize of $470 million NT (~$15 million CAD). She didn't tell us to buy any, but she did mention where to get it, how it worked, and how much it would cost =P, not that I ended purchasing any tickets (didn't pass by any stores today). This lottery talk did eventually tie into Mandarin, as our teacher asked us to explain one thing we would do with the money. Putting urgent needs ahead of general wants, I decided to skip the trip around the world at the moment and instead buy a really nice Steinway Grand Piano and place it in the wonderful lobby of the Jiantan Youth Activity Center. 

Today we moved from Flute class to our second cultural class option. There were six choices: Chinese Medicine, Chinese Yo-yo, Clay Figurines, Paper Cutting, Traditional Toys... hmmm, and I always seem to forget the sixth choice. Medicine was my first choice, though that was full by the time I could sign up, so instead I chose Toys as I've always loved Arts and Crafts. 

The afternoon was spent at the National Palace Museum. I've already said a bit about culture on my Folk Arts post, but essentially the museum was focussed on Chinese history from Ancient China to the Qing Dynasty to some texts from the early Republic of China; these artifacts were "temporarily" brought to Taiwan when the KMT fled after losing to the Communists. Highlights of the Museum included Jade carvings, namely the famous one of Bok-choy, as well as an agate stone carved and coloured like a piece of meat. The museum also featured objects made of bronze and copper, statues from Buddhist traditions, porcelain anything, and rare texts following the evolution of calligraphy.

We returned to Jiantan for dinner, and had an orientation meeting discussion the Down South trip starting later this week. This was followed by a movie - Cape No. 7, one of Taiwan's highest grossing movies. Wikipedia calls the movie a romance comedic movie-drama film - but whatever it is, I enjoyed it. We relied on the English subtitles, but the movie spoke significant amounts of Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Japanese. I wasn't expecting a very good movie, but the film definitely exceeded my expectations. I recommend it. =P. The music was enjoyable and there were lots of good laughs - and that's more than enough for me! 

On the topic of movies - Formosa Betrayed is about to be released in Taiwan, while DVDs are soon to be available in Toronto. It is a Hollywood Movie based on events in Taiwanese history - I went to watch it in theatres, and it's good. I hope you can support the movie and raise awareness!