Only after 228 memorial museum, did I realised that how less I know about Taiwan where we always called it is part of us. And finally I understand why the relation between China mainland and Taiwan are complicated (more than the reason I knew before).

Taiwan served as Japanese colonial base to invade mainland China and Southeast Asia during the period of Japanese occupation. Taiwanese not only suffered from Japanese oppression but also the attack from Allied forces, they led a frightened life and looked forward to returning back to Chinese Government. When KMT returned back to Taiwan, taiwanese suffered again, from government and economy depression and inflation and intense transformation from Japanese culture to Chinese Culture which resulted in 228 incidence in 1947. thousands of innocent people were killed no matter they were originally from Taiwan or people came from mainland China.

When I went to Kaohsiung, I felt like it is not as urbanised as Taipei. However, it was one of the most industrialised city in Taiwan during Japanese occupied . Japanese took its location advantage of being the far north of Taiwan and developed Kaohsiung into an industrialised city in order to invade the South East Asia. It served as a big port shifting materials to support the Japanese army in China. Quite a few buildings and infrastructures had been left there after the World War 2 end, and now some of them have been repurposed.

After KMT retreated to Taiwan, the huge culture difference and discrimination among people, people from the south looked down upon the northern people and the government shifted the development focus to Taipei, while Kaohsiung had been left behind. I think Kaohisung is also an important city to visit since it was influenced a lot during the Japanese occupation.

Thanks to Sophie, we had the chance to meet up with several distinctive contemporary artists and some curators from the museum.

Seeing their works and knowing their interpretation of several issues change my mindset of what role is art playing in the society.

Art is a crystal refined by artist, clear and pure, without carrying anything. when audience looked through it, it should be able to tap their imagination(Yuan Guangming,2015).

In 24/7 exhibition, Michael used the the logo colour of convenient shop in Taiwan to decorate the wall. The convenient shops such as 7-11, Family Mart are everywhere and opened everyday for 24 hours and more functions are added in recently. People just used to their existence and gradually it become a meeting spot, a place where people do their work in and slowly fostering connection between people. Being in 24/7 exhibition, under the soft light and resting on the cozy tatami mats, the environment has slowed down our pace, bringing us back to our daily life, and think about something that we always take for granted. He also mentioned that some people like to work in coffee shops instead of being at home because coffee shops may provide better environment for them, maybe for them is a good place to escape from home.

After chatting with Charwei, we got to know about more her works and her story behind. Her documentary “Songs of Chuchepati Camp” exposed the living condition of victims after Kathmandu earthquake. Similarly “Hear her singing” also used songs to be the media of storytelling, strengthened the power to rise the awareness of the issue.

Rahic.Talif’s art works are compelling. He picked up plastic along the sea and repurposed them to create artworks and rise the awareness of the environment. During the process he was trying to explore his relationship with the sea and integrated his aboriginal culture into the artworks. What I was surprised about is his attitude towards being an aboriginal artists. He see unfairness between aboriginal people and the public and he wants to change this situation. Government has granted some privileges to the aboriginals but at the end is a kind of separation from the public; Government encourage aboriginal culture or art through giving out money So some of them created for profits but not create out of their original thoughts. However, it is not uncommon to see, we might ignore it and gradually consider that is how the way should go because it is not impacting directly on us. But it may have an enormous impact on a group of aboriginal people.

I really appreciated the art works that have stories behind it, that are beyond personal experience, that are really trying to reveal some truth that we don’t know. When combining with artists own interpretation and their unique approaches to express it, plus audience would have different views towards the same artworks, art can be really powerful.

On the second day, we went to national Palace Museum. Before this tour, me and Helen had did some research on National Palace Museum, so we had a basic idea of its history.

National Palace Museum possessed nearly 700,000 pieces of ancient China imperial artefacts and artworks. The artworks were being moved out during Second Sino-Japanese War to avoid being took by Japanese. The artworks experienced 3 major shipments from Nanjing to Keelung during the end of Civil war, which are displayed in National Palace Museum now.

There are some exhibitions that had really drew me such as the Magic of kneaded clay; Rituals cast in Brilliance; Friend through Culture. Through looking into the decoradesign of the clays,

Being in the National Palace Museum feels like it brings me back to the ancient China. It was incredible to see thousands of relics that have been preserved in a good conditions, even though there were numerous war and changes in dynasties in the past. And truly impressed by their awareness of protecting history relics and culture in the past. The audio explanation do amplify the exhibition. I used to find visiting museum or gallery boring because I don’t know what the story behind the art work or historical relics. But with the explanation, I envisioned the relics being used vividly and I really dug myself into the story behind.

Beside knowing the history behind, some exhibitions also relates back to the modern society.

The other exhibition that I found interesting is the proposal of life from the 17th century. There is a book called “Treatise on Superfluous Things” 《长物志》written by Wen Zhenheng, which was a guideline for people to buy and use the non-necessity items wisely to not lead an extravagant life. It would be quite useful if there is a modern one. In recent year, China is becoming stronger, and people are getting richer which is a good phenomenon. However, from my observation in daily life, I saw people wearing luxuries from the top to the bottom, and blindly chasing the fashion which I considered as excessing.

It would be beneficial to all of us to have a guide to follow and lead a non-wasting lifestyle.

The friend through Culture painting exhibition is showing the drawings of the elegant gatherings in the past.

It is interesting to find out that the way of meeting people, gathering together to talk about arts, politics and writing poems and drawings is similar to what we doing now. The other day we met Yichen Guo who established the walking library where allows everyone to use, meet new people and create their artworks. The walking library is a great place for reading, catching up with friends or even meeting new people, with good coffee and wine alongside.

When walking into the metro station

What a great surprise that they have the stamp collection in the underground station having the name and some graphics of that station which makes me really exciting. I think this small activities do help encouraging visitor to travel around Taiwan through metro and integrating creativities into the public. Personally I think this little stamp do help amplifying the trip of visitors from traveling places to places. And the stamp is actually well-designed, hopefully I can collect more during the trips.

In the morning, we went to Huashan 1914 creative park, but at that time, it was empty like a ghost town which I consider is normal, because in Guangzhou, normally the creative park is not very busy. But when we came back in the afternoon, I was surprised by the great amount of visitors in Huashan 1914 creative park. However, soon I understand why, because in the Creative park, there are so many things happening, exhibitions of science, films and photography; Christmas theme market, artists live performances and a lot of interesting merchandise shop filled with local artists design or products rich in creativity and cultures elements. The park is truly triggering people’s curiosity and tapping their creativity. Spending whole day there is definitely not enough for me to absorb everything. I should go back again If I have time in the next couple days before we leave Taipei.

Watching kids playing skateboard somehow surprised me.

In my mindset, people who play skateboard are people who are rebellious or problematic teenagers ( not a good mindset), but here I saw parents bringing their kids to learn skateboarding which has strong contrast with my mindset. They have more open-minded education methods and maybe this is the reason why Taiwanese creative industries is more advance.

A couple hours before leaving Brisbane…

The reason why I was attracted by Taiwan Study Tour is because Taiwan is always a mysterious place to me, since I learned a lot about Taiwan from Chinese Textbook when I was studying in China, the articles are describing the sceneries, the life, or the ancient story happening in Taiwan. The relationship between China Mainland and Taiwan is complicated that sometime is hard for us to “see” the real Taiwan without getting there. Taiwanese culture originated from China but it has developed and combined with Japanese culture throughout the history. Not before I met some Taiwanese friends in Brisbane did I realised how much difference between culture in China Mainland and culture in Taiwan.

Through previous research on Creative project, I found out that the Creative Industries in Taiwan is well-developed and really looking forward to immense myself to the environment. I had seen the increases in creative industries in China, I was

I am looking forward to get to know Taiwan more in every aspects, creative industries, cultures, artists, people and ……of course food!!! I hope that through this study tour, I would have a good understanding of Taiwan and draw some inspiration from this trip.