Jez's Blog

1. What do you think about Atyal’s facial tattoo? Do you have tattoo culture in your country? If yes, what are those differences between two cultures.
I think Atyal's facial tattoo is really symbolic to their culture. Although it is painful and inerasable, it's still one of the most marvelous thing that strongly symbolizes the Atyal culture. However, most of the Atyal people don't get their traditional facial tattoo anymore, but I belief that the elders of the Atyal will still hold fast to this tradition as long as possible, until the end of their life. Yes, there is tattoo culture in my country, Taiwan. In fact, Atyal is the aboriginal tribe in Taiwan which has tattoo culture. Other than that, some people in Taiwan also get tattoos, but it is not a tradition nor part of the culture, it's only for fun and fashion(?).

2. Saisiyat people choose their surnames from plants, animals and natural phenomena. In your country, do you think a person’s surname has special meaning which can reflect your own culture and why?
Again, Saisiyat is one of the aboriginal tribes in my country, Taiwan. Other than Saisiyat people, I don't think people in Taiwan, in general, chose their surnames from plants, animals and natural phenomena. The surnames of general people in Taiwan are mostly passed down from their ancestors, mostly from the main land China I suppose. However, I know that people do chose certain words in their first name. For instance, the word '麗' represents 'beautiful', therefore you might see this word in a girl's first name, blessing the girl to grow into a beautiful woman.

3. Lily is a symbol of RuKai. In your country, what’s your national flower and what it means.
Plum Blossom is the national flower of Taiwan. Plum Blossoms bloom in the winter, which represents that Taiwanese people are as strong as Plum Blossoms, we stay strong in harsh external conditions, and the worse the external conditions are, the strong we become, like Plum Blossoms, the cooler the weather is, more beautiful the flowers of plum Blossoms will be.

4. On Beian’s traditional weddings, you can see a prospective bride climbing a giant swing. And tribesmen swing her until the swing sails like kites. In your country, do you have any special ceremonies that are held on weddings? Please explain it.
In a traditional wedding of my country, people celebrate it by giving a meal to friends and relatives. The bride and the groom will drink in honer to each table of guests. Then these guests will give the bride and the groom red envelopes with money in them. Also, if the wedding is really really traditional, the bride and the groom would pray 3 times before they become husband and wife. The first pray is to the universe (god), second is to their parents, and the third is to each other.

After watching the video Spirits of Orchid Island, here are some following questions with their answers, based on what the video was about:


(1) Please indicate the importance of the ocean to Tao.
The ocean seems to be a really important role in Tao's life. Tao lives on a island, which obviously is surrounded by the ocean. Therefore, the very first thing that Tao people have to learn, is how to get along with the ocean, especially for Tao men, they've already been playing in the ocean as if it's their playground since they were little. The ocean provides food resources, in which it basically provides sea foods, for Tao people.

(2) It takes a lot of time for Tao people to build a boat. How do Tao people make a boat? Do you think it is worthy or it wastes time? Why?
Tao people make their boats with woods on the island. First, they chopped down the tree that they think has the most suitable wood for their boat. And then they gradually shape and smoothed each piece of the boat with an axe. Finally, they combine all the pieces of the boat together. By only looking at the steps of making a Tao boat might seem quite easy, but it actually takes a lot of effort. And by the way, one thing about making one of these boats has quite impressed me, which is that all the pieces of the boat are joined together with wooden needles, the boat is actually made up with absolutely no metal needles in it!
I think it's a definitely worthy for Tao people to make these Tao boats because this is one of the most symbolic thing that represents the Tao culture.

(3) Explain the boat launching ceremony.
According to the Tao tradition, before a boat launches, a boat launching ceremony will be held. In the ceremony, Tao men toss the new boat, with its sailor, into the air, to symbolize how the new boat will break out the waves as it sails on the ocean. Also, all the Tao males, including little Tao boys, will dance around the new boat, acting as if they are in great anger, in order to drive the evil spirit away from the new boat(?).

(4) Explain the flying fish calling ceremony.
The flying fish calling ceremony is the biggest event that the Tao held in once a year. Tao people belief that the flying fish is the fish from the heaven, its God's fish. During this ceremony, Tao people will kill a piglet, then each person stain their finger with the blood of the piglet, and then everyone dip their fingers, with blood, into the sea water on the sea shore. By doing this, the flying fish will smell the blood and come nearer to the shore, and so its easier for the Tao fishermen to fish them. The Tao fishermen also use fire to lure flying fish. Some flying fish that are caught, were used to be the bait for fishing bigger fish. However, the rest of flying fish that are caught, have to be all eaten by the next day.

(5) How do Tao people live in harmony with the natural environment?
Tao people are not just living in the nature, they are also protecting it. For instance, they may have been chopping down trees to make their boats and houses..etc, but they were also planting trees in the forests. They also have this rule of not cutting too many trees from a certain place, in order to remain the forest. Moreover, Tao people do not normally kill other animals, not even snakes.

(6) The houses Tao people build are so special. Please compare their houses to those houses in your own country.
The reason why the houses that Tao people build are so special, is because that they are located on a island where there's not much natural barriers to block strong typhoons. Therefore, their house were built underground, to avoid the damage from strong typhoons. On the other hand, the buildings in the country where I'm from, Taiwan, is totally different then the Tao buildings. Although strong typhoons invade us sometimes as well, but because of the natural barrier of Central Mountain Region, we do not have to build our buildings under ground. And also, there is variety of materials to build the buildings in Taiwan, which most of them are quite preventable for typhoons.

(7) Tao people view eating a seasnake as a taboo because it lowers social status. In your own culture, do you have any eating taboos? Do you believe in it? Why?
I don't think there's really an eating taboos in my own culture. Perhaps eating dogs? Well, if eating dogs is really an eating taboo because it lowers our social status, I think I'll belief it because dogs are just like our friends, and high class people do not eat their friends!!

(8) So far only one big handmade boat is kept in Tao tribe because of modernization. Thus, some Tao people try to preserve their art culture. Please describe a vanishing art culture in your country that you would like to preserve.
Paper umbrella is a vanishing artifact in Taiwanese culture. Young people do not usually appreciate the beauty of these paper umbrellas, they might think they are meretricious. However, I think young people should learn more about these paper umbrellas, in order to appreciate them and actually wanting to preserve them.



- http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/20tourism.html
[Picture of Tao hand made boats. Copied by Jez. 26th of Nov. 2008]

I belief that everyone in the world knows about drinking is harmful for one's health. I've read this article called Children 'risking liver disease'. It has basically mentioned the fact that the amount of children in the UK who drinks is rising. Not only that doctors are seeing younger people with alcohol-related conditions, according to the new figure, 49 people died from alcohol-related conditions in their age of 20s in the year of 2006.

'We are sadly seeing young people in their 20s coming in with jaundice, with swollen bellies because their liver won;t process liquids.' Said Professor Ian Gilmour, of the Royal College of Physicians. 'These people didn't make a conscious decision to kill themselves.'

According to Ian's words, apparently that jaundice is one of the alcohol-related conditions, which may actually kill you when it becomes really serious. The other deadly alcohol-related conditions that are also mentioned in this article are liver disease, liver cancer, kidney failure and stomach rotting.

Stacey has passed away in her age of 24. Before she died, since she was 18, she drinkings every night, probably 5 liters, until she became totally drunk. The doctor had found most of the deadly alcohol-related conditions that I've mention previously, in her body. Stacey had liver diseases, kidney failure, and a hole in her stomach where the alcohol had rotten her stomach. These conditions, unfortunately, were all seriously enough to kill a 24-year-old young women like Stacey, and yet the doctor couldn't do anything about it.

I don't think there is any opinions in this article. This article is more like a reminder to people which reminds them to stop ignoring younger people having the issue of excessive drinking, in order to prevent death in younger ages.


- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7743265.stm
[Picture of drunk woman. Copied by Jez. 22nd of Nov. 2008]

Comparing the food culture in Taiwan and America, I think the main affection to both of their food cultures was the people of each country. In Taiwan, people seem to have more rules in its food culture. Such as the arrangement of seating on a dinning table, which has to be arranged along the importance of each person. For example, if there's a guest visiting, he or she will be sitting facing the door, as the most important person, and the hosts will be sitting with his or her back facing the door, as the least important person.

Also, Taiwanese dishes are very concerned about the look, taste, and smell. Therefore, Taiwanese cooking requires loads of different cuisines, such as boiling, stewing in soy sauce, and frying...etc, and these cuisines are all requiring a many complicated techniques. Moreover, here is a very obvious difference between Taiwanese food culture and the American food culture, which is that Taiwanese people eat with chopsticks, but the Americans eat with knifes and forks.

However, I don't really know a lot about the American food culture, but I think there aren't as many rules or concerning of either the seating on a dinning table, the look, taste, and smell of the dishes, and the techniques of different cuisines. I guess its because that Taiwanese people are more conservative than the Americans. We keep our traditions and believes in our food culture.


- http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/worldroutes/festivals.cfm?festival_id=20
[Picture of Taiwanese noodle. Copied by Jez. 19th of Nov. 2008]
- http://www.topnews.in/health/regions/united-kingdom
[Picture of fast food. Copied by Jez. 19th of Nov. 2008]

As most of the people in the world have known that Barack Obama has won the USA presidential election of 2008. Yet, he became the first African American president in the history of the United State of America. I've heard from many sources, talking about how grateful it is to have Obama being elected as the president of the United State of America. I've also seen his victory speech, and sure it was extraordinary and touching. However, while some people are celebrating for Obama's victory of the election, talking about all the goods about such result, someone else are talking about different things..

Racism 'would block a British Obama', is an article that I've read, which is basically saying that people are surprised that Obama had broken through the 'institutionally racist,' and successfully became the first African American president of the United State of America.

'If Barack Obama had lived here I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold that there is on power within the Labour Party,' said Phillips, referring to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's governing party.

Thus, according to Phillips' words, people are judging their politicians by the colour of their skins instead of their politics? Don't worry, it's not true. 'I work with very talented, very able black politicians and I know from talking to constituents around the country, that our constituents are very sophisticated and we judge our politicians by their policies, not by the colour of their skin,' Khan told BBC.

This article has definitely shown different opinions. I personally agree with Khan's opinion, which is that people should judge their politicians by their politics and not the colour of their skins. Also, I personally think that judging politicians, or even other people by the colour of their skins, referring to the Labor's system, which Phillips has mentioned in the article, is a kind of bias.


- http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Barack-Obama-prime-minister-political-system-press-conference/photo//081108/photos_wl_uk_afp/8940b2452efa063c201755d7d4e0462b//s:/afp/20081108/wl_uk_afp/uspoliticsbritainracism/im:/081108/photos_ts_afp/be71f024b8cdf498ea9d496c8aaf1dac/#photoViewer=/081108/photos_ts_afp/be71f024b8cdf498ea9d496c8aaf1dac
[Picture of Obama in a meeting with the Transition Economic Advisory Board in Chicago. Copied by Jez Lee. 8th of Nov.]

Global 20/20.. what is Global 20/20??

Today we had the very first meeting of Global 20/20. In the meeting, we were talking about what is Global 20/20 about, and what we will be focusing on in this event. From the meeting, I've gotten some basic ideas about Global 20/20, which were knowing that Global 20/20 is basically an event of helping to solve global issues, and in our cases, we will be focusing on the issue of global education. However, no one was sure about the specific things that we would be doing in Global 20/20 yet, because we will be deciding what we are going to do.

Ms.Smith has told us that we will be working with the students from a school in the U.S. I think it's going to be a great opportunity to get a closer view of the world. But since we are to help solving global issues, we had to learn about the issue that we are to solve before we took any steps further, including to work with the students from the U.S. Therefore, the other thing that we did during the meeting was reading the 'Education for All' section of High Noon. This section of the book was basically talking about why is global education a global issue.

I found some of the information from 'Education for All' were quite shocking. I've never noticed that there are actually loads of people that are illiterate around the world. I kind of feel sad for these illiterate people, but why should I? Why should I even care about these people? I belief that there are definitely plenty of reasons for these questions, and the reasons are going to be related to economies, human rights, and governments...etc. Although we've already been discussing about this in the end of today's meeting, I still think that it will be continued in the next meeting. Hopefully, we can soon figure the answer and find the best way to solve such global issue.


- http://www.nais.org/conferences/index.cfm?ItemNumber=147262&sn.ItemNumber=148035
[Picture of an earth on a hand. Copied by Jez Lee. 4th of Nov. 2008]

Today was a SMASH Day. Our challenge was to build a tower out of 5 pieces of A4 paper and 2 meters of tape. The tower had to be as tall as possible, and it also had to able to hold 15g on top of it.

Our group, Savanna and I, won the challenge. Our tower was 83cm tall, and it was the only one that has successfully hold 15g on top of it. In this challenge, I think the most important skill that we'd used was balancing. At the very beginning of the task, both Savanna and I were only thinking about how to make the base of the tower. It's because that both of us knew that the base of the tower is the most important part of keeping the entire tower steady and balanced.


The tower that we made sort of looked like a plunger. It's base was much wider than the other parts of the tower. The reason why we made the base so wide was because that the larger the area of the base was touching the surface of the table, the more steady and balanced the tower would be.












However, there were also other skills that we've used during the task, which was the 'combining skills'. You might ask: What did you mean by 'combining skills'?? Well.. what I meant was basically the skills of combining different parts of the tower. These skills were also very important because different combining skills could prevent the disconnection of different parts of the tower. For instance, instead of only using tapes to tape every parts of the tower together, we cut a hole and stuck the cylinder of the tower into its base so that they were better connected with each other.

As a result, balancing was certainly important in this challenge. You'd have to keep every parts of the tower balanced, including its base, its body, and its top plane where you put the weights on at the end. Also, the combining skills were anther important thing to consider. You'll need different combining skills to make the tower even more steady while it's balanced.


- http://www.3dnuts.com/tutorials/modeling_plunger.shtml
[Picture of plunger. Copied by Jez Lee. 4th of Nov. 2008]