TITA PHOPHIENTONG'S REFLECTIONS

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REFLECTION ON VLOG 1

我觉得拍 vlog 很好玩儿。我跟费衫一起做 vlog关于台湾菜。我觉得跟朋友做会帮我提高我的中跟和我的交际道行。我和费衫用中文做vlog，我觉得难是难，可是我们学了很多中文。

I team up with Feishan doing vlog project. This is quite challenging for me since I am a little introvert and don’t like to speak to others much. But here, I want to get to know my peers more and befriend with them so I think that doing group work would help me improve my team-working skills. Feishan and I decided to do the project about Taiwanese food. Feishan wants to do a cooking show, and I’m personally interested in Taiwanese’s eating habit, so I think this topic works perfectly for us.In the process of filming the vlog, the biggest challenge is that we wrote the script in Chinese and had difficulties reading it. For me, writing script in Chinese helped me expand the vocabulary a lot, especially regarding our topic of interest. However, we kept speaking it wrongly during filming and ended up taking much more time than I planned. Therefore we had less time to do the editing part. Doing a vlog is more complicated than I expected, but I think it’s a good way to learn about a culture. I haven’t gone out to talk with Taiwanese people yet, but solar as I have talked to Taiwanese-peer partners and 小李老师 about the idea of the project, I am keen to learn more about Taiwanese food and eating habit. I didn't think the first vlog is the best we could do, but I will out more effort in the following videos. I know that I would learn a lot more in both language and working skills if I am willing to. 

REFLECTION ON VLOG 2

我们第二个 vlog 到 Wellcome 超市去跟台湾人聊台湾的食材。我去了以前担心我们会听不懂台湾人说什么，所以小李老师帮我们准备问题，而且她跟我们去聊天儿。我觉得我的做 vlog 的时候学了很多台湾吃的文化，还有重要的用中文经验。我还有大的问题，是我跟别人聊天儿的时候我很紧张的什么都不想说。但是我们跟台湾人聊以后我觉得很好玩儿，还很有意思。我开始喜欢跟别人聊一点儿。

我们希望这个 vlog 比上个 vlog 好，是因为我门多费了大的力气，也花了很多时间。我门的第三个 vlog 是做饭秀，可是台风快到台湾了，所以我们会一次计划。

While doing the last vlog, my biggest concern about the second video is that we wouldn’t understand Chinese well enough when I comes to interviewing Taiwan people we don’t know. Even though; before going out for the interview, we have prepared some dialogues and questions we want to include in the vlog, I was worried about the responses that probably exceeded our knowledges. However, 小李老师 offered us some help and went to the interview with us. I think 费衫 did so well in speaking Chinese / talking to other people and 小李老师 has also helped us a lot during the interview, so it turned out to be very fun. I wish that I could increase my confidence a little bit when I have to talk to strangers so that I could help my team more and don’t feel like I left 费衫 with the hard task. But he never get me felt guilty during the group project. 费衫 and I are pretty flexible with the plan. In this episode, we have learnt about vegetables and ingredients used in home-style Taiwanese dishes. I didn’t have any expectations on what we will get from the interview but I really appreciate the result we get. Another problem we had during the interview is that many people don’t want to be recorded in the videos even though they were willing to share the knowledge. I totally understand them but there was nothing much we can do about the their privacy concerns.

This project is not easy for both of us and we did have a mental break down in some points. Besides the vlog, we have to deal with other school works and other stuff. So we have to manage our time to make our best of each task during these busy weeks. I believe that the process of making vlog is where we most learn about both Taiwanese culture and language, and to exceed my existing working ability / push me out of my comfort zone. So we have tried our best making this vlog happened. Compared to the last vlog, I think we did better and put more effort in this one since we kind of know better of what we’re doing.

In the next vlog, we plan to cook some home-style Taiwanese dishes. But since the bid typhoon is coming on our selected date, we don’t know if we would be able to cook or go out on that day or not. We now don’t have a backup plan for cooking part but I plan to have Taiwanese dishes with my family’s Taiwanese friends during the long weekend and share that to our friends through the vlog. I think that would be a good opportunity for me and 费衫 to have a long conversation with Taiwanese people in difference generations.

REFLECTION ON VLOG 3

我做第三个 vlog 很好玩儿。我觉得我们的第三个 vlog 比第一个和第二个 vlog 好多了。我做 vlog 的时候很欣。我刚来台湾的时候不太想说中文，可是现在我觉得跟台湾人说话不但很好玩儿，而且我也上手提高我的信心。

I think that we have done pretty well in the third vlog. I finally found the joyfulness during filming the vlog. For me, it is not just a school works anymore when I was genuinely willing do it to fulfill my Taiwanese experiences in my own sense. Even though we have encountered a big problem for our final project which is initially a ‘cooking show’, we have dealt with the obstacle and eventually came out with a satisfiable alternative result. At first, we planned to do a cooking show and scheduled to film it last weekend. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the plan due to the under-typhoon-attack weather conditions. Therefore, we found another alternative for cooking show in which we filmed our meals at a bbq place in Ximanding and to Ding Tai Fung. I find doing a vlog quite challenging. I have to film and talk to other people confidently or I would lose the opportunity to capture moments I hope for. And it is really fun to do so. I am pretty satisfied with the editing and subtitle. In the process of uploading the video, we have so many technical problems. For example, the subtitle didn’t show up after we uploaded it on YouTube which made us a day late in submitting subtitle.

After all, I have learnt a lot to work with other people which is my main purpose of doing a group project. Without my partner, I don’t know if I would be able to step out and talk with the locals. Besides, I have learnt a lot about Taiwanese eating culture, home-style dishes, ingredients and traditional Taiwanese food.

Before the final presentation, I was pretty nervous because we were scheduled to have two presentation in a day. Feishan and I had to deal with time-management and changed our studying means. We put so much effort trying to do our best in this stressing situation. I know that my main concern in that I don’t like public speaking, so presentations are pretty bothersome for me. I was afraid that I wouldn’t do well and make our group presentation fail. However, we managed to get it prepared the night before the presentation day. I believe that my understanding about the project would help me express it better in the presentation. Therefore, I decided not to be so nervous and tried the best I could. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with our presentation and our final project. I got to realize that, in order to learn about a culture, it is important to know their dietary preferences, and manners. I am really happy that I have chosen to work on this topic.